Hearthstone: A Look Back - Whispers of the Old Gods

As we head into the Year of the Raven, I think it's neat to look back at the Year of the Kraken, the very first standard rotation year, and just see how much the cards ended up making an impact or not. I'll try to keep my reviews this time around short, to around one or two sentences, because it's less of an extrapolation and more of an evaluation.

I think moving forward this is how I'll to "retrospective" looks, and not just review them at the end of the expansion the way I did for Kobolds & Catacombs, because looking back at Old Gods... there are a lot of cards that became better and worse across their two-year lifespan in Standard meta.

Keep in mind that I'm going to rate these cards based on how much they affected the meta as a whole, so a card like Flamewreathed Faceless or the C'Thun package, which don't see any play now but saw a fair amount of play during the Year of the Kraken, will still have relatively high ratings, as are cards that aren't good back then but ended up being brought to the spotlight recently thanks to new tools, like Y'Shaarj.

Druid:

• Fandral Staghelm: 5/5. Amazing card. Saw lots of play in multiple archetypes, particularly during the heydays of Jade Druid but also across other druid decks too, because combining two Choose One effects and not being a crappy body really makes Fandral stand out. Even outside of Jade Druid, some decks both in Standard and Wild still tech Fandral in for the value with Nourish and/or Malfurion the Pestilent.
• Wisps of the Old Gods: 1/5. Never played, too impractical. 
• Forbidden Ancient: 1/5. Never saw play, even if you get it off it's a crappy silenceable vanilla minion. 
• Addled Grizzly: 1/5. I think saw a brief experimentation when people tried to make token and beast druid (haha beast druid) work, but never really saw proper play. 
• Klaxxi Amber-Weaver: 1/5. I'm rating the C'Thun package a 3/5, because they were immensely popular and stable during the Old Gods and Karazhan era, but ended up falling out of favour. Klaxxi, however, ends up being cut out of even Druid C'Thun decks eventually. 
• Mire Keeper: 5/5. Probably my vote for the best card that druid received this expansion, being a very stable ramp tool that also gives you a body on the board, but also has the flexibility to build up the board on later turns. Perhaps one of the most balanced yet played-everywhere card for druids. 
• Dark Arakkoa: 3/5. I think Dark Arakkoa and Druid's ability to ramp is what makes C'thun Druid even work where every other C'Thun archetype faded away. 
• Mark of Y'Shaarj: 4/5. Saw a some amount of play during the 'beast druid' era, but ended up finding its niche during Un'Goro and Frozen Throne as one of the biggest buffs for an aggro druid list that ran a lot of beasts. After Innervate and Patches got nerfed, though, aggro druid's sort of petered out. 
• Feral Rage: 1/5. A flexible card that unfortunately just isn't good enough to slot in most of the time. It's still seen some play, so it's not quite as bad as the other 1/5 cards on this list. 

Hunter:

• Princess Huhuran: 1/5. Deathrattle hunter never worked, and Huhuran just doesn't do enough either away. Absolutely outclassed by better cards printed later like Terrorscale Stalker and Play Dead. 
• Call of the Wild: 5/5 [pre-nerf], 1/5 [post-nerf]. Blizzard rarely nerfs cards, so any card that gets nerfed in its lifetime is 5/5 by default. Call of the Wild is that end-game clinching card that Hunter needed, but ended up being way too powerful that it got nerfed. After that it never really saw play.
• Giant Sand Worm: 1/5. Neat concept, but too expensive. For what it's worth, I tried using him in a Kathrena Winterwisp deck recently... but it's so bad when you draw it. 
• Forlorn Stalker: 1/5. A conditional version of hand-buff, when none of the hand-buff cards actually saw play. Poor Forlorn Stalker. 
• Infest: 1/5. Too expensive and too slow. 
• Infested Wolf: 3/5. A very great mid-range tool that saw a fair amount of play, but ended up falling out of favour as more cards get introduced to the standard year.
• Fiery Bat: 3/5. A staple Hunter 1-mana drop for a fairly long time, eventually sharing it with Alley Cat in Gadgetzan. Definitely a very well-designed card. 
• On the Hunt: 1/5. Not a good enough effect, honestly. 
• Carrion Grub: 1/5. Neat in arena and Deathstalker Rexxar, to be fair. But as a card you put into your 30-card deck? Vanilla cards will never suffice.  

