
Until his release, the card was debated between skepticals and those who saw potential in this card.
Turns out the card's main weakness is how early you can draw and play it: you need to play the upgraded HP at least a few times, in order to get value from the card.
Which is a bummer, comparing it to the other Highlander cards.
So why not buffing the guy?
A) There are many ways, but an easy one to me is just giving the Aldor Attendant treatment and buff Sir Finley of the Sands to a 1/3 for (1). This would give two benefits:
- It could be tutored much more easily: Call to Adventure, Crystology.
- It could curve out much better, with an upgraded HP slapped directly on t2.
- It would still be bound to card draw RNG AND Discover RNG (so you can never deckbuild with soecific HP synergies).
B) Another option would be to turn his effect into a Start of the Game. It would reduce the adaptability of the choice, since you still don't know your opponent besides their class, but I think it would still be a great improvement, and smart players would still be able to predict correctly the best choice, or at least the beneficial jack-of-all-trades choice. This would remove the card draw RNG, leaving the Discover RNG only.
Given the Discover nature of the card (3 random options of 10) I am fairly sure there is hardly any way to make the card suddenly broken (you can never build the deck around specific HP anyway), so any buff would be pretty safe, and it would give Highlander Paladin a chance to shine a bit more, at least as an offmeta deck, and we all know Highlander is always a favored archetype for many, so making it better viable on more classes would be a really smart move.
Further arguments in favor of buffing him here:
Show Spoiler
For Standard:
Even assuming you got a 1/3 on t1 every game (which is impossible, chances are lower than 50% if I remember well), there is no way it can turn as strong as Prince Keleseth was: because no RANDOM upgraded HP can be as overwhelming as upgraded CARDS. So there is always a double RNG filter on Finley: card draw AND Discover (whereas Prince only has one level of RNG).
With a random HP, you can never build the deck around one synergy.
For Wild:
Same as above: have you ever seen Highlander Tempo (Tempo because Sir Finley of the Sands can provide survival, but it can't provide Value to fight toe to toe against a real Control deck) decks toppling the meta? Secret Mage tried and failed, it never became meta, and for a reason: Tempo requires consistency, and Highlander disrupts that, no matter what.
There will always be cards that are more optimal than others, and for Consistency of Tempo you must use both copies of the optimal cards, and ditch the others. Reno decks improve with the release of key Reno cards, while if the generic pool improves, the Doubleton deck is generally better than its Reno counterpart: ie Control Cubelock vs Renolock right now (despite Warlock having insane legendary cards).
Finally, The fact Paladin may benefit more from other cards has nothing to do with buffing Finley. It's a false conflict (and not an argument here).
So what do you think?
Do you see better ways to buff Sir Finley of the Sands as he deserves?