The end of the Year of the Phoenix is around the corner, and with it, Rise of Shadows, Saviors of Uldum and Descent of Dragons will leave the Standard format to join Wild. Therefore, it is time to look back and see what we're going to leave behind in the next few days.
For this exact purpose, we present you a series of articles in which the staff of Out Of Cards will share with everyone the cards we'll miss and the ones we'll be glad to not face anymore.
This time, we're taking a look at Rise of Shadows and what we're definitely not going to miss the most from that set - enjoy!
Aesan - Conjurer's Calling
There is a sense of relief with Conjurer going away, especially as it's moving back to its dreaded 3 mana cost. Whenever that card was freely usable, the Twinspell mechanic made it feel busted. If you could cheat out a huge minion early or cheaply enough and then high roll on your transforming, that had the ability to seal games right there. And to some extent just like with Evolve Shaman, the lucky or unlucky rolls were what often determined the outcomes.
At least there was one funny element to it: back then when everyone piloted Mage and tried to use it on 2 mana minions as their only way to survive in hopeless situations through a lucky Doomsayer. Of course more than 95% of the time these attempts were bound to fail.
Avalon - Wrenchcalibur
I'm sure I am not the only one who hated Bomb Warrior with passion through all its existence in Standard. While I'm glad they experimented with a totally new concept (there were only a few cards with the same effect before, like Iron Juggernaut, but never with enough synergy to build a deck around them), the archetype was so obnoxious and unfun to play against - face damage and explosive draws at the same time, with no alternative other than racing them down, which isn't very practical when your opponent's deck is filled with removals.
Moreover, it was a hard counter to many different strategies: Highlander decks, Pure Paladin, draw heavy archetypes (either aggro or combo) - all of this while not teching specific cards like Bad Luck Albatross, but following their own gameplay. Just a hard no for me.
BloodMefist - Ray of Frost
I despise the Freeze mechanic in Hearthstone. I think there is a time and place where it can work well, such as in controlled and conditional amounts, but Ray of Frost enabled way more stalling than I enjoy. In the past ~2 years this card has been the source of great grief and frustration whenever I played against Mage. Sorcerer's Apprentice makes it free, Magic Trick finds it easily, and anything that randomly generates it lets the opponent stall the board for cheap. I cannot wait until Ray of Frost, Frost Nova, and Blizzard will all rotate.
Demonxz95 - Mass Resurrection
To be fair, my hatred of Mass Resurrection is not really the card's fault on its own. Instead, it's what the card represents as a whole: resurrection gameplay that isn't particularly fun or interesting to deal with. As soon as a wall of Taunts is risen up, the game is basically just either "clear the board or bust" or "burn through the Taunts or bust". And it's not fun. I don't think this is necessarily the fault of the resurrection mechanic itself, but rather how possible it is to exploit it. This is arguably the root cause of those problems, so I think we'll all be glad to not deal with it anymore (for now).
FrostyFeet - Mana Cyclone
I can't believe no one else mentioned it yet. I'm somewhat against random creation that can't really be played around due to either the variety of potential created cards or the sheer amount of the cards created and Mana Cyclone ticks both boxes. Watching your opponent's hand transforming from low-value small spell spam into a 6-card value mystery was definitely not something that I relished, so at least I can now enjoy Standard without it - the card will still return to haunt me in the already-annoying Quest Mages in Wild though.
OldManSanns - Archivist Elysiana and Zayle, Shadow Cloak
One of the major themes about Hearthstone (and CCGs in general) is that running out of cards is bad. Perhaps you have a last-minute trump play circa Mecha'thun or Chef Nomi, but part of the reason cards like Gnomeferatu exist is to reinforce the significance of avoiding fatigue. Well, Archivist Elysiana threw all that out the window. This could perhaps be forgiven if the cards she generated had some greater purpose like with Togwaggle's Scheme or Baleful Banker, but the cards Elysiana adds to your deck are essentially random crap that makes you play as if you're in Arena. She really only serves one function: preventing a player from losing to fatigue. At the height of her popularity, there were Control Warrior decks that featured nothing but her, a handful of value-generation cards like Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, and 20+ control cards - their primary win condition was to literally drag out the game until their opponent died to fatigue. It never felt good to win because of her and it felt awful to lose because of her: Standard will be better off without her next month.
