It’s fair to say that, throughout Hearthstone’s eight-year lifespan, the Shaman hero power has mostly sucked Magnataur balls. Sure, it was briefly strong during the midrange meta back when Thing From Below, Tuskarr Totemic and Thunder Bluff Valiant were legal, but that only goes to show how much power creep is required to make Totemic Call not terrible. Nonetheless, I have high hopes for The Stonewright, our exclusive card reveal from next month’s Murder at Castle Nathria expansion, which buffs all your totems for the rest of the game.
The Stonewright is a 4-Mana Shaman Legendary minion, with decent 5/4 stats, and text that reads: “Battlecry: For the rest of the game, your Totems have +2 Attack.” Not a tricky card to understand, then. She obviously slots into the kind of Totem deck that has historically looked to go wide on board and then ends the game with a burst of buffed damage via Bloodlust.
The Stonewright’s Battlecry will synergise nicely with cards like Brann Bronzebeard, Brilliant Macaw and Bolner Hammerbeak.
Note also that because The Stonewright’s effect is a Battlecry it means she’ll synergise nicely with cards like Brann Bronzebeard, Brilliant Macaw and Bolner Hammerbeak, all of which will enable extra procs of the permanent +2 buff. Those cards are already seeing play in midrange Shaman decks right now, which makes me even more optimistic about The Stonewright’s success.
My one concern is that, looking at the current card pool, there really aren’t a ton of cards besides Bloodlust which care about Totems being on board. Presumably, others are still to come that fit the archetype, and given that The Stonewright will be sticking around for multiple expansions, every new Totem support card should only boost her power.
You can see her entrance animation below.
For those of you who like a side-serving of lore with their reveals, here’s what Blizzard has to say about The Stonewright’s backstory: “The soldiers of stone that make up Revendreth’s Stone Legion were not born, they were made. The Stonewright, mother of the stoneborn, created them to stop an attack on the Ember Ward. Despite some losses then, the Stone Legion stands strong to this day thanks to the Stonewright and her chisel.” Apparently she’s also known as the Harvester of Wrath, which is honestly the kind of thing you pick as your Battle.net handle before you were old enough to know better.
Let me know what you think of The Stonewright in the comments. I’m going with ‘solid, if somewhat unspectacular.’ Most Shaman decks these days don’t want to spend two Mana on summoning a Totem, so her chances really are going to hinge on there being a couple of other Totem generating/juicing cards in the set. Murder at Castle Nathria will be released on 2 August. You can find the cards spoiled so far over at the official gallery.