I've got a question for all the Warlock players here.  How often do you guys use the Blood Reaper ability? the loss of life is obviously bad, but do you find the bloodthirsty +2 useful or a bit of a wildcard? and in particular, I never hear anyone talking about the second part of this ability:

"The first time each round that [the Blood Reaper] attacks and damages a Living creature, the Warlock may heal 2 damage."  

On the surface it appears great, but in practice is it not as great as it appears?

At best it could be the equal of a Regrowth Belt, but not a target for Dissolve.  This seems to be the real strength of the Bloodreaper and almost worth the loss of life.  

what are your preferred targets for this?  I'm thinking that Dark Pact Slayer is a good one... it's level isn't too high (only costing 4 life) and it is strong enough to stick around to get use from the healing.

Do you like getting it out early? or wait until mid/late game when you can get the full use of healing?

I use Blood Reaper pretty often, though almost exclusively on Dark Pact Slayers.  At current theres only 3 options: Firebrand Imp, Flaming Hellion, and Dark Pact Slayer.  Everything else is either legendary or not a demon.  Its kinda fun to put on a Hellion because his ranged attacks heal you, but Pact Slayer's 2 pierce gets a lot of mileage out of the extra damage.
 Blood Thirsty 2 turns him into a solid 6 damage +2 pierce monster, and if he starts to take damage i use vampiric strike+battle fury to push that to 3 pierce and lay 2 attacks that both heal him back up.  I also like to use Hand's of Bim Shalla for heals and offense.  Toss in a Bear Strength and his high attack and high piercing make him one of the best units you can muster up.  

the 2 life heal from the reaper is nice, especially in decks where I run a Pestilence Idol to melt swarms and low health familiars (Pest Idol also makes sure everyone on the board is damaged, so that you get the boost and can attack any target you choose).  

My current Deck Puts a Reap-Slayer and a Necropian Vampiress out on turns 2 and 3 and goes right to work with with supporting them.  Its gotten the best results out of Warlock for me, but if I was a Beastmaster I could be doing basically the same thing with a pet and a spellbook that is tons cheaper since all the buffs would be trained, and Id have a Familiar to help cast them for me.

To me the Reaper is honestly good at any point in the game for me.  I like him best early so that I can trade my 6 health for high damage and early pressure which hopefully delays the opponents strategy a bit.  And I like him as sort of a coffin nail in a situation where my remaining forces are just starting to turn the tide of a battle to push them over and start healing me as we seal things.

Mage is a creature.  But, some spells do specifically say "Target Non-Mage Creature" such as Eagle Wings and Turn To Stone thus in those cases you can't target the mage.  Everything else is fair game.

thats my bad, for whatever reason I thought you could hop those.

I'm playing around with the idea of casting Death Link on Necropian Vampiress in my Warlock build. She might be able to heal the damage I put on her, I also support her with Bear Strength.

You can also run Shift Enchantment, then pass the Deathlink to a near dead creature from your vampiress to snuff them out for a few extra damage, and curse weave the Deathlink back to your hand when it dies and start over.

Vampiress has quickly become one of my favorite go-to creatures.  HoneyBunny (as Ive nicknamed her) can jump walls and gas clouds, swat fliers and is also a teriffic guard because if shes got a buff from Bear Strength or Bim Shalla, she will likely heal the damage she took from the attack when she counterstrikes. When buffed and Battle Fury'ed Ive had her fully heal herself from near death in one swoop and carve up big chunks of health.  I cant wait for a card to come out to give her Bloodthirsty trait, as Ive always hated that I cant make her my Blood Reaper.

Also on the topic of Shift Enchantment, you can make a suprise rush with one Cheetah Speed shifted accross multiple units by having one run 2 spaces, attack, shift the speed to another guy then have him run in and attack then quick action to pull it to a third creature and have him rush and attack, or double/tripple dip a Bear Strength by shifting the strength accross a few creatures.  Its much cheaper than casting and revealing the enchantment for each creature and the oppnent doest see it as a ton of buffs to prepare for.

As previously mentioned the Charging Unicorn is not only good for a Beastmaster deck but is an outstanding non-legendary candidate for your pet token which makes it crazy hard to kill.

Another combo thats fun is a flying Gorgon Archer, or giving flight to the new lightening throwing reindeer from the organized play promos.

Pestillance Idol/Malacoda and Whirling Spirits work well together.  The spirits are non living so they dont take damage from the Idol, and are incoporeal so they are hard to kill.  And when they attack they have a secondary function of pushing/dazing (fun on guard with counter attacks) to keep zones clear or hockey shove other units against the wall for yet more damage, or to push targets right on top of Malcodas sqaure.

I was tinkering with combining Resurrection and Sacrificial Altar but not sure how I feel about Resurrection. (sacrifice a creature somewhere else on the board to pump the melee/pierce of a creature, then rez him to my position in the frey... kind of an expensive way to quick buff and teleport someone at the same time.)

I dont think itd be worth the cost/hassle personally.

If you dont use wall of stone, the opponent can just take the damage and walk through the thorns or fire to get out of harms way and mostly ignore the trap.  (thorns does solid damage to a mage, but still better than being locked in a bowling alley of doom)
If you DO use wall of stone, its too expensive to extend (somewhere around 16 mana for two wall units) and do much else which gives plenty of opportunity to escape before you can setup hazards or creatures.

Teleport also essentially nullifies the trap, even if tangled/crippled.

If you do set up the trap he can use his own wall accross the open side to block your LOS while he tunnels out the side or gets buffed up and prepared to break through the obsticle course.

Also, Flying creatures and Climbers can just hop the walls and/or around the hazards and cause a lot of trouble for you.

So, while the concept itself can still be done, and would be fun to tinker with,  its pretty costly to lock down with enough counters that you would have to suppliment it with a lot of contingency options and even a full on "phase 2" plan after it runs its course.

Is there any chance that the upcomming expansion happens to include some cards to more easily access the "Toughness" ability?  (enchantment, equipment... I'll take it in whatever form)

Right now only one card can get it that I can think of and its pretty beastmaster specific and not very straightforward.  With Daze/Stun being a secondary feature of so many lightning attack and holy attack spells I get tired of chain Dazes and Stuns pretty quick. (especially since lightning and holy essentially accounts for half the mage archtypes, Warlock fire spamming is worth noting here too, though its a little less of a irritation than daze/stun to me.)  I also read mention that the Warlord is bringing yet a new type of Knockdown/Daze-ish effect with his earth spells in the expansion, so some extra secondary resistance would be pretty handy.

Id like to see anti-equipment cards other than just dissolve/explode, rather Id like to see cards actually made for combating an equip focused deck other than just stripping it down one equip at a time.

I think cards/abilities that would be interesting would be things that dealt X direct damage based on the number of equip items the person is wearing, or an equipment version of Steal Enchantment (snatching an opponents wand or stun hammers would be fun), something to give equipment upkeep costs, or things along that line.

Also, this would be a fun anti equip creature:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_monster