Mage:

• Anomalus: 1/5. Never actually saw play. Too uncontrollable and can easily backfire or whiff for such a huge mana investment. Not even Frost Lich Jaina decks run Anomalus -- Baron Geddon is almost always better.
• Forbidden Flame: 1/5. Every single damage-dealing Mage spell is better. That said, Forbidden Flame isn't the worst thing to get out of random spell generators. 
• Cabalist's Tome: 5/5. Easily one of the more powerful Mage tools. While it doesn't see as much play as it did in the past, Cabalist's Tome draws you three cards for 5 mana. It's a neat card advantage tool, but saw even more use with Yogg-Saron and later on Quest Mage. 
• Cult Sorcerer: 2/5. Neat stats, but ended up being played in decks solely for the spell damage effect as opposed to C'Thun stuff, since 30 cards isn't enough to fit in all the good mage spells and sub-par C'Thun minions. Eventually got axed when Mage finally settles in with a secret package thanks to Karazhan and Un'Goro. 
• Demented Frostcaler: 1/5. Stats and effect's too weak. 
• Servant of Yogg-Saron: 1/5. Too random and useless in constructed. Actually decent in arena, though. 
• Faceless Summoner: 1/5. Saw a brief amount of usage in the Old Gods era because value, but ended up not synergizing with the mage package at all. Great in arena. 
• Twilight Flamecaller: 1/5. Mage has way too much spell synergy and good spells to not really bother with "Arcane Explosion bundled into a minion", although, once more, Twilight Flamecaller's actually great in arena. 
• Shatter: 1/5. Funny, but too impractical.  

Paladin:

• Ragnaros, Lightlord: 2/5. Really like this card, but as the Years of the Kraken and Mamoth rolled along Paladin grew more and more Midrange and Aggro that you can't really afford the slot to put in Ragnaros Lightlord, and even if you can afford a late-game legendary you end up defaulting to Tirion, and later on, Tarim. Still one of the big value legendaries, though, it just doesn't fit the meta. 
• Forbiden Healing: 2/5. Neat effect and a good card, but like Ragnaros Lightlord, doesn't really fit the meta. 
• Vilefin Inquisitor: 5/5. Never actually saw play during the Old Gods era, but as Murloc Paladin (and aggro paladin in general) gained more tools, Vilefin Inquisitor became one of the most powerful cards in that deck due to its powerful battlecry and its very decent 1-mana 1/3 stats.
• Rallying Blade: 5/5. Also never saw play during Old Gods beyond some funky Divine Shield deck, but it turns out that especially during Frozen Throne (which added Righteous Protector) Rallying Blade's 3-mana 3/2 weapon status with a potential upside is good enough to run especially in aggro decks. Move aside, Fiery War Axe! 
• Selfless Hero: 2/5. Saw a fair amount of use early on in aggro paladin, but ended up cut for murloc and later Silver Hand Recruit synergies. 
• Steward of Darkshire: 4/5. Surprisingly, she turned out from being a "cool effect, shit deck" card into one of the more powerful tools available to aggro paladin, doesn't she? She's positively a nightmare to deal with alongside her buddies in the dude paladin that sprang up in Kobolds & Catacombs. 
• Divine Strength: 1/5. I genuinely forgot this card exists. 
• A Light in the Darkness: 1/5. Too slow and unreliable.
• Stand Against Darkness: 2/5. While initially laughable, Kobolds and Un'Goro both added significant synergy cards which propelled the archetype into being one of the more powerful decks in the meta. Sadly, though, eventually cut out of Paladin decks even in Wild with the advent of Baku/Genn paladin decks, with far more efficient ways to swarm the board. 

