…everything.
It’s Hearthpetrification all over again. The worst part is that it probably doesn’t clog up just three slots per deck, but five or six, as players run Hollow Grovekeepers to nuke it. Soon we may be down to choosing only the last three slots in decks, Hearthpetrification at its finest. =S Seriously not a fan of cards like this.
I’ll go through all the cards and speculate:
Zor
Seems pretty mediocre. A 2 mana 2/1 that you cannot control is far from amazing and the extra card has a 1/6 chance of being absolute trash (Alter Rex). In a mech deck, drawing extra mechs might be good enough, but the 2/1 body really hurts since mech pieces are low tempo drops already
Gauntlet rating: 4/10
Ironcliff Heart
Now we are talking! this card is excellent for reigniting those dispelled Silverguard Knights and damaged azurite lions. The fact that this costs 4 mana does hurt, since the 4 slot is very competitive in Lyonar, but this seems good enough to see play in at least one deck. Remember that transforming a minion keeps it active, so you can do this + divine bond for a 7 mana 13 damage combo if anything sticks.
Gauntlet rating: 7/10
Natures Confluence
With little information on battlepets, this card is difficult to judge. If the average battle pet is as good as a 2/3 minion, then this card would be pretty darn good. If this pulls Zor, then that would be amazing, since it essentially draws 4 cards while giving some small bodies. Remember that the battlepets essentially have airdrop.
Gauntlet rating: 8/10
Arcane Devourer
Pretty darn cool! The effect requires you to be at at least 8 mana and hold a high (5+) cost drop. the statline complement the ability prefectly since 4 damage is very hard to do while also dealing with the threat that it brings out. Finally some love for Lilith!
Gauntlet rating: 5/10
Battle Panddo
Holy poptarts! As if Songhai needed another strong 3 drop. Effectively, this thing has 3 attack with the ability. From Ghost Lightning and Blistering Scorn, we already know that the “deal 1 damage globally” effect is very valuable. The fact that this minion could pull off this effect multiple times makes it very likely to see play even in decks already running Lantern Fox.
Gauntlet rating: 9/10
Pantherian
Seems pretty mediocre with the current iteration of the Scion spells. If you manage to cast this for 0 before turn 7-8, then it would be pretty strong, but it requires you to draw and play all three Scion spells. The first and second wishes are easy to fit into many decks, but casting the third wish may be a bit problematic. I do not see this card seeing play unless either the dervish tribe receives a massive amount of support or third wish is changed to something more playable.
Gauntlet rating: 2/10
Winter’s Wake
Another card that is hard to judge seeing how we do not know what walls will be introduced. This is only valuable if it hits three or more walls. If there are more wall generating effects in Shimzar (like White Asp or minions that place walls) then this may lead to a new archetype of Vanar.
Gauntlet rating: 1/10
Inquisitor Kron
Pandora as a 7 cost 3/10 that summons a 3/3 minion with a random ability at the end of turn. This is like Pandora, Except it costs 2 less, has a better stat line for its cost, has provoke to protect its summons, and summons minions immediately. Remember that Right now, Pandora is the go to lategame drop. While a 2/2 is significantly worse than a 3/3, Kron’s provoke protects them, making the flying, ranged, frenzy, and celerity minions better and the provoke one worse. This is assuming that the keywords on the prisoners are the same as those on Pandora’s wolves. If this card also pulls forcefield, rush, and maybe even faction or new keyword minions, then it would be even scarier. To add icing to the cake, it has Synergy with replace mechanics!
Gauntlet rating: Quite possibly the best card in Gauntlet. 10+/10
So heres my opinion on the cards.
Ironcliffe Heart: Pretty bad. What would you target this with in a typical game? Winblade Adept? Silverguard Knight? Azurite Lion? Auryn Nexus is a thing, and this just seems like a more situational and clunky version of it.
Nature’s Confluence: Can’t say much about it with what we know right now. But probably a meme card.
Arcane Devourer: How good is a 1 mana 8/4 at 8 mana is, truly? Darkspine Elemental has more power then this but saw only minor plays and this card is no less situational then Darkspine.
Battle Panddo: Put a Deathstrike Seal on this and it will wipe the board. Without the seal, the 1 dmg fullscrean aoe still provides great utility, and this card paid no stats* for it.
Pantheran: It’s kinda comparable to MECHAZ0R. Instead of putting 5 suboptimal cards into your deck, you put 2 good cards and 2 garbage cards into your deck. The reward isn’t even that good.
Winter’s Wake: You need to get 3 walls with it, else it’s a worse Spectral Revenant in a faction with no healing options. It’s not likely that you can have 3 walls alive at 8 mana.
Inquisitor Kron: It’s a 5 mana 4/6 + 2/2 with great texts on it. It’s pretty good.
Z0r: More consistency for mech decks. Will probably see plays in mech decks.
How cool is Winter’s Wake? I really love Wall Decks in Vanar and having this card is just wow. In conjunction with the new Artifact and Gravity Well… My body is ready.
All legendaries though, so kind of expensive.
Also Inquisitor Kron. Replacement decks are surely a bit gimmicky, but this can get interesting.
I’m stoked to try these!
