The end of the Year of the Gryphon is at its final moments, and with it, Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy, and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire will leave the Standard format to join Wild. Therefore, it is time to look back and see what we're going to leave behind when the rotation hits.
For this exact purpose, we present you a series of articles in which the staff at 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 Ashes of Outland and what we're going to miss the most from that set - enjoy!
Avalon - Pit Commander
To be completely fair, Ashes of Outland was probably my least favorite expansion of the last two years: it's not that I disliked the introduction of a new class (although Day 1 Demon Hunter was pretty broken), but rather this set hosted so many cards that ended up being nerfed or generated really strong feelings against them. For this reason, I really struggled to pick a card I'll genuinely miss.
If I were forced to choose one card that will make me say "awww, I wish it were still in Standard" that card is 99% going to be Pit Commander: Big Demon Hunter was never a thing for a long long time, and right when it received some powerful support, the most prominent Demon rotates - just dreadful.
I'm still looking forward to seeing what designs for big Demons team 5 will come up with, but I know too well that they'll never be able to compare to the degeneracy created by Sigil of Reckoning into Pit Commander into Faceless Manipulator.
Honourable mention goes to Sethekk Veilweaver: I played the crap out of that card, before and after Nazmani Bloodweaver got printed. However, differently from Pit Commander, I think it's time for Veilweaver to go.
BloodMefist - Soul Mirror
I like playing Control Priest and Soul Mirror was a fantastic board clear for such decks. Being a Legendary card stopped it from feeling too pervasive (even when multiple copies were Discovered) and it has cool counterplay options that other board clears don't have: as long as your minions have more Health than Attack, it can never be a single-card board clear. Unless Priest gets more AoE options, they might have a hard time since the remaining hard-clears such as Against All Odds and Shadow Word: Ruin aren't fantastic.
Demonxz95 - Bulwark of Azzinoth
Bulwark of Azzinoth is a bit of a weird one for me. The reason I'm going to miss the card has nothing to do with actually playing the card as I never put the card in a deck myself, but the reason I will miss the card is because it's a pretty noteworthy loss from The Juggernaut. Yes, I am a Pirate Warrior player. I'm sorry, I know I'm a horrible, horrible person for saying this, but it is the case.
There have been more than a few moments over the course of me playing Pirate Warrior where I was in an undesirable situation only to pull Bulwark of Azzinoth from The Juggernaut, survive thanks to it and turn the game around. I'm unsure if Pirate Warrior will still be around in Standard after rotation, and I hope it will be (sorry, not sorry), but I will miss being able to have this card save me ass in a critical moment.
And a special honorable mention to Frozen Shadoweaver for predicting that it would be the sleeper card of the set, and I turned out to be correct!
Echo - Librams
Starting off with a rather controversial one, the entire Libram package is one that I will miss sorely come rotation. While the deck has certainly been overtuned over its tenure in Standard, their existence has led to a Midrange Paladin always existing in some form, a playstyle I've always found enjoyable. While the core of the deck is obviously focused on Librams, the other components would evolve depending on what is currently strong in the meta, such as the builds focused on Pen Flinger during Scholomance Academy or the more recent version with package that properly utilizes Varian, King of Stormwind from United in Stormwind.
GoliathTheDwarf - Astromancer Solarian
I'll admit it, I'm not even that big of a Mage player (It's a mood class for me) but I've loved Astromancer Solarian for the entire time it's been out. I love the concept and playstyle of chaos Mage as an exercise in using skill to make the most of what you're randomly given (a good life lesson in my book). Solarian took that playstyle and refined it just enough to increase the fun factor without worries of accidental self-sabotage. I enjoyed the Prime mechanic in general and will be sad to see pretty much all of them go whether I played them frequently or not, but Solarian holds a special place for me as the late-game spin of the wheel I could always count on to give me something beneficial, with the excitement of not knowing what it would be. Stacking her with extra spell damage cards was even more satisfying, but at least I'll always have it in Wild.
Linkblade91 - Scrap Golem
Librams are my favorite part of Ashes of Outland, but alas I must make do. Scrap Golem encompasses a lot of things that I love: Taunt minions, Mechs, and Armor generation. It doesn't stand out to me in a splashy way, though; it's just simply a good card overall. Over the past Hearthstone year, I've used it mostly in my Menagerie Warrior decks, either with N'Zoth, God of the Deep or in a goofy Questline deck with Pirates, Ringmaster's Baton and Ringmaster Whatley. Worked a bit in a Captain Galvangar deck too.
I won't miss it too badly, though, considering I still use it in Wild :) Maybe it will come back in the Core set someday, hopefully with some more Taunt support.
Sule - Mok'nathal Lion
Mok'Nathal Lion is probably one of my favorite cards that saw almost no play. I love Deathrattle Hunter, and one of the great tragedies of this standard rotation, in my opinion, is that Mok'Nathal Lion never got any other friends to play with.
What I love most about this unit, however, is how hard it's trying to make Deathrattle Hunter a thing when almost every other card in Standard for Hunter was focused on something else. Sure, at the end of the day it's just a more expensive Terrorscale Stalker or Play Dead, but that's what makes me love it even more: because it's not the perfect Deathrattle payoff, it's not even that powerful. And dang it, I just appreciate the heck out of something that keeps trying no matter how much the odds are stacked against it!
Do you agree with our choices? Which cards from Ashes of Outland are you going to miss the most after rotation? Let us know in the comments!