Priest:

• Herald Volazj: 1/5. Haha Volazj. To get how bad Volazj ended up being, they printed a cheaper, more mana-efficient version of him in Mirage Caller, and that still saw no play. 
• Forbidden Shaping: 3/5. Particularly good in arena, pretty decent in constructed as a card you just sometimes jam in to trigger Lyra or to fill out a highlander deck. 
• Embrace the Shadow: 1/5. Auchenai Soulpriest's just so much better.
• Shifting Shade: 4/5. While it's not around a lot now, it is one of the most powerful cards, synergizing amazingly well with N'Zoth and Priest's game plan of simply overwhelming the enemy with value. 
• Twilight Darkmender: 1/5. Turns out C'Thun priest just didn't really work out, and Darkmender's a bit too awkward as far as the cost and effect goes. 
• Shadow Word: Horror: 5/5. Everyone laughed at this card during Old Gods. Afterwards, in Gadgetzan, Shadow Word: Horror formed one half of a particularly devastating combo with Pint-Sized Potion. Even after then, Shadow Word: Horror ended up being one of the premier board removals against huge token decks, coming out early enough to wipe out the little swarms of pirates and murlocs and mechs before they become threatening. 
• Power Word: Tentacles: 1/5. Too expensive, never saw play. 
• Darkshire Alchemist: 3/5. Very flexible card, but ended up being completely overshadowed by the cheaper and more powerful Greater Healing Potion. 
• Hooded Cultist: 1/5. C'Thun Priest never took off after the initial experimentation phase.

Rogue: 

• Xaril, Poisoned Mind: 2/5. Never the most popular card, but Xaril's definitely a card that saw significant amount of play and techning in. It's actually a very cool card, it's just a shame that it doesn't quite hvae enough synergy or sustained value the way that Shaku does. 
• Shadowcaster: 2/5. A very fun card that enables a fair amount of funky combos and archetypes, although her costs really prohibits her from being super good. 
• Blade of C'Thun: 1/5. Too expensive and bulky. Vilespine Slayer would completely eclipse this in the future. 
• Journey Below: 1/5. Decent in arena and saw some experimentation, but ultimately cut out because Rogue's really big on streamlining decks. 
• Undercity Huckster: 3/5. Doesn't see as much play now especially after Swashburglar came on the scene, but definitely a very solid card that saw a fair amount of play back in the day. 
• Thistle Tea: 1/5. Too slow and expensive that even Quest Rogue doesn't run it. 
• Bladed Cultist: 1/5. Too unwieldy, and doesn't have any real synergies. 
• Shadow Strike: 2/5. A neat utility tool at the beginning of the standard year, but as Rogue gets more tools, the "undamaged" bit became a bit too restrictive and everyone defaulted back to Eviscerate.
• Southsea Squidface: 3/5. Very decent card that saw a fair amount of play when people tried to make N'Zoth Rogue work, then in Pirate Rogue, and most recently in Kingsbane Rogue. Never the most powerful cards, and sometimes gets cut out, but still, not bad.

Shaman:

• Hallazeal the Ascended: 1/5. Never saw play, and later got eclipsed by better Lifesteal.  
• Eternal Sentinel: 1/5. Even during Shaman's heyday, Eternal Sentinel was never more than a fun curiousity because you know what's better than spending mana to unlock your overloaded crystals? Spending mana to kill the enemy. 
• Hammer of Twilight: 1/5. Never saw play. 
• Evolve: 5/5. Easily a card that carried Shaman through a fair amount of the past two years, especially with the addition of Doppelgangster in Gadgetzan. While Shaman might be slightly weaker now, remember a time when Shaman reigned supreme as the uncontested king, and this expansion's one of that contributes heavily to that. And even then, Evolve's one of the few cards that manages to make Shaman merely "bad" and not unplayable.
• Master of Evolution: 2/5. Evolve's cheaper and evolves your whole board. Poor Master of Evolution.
• Thing From Below: 5/5. A 0-mana 5/5 Taunt? Synergizes with totems and evolve mechanics? Yeah, this is why Shaman's so powerful, especially during the Karazhan/Gadgetzan era with cards like Totem Golem, pre-nerf Tuskarr Totemic, Flametongue and Mana Tide Totems all working well with making Thing From Below a monster to face.
• Flamewreathed Faceless: 4/5. A fuckton of stats for 4 mana! It's not that good right now, of course, but that's only because Standard Shaman doesn't have access to Tunnel Trogg. One of the more oppressive cards, and while not the worst offender as far as Shaman's concerned, definitely a contributing factor. 
• Stormcrack: 1/5. Never saw play since it doesn't go face. 
• Primal Fusion: 1/5. Haha totems-on-the-board synergy. 

