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 Saviors of Uldum and what we're going to miss the most from that set - enjoy!
Aesan - Hunter's Pack
A sad reminder of my long-standing dream for a proper Control Hunter. Such great value on paper! Precious card generation for a class with a very limited amount of draw. And yet... it proved rather hard to find a fitting place for it. Without great comeback tools or ways to stall and heal, paying 3 mana to take a chance on random cards (with their own cost to boot) suddenly didn't look like such a great idea.
It's lovely to have all these options in hand, yet health pools in Hearthstone tend to become depleted scaringly fast once an opponent sticks a minion or two on board and has any burn to throw at you. Even Highlander Hunter was ultimately forced to go for a low aggressive curve to be able to keep up with the meta.
It did help me a few times in Arena at least, but ironically even there it could feel too slow. Let's hope it doesn't take another Deathstalker Rexxar for the class to explore some different avenues.
Avalon - Frightened Flunky
Quite the odd pick for me, as Warrior is my least played class and I've never touched Taunt Warrior, not even when it was among the best decks in August 2019.
However, I've been in love with this card's flavor since the first time I saw it. It may be because it reminds me of one of the best cartoons of my generation, maybe because Matt Dixon is my favorite artist for Hearthstone, or maybe because it's such a funny concept.
Frightened Flunky saw very little to no play throughout its existence in Standard, but I'm still glad that I was able to sometimes get it off Faceless Lackey and maybe include it in some of my whacky theorycrafts. We'll miss you bud.
BloodMefist - Bone Wraith
A very unassuming card, but this unit helped me through some tough times. Bone Wraith was a typically good anti-aggro tech that could be slotted into almost any deck list: very affordable at 4 mana and a statline that can be very difficult/annoying for aggressive decks to trade into. It guarantees to eat up to 2 attacks or some other removal and helps slower decks to stabilize. He has been a fantastic cheap option for slow meme decks and I am thankful for its inclusion into Hearthstone. Also, unlike his big brother, Khartut Defender, he doesn't have the problematic reputation of being obnoxiously resurrected a billion times. Yes, Big Priest, we're looking at you.
Demonxz95 - Khartut Defender
There are few cards in the game that a person can love and despise in precisely equal quantities as Khartut Defender. I definitely have a bit of a complex love-hate relationship with this minion. To put it simply, I love this card when I'm playing it and then hate it when other people play it. More specifically, I hate it when it's resurrected, but it's not nearly as frustrating at this purpose as Convincing Infiltrator is. I do love this card for when I use it, so I will miss it for that reason. But I will also be a bit glad that it's going so people won't abuse it anymore.
Echo - Supreme Archaeology
While it took a bit to get the respect it deserved (mainly through the printing of cards like Dark Skies), Supreme Archaeology went from being a quest I was indifferent about opening to being about 40% of all my Warlock games in my 6 years of playing this game. Whether it was with Malygos Warlock or with the more recent Envoy Rustwix Warlock, this card has been a sleeper hit for the class for a long time. There is also something so satisfying about tapping into a 7+ cost card that makes me love playing Supreme Archaeology. With the rotation of the card's right-hand man Plot Twist, Supreme Archaeology definitely wouldn't see play anymore, so I'm glad it at least got to leave Standard as a fringe playable quest.
FrostyFeet - Plague of Death
Saviors of Uldum had a lot of great removal options that I'll surely miss: Flame Ward, Penance, Restless Mummy, and of course Zephrys the Great to name some. My award for best board clear of the set and therefore the one I'll miss the most goes to Plague of Death. Although rather high-costed, it was the Control-player's dream - just delete everything and start again.
Sule - Corrupt the Waters
The new Shaman Quest was another card I enjoyed building decks around, most often in combination with minions like Vulpera Scoundrel and Barista Lynchen for the ultimate value. I love playing decks where no two games are ever truly alike, and you get to make use of cards that you might never have actually chosen to include in the first place. Corrupt the Waters paved the way for unending value generation, and every game was a blast.
