In case you’ve been under a rock, read this article first, if you have seen it, carry on:

This is an article of the emergency brown out system. In the event of a Southern California brown out, our lead editor, Mike Rosenberg, will be trapped flopping cards by candlelight and disconnected from the entire cyber-verse. In such an emergency the DMG contributors Tim has chained in his basement play-testing decks are tasked to come up with something relevant. He gave them a break from the grind and asked their opinions while giving his own:

Tim Rivera
Rob Swarowski
Jim Fleckenstein
Eric Buckendorf
Kirk Buckendorf (representing the Scrub contingent)

1) Are you excited about the new monsters in general from what you've seen so far and what do you think about 1/3rd of the sets allies being neutral monsters?

Tim- I am very excited for the new monsters. I am a big fan of the addition of dragons to the game during the Worldbreaker block. Neutral allies with no restrictions are great. While the dragons were great, they only made up a small portion of the sets. By making 1/3rd of the set monsters, you are going to see a lot of synergy.

Rob- Whenever I see previews my first instinct is to ask is this good for limited play and having 1/3 of the sets allies neutral is great. We saw in Worldbreaker block that Dragonkin allies were great at filling missing spots in the ally curve and even allowing uneven faction spits in drafts to not be as crippling as ithey once were. There were also a handful of cards that gave you great incentive to play as many dragonkin as you could ([Skinned Whelp Shoulders]). I think the monsters take this a step further, even more neutral allies, built in bonus for playing more, and other cards that will give you great effects for the more monsters you have.

Jim- I think there's a lot of room for upside, and it will certainly make limited play easier. There is definitely a danger of missing the mark, though; if the monster allies are all better than their Horde/Alliance counterparts, no one will want to play anything but monsters, and if they're strictly worse then no one will care. I'm hopeful that they'll be interesting without being overpowered.

Eric- I am excited about the new monsters, they will allow for a lot of creative and strong interactions. I like having neutral allies in sets. Since 1/3rd of the allies available in this set are neutral, drafters will have more time to assess which faction they should be in while taking allies that will make their decks 100% of the time.

Kirk- I really enjoyed the openness that the neutral dragons from the Wolrdbreaker set lent to deck building and drafting. That CZE is willing to dedicate 1/3rd of a whole set around the idea really has me looking forward to it.

2) What is your favorite new mechanic and why?

Tim- I love the design of Murlocs and how their powers affect all Murlocs in play or all future ones you play. This type of power is what deck builders love to see. There is going to be a ton of small interactions, which you will not fully understand until you build decks and see how the cards interact together. For me, the Murlocs allies are the ones I'm most interested to see.

Rob- Enrage, I'm a big fan of burning people out and allies that have ferocity and hit for higher amounts of damage will always make the pyromaniac in me happy.

Jim- Empower. It takes the opposite side of the Justicars and Conquerors from Scourgewar block in that it rewards the player rather than punishes the opponent. It also fosters a sense of synergy that may have been missing in limited as you will want to see if you can turn on your allies' Empower text more often than not, which may necessitate playing allies other than the strictly best card at a drop slot. More accurately, the definition of best becomes a little more muddied, which makes for another good decision point in deck building.

Eric- Empower is my new favorite mechanic. I love when I get to destroy things or affect the board immediately when I play my permanents.

Kirk- I really liked Slivers in Magic and I think the Arena allies from the past in WoW kind of fell short in that they were a little too conditional and the mechanic was split between the Factions. I think the Murlocks look a little more straight forward and being neutral will enable more deck building options. The Monster heroes will hopefully enable some great Murlock decks as well.

3) We've only seen one of the free-cost flips on the Murloc Warrior Hero. What do you think about it, and what would you hope to see from the other free-flips?

Tim- Free flips are interesting. The cost to get them to be free is likely going to be high, but they promote you building your deck correctly. I'm hoping that the Death Knight is based off allies being destroyed, and I hope one of the Ogre flips is to give all your allies Smash. I like to smash things.

Rob- The one we've seen seems a bit hard to trigger for free, and the bonus isn't huge. I think this flip is fun fun fun, I just don't think I'll see a ton of these heroes flipped at the top tables for a DMF. I like that the ability granted by the flip isn't too game warping but I wouldn't mind seeing them a tad bit easier to flip.

Jim- It very clearly puts you on a certain path with the deck, that's for sure. I think it's a flip that really should only be activated for free as +1/+1 on turn 8 is probably irrelevant, but if you get it on turn 4 or 5 it has to be bonkers. There is also the argument that it's win more, but we said that about Defias Brotherhood as well back in the day. Show me enough worthwhile Murloc allies, and I'll be willing to give it a go.