Warlock:

• Cho'gall: 1/5. Too impractical, and Warlock's big spells are all removal. 
• Renounce Darkness: 1/5. FUN AS HELL! Not competitive.
• DOOM!: 1/5. Outclassed all the time by Twisting Nether because, hey, 10 mana is a lot and warlocks already draw cards very well. 
• Forbidden Ritual: 1/5. Never saw play. 1/1's are just not that good, especially if they're icky tentacles and not demons. 
• Darkshire Librarian: 2/5. Discard Warlock is something everyone tried, especially after Karazhan, and Darkshire Librarian iss one of its better cards, but Discard Warlock sucks. 
• Spreading Madness: 1/5. Too expensive for what amounts as a joke.
• Possessed Villager: 3/5. Actually one of Warlock's most powerful 1-mana drops, especially during the initial post-rotation era. But turns out that as expansions go on, warlock just received so much superior, demon-synergistic cards that Villager sort of fell out of the wayside, ultimately with the Patches package, Mistress of Mixtures and Kobold Librarian replacing him. 
• Darkshire Councilman: 4/5. Easily one of the most powerful cards for Warlock, being a staple in zoo decks. And everyone thought it'd be poop! Darkshire Councilman's easily one of Warlock's strongest cards, and particularly terrifying to see back during the Keleseth-Patches era.  
• Usher of Souls: 1/5. Haha, a shittier Cult Master. 

Warrior:

• Malkorok: 1/5. Great in arena. Too slow in constructed
• Tentacles for Arms: 1/5. Infinite value ain't worth shit if you got to spend so much mana on a piddly 2/2 weapon. 
• Blood Warriors: 1/5. Very interesting gimmick and art, but costs too much and essentially replaced by Sudden Genesis, who summons them straight onto the board... but also saw no play. 
• Blood to Ichor: 2/5. Saw a lot of usage early on in Old Gods, but fell out of favour thanks to more reliable whirlwind-style effects over the next couple of expansions. 
• Bloodsail Cultist: 5/5. Pirate Warrior might be dead with the nerfs to Patches and Fiery War Axe, but back when Pirate Warrior was King, Bloodsail Cultist's very stable turn 3 for a relatively small ask and a pretty powerful upside really made her one of the more powerful cards for a time. 
• Ancient Shieldbearer: 2/5. C'Thun Warrior is... okay? It's just not as good as C'Thun Druid, and C'Thun Druid isn't that good once new expansions came in. It did see a fair amount of play during the Old Gods and Karazhan eras, though. 
• N'Zoth's First Mate: 5/5. Yeah, this humble little bug pirate is one of the stronger cards as being part of a powerful turn 1 opener that ended up with so many other cards getting nerfed. N'Zoth's First Mate and his buddy Patches is just essentially a slightly-weaker version of Muster for Battle that comes out on turn 1, and you sometimes follow up with a Coin upgrade, or Coin Bloodsail Cultist on the next turn. During the Gadgetzan era the ladder is so besieged with Pirate Warriors that we actually got one of the fastest nerfs ever to N'Zoth's First Mate's other buddy, Small-Time Buccaneer.
• Ravaging Ghoul: 5/5. One of the most solid cards Warrior's had, pretty balanced and synergizes well with a lot of things, plus adds a body on the board. We might've forgotten, but during the Old Gods era, it's practically found in every single Warrior deck. It might not see a lot of play in the past two expansions, but Ravaging Ghoul was one of the reason why Warrior was one of the most powerful classes during the Old Gods era. 
• Bloodhoof Brave: 4/5. Great stats, has taunt, works well with whirlwind effects. Particularly great during the Old Gods and Karazhan era, where Control Warrior's actually quite good. 

