7 Fun Facts About Some of Hearthstone's Cards Rotating to Wild this Year

With the rotation of Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire set on April 12, all the cards belonging to those expansions will leave Standard and join the Wild format.

While all these sets contain several cards that we're either going to miss or we'll be glad to never see again (at least in Standard), there are a few hidden gems that are definitely worth a highlight. Below you'll find some interesting facts about some of those cards printed during the Year of the Phoenix. Enjoy!

In case you're interested in seeing what cards we are going or not going to miss from the Year of the Phoenix sets, make sure to check all these articles we published a while ago.

• The Cards We're Going to Miss Plenty When Ashes of Outland Rotates
• The Cards We're Going to Miss Plenty When Scholomance Academy Rotates
• The Cards We're Going to Miss Plenty When Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Rotates
• The Cards We're NOT Going to Miss When Ashes of Outland Rotates
• The Cards We're NOT Going to Miss When Scholomance Academy Rotates
• The Cards We're NOT Going to Miss When Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Rotates

1) High Five!

Ashes of Outland introduced the Prime mechanic: Legendary units with a Deathrattle that shuffles into your deck a more powerful version of themselves. Most of said minions have really deep lore behind them, and in this article we want to focus the attention on Kargath Bladefist, the leader of the Shattered Hand clan.

A while ago, the World of Warcraft YouTube channel released a very well-done video regarding the history of Kargath, and especially all the references to hands and blades. Enjoy the vision!

2) That's Bait

Although it's been a while since this card saw play in Constructed, Felfin Navigator had quite the peculiar art: we get that there are Murlocs in some parts of Outland, but... riding a vehicle? The Rusted Legion is definitely the missing piece we need to understand why things went that way, but that's not all. If you've watched Mad Max: Fury Road, we are sure you noticed some similarities between Felfin Navigator and the movie's War Boys. All in all, a cute reference to a 6-Oscar winner movie.

From left to right: Felfin Navigator's card art and a chasing scene from Mad Max: Fury Road.

3) A Story in Three Steps

As you might know, Hearthstone's card arts are full of surprises, Easter eggs, tributes and whatnot. In this case, we're talking about something different than usual: in fact, Scholomance Academy contains a 3-card story featuring a Murloc, student in magic school, and a very lively broomstick.

As we all know, Murlocs are famous for being mischief makers on land, but when it comes to air, you either grow a pair of wings or you are toast. That's exactly what happened between Fishy Flyer and Animated Broomstick, as showcased in this wonderful piece of art from the artist Jim Nelson.

Must've been a rigged broomstick!

Long story short, make sure you hold steady to your broom if you don't want to regret it.

4) Stand as One!

Sometimes, overdoing might be your undoing. If you want an example of what we're saying, try asking Goody Two-Shields. Scholomance Academy's 3-drop has a Spellburst effect that grants, literally, a second Divine Shield as soon as you play a spell. This unit saw a lot of play throughout its entire life in Standard and was appreciated for its enjoyable voice lines.

In Formation!, on the other hand, saw no play (just like most of the random Taunt Warrior cards printed here and there) in one year and a half, so why talking about it? If you look closely to its art, you'll notice that Goody Two-Shields is there too, and it's depicted clumsily dropping one its shields while it's forming a defensive formation together with the other Scholomance students.

As Sunfury Protector says, "Shields up!"

5) Never Huffer

Scholomance Academy just keeps on giving. Teacher's Pet has been a centerpiece in all Guardian Animals decks: a beefy Taunt that leaves a secondary body on board after it dies makes this unit a modern Sludge Belcher with chances to highroll fine units like Zixor, Apex Predator, King Mukla or Stoneskin Basilisk.

If you take a closer look at Teacher's Pet's art, you'll surely notice a couple interesting details. It appears that the author Ivan Fomin kept in consideration the in-game collection while drawing this minion's art. In fact, Ivan included a couple units you might summon through Teacher's Pet's Deathrattle.

Ironbeak Owl can be spotted even in the in-game art, but you need to have a close look to spot Emperor Cobra in the bottom right corner. Yes, right now the latter is not part of the Core Set (probably in favor of the strictly better Stoneskin Basilisk), but back when Scholomance Academy went live the Classic set was still a thing, and so was getting Emperor Cobra from Teacher's Pet.

6) Trafalgar Law Likes This Post

Let's now talk about one of Madness at the Darkmoon Faire cards: Renowned Performer. Just like most cards in Hearthstone, Performer perfectly fits in the Darkmoon Faire theme: after all, faires are famous for their trapezists, jugglers, contortionists and such.

Talking about faire performances, one of the most famous is the exhibition where a person is cut in half with a sharp blade. Most of us as children (and, to be fair, even as grown-up adults!) wondered how such trickery was possible: you'd never cut a person in half, but then how do you do it??

The answer is simple: you don't have to separate a person from their legs, if they already belong to another human! Exactly: this trick is made possible by the fact that it's performed by two different people, which is also why Renowned Performer spawns two Assistants after it dies.

7) Get Off My Track!

Envoy Rustwix is definitely up there for being one of the funniest cards of the entire Year of the Gryphon: released in Madness at the Darkmoon Faire's Mini-Set, Darkmoon Races, it represents the pinnacle of the Prime mechanic introduced in Ashes of Outland. Although Rustwix has never been meta defining, players never stopped playing it, which means that Team 5 succeeded in their job.

However, Darkmoon Races is not the place where Envoy Rustwix made its debut in Hearthstone: the one you see below is 2020's Felfire Festival trailer - does it ring a bell?

What do you think of these facts? Did you know any of them? Do you know other facts similar to these ones that we didn't include? Let us know in the comments!