Eric- I think it will be interesting to see how far they go with free flips and their requirements. This could end up being one of those things that could be turned into the next Bunny Deck.

Kirk- The Murlock Hero seems a little bit like a win more card. I’m hoping some of the others have more interesting cost reducing powers that will prove to be more effective.

4) What do you think of the following new keywords?

a) Empower XXXX

Tim- I loved Scourgewar block when class mattered. It had me taking different allies than I normally would, because it increases the power level of the other cards in my deck.

Rob- I like that these will make people think about which allies and heroes they choose, instead of just using the biggest allies all the time.

Jim- Easily the best of the bunch. Most utile, least disruptive to include in a deck.

Eric- Awesome, like I said above this is my favorite new mechanic. I love to blow things up with come into play effects.

Kirk- I think it adds a nice Class Matters taste that allows for for some interesting deck building options. I think high-end competitive players prefer a guaranteed effect so I think this keyword will mostly go in decks that have a hero of the class, but it will be interesting to see if they pop up in off-class heroes with ally support as CZE suggests.

b) Eternal

Tim- This is an interesting keyword. I like the idea of reusing the spell over and over, but what really makes me excited is that the card will be more powerful each time you play it. I am interested to see how this new keyword plays out, but I would be surprised if it’s not one of the best new keywords.

Rob- I've never been a fan of seeing the same ability played over and over again. The preview card seems balanced, very bad early game and devastating late game.

Jim- A limited powerhouse, but probably underwhelming for constructed unless you have a lot of search effects. The disapperance of most reliable and robust card draw means that putting one card back into 45 is tantamount to never seeing it again. Maybe it will let you cut quantities of some of these cards from 4 to 3 or 3 to 2 when deck building, but that's about all I got.

Eric- Can't wait to see what other cards will have eternal and what they will do. I have some ideas for decks where I’d like cull cards from my deck and then abuse the Eternal mechanic

Kirk- I like this one a lot. You can build whole decks around these cards knowing that if you put 4 in your deck because you want to draw it a large percentage of the time you keep your odds high of drawing more each time you play one. So, that’s a mouth-full... I hope what I just said makes sense.

c) Enrage

Tim- On first glance, this keyword seems like the weakest of all the new ones. Once you see all the other cards that were previewed today, you realize that this power is enhanced by the other cards in the set. I will have to wait to see the other cards in the set, before I can give my evaluation of Enrage.

Rob- Every deck is going to have access to ferocity allies so it's going to be great for limited play. Creating tension of should I attack with my Protector or not makes games more interactive.

Jim- High risk, high reward. Interesting for constructed, where building decks with 40+ allies is something I'm willing and able to do, especially with the now commonplace use of Magni/Cairne/Sava'gin as resources that happen to trigger Enrage. Bricking on it probably feels miserable, though.

Eric- Seems like someone is stuck on E in the dictionary. Enrage looks good, Aggro decks everywhere will have more bullets and weapons to add to their arsenal.

Kirk- It’s hard to do powers with random elements to them, and I think this one is already catching flack on the forums. With that said, I think this one is done better than most, it’s just how you look at it. Of the two revealed, one is a 4 cost 3ATK 4 Health and the other a 2 cost 2ATK 2 Health ally. Average stats without an ability. So if the number of allies in your deck makes their power turn on a percentage of the time that you are comfortable with they become worth it. If you don’t like games that swing on random elements, you probably should be playing chess anyway. Games, especially limited, already swing on the cards you are able to draw. CZE even helped us hedge our bets on cards like this with Keywords like Delve. Don’t write something off right away until you’ve seen the whole set and playtested with them. I’ve learned my lesson with Shalug’doom. I wrote a preview article on it and thought it would be a more casual card and it’s looking to be a powerhouse.

d) Delve

Tim- Controlling the cards you draw is obviously a powerful ability. When you can use it dig deeper into your deck and see your most important cards faster and you can make the cards with Enrage trigger without the random aspect, you have a great ability. If I open any bomb, I am going to take cards with Delve, so that I can get to it faster.

Rob- Great keyword for limited and interacts well with Enrage, helps smooth out draws where you are lacking a big guy or need an answer for a problem.

Jim- Quasi card draw by way of card quality. Yeah, ok. Since we can't draw half a card, this will have to do.

Eric- Finally! This mechanic is my second favorite new mechanic. I have been waiting for more cards that allow me to manipulate my draws and here they are.