Neutral Legendaries:

• Shifter Zerus: 1/5. Haha Zerus.
• Nat the Darkfisher: 1/5. Haha Nat. 
• Mukla, Tyrant of the Vale: 1/5. Not terrible like the previous two, but still too expensive for what he does, and just doesn't do much.
• Hogger, Doom of Elwynn: 1/5. Too unwieldy and doesn't really do enough. Maybe with some extra stats? Neat in arena, though. 
• Twin Emperor Vek'lor: 3/5. One of the most powerful cards in a C'Thun deck, and especially insane if you manage to get him off with Brann Bronzebeard. One of the more powerful tools in a C'Thun deck, and a way to stall before the big eyeball drops. 
• The Boogeymonster: 1/5. The only legendary I disenchanted without a second thought.  
• Soggoth the Slitherer: 2/5. Neat gimmick, and actually an unexpected big wall to drop on spell-heavy decks, but ultimately doesn't do enough for the huge amount of mana you spend on him, and when big minion decks came along, there are just so many better 8/9/10-mana minions than Soggoth. 
• Deathwing, Dragonlord: 3/5. Surprisingly good, actually. Doesn't see that much play early on, but between Big Priest, Big Druid, Dragon Priest and Recruit Warrior decks, people really love Deathwing and slotting him into those decks and try to make him work. While Deathwing Dragonlord ultimately tends to be too slow and gets removed easily, he's still pretty damn cool and shows up enough.
• C'Thun: 3/5. Actually pretty great early on in Old Gods, but ends up that despite the coolness of the gimmick, C'Thun is just balanced, and you're spending way too much resources for an end-game that might not work all the time. And once Brann and Thaurissan rotates out, it's really, really hard to get C'Thun decks to work properly. There are some attempts to make C'Thun work, like recently with a wacky Kun/C'Thun combo, but ultimately, while very interesting, C'Thun and his brood are just average. Honestly, they get 3/5 only because they were very dominant in the early Year of the Kraken.
• N'Zoth, The Corruptor: 5/5. The uncontested king of the Old Gods expansion, N'Zoth is a finisher that works amazingly with everyone else, single-handedly made a bunch of decent or crappy deathrattle cards playable, and the only Old God to see consistent play throughout all two years that he's rampaging in Standard. Clearly, the best card of this expansion bar none. Easily one of the scariest threats in the game and one of the biggest value bombs -- that still manages to be fair. 
• Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound: 4/5. Y'Shaarj was mocked endlessly for being the only Old God that looked like it sucked, and it did! For four expansions. And then Frozen Throne came along, and with it Eternal Servitude and Shadow Essence, leading to the genesis of the Big Priest archetype that makes huge, huge use of the mighty Y'Shaarj as an unironic, powerful card. Combine Y'Shaarj with Barnes, and some decks like Spell Hunter even try to work this wacky package together. Easily one of the biggest surprises during the Year of the Mammoth was discovering that Y'Shaarj went from an unplayable joke to a powerhouse. 
• Yogg-Saron, Hope's End: 5/5 [pre-nerf]; 1/5 [post-nerf] Another card that is so powerful he got nerfed! And I'm kinda sad and hope they revert Yogg-Saron when he moves into wild and just, I dunno, ban him from tournaments or something... but alas, the God of RNG is now a barely-playable card that sometimes people insert into Jade Druid or mage decks just for shits and giggles. Pre-nerf, he can single-handed win games with his insane effect, It's probably a well-deserved change, I know, but I definitely miss old Yogg. 

Neutral: 