Fluxflashor - Priest
Back in the day, and I mean way back to Hearthstone's beta, I loved me some Priest! Going full Northshire was amazingly fun and if you drew just right your opponent was in for a toss down the well. I didn't last long on Priest though because even though it was fun and filled when shenanigans, Mage (Freeze) and Hunter (SMOrc) were my true calling, which is great because they've been mains in World of Warcraft forever.
But Flux, we aren't talking about Classic. Are you still sleep-deprived from card reveal season? Maybe, but trust me, the story matters!
When Saviors of Uldum dropped, the resurrect package intrigued me even more than it did during Rise of Shadows and it made me hop on board the Priest train at full speed.
- Psychopomp was able to reliably bring back something good due to only playing good minions.
- Wretched Reclaimer although not always used in my deck, had a really fun effect to fill up the dead minion pool.
- Sandhoof Waterbearer made me cackle when they were behind a couple of taunt minions.
- Embalming Ritual was a nasty card for the cost. "Now I have to deal with this thing again?"
My love for the class returned in a new way and I felt so E.V.I.L. playing it.
Priest is going to be a very different class thanks to the rotation and it's definitely for the best, but damn will I miss this in Standard. Though, at the same time, I'll be happy to never face this package of nonsense again when I'm rushing to complete quests before a weekly reset and I run into it 5 times in a row, losing every single game.
And yeah, I didn't pick just one card, sue me!
Do you agree with our choices? Which cards from Saviors of Uldum are you going to miss the most after rotation? Let us know in the comments!
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Comments
The druid's quest introduced a really fun deck and even if it's no longer in the meta, I will miss it.
Personally, I'll miss Zephrys the Great the most from this expansion. I've always liked the highlander archetypes, and I'd say Zephrys probably was the most interesting payoff those decks ever had .(Sorry, Kazakus, but you're getting your revenge in the new expansion....)
One thing I disliked about this set was that, unlike RoS, all classes had access to Zephrys and Alexstrasza. During RoS, only the EVIL classes got Galakronds and the other classes got nothing. In SoU, as it turns out, the classes that could utilise Zephrys and Alex the best were... Galakrond classes.
I realise there wasn't really any way to have the same card printed for only 4 classes, but it always felt strange that the EVIL classes had access to cards that were not intended for them.
Highlander Hunter would like a word.
Khartut Defender dear God no
I realize it was a very weird choice, though I don't really have much of a connection with most of the SoU cards since I didn't play a whole lot during this time. Khartut Defender is a card that I have a love/hate relationship with and I feel that a lot of people do as well, so I picked it.
My second choice would probably have been Bazaar Burglary.
cannot wait for these res cards to go but to each their own
I'll miss Sir Finley of the Sands and his little murloc face
I agree with all the priest cards, priest had a really good set in SoU.
Six of the nine quests saw considerable play. All the Highlander support cards spawned decks. So many good tools for so many different archetypes. This set was bonkers.
Personal favorites: Siamat, Restless Mummy, Ancient Mysteries, Dinotamer Brann.
Flux is a res priest player? 😱 Everyone, get him!
Res Priest, Face Hunter, Freeze Mage have to be my top 3 of all time =
I'm with you on Embalming Ritual. Back when Uldum first came out Boomsday was still around and I had a golden Zerek, Master Cloner. It amused me seeing how long I could keep him reviving. Might have to do that again in wild.
I'm going to miss Plague of Madness. This card didn't see too much play other than being a one of in aggressive rogue lists during some metas. The card was basically a cheaper Sap in terms of removal as it gave you a poisonous weapon with two swings. The only downside being that your opponent got this weapon as well, but this wasn't as much of a problem if they were running big minions, and you were not. I'm going to miss this card, and I'll see if it would make the cut for a highlander rogue list in wild.
I also like this card a lot, and I thought I might be the only one who plays it (now I know there's at least one more). As you said, if your minions are small enough, or their value is in battlecry or deathrattle, there's not much downside to being able to remove almost whatever you want. I often packed an Acidic Swamp Ooze as well, just in case. Bon voyage, Madness!
I feel like you guys are inconsistent with what you dislike and like
edit: No, I do not care to elaborate. I am too lazy.
Care to elaborate?
Edit: then what OmarComing said.