Hearthstone: Top Five Disappointing Cards from Gadgetzan

A bit of a shorter list, kind of an experiment to see how fast I can do shorter top ten lists and whatnot -- because the ones I tend to do normally take so, so much time so I'm kind of experimenting with shorter lists to see if I can actually make these kinds of articles a bit faster while still keeping the same 'oomph'.

So with the next expansion somewhat leaked over in the internet thanks to some smart people looking at voice actor resumes and whatnot, I want to take a small retrospective look back at the previous expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. Most people have some expectation as to how the cards will be. Some will be good, some will be bad, some in the middle... and for most part, what the fandom guessed tend to hit the mark. Small-Time Buccaneer and Patches the Pirate are grossly underrated compared to how insanely powerful they ended up being, some cards go from 'shit' to 'decent', but let's look at the other side of the spectrum. Let's look at the disappointments, at the cards everyone thought would be awesome, but see relatively little play, even in Arena, where sub-par cards like Hozen Healer or Toxic Sewer Ooze that would be hard-pressed to see a spot in a constructed deck.

These are some particular favourites (is favourites even the right word?) from me. Mind, these aren't the worst cards (otherwise nonsense like Grook-Fu Master would make it in), it's card that I thought would be decent or good, but end up being kind of ass.

#5: Krul, the Unshackled:
I cracked open my Krul naturally, and I tried my darnadest to make this pretty cool effect work. It's like Deathwing Dragonlord, and that card is awesome, if a bit too slow. Krul does its effect as a battlecry, and it's a respectable 7/9 body to boot, so it really should be an awesome card, isn't it? Except it's not. There aren't a lot of good demons out there in Standard or Wild at this moment, with most of the good demons either being cheap and overstatted for their cost but relatively useless at turn nine (Flame Imp, Wrathguard, Succubus, Voidwalker etc) or have lots of stats but you kind of feel bad playing them in your deck (Fearsome Doomguard, Prince Malchezaar, Pit Lord, Dread Infernal sort of). Or, in the case of Lord Jaraxxus, Void Terror and Abyssal Enforcer, you want their battlecries to go off. That leaves only, like, Imp Gang Boss and Doomguard, plus maybe the 6/6's and 6/8's, that you'll be happy that Krul summoned for free. And the fact that you can only have one copy of each demon means that it's a bit of a hurdle to hold on to some of these good mid-game demons just on the off-chance that you draw Krul by turn 9. You're either making your deck weak by putting in lots of bad demons, or you're making sub-par plays by holding on to the good demons, or you're making your future Krul turn bad by playing these good demons. Until Blizzard releases a lot more demons, Krul ends up being a pretty disappointing legendary. The one or two times that you actually get him off is amazing, and he does have synergy with Kazakus's "add 3 demons to your hand" spell, but for what I expected Krul ended up being way too disappointing for my liking. Which is to say... I don't hate Krul (heck, I don't hate any of the cards here) and the rare times when he goes off it is great... but he is a fair bit of a disappointment.

#4: Mana Geode:
I tried making Mana Geode work. I really did. Obviously it didn't belong in Dragon Priest decks, but I thought, well, Reno decks can only have one copy of every card, and, hey, every card counts, right? Turns out that, well, Mana Geode's effect just isn't good enough. Sure, you can buff its health with Power Word: Shield or Kabal Talonpriest, but it needs to survive on the board enough to attack, and your opponent needs to have like a 2/3 or 2/1 for the Mana Geode to hit without dying, and then you need to heal the Mana Geode, all for a second 2/2 body. It's a cool effect, undoubtedly, and the rare times that you get the effect off is pretty awesome... but that's a very rare moment indeed, and most of the time the Mana Geode is just a dud you're better off replacing with the many, many other 2-drops accessible in the neutral tab.


#3: Don Han'Cho:
I thought that the Don would be a simple 'boring, but very practical' version of the Goon buffing cards. It's just a bigger version of the smaller Goon cards that buff things in your hand, just, y'know, big. The thing is, it's just... not enough impact. And the chance of the 5/5 buff not landing where you want is still there. Plus the fact that compared to Kazakus, which can win you the game, or Aya Blackpaw, that brings an unending Golem chain -- its Deathrattle can be copied! It can be returned to the hand! It can be summoned again by N'Zoth! -- Don Han'Cho is very simple with only really a Brann interaction. It's not a particularly bad card, but it honestly just approaches 'decent' level, and I've seen a lot of people who attempt to play buff Paladin and buff Warrior actually cut Don Han'Cho out of their decks because by that late in the game you want a card that does more than buff the cards in your hand. You want your big hitters to drop down onto the field, and Don Han'Cho isn't exactly what you need. Especially if he drops on the board naked without buffs. Oh, that's a bad feeling. The thing is, Han'Cho isn't a bad card at all -- you are happy if you steal him with a Drakonid Operative, or if Prince Malchezaar lucked out and gave you one of him, but the fact that the supposed leader of the Goons ends up not being one of the better Goon cards is kind of sad.

#2: Rat Pack:
I always thought that the Hunters got the worst out of the Grimy Goons bunch even before the whole set was released. Dispatch Kodo was decent, but the Hunter buff cards that we see all focus on buffing Beasts in hand specifically, and a lot of the buffing cards aren't actually beasts (Trogg Beastrager, Don Han'Cho, Shaky Zipgunner, Grimestreet Smuggler), meaning that Hunter loses a lot of their Grimy Goon viability from the get-go, and that's before the fact that the Grimy Goon gimmick turned out to be way too weak and slow compared to the speedy pirates, or Kazakus decks, or dragon priests, or jade decks. But one card that I thought would at least be decent is Rat Pack. It's a Haunted Creeper or Infested Wolf that stacks up based on how many times it is buffed! How can it not be good? Well, it turns out that if your deck wants to make huge minions, if your deck wants to make really big Savannah Highmanes, Dispatch Kodos, Knuckles-es and King Krushes, having your precious Beast-targeting buffs thing isn't actually particularly good. Sure, you get an extra 1/1 when the Rat Pack dies, but that's honestly nowhere as useful as the extra 1/1 buff on, say, a charging King Krush, or a Taunt minion, or a Dispatch Kodo dealing damage... and honestly, while it's not actually a bad card (I would still play it if I play a Goon Hunter deck) Rat Pack is actually a huge disappointment to me.

#1: Small Time Recruits

I'm not quite sure why this card didn't see the light of the day. Like, I actually forgot this card existed until I browsed my collection for Gadgetzan cards. Paladin might not be the most popular deck out there, but everyone is saying about how Small-Time Recruits is going to break Paladin, allowing you to draw three cards in one go, and how it'll synergize with Paladin's large amount of 'buff everything in hand' cards like Grimestreet Enforcer, Grimestreet Outfitter and Smuggler's Run. It's a tutor card, it's like the Curator only better because there are a lot of good one-drops... and it sees almost no play. I'm not sure why, because on paper this is a decently good card. Maybe it just comes in too late in the game? There's the chance that it'll whizz out if you've drawn all the other one-drops? You have to really commit to the one-drop theme with this card in your deck? Whatever the case, the Pirate package more than fulfills the one-drop combo that you need, making this potentially powerful tutor card pretty redundant. And besides, really, what one-drop would be super relevant by turn four? Even if you buff them, wouldn't you rather have some solid mid-game cards in your hand by then?