• Cyclopian Horror: 1/5. Too unreliable and low-statted. 
• Faceless Shambler: 2/5. Actually saw some degree of play in warlock decks that use giants, but eventually fell out of favour. Especially susceptible to silences and devolves. 
• Twilight Summoner: 1/5. Too slow, even in a deathrattle deck. 
• Crazed Worshipper: 1/5. Too slow and understatted, although some C'Thun decks used this dude as a one-off. 
• Darkspeaker: 1/5. Neat gimmick, but never saw play. 
• Validated Doomsayer: 1/5. Hilarious, but is actually kind of a crappy card. 
• Ancient Harbinger: 1/5. An understatted tutor card just isn't good enough to slot into your 30-card deck, especially since you probably don't care about drawing C'Thun or N'Zoth before turn 10 anyway, and if you drew him you won't play him straight-away... you do need to time it right. 
• Scaled Nightmare: 1/5. Too slow and expensive. Has the caveat of being decent in arena, though. 
• Blood of the Ancient One: 1/5. Very cool effect, but very hard to pull off and the Ancient One can be removed or blocked with taunt. 
• Disciple of C'Thun: 3/5. One of the better C'Thun cards, essentially a better (and potentially repeatable with Brann) Argent Horserider. 
• Silithid Swarmer: 1/5. I rarely like to call a card useless, but Silithid Swarmer's one of them.
• Blackwater Pirate: 1/5. Stats are too weak, and there are way better pirates.
• Eater of Secrets: 3/5. Tech cards honestly will just get a 3/5 from me. Eater of Secrets isn't the best tech card (that'd go to Golakka Crawler) but it's powerful enough to sometimes just win you matchups against hunter and especially mage when you drop this to eat a bunch of secrets. Or sometimes just Ice Block. But the fact that it's a shitty 4-mana 2/4 against other classes makes this not that good. 
• Midnight Drake: 2/5. Saw some use in Dragon Priests, but tends to get cut more than not .
• Corrupted Healbot: 1/5. There are better unfair minions in constructed. Great in arena, though. 
• Corrupted Seer: 1/5. Racist consecration with a body is great for value, but too expensive for most murloc decks. It's a neat tech choice, but eventually is phased out as the murloc decks got more streamlined as pure aggro decks.
• Skeram Cultist: 1/5. It's one of the crappier C'Thun cards thanks to using the more fragile setup of the Boulderfist Ogre stats, and tended to be cut -- you don't want too many C'Thun buffing cards in your C'Thun deck.
• Doomcaller: 2/5. Doomcaller tended to be run as a one-off for the potential of getting extra C'Thuns back in the day, but, again, C'Thun decks aren't that good. 
• Tentacle of N'Zoth: 1/5. Not that good, stat-wise and effect-wise.
• Zealoud Initiate: 1/5. Also not that good, stat-wise or effect-wise.
• Beckoner of Evil: 3/5. Decent. One of the cards that you always see in C'Thun decks to get the eyeball ball running. 
• Bilefin Tidehunter: 2/5. Saw a fair amount of use in early Year of the Kraken zoo and murloc decks, but gets phased out eventually as more powerful and less fragile murlocs pop out. 
• Duskboar: 1/5. Boar Rager. 
• Twilight Geomancer: 1/5. C'Thun doesn't need taunt, honestly. Run Skeram Cultist or Crazed Worshipper if you're so desperate to run bad cards empower the big eyeball -- at least those do something.
• Twisted Worgen: 1/5. Worgen Infiltrator's actually much better than this sorry thing. 
• Am'Gam Rager: 1/5. Honestly even crappier than Magma Rager. 
• Spawn of N'Zoth: 2/5. Saw some play in token druid decks, actually, but not that much. 
• Squirming Tentacle: 1/5. A decent, safe pick in arena, but definitely not a good card for constructed. 
• Twilight Elder: 3/5. Probably the strongest C'Thun buffing card due to his continuous effects and his great 3-mana 3/4 statline? Again, though, the C'Thun package ended up petering out.
• Aberrant Berserker: 1/5. There are a lot of better 4-mana cards. 
• C'Thun's Chosen: 3/5. A decent, harder-to-kill card, and alongside with Disciple, Beckoner and Elder, tends to form the backbone of every C'Thun deck. 
• Evolved Kobold: 1/5. Briefly seen in a couple of world championships in an unexpected manner. Particularly nonexistent in constructed. 
• Infested Tauren: 1/5. They tried to pair Infested Tauren up with N'Zoth to be the new Sludge Belcher, but turns out he's just not good enough. 
• Polluted Hoarder: 2/5. Likewise, saw a fair amount of experimentation, but turns out that other sorts of draw mechanics are just better. 
• Cult Apothecary: 1/5. If you heal when the enemy has a big board, it tends to just mean they're going to whack you with even more damage and ignore the understatted Apothecary. 
• Psych-o-Tron: 2/5. Evil metalhead hello hello actually saw some usage in Quest Warrior decks, but not by much.  
• Nerubian Prophet: 1/5. There was a period of time when they tried out Nerubian Prophet in Evolve Shaman, but even there it's not that good. 
• Bog Creeper: 1/5. AMAZING in arena. Practically never seen in constructed. Boggy gets to show up in hero portraits with Nemsy, though. 
• Grotesque Dragonhawk: 1/5. Stats too poor. 
• Eldritch Horror: 1/5. Haha, expensive vanilla card. 
• Faceless Behemoth: 1/5. Haha, another expensive vanilla card.