We're getting so close to the release of Scholomance Academy, excited to try out all the new cards. Things may not be quite as they seem though. Last time, I took you through cards that were hyped to be amazing, strong cards, but ended up not causing much of a stir. This time though, we're going to go in the opposite direction and look at cards that were overlooked and dismissed as not being playable, but ended up being extremely good cards.
Dr. Boom is perhaps the most quintessential example of cards that weren't thought to be great, but ended up being amazing. While people were praising Troggzor the Earthinator, many people didn't even give Dr. Boom the light of day, but in practice, these roles seemed to have reversed. Famously, Trump mentioned in his review that "I don't anticipate seeing much of Dr. Boom in Constructed". During his life-span though, he was possibly the most widely played card in the history of the game, and even garnered the nickname "Dr. Balanced".
Whilst the 7/7 body would often get hit by Big Game Hunter (which was widely being played at the time when it costed 3 mana), lots of his power came from the Boom Bots. If you could put a Boom Bot in your deck, you would do that. Even if they don't look that intimidating at first, they really were. His fame in Hearthstone was so huge that he eventually had an entire expansion themed around him as the main character, The Boomsday Project, and was part of the League of EVIL in Year of the Dragon. Had it not been for Dr. Boom's fame during the earlier days of Hearthstone, those would've never happened. Despite originating from World of Warcraft, he's so iconic to the game that he's essentially become a Hearthstone character.
If you started playing Hearthstone after Whispers of the Old Gods was released, then you never experienced the frustration of playing against Patron Warrior. The deck had some very vocal supporters and opponents, but with the Warsong Commander nerf (no longer giving summoned minions Charge), the deck lost its steam.
Upon reveal of the card however, it was simply dismissed as being nothing but a gimmick. In any other context, that may be true. If only we knew what was ahead of us.
Good ol' Christmas tree! If you were to tell anyone during the reveal season of The Grand Tournament that Mysterious Challenger would be a meta-defining card, they would've called you crazy. Paladin Secrets are pretty bad, right? Individually, yes. But, put them all together, and all of a sudden they become much more annoying to deal with, and that's not even considering the fact that you also just thinned your deck by 5 cards whilst also screwing up your opponent's turn.
Who could forget the original incarnation of Elise Starseeker, the leader of the League of Explorers? They'd later become arguably the most famous Hearthstone-original characters in the history of the game and would make their way into World of Warcraft (except Brann who was already in World of Warcraft).
Elise was initially thought to be one of those "fun, but gimmicky" cards that wouldn't see any serious competitive play. In the end, the card proved to be extremely good in Control decks where you could replace your final cards with Legendary minions at the last minute which would be better than holding onto situational removals when the decks are empty.
Thought of as the worst Quest during the reveal season of Journey to Un'Goro, it was extremely quick to prove how completely wrong everyone was and it actually ended up being the BEST Quest of the set. On day 1, it had already gained the attention of everyone by being surprisingly good. Since then, it is one of the only cards in the game to have been nerfed more than once, and the first ever since the game's full release.
Realistically any of the Princes from Knights of the Frozen Throne would belong here. They were all thought of as being horrible cards, but all of them saw play. Prince Taldaram saw play in Cubelock one set later, and Prince Valanar was played in Rogue decks of which many of them didn't run any 4-Cost cards anyway.
Prince Keleseth though is by far the most significant example of this. Keleseth was thought of as being arguably the worst card in the entire set and one of the worst Legendary minions in the game. In the end, it couldn't have been more opposite if it tried. Long story short, it ended up being one of the best cards of the set once people realized how good it actually was. It seems like when you make The Mistcaller Neutral and cheaper, it becomes a lot better and easier to use no matter what condition you give it.
Dr. Boom may be the original and most famous example of cards people thought were underwhelming but were actually amazing. Keleseth however has by far the largest gap of expectations versus reality out of any card in the entire game.
If Prince Keleseth has the largest gap of expectations versus reality out of every card in the game, then To My Side! is in a very comfortable second place. Thought of as a joke card that's an easy 100 Dust, and people saying "there's no way we get this card wrong". After all, what Hunter deck doesn't run minions? Seems ridiculous, right? You would be right, but No-Minion Hunter proved itself as a possible archetype where this card was played and people realized they were wrong to judge To My Side!]
Spectral Cutlass isn't quite as bad as the other cards in this article, and I don't think anyone would call it broken. That said, it's impossible to deny that the card is so much better than was initially predicted. It seems so slow to grow and Burgle Rogue already had Obsidian Shard, so it can't be that good, right?
Wrong. It turns out that this card was pretty great for Burgle Rogue being a Lifesteal weapon that would grow in Attack with weapon buffs and in Durability with what your deck is naturally supposed to do.
Star Aligner was voted as the fourth worst card in The Boomsday Project (only ahead of Harbinger Celestia, Unpowered Mauler, and Spark Drill). The condition seems absolutely impossible to activate. You would truly need the stars to align in order to even have a remote chance of getting the effect off.