I get where you’re coming from, but I actually do feel like you might want dancing blades or KotV over this in some decks (tempo decks like blades, no 2-drop mag likes keeper). Besides, in your scenario it might pay to run the alternatives as hollow grovekeeper becomes a staple. Also, we haven’t seen if there will be any more insane 5 drops coming, so I’m not so pessimistic. I do fear you might be right though.
But trying to predict the unpredictable is difficult. Let’s hope we’re wrong.
Love the gauntlet break down few reply in terms of gauntlet impactful cards. Well played
Finally! Finally I see that these characters belong animations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEkr5G80z-o
I can’t wait to make a entire mechazor without even needing to bring any parts 
I am so curious to see what the figure at 00:20 is going to be 0__0 https://youtu.be/GEkr5G80z-o?t=20s
That might actually possible if you are running Magmar with Nature Confluence and Hypnotoad. If they both pull Zor (4 in the 2x2 area and another one from hypnotoad’s OG), and all the Zors don’t get Alter Rex, than you could theoretically get a Mechazor without putting a single mech in your deck.
Either that or Khymera…
The card says: Put a random mech minion in your action bar. Since Mechazor itself is a mech minion, I assume it can be placed in your action bar as well.
Zor :pretty bad bad body for the price, slow because of dying wish, don’t necessarily gets you the mech piece you want (Rex :)) , battle pet so you won’t be able to control it and suicide it that easily (unless the pet AI is super aggressive).
Bad
Ironcliff Heart : I hate this card, that being said this card is very good , basically a 4 mana ironcliff with rush but needs a body to be casted, bloodtear which is already very good with holy immolation will combo very well with this card. The combo with DB could make this card OP, just because it is almost impossible to play around and will hit very hard . With the cost of DB being increased it might be OK , we will see.
Very good
Nature’s Confluence: Depends a lot on the battle pet but if we assume that they cost 2 in average then the card is very good , 8 mana worth of minions with airdrop (very relevant with battle pet) for 5, and 4 for 1 in term of card advantage !
Good to very good depending on battle pet
Arcane Devourer: CP give us fairly quickly a good way to use Blood taura , will see if it will be enough. The card is obviously very good in a big abyssian deck with spectral revenant/vorpal reaver…
Good
Battle panddo: Essentially a 3/4 for 3 but better, good with inner focus ,insane with deathstrike seal. The only bad thing about this dude is that it makes Songhai even worst against zen’rui.
Very Good
Pantherian: Seems too situational, 6 mana 6/6 is pretty bad on its own , having to play all 3 wish in the same deck is a huge building constraint , it is pretty hard to pull off and even if you do the pay off is not that great.
Bad
Winter’s Wake : Seems like a good kill in a wall deck. Yes it is situational , but very often you have some barrier/gravity well left over is the later stage of the game and having to kill all of them is very annoying for the opponent. Unfortunately there is so much AOE effect in Shim’zar that I hardly see a wall deck being a thing in the future meta, but if the archetype is pushed enough I can see this card being played in 1 or 2 exemplar.
Good in the right deck
Inquisitor Kron: Excogitator sums up perfectly what I think about this cards, it is very very strong (probably too strong for a neutral card IMO), the provoke is especially relevant on this dude since it allow him to protect his fragile 2/2.
Excellent
I like how they bolstered uncommon synergies and tried to answer some in-faction problems (Battle Pando possibly being an alternate option to Lantern Fox, Arcane Devourer supporting ramp, Pantherian supporting Scion’s Wishes, Winter’s Wake supporting Walls, and Nature’s Confluence supporting replicate minions). While Ironcliff heart is debatable, and we really don;t know how strong/effective these cards will end up being, I think we can all agree that Inquisitor is a strong card, and it supports replace decks (just think what this card could do with 3 Aethermasters). I feel that it’s a bit cheep for its strong effect (maybe 6 or 7 mana would be better for a cost, when you compare it to Pandora). Overall great card concepts, if only I had money to buy the presale packs 
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Judging by the artifact we saw yesterday, I expect wall Vanar to receive some buffs.
Or it coult be trash, who knows.
Nothing would satisfy me more than being able to play a very controle oriented Vanar wall deck. I’m a control player, I love it, and the idea of setting a field of block of ice to set up a powerful kill hypes me to no end.
But I doubt we’ll see such a thing unless we have more “bonechill barrier” kind of cards, except, better, and some things to protect our walls.
Right now, they pretty much suck. (like Obelysks)
Looks like CP is giving wall vanar some support with the new artifact and this card, so I expect it won’t be too hard to have at least 2 walls on the board by turn 8. Vanar does have the best single target removal so she can set up the board appropriately. In that case, winter’s wake means “deal 8 damage and have two beefy minions left over”, if your walls are close enough. It does seem highly situational though but I expect it will see use.
My brain hurts enough already…and there are SO many more cards we don’t know about. 
I can’t wait!
BTW…how will moving Walls look like O.O (please transform them into weird contructs)
Has anyone else looked at the vids on the Steam page for Duelyst? There’s a video that shows the attack animations of units, many of which are not in the game yet. Some of them look epic!
KRON 