[Nukatha]

Haven't tried the demo yet, but I'm looking down Nick's Cave Goblins previews.
I'll do a direct comparison to the prior version:
Old: Sneeks: 7 life, 3 atk, swap spaces with any Cave Goblin
New: Sneeks: 11 life, 3 atk, melee, swap spaces with 0-cost units.
7+ life on a summoner was a lot in V1, 11 seems absurd at first glance. I understand changing the Sly wording from CG to 0-cost with the new deck-building rules, but cards still state their faction on them.

Old Eater: 4 cost, 3 atk, 6 life, destroyed ANY common unit adjacent to it at the end of turn.
New Eater: 6 cost, 5 Atk, 9 life, Only eats your own units, and only if it didn't destroy a unit already.
See also the Soul Eater, 6 cost, 3 atk, 8 life. Always eats any common unit, but eats from the prison pile if there is no food, making it easier to keep on the table.
New eater is an interesting compromise, The extra attack was necessary for it to not be too gimped by solely negative ability.

Old: Smeege, 0 cost, 1 atk, 5 life, Ranged Magic Junkie
New: Smeg 0 cost, 2 atk, 4 life, Magic Junkie, but can attack every turn
Not bad. I rarely played Smeege, just because a 1-atk champ rarely seemed worth it.

Old: Blarf, 1 cost, 0 atk, 5 life. Magic can be spent to buff Blarf at any time (max 4 Atk)
New: Blarf 0 cost, 0 atk, 6 life. A Melee magic junkie who builds strength by one each turn (max 5 atk). Even at full boost, Blarf costs 1 magic or a damage point each turn.

Not a bad re-balance. Being usable with 0-cost events and +1 life seems like a good trade-off for not being at full power turn 1.

Old Climber: 1 cost, 1 atk, range, 1 life. Unit can move through walls, and has better defense next to walls
New Climber: 0 cost, 3 life, 1 atk, melee, moves 3 through structures.

Old Beast Rider: 1 cost, 1 life, 1 atk, can move like a Rook.
Beast Rider: 2 cost, 3 life, 3 atk, can move up to 4 spaces in a straight line, and if it moved at least three, gets +1 atk.

Solid change at first glance. Though conditional 4 attack makes them better nukes than Xaserbane, which is very terrifying.

Clinger: Original 0 cost, 1 atk, 1 life
New 0 cost, 2 at, 2 life. Otherwise identical. Re-balanced, but that's it.

Old: Slinger: 0 cost, 1 atk, 1 life, ranged, Reckless
New: 0 cost, 2 atk, 1 life, no drawback, can attack every turn. Basically a ranged old fighter instead of the old slinger.

I'm seeing a general trend that everything seems to have bigger numbers.

These are very different now. The old Climber couldn't benefit from the 0-cost-common CG events, the new one can. Completely different units.
Events:
Goblin Rush moved 3 0-cost units up to 2 spaces. Sneak ( 0 cost) is any number of 0-cost units one space. Fair enough alteration, but the old card looks like it is generally superior.

Pile on (0 cost): Interestingly, this now affects all units, not just CG units like the original Goblin Horde Attack, and can be built into other decks. I'm concerned about balance.


Unrelenting: 1 magic cost. This guy is new. For one opponent's turn, you get your units back to your hand. That's tricky. Because of the 'instead of destorying' wording, I think this also deprives your foe of magic on kill for that turn. I'm impressed with the design of this card. It feels fundamentally similar to the old 'summoning surge' catch-up event, in that you'll be able to recover from a board wipe (especially with the 0-cost units the CGs are built on), but your opponent knows the consequences before they happen. Very clever. Seems to replace Goblin Invincibility in a very thematic way (yep, they 'died', but they come right back!).



Enrage the Horde: 1 magic cost. Fundamentally similar to the old Goblin Rage. The exception is that while Goblin Rage capped at 3 bonus attacks, this affects All 0-cost units. As with V1, this is a huge event when combined with horde attack/Pile On.


So, that's one common each taken from Sneeks, Frick, and Reinforcements, and two Champs from Sneeks with one from Frick.
The events seem to be basically from Sneeks.
I'm concerned about Deckbuilding and the steps taken away from abilities/events affecting units belonging to a specific faction, but am cautiously optimistic to see how it is implemented.