Copycat

A few new cards from the latest Hearthstone expansion have come out, and one in particular really caught my attention:  Azalina Soulthief.

Whether or not the card is good I will definitely say it is cool.

But is it good?

I think the answer is that it can be, but only in really narrow circumstances.

The stats on it are so low that it can only be useful if it is generating a ton of cards for you.  That is only going to happen if you empty your hand and then get a bunch of cards from your opponent, who presumably is hoarding cards.  So the only possible use is in a deck that wants to empty its hand and then use whatever the opponent has against them.

The trouble is that the cards you get are going to be completely worthless much of the time.  If your opponent is running a combo deck you rate to get some of their combo but not all of it, and since you won't have the cards to complete the combo this will be mostly garbage.  If you get cards that have a lot of synergy with their deck those cards with also be extra weak because you lack that synergy.  If the metagame is full of high synergy or combo decks Azalina is just going to be trash.

However, if the metagame is full of decks that are just running a bunch of good cards and lean towards midrange or control strategies then Azalina could be really good.  You would want to play it in a deck that runs cheap cards, aims for aggression, but can close out the game with a variety of tools.   Some classes work well in this way, and others do not.

For example, Paladin aggro decks close out the game with minion attacks.  If you get a bunch of defensive minions, board clears, and healing from your opponent's cards it will do you little good.  However, if you are playing Hunter then you have a hero power that will slowly end the game for you and you don't have to necessarily push minion damage so stalling the game out may work out just fine.

Another consideration is that this is a legendary, so if your deck relies on drawing it then you are in a bad way.  You can't build an aggressive deck around the assumption that you will always draw the single card you need to finish opponents off, because you either build it to run out of stuff on turn seven in which case you are dead if you don't draw Azalina, or you build it to have lots of stuff to do after turn seven, in which case Azalina is bad.  The way to solve this is to find another card that fills a similar niche and gives your otherwise aggressive deck a way to find a lot of value in the endgame.  Again hunter seems like the ideal solution because you can use DK Rexxar, a card that has dramatically different mechanics but fills the same role.

In most classes Azalina simply isn't any good.  It will be used for fun meme decks but won't make a dent in serious play.  In an aggressive Hunter deck though I think it has real potential as the second refill / value card after DK Rexxar.

Even then I think it is only good in an environment with lots of midrange and controlly decks.  It is bad vs. combo, bad vs. aggro, and bad vs. intense synergy. 

There exists a metagame where Azalina is good.  I would bet against it, but I wouldn't bet the farm because there are definitely ways for it to shine, even if the odds are against.