Hearthstone’s The Witchwood expansion reveals continue and we got to see Chameleos, the new Priest Legendary minion.

In this post, I take an in-depth look at the card and what kind of decks it could fit into.

Chameleos

Chameleos is a one-mana 1/1 Priest Legendary Beast minion with a unique effect: Each turn Chameleos is in your hand, it transforms into a random card your opponent is holding.

So, is it another Shifter Zerus or Molten Blade? We’ve had transforming cards before, and none of them saw any play.

Chameleos has some clear advantages over its predecessors though.

First, it always transforms into a card that your opponent has deemed good enough to include in their deck. No Light’s Justice here! The average power level of a Chameleos card is better than the other shifters, but it can still whiff in the sense that the card might not fit your deck either because of a radically different playstyle or because the card requires other cards to combo with.

As the card changes every turn, you also may not be able to play the card: seeing that Bloodreaver Gul’dan when you have less than ten mana can be painful.

This brings us to the second advantage of Chameleos: it gives you information about your opponent’s hand. Is it Sunkeeper Tarim or Call to Arms that the opponent is holding? Should I clear the board now or wait? Does he have a Leeroy in hand? Do I need to heal or taunt up?

Chameleos is typically at its best against control decks, as control decks hold on to a lot of cards and the games go long, so Chameleos gives you plenty of information and is very likely to eventually turn into something you can use in the game.

It is not completely useless against aggro, either. Wandering Monster from a Hunter? Righteous Protector from a Paladin? While aggro decks provide you with fewer opportunities to gain good cards from Chameleos, those opportunities do exist and at the very least you often see cards that that you can play, even if just to contest the board a little.

What decks want to run Chameleos?

The most enthusiastic reception to Chameleos is already waiting for its inevitable inclusion in all Priest decks. However, that seems unlikely.

Chameleos is a reactive card. It provides you with information and a tool that mimics your opponent’s deck. What archetypes are interested in that kind of card? Control decks.

Priest decks with an active gameplan of their own – Spiteful Priest, Combo Priest – do not care about a card like Chameleos. They already have their own thing going and they don’t want to sit around and wait.

Control Priest, on the other hand, is very interested. Information and tools, that’s a great fit. If there is a Priest archetype that focuses even more on stealing things from the opponent, even better, as Chameleos can provide another piece to take advantage of the opponent’s card synergies.

Chameleos is not for every deck, but it has a clear niche where it can flourish.