Echoes of Thunder Spoiler: The Way of the Monk
/Greetings and well met! I’m Bálint, you might know me from previous tournaments playing some silly homebrew stuff, but this time I had the honor to introduce you to the new Monk cards. Before I jump into it I wanna say a huge thank you to the dev team for letting me do this honor and I think that Monk and multi-class Monk will now become a permanent thing that we are going to see in tournaments. My favorite aspect of this game is the deckbuilding and refining and I already have a crazy cool deck idea that I’m eager to test out. I’m going over the monk cards first then I’m giving you my insight on the multi class heroes and a few synergies with them. So with no further ado let’s take a look at these bad boys, starting with the abilities.
The first one is a banger and if I had to convince you to run it in basically every single monk deck I’d say: „It’s Taste of Divinity, but better!” This is quite possibly the most impactful monk card in the set. It can remove 2 small allies or one big one. Now that’s flexible and for only 2 mana. Or you can leave it hanging in the graveyard after you removed an ally just to wait and trigger your next Forgotten Technique so it can deal up to 10 damage. This card is crazy good! By the way, this is melee damage so allies like Xaril and Aethas won’t prevent with their resistances. You could argue with me whether this is weaker or stronger than Taste of Divinity but to be honest at this point if we’re arguing about is this card being better than the best priest card in the game (sorry Spirit of Redemption, my queen) then it tells me something about the power level.
The second shooty card, Crackling Jade Lightning, leaves me with the impression of Monk being capable of functioning like a control deck. This card is also a great way to get rid of early game threats but also great in the late game. Exhausting a hero before it hits you for 50 on turn 3 sounds pretty strong or even denying the enemy Mazu’kon(s) a hit is very valuable. Not to mention this card has a great synergy with Forgotten Technique. I’m starting to notice a pattern with these monk cards: Good in early game and also great in late game. Stand alone these two cards with the earlier monk cards could make monk a very formidable class in Core, but we’re not done yet!
Moving on to the new thing monks start to do from now on: INTERRUPT You thought that this class can’t be any better then hold on to your pants because they are going to drop. Flying Monkey Kick is the last card that nails the pin into the Monk control deck. And do you notice something again? It has the same monk flexibility that the other two have. Good interrupt and a last minute butt saver against a strong ally. This card makes almost all the other interrupts in any classes weep. If someone told me a few years ago that imagine if Gouge and Counterspell had a baby then I’d say they are lying but here we are.
Do you know the biggest weakness of all solo armor/weapon decks? If the opponent exhausts your hero, you are dead in the water. Ohh wow hello there Stance of The Sturdy Ox, good thing I don’t have to worry about that ever again. Eye of the Storm? Into the bin. Gouge? Into the bin, and so on. If this card only said your hero can’t be exhausted and basic it would have been a crazy strong card. But unfortunately for your opponent the textbox doesn’t end there. How about Protector? Okay and how about readying your hero? Okay… This card makes the monk solo play style so much safer than any other class and can lend an extra barrier to ally decks. (Pssst we’ll get to the dual class heroes, don’t be impatient)
And now my personal favorite design in the set: Avert Harm. This card sets the tone of monk tanking. Instead of big armors you are going to rely on your mana teas, your Enveloping Mists, and of course the new stance as well. This ability itself allows you to redirect an attack possibly from your Ferocious White Tiger Statue, and prevent 3 damage on the spot. Thematically this card makes so much sense and is very lore friendly. In my opinion this style of tanking (making use of your Ongoings) is stronger than most armors, but of course it has a downside. This ability can get destroyed and then your game plan falls apart. Good thing monk doesn’t have an interrupt, waaaiiiit a minute…! All jokes aside I love this card and it makes slightly worse or more expensive ongoing abilities worth considering in monk decks, like Special Delivery!
Here comes another card supporting the ongoing archetype: Breath of Fire. I have looked over all the board clears in Core and Contemporary and in my opinion this is the best board clear in those formats. This ability on the first glance might not be as interesting as the previous ones, lets take a deeper dive. If you play this on turn 3 to swing the board with 0 Ongoings, it still packs a punch and clears most stuff and it hits face also and that’s a nice bonus, because not a lot of board clears do that (at least in Contemporary). If you have a single ongoing ability by turn 3 which is quite likely because your mana teas are 1 mana and your enveloping mist and stance is 2 mana. So at that point you’ll be able to clear those pesky Xarils, Gamons, and the stickier stuff. But here comes in the subtle monk design way, if you play this in the late game with a lot of Ongoings this will scale up and can deal lethal damage. Not so simple card isn’t it?
Now for the equipment. Monks get a new statue and a new banger armor that will tear up most warrior and rogue players.
