Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum - The livestream card reveals

Hearthstone is continuing its march through the Year of the Dragon, preparing to release the game's second expansion of the year. This continues the ongoing year-long storyline and now sees the League of E.V.I.L. taking the floating city of Dalaran into the desert for Hearthstone's newest expansion, Saviors of Uldum. Blizzard will introduce another round of 135 cards to join the Standard and Wild rotations.

That means it's time once again for Shacknews to break down each of the expansion's cards, one-by-one. Before the card reveals begin in earnest, we're going to take a look at some new cards, some of which utilize some brand new mechanics to Hearthstone.

But for today, we interrupt the continuing card breakdowns and focus on the ones revealed during Wednesday's special livestream presentation. We're going to do things a little bit differently this time. We're going to focus on the four most impactful cards and offer analysis before showing off the best of the rest of the new cards.

Before we start, a quick recap of what we've unveiled to this point:

Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum card analyses (Part 1)
Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum card analyses (Part 2)
Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum card analyses (Part 3)
Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum card analyses (Part 4)

Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum - Plague of Murlocs interview

With all of that out of the way, let's get started.

(2) Zephyrs the Great (3/2)
Type: Minion - Elemental
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, wish for the perfect card.

Analysis: What a fascinating Legendary this is! This will analyze your situation and then present you with a choice of three perfect scenarios, depending on what you might want for your specific situation. During the stream, Brian Kibler was presented with three potentially perfect Turn 3 plays, but the situation will change depending on whether you're in the late game or not. It might present you options for area-of-effect. It might offer you options for lethal. It might offer you a super cool Wombo Combo option.

It will be very interesting to see how Zephyrs the Great is put to use, but I would definitely expect to see this a lot, both in serious play and as a meme card. One of the coolest Legendaries of this set.

And for those curious, here's how Zephyrs works when you're facing down a board ready to destroy you.

(1) Unseal the Vault
Type: Spell - Quest
Class: Hunter
Rarity: Legendary
Quest: Summon 20 minions. Reward: Ramkahen Roar.

Ramkahen Roar
Hero Power: Give your minions +2 Attack

Analysis: This is the last of the Quest cards for this expansion. We'll go more in depth on this when we go over the Quests as a whole, but this can be a strong card for Hunter decks playing cheap minions or even when using spells like Unleash the Hounds.

Stay tuned. We'll offer more on this card later.

(8) Octosari (8/8)
Type: Minion - Beast
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Deathrattle Draw 8 cards.

Analysis: An absolutely bonkers Legendary for more reasons than one. If you're running low on resources in Arena, this is going to be your best friend. If you pull this off a random effect, it could be your worst nightmare. In most situations in constructed play, you're going to want to avoid drawing this many cards.

But there are going to be constructed decks that put this to good use. Pogo-Hopper Rogues come to mind immediately. This will have its uses, but it's also going to backfire on a lot of people and it will be hilarious.

(4) Vessina (2/6)
Type: Minion
Class: Shaman
Rarity: Legendary
While you're Overloaded, your other minions have +2 Attack.

Analysis: This is a crazy strong card for the Shaman player, especially the one who likes to frequently use Overload minions and spells. Rain of Toads will be a strong combo card with this Legendary, starting those Toads off with 4/4 stats.

Vessina's going to be outright dangerous in the hands of certain Shaman players. If you manage your Overload cards skillfully, she can help clear the board frequently.

The Best of the Rest

Holy Ripple (Priest)

Sinister Deal (Warlock)

Injured Tol'vir (Neutral)

Penance (Priest)

Temple Berserker (Neutral)

Sandhoof Waterbearer (Priest)

Serpent Egg (Neutral)

Bug Collector (Neutral)

Beaming Sidekick (Neutral)

Neferset Thrasher (Warlock)

Candletaker (Neutral)

Ancient Mysteries (Mage)

Oasis Surger (Druid)

Dune Sculptor (Mage)

Golden Scarab (Neutral)

Ancestral Guardian (Paladin)

Subdue (Paladin)

Swarm of Locusts (Hunter)

Desert Hare (Neutral)

Totemic Surge (Shaman)

Clever Disguise (Rogue)

Sandstorm Elemental (Shaman)

Mischief Maker (Neutral)

Mogu Fleshshaper (Shaman)

Worthy Expedition (Druid)

We'll resume with our normal reveal schedule tomorrow, going all the way to the expansion's launch! Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum is set to arrive on August 6.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?