Unlike other cards in this list, this inclusion has nothing to do with this card's effect on the meta. The major reason I bought The Dalaran Heist adventure was for the free copy of Zayle, Shadow Cloak. I already loved playing Whizbang the Wonderful, and Zayle essentially promised a similar experience with a smaller library of decks and new cards. Sounds strictly better, right? And for a few months, it was -- until Saviors of Uldum came out and Zayle's decklists remained unchanged. Zayle quickly became obsolete as new cards were added to standard but its decklists remained unchanged. There was a single update in Year of the Drago, but that was really just to account for rotation and even at the time, the "new" decks were all fairly underwhelming. And to make matters worse: Zayle is protected against disenchanting, so you can't even try to recoup some of your investment. This is literally a card that no one will miss as it fades to obscurity.
sule - Convincing Infiltrator
GrEeTiNgS, FeLlOw HuMaN...
I was never a fan of this unit - there were too many ways for Priest to abuse its Deathrattle or resurrect it that playing non-Control lists against decks like Res Priest felt very swingy and based on the question "Did you kill them before they could draw the pieces?" It was never an overwhelmingly powerful card, but the times that my opponents got it to work were painful enough for me to breathe a sigh of relief that I won't be seeing this "fellow human" for at least a while.
Comments
Personally I very much enjoyed both Conjurer's and Cyclone when they were on my side. Much less so if it were my opponents absolutely highrolling with them, especially in any competitive format. And that, I suppose, was part of the problem.
Even facing against those two cards, whether mirror or otherwise, they never bothered me, but Wrenchcalibur, with how easy it is for warrior to fish out a weapon, and then keep adding damage and durability, and returning it to existence... that card alone for a while became Auto Concede, when it hit the board. There was no solution for the weapon, or the bombs it put into your deck in addition to that Weapon alone being a direct counter to a few decks, any highlander deck, Pure Pally (which I really enjoyed playing), and I think the bombs didn't count as spells, so also ruined Spell Mage, which got almost 0 support while it was active. 1 card alone could ruin the ability for so many decks to literally work... but it's mage cards that got all the hate. just don't understand it.
It's more like it wouldn't be much of a list if almost everyone picked Wrenchcalibur. ;) Hearthstone didn't really figure out a good way to handle weapon decks. You end with cases where they are too powerful if not removed, or made completely useless by some tech cards.
I will never forget my fellow human... But he won't be missed
I will miss Cyclone :(
It's treason, then.
*Laughs in Frosty*
I never understood the mage hate, cyclone mage is the deck I had the most fun with during these two years. Conjurer's calling and Evocation needed to be nerfed but playing against it didn't feel as bad to me since it requires flexibility of play with generated cards and ensures more varied games than consistent straightforward decks like soul DH, bomb warrior or libram paladin. Maybe that's just me, but the miracle part of hs is my favorite thing in the game.
Libram Paladin is at the top of my list for cards I won't miss come NEXT rotation. It's pretty bonkers to think that in less than a year the lIbrams were released, had key cards buffed after the archetype saw no play, then became one the most played decks for two expansions to the point that some of them were nerfed, and continues to be one of the most played decks.
Zephrys and probably all neutral highlander cards, that make it so every highlander deck of every class plays exactly the same.
Rip, and please never come back!
Wrong expansion my friend.
I disagree with some of the list, but I have to admit I too share a hatred of Bomb Warrior. It feels awful knowing that there isn't anything I can do against it when playing a slow deck other than keeping my hand full.
You know it's not a legitimate list if someone doesn't disagree with it!
Burgle rogue sits quietly in the corner hoping Frosty doesn't look at it.
In fairness, even as a burgle rogue main I tend to agree, just with a caveat. I think the reason burgle decks haven't generated many complaints is that Blizz has done a brilliant job at keeping it strong enough to feel good to playing, but weak enough that it is never really part of the meta. If Blizz can keep value generation at that power level, rather than the excessive strength and quantity seen in the Year of the Dragon, then we'll be in good shape.
I don't mind Burgle Rogue funnily enough. Maybe it's because it's weak enough, as you mentioned.
However, no spoilers but I might be ranting about a Rogue card in a future article...
:O But rogue has never done anything bad for the game. Never ever. No siree. Nothing bad to see here. *Quick, use Vanish before they cotton onto us!*
Seriously though, as much as I love the rogue class, it deserves to be ranted at every now and then. Probably more than most classes, and a lot more than some.
I thought I read somewhere that they confirmed that Zayle (and golden Zayle) would be disenchantable after they rotated on account of people paying for them.
Then again, that's not in line with their new policy so who knows