Let's break down The Menagerie wing in Hearthstone's One Night in Karazhan

Here come 11 new cards to Hearthstone: One Night in Karazhan! The Menagerie wing is officially open, and it’s bringing with it some of the best cards in Hearthstone (and one of the worst.) Here’s our take on the latest Karazhan card set.

Typically, when building a tribal deck, you to focus on a single type. Cards like Zoobot and The Curator (we’ll talk about him later) are looking to change that. Zoobot by itself isn’t terribly strong, but if you’ve got two of the three minion types it looks for, it immediately becomes one of the best 3-drops in the game. Question is, how often will that happen? I don’t think it will regularly, and as such Zoobot will often sit in your hand as a dead card.

Beast Druid has been stuck on the lower end of the ladder for quite some time, but it’s always seemed on the verge of breaking through. Menagerie Warden may just be the card to do that. At the top end of the current Beast Druid deck list is Stranglethorn Tiger, which is a heck of a target for a Druid player looking to lock down that late game win. It will be interesting to see if Beast Druid starts including some bigger bombs just to have a few better targets for the Warden.

Much like other Dragon-oriented cards, Nightbane Templar is the better version of another card (Razorfen Hunter in this case), but only if you’re holding dragons. For a long time in the early days of Hearthstone, Razorfen Hunter was a standard inclusion in a lot of rush decks. Now, Dragon Paladin is looking to challenge some of the better Dragon decks in the meta. I don’t think Nightbane Templar is going to be enough to dethrone Dragon Warrior, but Blizzard’s increased interest in tribal decks is something to keep track of.

A quick update on Eggs in Hearthstone: Nerubian Egg is good, Dragon Egg is…not so much. Runic Egg will likely fall in the latter category. It’s tempting to combine it with cards to buff it up and get yourself a free card, but that doesn’t seem worth giving up card slots. Even Zoo Warlock — the biggest fan of finding favorable trades with solid buffing cards — won’t be looking to include Runic Egg any time soon.

Oh, Purify. The most hated card in the set, and for good reason: it’s pretty awful. There are very few cards that are advantageous to Silence in the meta right now, and even if there were, 2 mana to do it would wipe out any value that Purify offers. The card is just bad, okay?

Avian Watcher is at worse a bad Fen Creeper (an already bad card), but at best one of the higher value Taunt minions in the game. So far, the best option on the Hearthstone ladder for Avian Watcher looks to be good ole Freeze Mage. A 4/7 for 5 mana, plus any of the defensive Secrets that the deck offers, is going to provide a huge wall for anyone trying to get through and bring spellslingers down.

The big sister of Zoobot, Menagerie Magician is probably the better version of the multi-tribal buffing style of card. But unlike Zoobot, which requires two of a Beast, Dragon, or Murloc to become truly valuable, this Magician only really needs one to be worth it. But if she hits more than one minion with the buff, things could get straight up out of control. Two out of three hits means 8/8 worth of stats for 5 mana, aka none too shabby.

This Hunter Secret wouldn’t be great if the 4/2 that popped out of it didn’t have Stealth. But because it does, it’s essentially a guaranteed 4 damage for 2 mana. And if it survives its first attack, even better. Bear Trap already sees a decent amount of play, and Cat Trick will follow suit. The obvious choice here is for Midrange Hunter, but the Face variety of the class could also play it as a safeguard against AOE removal.

Be prepared for some seriously hilarious RNG-enabled wins on YouTube via Babbling Book, but not much on the competitive stage. It may seem like a solid deal at first glance, but the fact this book doesn’t have the word “Discover” in it means you’re stuck with whatever page you turn to. That makes it just too unreliable to include in anything but the most dedicated of Tempo Mage decks.

This new Warrior weapon might straight up be the best card in the set. 5 mana for 12 damage of minion removal is insane, and the fact that it’s a Warrior card means that all you have to trade for that is some Armor. Every Warrior deck will be running Fool’s Bane, and it will be incredibly annoying for anyone running lots of minions with 3 HP or less. The armageddon of smaller minions is on its way.

7 mana for a 4/6 Taunt is a bit steep, but throw three free cards on top of that? Yes, please. And the fact that you essentially get to choose which three cards those will be when you build your deck list is just gravy. Hell, if you draw just two of the three possible cards, it’s worth it. Personally, I’d love to see the multi-tribal decks make their way into the meta, and The Curator is certainly a solid addition to that archetype.

Taylor Cocke is filling his deck with Beasts, Dragons, and Murlocks. You can follow his climb to the Hearthstone top on Twitter @taylorcocke.