Comments
Top 3 for AoO
Augmented Porcupine: I really wanted control hunter to be a thing, and the idea of buffing this beast up and having it clear the board once dead was just the perfect board clear design that never worked out.
Zixor, Apex Predator: Same as Porcupine, such an awesome control/value card, and I loved buffing Zixor Prime with Dire Frenzy.
Skeletal Dragon: Such a boring name for this card but guess this was the expansion right after DoD. Just biased as it generates dragons and pushed a dragon/control/value archetype
Apart from the lion, I'm sick to death of every one of these cards. GOOD RIDDANCE!
I'll miss broomstick in rotation, made all my weirdo decks actually playable by giving them some board control.
The Rush keyword has been low-key bad for the game as a whole, as it makes it much harder to stick minions with interesting continuous effects. Good riddance to that one too!
I'm still sad that Maiev didn't saw a lot more play. If only they can buff it to prison enemy minion to 3 or 4 turns, then maybe it will see more play.
"Cards that I will miss but my enemies won't."
I am your enemy.
Cards I will miss from AoO
- Shadowjeweler Hanar - Who doesn't like a secret jamming engine. Too bad the meta has often moved past needing board to win
- Hand of Gul'dan - Probably one of the best discard support out there and single handedly made zoolock a thing...in the past anyway
- Warmaul Challenger - One of my favs from this set
- Librams - If you want to know why this has stuck through 2 years? Its because paladin is probably the most fair class of them all. This is the only powerful thing paladin gets to do and I will sorely miss it. When Pen Flinger got nerfed, it was because of rogue, not paladin, who desperately need it then and still do now.
Cards I will definitely NOT miss from AoO
- Overgrowth - Its has NOT been fun, both for druids who instant lose without it, and for those facing druids who instantly lose because of it. Like seriously team5, stop designing druids that win/lose games on its own.
- Glowfly Swarm - See above
- Fungal Fortunes - To think that this was once 2 mana. Like seriously.
- Incanter's Flow - Nerfed twice, and still currently one of my personal most hated card in hearthstone history.
- Astromancer Solarian - In its heyday, this one card would just steal wins from everyone. Its scary to see this no longer being viable and yet here we are.
ah ha HEM
The cards we'll miss
They gave us bliss
To wild, they will rotate
This rotation I hate
Youre welcome.
Honestly, Ashes of Outland was my least favorite standard set because I disliked Librams and T5 kept on pushing them so I felt pretty alienated from Paladin. I think I am personally going to miss Scrapyard Colossus because it was an enabler of so many different decks.
Real players play wild.
Real players play wild.
I'll really miss Bulwark. Getting an extra turn to stall and build armor could be such an important swing. It's like a more balanced and interesting version of Ice Block. Control Warrior is going to have a hard time against combo decks without it. It's already a bad matchup, but now they have no tools to help them survive.
Also, I'll miss the Imprisoned minions. None of them saw continued play aside from Imprisoned Felmaw, but they were a fun design.
None of these cards gonna be missed for me, except Primes maybe. Librams were awful repetitive grindy bs and Soul Mirror is just an Jail Free card from Monopoly. Pretty sick of those from 2 years and happy they are leaving.
I have a serious rogue bias here, but it's definitely Shadowjeweler Hanar for me (post nerf. 5 health was definitely too much). The trap room was one of the most notorious bosses in Dungeon Run, and it was so fun to play the other side to it. It's one of very few cards that can pretty much single-handedly win entire games by itself, but its also presents no immediate threat so the opponent has tons of time to try to find a hole through the wall of secrets.
Beyond secret rogue, I have to admit I never liked AoO very much. I found it quite uninspired mechanically, with Libram pally being one of the few things to interest me at the start, but I've been bored sick of that for over a year now. I also felt the whole Rusted Legion theme somehow got lost beneath the shadow of DH, despite DH only having a minority of cards.
I really hope that Pit commander will be part of the next core set. It is simple enough for it and yet it is one of, if not the best, enabler for big Deamonhunters. I just can't imagine the deck working without him.
Problem there is that he is the absolute Highroll card off of Sigil of Reckoning and he ends games whenever that happens on curve with basically no real counterplay. If we're indeed looking at a much slower and less high-rolling meta after the rotation then allowing this sort of game-ending highroll to still exist would be a huge mistake.
I'm all for Big Demon DH and there's certainly more to do with it given the remaining support, but I don't think just vomiting out a ball of stats and banking on the fact that your opponent just doesn't have the possibility to actually deal with it is toxic design and I don't support that.
If anything Big Demon DH should be more about constantly pushing out threat after threat instead of dumping them all at once.
Priest of Fury for Core Set (and unnerfed) 2022
If they do add her and unnerf her, it better be a full unnerf. By the looks of it, Proving Grounds was meant to be used in BDH. But Fury cannot be used currently(6/5) or partially unnerfed(6/6) unless she's fully reverted. While this is more for Standard, I just hope she's fully unnerfed for Wild's sake. DHs in Wild need help. So I don't think they can't just exactly rework her.
I'm pretty sure most cards that were nerfed in Standard will be unnerfed with the rotation. Not necessarily all of them, but certainly the DH ones given that the class doesn't even exist in Wild currently.
Priestess was only ever nerfed because she was a really good card in a blatantly overpowered class. Turns out a scuffed Ragnaros is really fucking strong if you're always going to be in a winning position by the time you play her.
I weep for the supreme waifu Priestess of Fury. Victim of the early DH domination and never unnerfed afterwards for one last rumble in Big Demon DH.
Part of me still hopes they just put her into the Core set as a replacement for Inquisitor.