The beginning of the Year of the Phoenix draws near; this year's HoF candidates rotated out recently and just a few days ago we were able to play an exclusive adventure to fully understand the story of Illidan Stormrage, the basic hero of the new Demon Hunter class.
The future is full of excitement, but we still have to wait a couple days for the new expansion so... why not looking at those cards that we've never really considered playing and give them a proper farewell?
In this article we'll list 9 different decks, each one containing at least one card that has seen little to no play throughout the past two years.
Are you ready?
Disclaimer: Yes, these cards actually exist. No, these decks aren't supposed to be the highest tier. If you have the cards and are looking for a bit of fun we suggest you try out the following lists; otherwise, just hold your dust for something better like Maiev Shadowsong or Kayn Sunfury :)
Druid - Spirit of the Raptor and Ravencaller
This deck was originally meant to be a Hand Carpet druid with honorable inclusions like Witchwood Apple and Bewitched Guardian, but the HoF rotation deprived us of the best two cards in that list: Mountain Giant and Leeroy Jenkins. So here's what we came up with instead.
In a Lackey centered meta, there are often 1-health minion on the board, so Spirit of the Raptor will work as both a Magic Carpet bullet and a fringe card-draw engine, fairly important in an aggro deck that wants to push damage as fast as possible. Ravencaller covers a similar role, being one (if not the only) value generator, which can also provide you some cherries: Chameleos and Spirit of the Rhino are two of the most interesting gifts, but don't forget my boi, Eternium Rover and Bloodsail Flybooter.
Such a sweet gem, we hope you'll have fun!
Hunter - Bloodscalp Strategist
I've always loved this card, but I've never been able to make it work, mainly for two problems: terrible stats (at 3/4 it would be much better and not broken by any means) and lack of a strong curve. The only 2 mana Hunter weapon in Standard is Headhunter's Hatchet, released in the same set, but with zero synergy and not a memorable effect.
What brought me to consider Bloodscalp Strategist for this article is the introduction of a permanent weapon, with infinite charges as long as you meet a (pretty simple) condition: that's right, Stormhammer. Here's a really good Highlander build I found on the internet, but since I changed one card (and made the list worse overall) now I can proudly say it's my deck (that's how deckbuilding works, right?)!
Mage - Celestial Emissary and Spellzerker
If you try to build a Standard Elemental Mage, you'll notice that there are a lot of cards that you may want to include because of the tribe synergy, but that you'll eventually leave out because that's how bad they are. Bonfire Elemental, Scorch, Arcanosaur: I'm looking at you. So for this time let's just settle at one with this Chump's list (credit and gameplay), which also runs Spellzerker for some nice extra damage on the burst.
Paladin - Paragon of Light and Ghostly Charger
Yep, both these cards exist (one even got nerfed). I genuinely think that the first one is such a cool minion, but it just happened to exist in times when Paladin was Odd token, Even value, OTK or mech. Unfortunately, none of these builds have a place for Paragon. But hey, let's just look at all the other 69 archetypes Uther has been given in the meantime and let's figure out if there's some sort of synergy.
Here's the list: do you think we succeeded?
Priest - Coffin Crasher
Okay, everyone hates Big Priest, but come on: give Coffin Crasher some love. He's only been playable for a small amount of time in old Mecha'thun Priest. This deck features some really cool cheat mechanics (Alarm-o-Bot above all) that may lead to funny shenanigans and huge backfires. Handle with caution!
Rogue - Raiding Party
Rogue got very few bad cards during the Year of the Raven. One of those was Raiding Party, until Valeera got a decent weapon like Waggle Pick. Remember this list? It has some new cards, but it was pretty much the undisputed tier 1 deck right after Rise of Shadow's release.
I know, Raiding Party was good in Wild with Kingsbane even before RoS came out, but this spell has had just a single month of playtime in Standard and it just got reverted to its former glory. Let's take it as a hint to play some good ol' Aggro Rogue.
Worth noting: Leeroy Jenkins we miss you.
Shaman - Zentimo
Such a cool effect, but so difficult to be properly exploited. In its 16 months of Standard, Zentimo has seen play just for a week, before Galakrond Shaman got nerfed to the ground for the second time. In the end, Rastakhan's Rumble did really have a lot of interesting cards that never really saw play unfortunately. Here's Echo's take on Highlander Dragon Shaman.
Warlock - Spirit of the Bat and Hir'eek, the Bat
Handbuff Warlock. Yeah. Let's see who can get the biggest Hir'eek with all these Galakrond, the Wretched's Imps fooling around on the board. Again, thanks to Echo for the list.
Warrior - Akali, the Rhino and Untamed Beastmaster
Untamed Beastmaster was hands down one of my favorite cards from Rastakhan's Rumble: I've used it in a ton of games, with bad results but a lot of fun. Here's a deck for it to shine. I included a single copy of Sweeping Strikes because with all these Rush minions it will almost certainly help you to gain control of the board or it will trigger a couple more times Akali's sweet Overkill bonus.