Kirk- I don’t think think it’s game breaking on its own; it’s going to rely heavily on the cards that this keyword is attached to. It’s going to be more of an icing on the cake kind of thing. It’s nice to be able to smooth out your draw, but only when it’s attached to some other effect you really want anyway. Obviously if I have two cards deal 2 damage for 1 cost, and one has Delve and the other doesn’t, I’m going to favor the Delve card because it has that little something extra. But if I have a card that deals 3 damage for 1 cost and a Delve card that does 2 damage for 1, I’m probably going to favor the more damage card; unless I’m wanting to try some deck synergy with Enrage.

e) Smash

Tim- I really like the idea of this Keyword. Protector is the best keyword in limited and this power can allow you to deal damage even if they have a protector. I think Smash is going to be one of the better powers for limited.

Rob- Yikes! That's a very powerful keyword for limited play, I hope that they limit this to a small number of cards.

Jim- Weldon Barov, we hardly knew ye.

Eric- Another classic TCG mechanic that I have wondered about. Not as good as [Flint Shadowmore]'s ability to deal damage any where he pleases while in combat. I am curious to see how much of an impact cards with this mechanic will affect the way decks are built. It could make a lot of cards that were okay before better and cards that were popular before less appealing.

Kirk- Finally!!!!!!!11111

5) What do you think of CZE's goal to create the Best Limited Set They Can? Do you think this peak reveals things that will reach that goal? For camparison: What what is your past favorite limited set and what made it really good?

Tim- I hope that CZE is correct. I believe that Drums of War block was the best limited block. It had so many keywords, racial champions, and it had very few cards that said, "You play me and automatically win." From what I've seen they have made a set that has a lot of different focus points. You could try to build a powerful Monster deck or you could focus on an Empower deck for your class. It’s hard to see if this is the, "Best Limited Set," but from what I've seen there are signs that point to it being very good.

Rob- As a fan of limited play I like that they are making limited play a priority. I started playing WOW TCG in the Drums of War block and I've seen an improvement in each of the blocks, even Scourgewar. Bringing back static flips is something that I like, allowing certain archetypes to be built around these flips and really making mediocre cards matter because they help the flip is something that I love. I don't like mindless play, where every turn you play the biggest ally you can, or this card will be bad 95% of the time. I want everything to be a decision, nothing should be automatic, which hero should I play, which ally should I draft, is this class card something that fits in this type of deck? Eliminating talent heroes helps, you still have to pick the right hero for your deck. Making static flips that you can draft or build around helps; now bad cards have a place if they help the flip. Neutral allies that build on each other makes you reprioritize draft picks.

Jim- I think it's admirable, and am looking forward to seeing if it plays as well as advertised. Allowing monster allies into Horde and Alliance decks seems like a good way to ensure their relevance even after their time in the spotlight is over (assuming that it ends), although if they only have self-referencing keywords and mechanics that could be the kiss of death. It reminds me of March block, which was my favorite limited block to date; Aldor and Scryer were persistent throughout the block and you didn't have the Nerubian/Crusade/Scourge problem of Scourgewar block. The nonfaction allies helped smooth out curve and made for another thing to be aware of at the drafting table, which I approved of. Overall, if they can capture the feel of that block without overpowering the basic Alliance/Horde dynamic, then I think it will live up to expectations!

Eric- I like that they make goals and have Limited in mind when creating new sets. Draft and Sealed are my favorite formats. All these new powers and synergies have me chomping at the bit to get my hands on some packs and draft with my friends. Right now my favorite set is Worldbreaker block. The Stash mechanic and Dragonkin triggers are things I have really enjoyed playing with. The Monsters and new mechanics look like they will be very fun and will allow players to be as creative as possible with their strategies.

Kirk- I absolutely loathed drafting Scourgewar block with all three sets because the restrictions on deck building were stifling. I wasn’t a fan of Reputation cards in limited either. Worldbreaker Block was a breath of fresh air and just last week I drafted a 3-0 deck centered around Dragonkin. Actual neutral allies are probably my favorite addition to the WoW TCG and I’m ecstatic about Throne of Tides exploring this even further.

6) What is your favorite card previewed and why?

Tim- Mazu'kon. He's a big beater that creates a copy of himself when he dies. Who doesn't get excited about this guy?

Rob- Buldrug, as I've said before I love being aggressive and burning and this guy hits hard the first time he comes out. Even if he doesn't reveal an ally his power and health are on par for the 4 cost allies so he won't be a liability after Enrage triggers.

Jim- I really like Sorrow's End for its positive interactions in a warrior deck. [Slam], [Twisted Rampage], [Polished Breastplate of Valor] ...6/0 weapons seem quite tasty. It's the Boston Three Mace!

Eric- The Empower cards, Thrug the Hurler and Shanla Herald of the Faith are my favorites. I love blowing things up with come into play effects.

Kirk- Dulver, Hand of Light; he’s big for his cost, has a kind of inverted Aberration power that limits your opponent’s choices in dealing with him, and can swing a game once he starts attacking.