Pelagos

Class: Priest

Rarity: Legend

Type: Minion

Mana: 3

Stats: 1/6

After you cast a spell on a friendly minion, set its Attack and Health to the higher of the two.

Hearthstone’s new expansion, Murder at Castle Nathria’s background is in the Shadowlands. There are several realms in the Shadowlands: Bastion, a place where souls work toward a state of virtue to serve the Shadowlands as kyrian, Maldraxxus, which represents the heart of the Shadowlands' military might, Ardenweald, the home of the spirits of nature, Revendreth, where the worst souls that didn't fall into the Maw. 

Today’s protagonist, Pelagos, lives in the Bastion. There isn’t much information about when Pelagos was alive — he mentions he was a female, but in the Bastion, Pelagos was given the shape of a male as he entered the Shadowlands. Like the others in the Bastion, Pelagos trains to become an Ascended, but he failed in the rituals every time he attempted. 

At this time, Pelagos meets the player who arrived at the Shadowlands and cooperates with the player, and gets aided by the player after experiencing many things to develop as a soul. Pelagos ultimately becomes the new Arbiter, returning the order of the Shadowlands.

In Hearthstone, Pelagos is a 3-mana Priest card. The vanilla stats of Pelagos is reasonable for its cost, but the stats are tilted to its Health. However, the ability of Pelagos is an upgraded version of Inner Fire, as it changes the stats of a minion to the higher of its Attack and Health.

Although it’s a single-target ability, it can be a very effective card — the stats of a pre-summoned minion can be altered for an attack by using a buff spell. 

The biggest advantage of Pelagos is that it has great synergy with buff spells. Using Divine Spirit followed by Inner Fire was a traditional combo of priests from the beginning of Hearthstone, and it’s just like that — only better. By just using Serpent Wig on Pelagos can create an 8/8 minion with only the cost of 4 mana. Even without the extra spell, its Health is 6, so it’s not that easy to kill. It’s also great with Shadow Word: Devour, especially when there are many minions on the field.

The weakness of Pelagos is that it’s not that strong alone and that it’s extremely weak against Silence. Especially when the Smothering Starfishes are lurking around everywhere, Pelagos will lose its strength rather easily.

On paper, Pelagos seems like a great card, in certain conditions. With more new cards coming, will he be able to ascend in the new expansion?