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Dane_Young

If you broke down the World of Warcraft TCG’s history by the types of cards found in successful decks, you’d find combat-oriented ally attachments near the bottom of the list. That said, it’s only been a few months since Mark of the Untamed flexed its muscles at Darkmoon Faire Philadelphia, powering up Windspeaker Nuvu and his Alliance friends in the fight against a seemingly ever-growing Horde presence. Today’s preview card is also an ally attachment, but this Paladin ability goes big. Real big.

When these types of cards have made an appearance, they have been cheaper, subtler effects like Druid’s aforementioned Mark of the Untamed and old-school Mark of the Wild, while Paladin has featured Blessing of Might and Blessing of the Martyr. By and large, when these types of effects cost more than one or two resources, they are relegated to the Limited-only bin. Even the highly anticipated Gift of the Earthmother has failed to make much of a Constructed splash so far. But why?

Part of the problem, I presume, is the Restoration-only restriction, although the metagame’s popular removal cards surely have something to say about when and how these kinds of cards will be successful. Getting your freshly-attached ally picked off by Hesriana is a card and tempo disaster and things weren’t much better before her arrival. Previous blocks were often full of brutally efficient removal spells like Retainer’s Blade, Puncture, Banish to the Nether, Sudden Death, Wub’s Cursed Hexblade and Army of the Dead, so even if you did get value out of your ability, you still fell behind as you lost your ally as well as the attachment. Regardless of what cards you got back in the process (two fresh cards in the case of Gift of the Earthmother, Blessing of the Martyr returning to your hand)—and cards that remove your ally like Hesriana and Banish to the Nether don’t even grant you the reward—you lost a major investment on the board.

As you can see, it hasn’t been easy to be one of these attachments. But like Bob Dylan said, “the times, they are a-changin’.”

Whereas just about every deck had powerful and efficient removal in previous formats, the current Core Constructed is made up of decks focused on ally combat. Grand Crusader, Shaman Ramp, Aspect of the Wild and Death Knight control decks manage the board through combat, whether it’s with allies or effects like Kor’kron Vanguard and Riptide. Effects like Zudzo, Herald of the Elements and Death Strike are good and very important to the decks that play them, but there is nothing on par with Hesriana or Wub’s Cursed Hexblade, capable of blowing out any ally, regardless of size. These circumstances certainly seem vulnerable to Divine Bulwark, so let’s see what we can cook up.

Making your ally huge is great, but perhaps the most important aspect of Divine Bulwark is what it does differently than its predecessors. When your ally died with Gift of the Earthmother, you got to draw two cards. Blessing of the Martyr returned to your hand. All well and good, but you’d still have to spend more resources to replace your lost board presence. Divine Bulwark ups the ante, shielding your already large ally from the grave should your opponent somehow find a way to kill it the first time. This means while you lose the +4/+4 bonus from Divine Bulwark, you get your ally back, good as new. The difference between a card in hand and a card in play is huge—which your opponent will be very unhappy to discover when he has to deal with the problem a second time.

Off the top of my head I can think of a few really juicy allies to attach Divine Bulwark to. The first is Zizzlix Drizzledrill, a 1/5 Horde ally from Throne of the Tides. Being Untargetable by opponents and possessing a rather large posterior, you can often curve from him into Divine Bulwark, creating a 5/9, Untargetable beast to attack with on the fourth turn. On the Alliance side, Braeo Darkpaw is a big fan of attachments and would curve into a 9/9 attacker after getting hooked up with Divine Bulwark. And as a bonus, Divine Bulwark can save any other attachments you want to throw onto him, should he somehow find one foot in the grave.

The last ally I’m thinking of doesn’t need a whole lot of help, but he was the first thing I thought of when I saw Divine Bulwark. The already hard to kill Dulvar, Hand of the Light goes from good to great (or great to amazing) with the help of Divine Bulwark. I had already been thinking of using Dulvar with Blessing of the Light to heal 12 damage at a time in race situations, but Divine Bulwark does so much more at the low cost of three measly points of healing. Dulvar has been on the cusp of playability since he was printed, but Divine Bulwark could be the catalyst that puts him and the Alliance back on the map.

While it never takes long for a card as powerful as Divine Bulwark to find a home, will it help bolster the Alliance’s numbers? We’ll find out soon enough, but I suspect the answer is yes.

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