Overall, one of the most synergistic decks.
Do you like any of these decks? Do you have any cards or archetypes you would have liked to see showcased?
Comments
Star Aligner obviously, but fortunately Chump is doing a "Star Aligner in Every Class" series to give him a proper farewell.
I actually played Arcanosaur in an elemental mage deck last year; it was an OK card back then. But right now you need something of the caliber of Crazed Netherwing for a clear + body to be playable.
I figured there would be some niche deck that could get value out of Gral, the Shark, but it didn't happen.
Soulwarden is a very strong card in my opinion, but after Doomguard was Hall-of-Famed there wasn't enough of a reason to play Discolock. Even the memers flocked to Plot Twist instead.
No mention of Griftah? How strange...
Since I wanted to showcase 9 decks I preferred to highlight class cards, with some exceptions of course.
Griftah is a neutral and didn't really fit in any deckbuilding idea I came up with for the article.
If you're interested, other honorable mentions that didn't make it are Loose Specimen, Countess Ashmore (I'm so sad), Arcane Dynamo, Arena Fanatic and Snapjaw Shellfighter.
If I had to build a Griftah deck I would probably play some Warlock list with Demonic Project, Drakkari Trickster and such. But since Gul'dan doesn't have a reliable Control tool like Bloodreaver Gul'dan anymore, it is kind of difficult to survive enough to pull off this strategy. But maybe I'm wrong and I didn't look enough into it, who knows.
I'm also trying to play some legendaries I got from packs but I never used before... Such as Glinda Crowskin, I added her in a Zoo deck, I rarely play her, but when you can play cheap giants with echo, it's great! I have also tested Da Undatakah in a Quest Paladin deck, I never played this card before! I didn't have the time to find a use to Krag'wa, the Frog, I don't even bother.
Glinda was nice in Wild with Molten Giant, but the nerf to echo made that combo less explosive.
I had Da Undatakah in my quest paladin deck for a while, but cut him because an additional deathrattle minion is easier to play and often enough of a threat to win. I do still run Countess Ashmore though.
I played Krag'wa in Malygos Shaman; it allowed me to use my cheap spells for removal without breaking up my win condition. He's also nice in Control Shaman, but I don't enjoy playing a deck that has fatigue as its only win condition. Instead I played a version of Muckmorpher Shaman without the shrine, which had fatigue as a secondary win condition, but Krag'wa didn't fit there.
Yes, play me!
Wasnt Zentimo part of Galakrond shaman?
Yes... they did say that. But it was only there between the first and second nerfs of the deck, and that small amount of time was reduced further as it took time for people to return to the deck and think to try him out there.
I used to use Paragon of Light in an old Handbuff Val'anyr list! It was pretty decent before the nerf to Saronite Chain Gang messed with my weapon copy synergy! I mostly played it as a wild deck though so I still had Doppelgangster and Echoing Ooze to get the value from the weapon deathrattle.
A version of that list can be found here if anyone is interested.
That deck might be worth revisiting now that we have Faceless Corruptor.
I was thinking of playing it last night after posting this comment, but then looking over the list I was like, "No. I'm too tired and this needs some revisions!" Maybe I'll look at it again after the new cards come out. Perhaps the addition of some Librams could make it better as well.
Hir'eek deserved a buff much more than Dr. Morrigan. I like the card but there isn't enough support available and some of the cards that are meant for the Handbuff archetype are terrible (Spirit of the Bat mainly). It annoys me deeply that they printed another Handbuff card in the new set when the core of the archetype is leaving permanently. Oh well... At least, this card gave me one of the most fun games i have played since i started playing this game: Hir'eek vs Lucentbark, the battle of the memes! A board of 11/11 Hir'eeks against my opponent's wall of Lucentbarks. I won after killing his wall three times and having a single bat left to hit face. Big shouts to Leeroy Jenkins for landing the finishing blow.
Hir'eek might have had more of a chance if he was a demon instead of a beast: then Void Analyst could be used for additional buffs, plus there are some cards that buff demons once they are on the board. Probably still not good enough, but it would at least have encouraged more experimentation.
Zentimo? I do remember him played quite heavily in Peanut Shaman.
Shaman got very few bad cards in the whole Year of the Raven.
The other options were Beakered Lightning, Totem Cruncher and Krag'wa, the Frog but in the end we opted for Zentimo because it's the only one you can include in a deck without feeling too bad about it.
I mostly remember all cards, even play with some that never see play... Then you showed me Bloodscalp Strategist and I realised I didn´t even remember it existed.
Would love to try Hireek too but never opened him and can´t really justify crafting him in a budget.
Time to give that Strategist some love!
Is this for standard? And if yes, then why is Leeroy in the highlander hunter deck
Reflex. LOL!
Totally a mistake of mine: I'll fix it immediately. Thanks for pointing it out!
Because the article was originally written before the HoF rotation and just now got up.