Eminent Jade Serpent Statue seems like a great addition to monk control decks, it’s 1 mana heal 2 and gives a surprising amount of survivability to monk control decks. Keep in mind that the way mend stacks it will make cards like Anduin, Lost Prince from Into the Mists better, because you can divide your mends on a wider board. Also Bumi Stillspark likes this card as well, being able to heal 2 instantly on arrival and draw a card on death. It’s comparable to Pygmy Firebreather if you’re feeling more Blue. This card is great but it might be a sleeper, because we still need to see more strong mend effect cards.
Read ‘em and weep, Rogue! The new king of combat is in town. Brawler’s Handwraps does basically 4 things in 1 card. Prevents damage like an armor, gives you dual wield, makes you strike easier with weapons and if you have some leftover mana it makes your weapon stronger. This card is stupidly strong. If you are going to play weapons in your monk decks and not only 40 Tiger Palms like I do then you’ll see that the flexibility of this card is amazing. And the design is flawless too, it isn’t oppressive, just a great subtle, strong card. I bet that dual-class rogue and warrior are going to love this card. At this point I don’t know any more to say other then, go try this card out and see it for yourself
And here we have the last monk card we will look at today, the previously revealed: Uncasked Alemental. Solid stat line, immediate healing and conditional but easily achievable ready effect, and its great pun at parties. I don’t even know where to start with this card but I think the easiest way is to make a comparison to Jex’ali. Same cost, one more ATK, similar healing effect, and then some. Most red priest/paladin decks run that card and it performs exceptionally well. Given that, I predict we will see Uncasked Alemental in many Monk decks. The ready effect is very good when we are looking at ferocity allies that are undamaged, or taking some damage from an opposing ally, healing it up and going right back in. Otherwise, this ally can always heal your hero, and potentially combo with Cyclone Strike. Also keep in mind that this ally can counterbalance the exhaust effects on your other allies. I think this card is going to see play in almost all ally focused monk decks.
Finally, the Dual-Class Heroes! We saw these earlier this week, but there is a lot to talk about and almost infinite possibilities of combos and synergies, but I want to make one thing clear before I jump into this topic. My dual class rule: Can the single class hero with talent cards accomplish the same things, but more consistently? Why should I go dual class if my class can do all the things that the dual class hero does. Isn’t it just better to run some strong talent cards instead? I think this question should be answered and thought about before going into dual class shenanigans because things can appear better on the first sight in a dual class deck, but if you think about it more dual class can be useless and harmful for your deck. With that out of the way let me show you a few synergies that I found with these new heroes and how they can make both classes better.
First: Zhi-Zhi, the Harmonious. My good friend’s favourite deck is equipment Warrior. It’s crazy consistent with Key to the Armory and Reconstruct. It finishes games by hitting your opponent with a strong weapon (Might of Menethil, Jin’rohk, The Great Apocalypse, etc…) or shooting them in the face with Mortal Strike. Now in Siege Treasure we got Stormbolt and that’s a non-talent Mortal Strike and here let’s take some time and talk about this archetype’s biggest weakness: Eye of the Storm aka exhausting and lack of ability interrupt. Paired with the new monk stance, and le monka kick there’s nothing more holding this deck back from absolute greatness.
The first thing I thought about when I saw Longtooth’s class combination is how much Rogue could benefit from the new Brawler’s Handwraps. Further looking I realized monk and rogue compliment each other so well with their toolkit that it kinda overrules my rule I stated above (and now I look like a dummy). Longtooth is packed with surprises and you can never know what’s coming your way, the monk abilities and equipment meld so smoothly with the existing rogue toolkit and this pair of classes allows Monk to use old equipment prior to Mists. This combination holds a lot of surprises and I’m sure a lot of you are happy to see this hero.
Lastly, my personal favorite: Mojo Stormbrewer. I’ve been nursing a combo since quite a while but it wasn’t able to come to life because of some judges saying Gurok the Usurper doesn’t hold the copied quest’s power when Rediscovered. I won’t spoil more but be afraid when you’re matched up against me in the next classic tournament. But to talk about this pairing itself I have just one thing to say: totems and statues. It’s like peanut butter and jelly (if you’re into that thing…). It got great support in Mists with the dual class ability and I’m sure it’s going to get some more love, once the dev team removes the talent limitation on Totemic Animation (Petition started now! Please make it happen). My first synergy idea is playing a bunch of totems and statues and jamming Thrall, Guardian of the Elements for free. This hero has a lot of interrupts too with Wind Shears and the Flying Monkey Kicks
Thank you for taking the time and brainstorming with me. I’d be glad to have some feedback from you guys and see all the crazy cool combos with the new dual-class heroes that I haven’t found yet. Thanks again to the Reborn team keeping this game alive even in these hard times and hoping to meet all of you in person when the new national circuit launches! —Bálint