Or at least, that's what we all thought. It turns out that fulfilling the requirement was a lot easier in the right deck than we thought it would be, and that this card is actually not that bad.
Making Mummies was predicted to be the worst Quest in Saviors of Uldum. Since Reborn would be a mechanic exclusive to Uldum (with the exception of the two callback cards from Galakrond's Awakening), there would be no direct future support for it. Contrary to popular prediction though, it turned out to be pretty good.
I could've also put Devoted Maniac on this list, although perhaps it's wrong to given that it's basically run in Galakrond decks because it needs to be even if it isn't actually as bad as it was predicted to be.
While not everyone figured Galakrond, the Wretched would be terrible, it was widely thought of as the worst Galakrond due to the random, unreliable nature of the Battlecry. Random Demons aren't really a great ability as the variance is just way too high. But whilst the Battlecry may have been underwhelming compared to the other iterations of Galakrond, it made up for it with its Zoo potential thanks to the Invoking abilities flooding the board and proved itself a formidable card.
That would be it for these two articles of overhyped and underhyped Hearthstone cards. When you open your Scholomance packs on August 6th, don't be too sure that any cards that were predicted to be good will see play, or that cards that were predicted to be bad won't.
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 12 - Day 2 [Finished]](dark-beyond-reveals-day-2-thumb.webp)
Comments
Oh how I love Making Mummies. It is still abused in wild with the magnetic ability. I would like to hope that with some of the cards coming out this year, that it may see a resurgence in the standard meta.
I never played Patron when it was at it's most busted, but I still play a Patron Warrior deck when I feel like a bit of Wild, and it's a great fun card.
I'm still mad that Making Mummies isn't called "Making Friends"
I only started playing during KoFT, so it's nice to be given a history lesson for expansions before that. I never would've imagined Dr. Boom was underhyped, it's such a well-designed card (power-creeped to oblivion now, though).
I don't really agree with the inclusion of Making Mummies as one of the most underhyped cards, even though it did see some play. It was pretty good for about a week (right after Uldum launched), and then it just disappeared. It was just uninspiring to play, and it looks like it'll never see play again unless the Reborn mechanic is reintroduced in future sets.
I'd say Uldum's underhyped cards were Reno the Relicologist and Dinotamer Brann. They were widely panned during the reveal season mostly because people expected their power level to match their League of Explorer iterations, which blinded them to how powerful/useful their battlecries actually are. Both are still widely played today in Mage and Hunter decks, and will continue to be included in highlander lists.
Another underhyped card that's a personal favorite of mine is Supercollider from Boomsday. People were quick to dismiss it, not knowing it was the perfect control tool for Odd Warriors or any Control Warrior deck in general.
Yeah, i remember how Reno was called bad as soon as he was revealed. Everyone quickly dismissed the card and i was also really skeptical of his potential. When opening my packs i was basically praying that i wouldn't open him. And he was in the first 10 packs. Oh boy, i was pissed. After a bit of time people realized how good the card was and he still sees a ton of play to this day. It took quite some time but i was eventually able to play with him (Highlander Mage is so expensive!). He saved me a lot. What a great card!
Knwo that feeling. He was my golden preorder legendary and I hated it... It is incredible how much used it got...
Twice this week I pulled him in my Highlander Rogue deck and twice he single handedly won the game for me.
Man I still have a bring the boom tshirt from way back then, albeit it doesn't fit anymore
I've counted at least 10 cards from this set that imo have been underhyped. Most overhyped card for me is glide
While I agree Spectral Cutlass was underestimated (largely because there were few burgle rogue players that existed prior to Witchwood that had enough experience to even begin to assess it), I was surprised to not see Genn and Baku representing that expansion. As with Keleseth before them, the cost of the deck-building limitation was assumed to cripple them completely.
Seeing Grim Patron brought back some less than savoury memories. I was still a new player when it was the meta and struggled tirelessly against Warriors.I'd honestly forgotten Mysterious Challenger existed. Seems so weird nowadays that it was ever meta-defining simply because The Grand Tournament as a whole was shockingly underwhelming.
As a side note: I used to play a "Nordic" Mage deck with Kvaldirs, Freeze and Krakens at that time. I crafted two Golden North Sea Kraken because I loved muttering "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!" to myself under my breath. I was so innocent back then.
Mysterious Challenger was brought back into standard as part of the event last fall and saw a good bit of play. If you didn't want to play evolve shaman, that was a good second choice. So, it shouldn't be too far back in your memory unless you happened to miss that month and a half.
Had no idea it was part of the event. I wasn't particularly active on Hearthstone before and after Saviours of Uldum. Even now all I can remember is that N'Zoth came back into Standard.
Interesting that it was brought back though, cool to hear it performed well with newer Paladin secrets.