Akali, the Rhino
Akali, the Rhino is a 8 Mana Cost Legendary Warrior Minion Beast card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!
Card Text
Rush, Overkill: Draw a Rush minion and give +5/+5.
Flavor Text
Most trolls only get to “AAAAHHH!” and don’t make it to the “kali” part.Akali, the Rhino Card Review
For some reason, I’m getting the Don Han'Cho vibes… which isn’t good for this card. Luckily, not only it has an extra draw, but also it draw a RUSH minion, meaning that the extra stats are much easier to utilize immediately.
Of course, the best minion to hit with the buff is Zilliax, but you would never play just those two in the deck, so it’s not very consistent. But having a 3 mana 8/8 Rush (Rabid Worgen) is also solid. Basically, any Rush minion with a +5/+5 slapped on it will be great.
5 Attack is not that difficult to Overkill with – killing anything at 4 or less health will trigger the effect. Of course, you can trigger it twice, which would be quite insane, but… let’s be honest, it’s not going to happen very often.
I’d say that if you’re playing a Rush-based Tempo deck, then yeah, this should be a solid card (not anything game-breaking, though). Small-midrange removal with a draw and massive buff strapped to it. But the question is – again – will a deck like that exist? Spirit of the Rhino will definitely be a huge help, but I still have my doubts. Those cards don’t fix the main problem of Rush Warrior – the deck is just not good enough at putting pressure against Control decks.
I think that it will be solid in Rush decks, but probably not good enough outside of them.
Card rating: 6/10 in Rush Warrior, useless outside of it
Akali, the Rhino Full Card Art
tutor with amazing buff. really underrated.
8/10
8 mana for a 5/5 that needs at least two turns to use its full potentia (and only if it triggers overkill)l? yea this one is bad
I think this card is being underrated. Look at it like this: deal 4 (the dude himself), get a 5/5 (the handbuff), and what seems to be being overlooked, draw a card. To me this sounds like a smaller version of everyone’s favorite card… Ultimate infestation. Not to mention that the buff goes on a good minion to buff and the unlikely potential to trigger the effect twice.
4/5
3/5
Has some serious potential in some type of mid-range deck, but is in competition with the Lich King. Good against board centric decks, but Warrior has no issue with board centric decks. Main problem of Warrior is dealing with combo decks and this card doesn’t help.
Depending on future releases for this set and others for cards that have rush. This could be some very decent Hand Buff.
This plus Oondasta and and Amani War Bear for the Beast focused Warrior deck.
Its probably a good idea to wait until they reveal the Spirit of the Rhino before rating this card, because the power level of this card might depend on how well it synergies with its spirit.
It should have windfury to be even remotely viable……
Pretty thrash as it is. Even the overstatted rush cards weren’t that great.
1/5.
DMH with him? Eh, too slow. “But he can draw into crowley and Zilliax”? Eh, even more slow. This is bad, but it will see experimentation in a rush warrior deck with small, efficient rush minions like redband wasp and vicious scalehide that you can play the same turn you draw and buff them with Akali
I look at this and see an evil stunt for a stalling warrior draw out your rush minions from deck first. Then just need DMH and this as long as it’s the only rush left in deck it’ll give you a 10/10 copy after kill.
Besides just set up before hand with the wood cutters axe. Can make this a 7/6 and that should be enough to get the overkill.
Pretty unlikely for the opponent to play minions in that late in the game, bcause its prob a control v control matchup if it goes that far.
Like said though if you use cards like crier and countess to pull the other rushes OUT of the deck. Then this card with balefull banker or DMH would give you a 10/10 for next turn.
Gives warrior dragon synergy throughout the whole release, makes warrior look more midrange/control, gives a card that uses rush synergy with no rush cards to go with it, not really that useful control vs control, it’s okay, I mean sure this into crowley is strong but you have to make sure your opponent has a minion, you havent drawn crawly and you have this in your hand. I dont see this being any good. The mech with rush everyone uses could be good with this, lotta heal, but same problem
Reminds me of Don Han’Cho, only… mostly worse. 2/5.
I think is mostly better, only the draw 1 should make up for the mana, then it has rush and buffs a rush minion which is better than a random one. Also can trigger more than once.
I’m not really seeing it for Akali. It can net a plus one in card advantage, but so can the Lich King, and that card doesn’t require anything more than playing it to get something out of it.
The overall value Akali can generate may be more than the Lich King generally, but it is contingent on quite a few things lining up just right to make work.
Maybe it’ll see play in a Control Warrior deck that play enough rush minions that it will usually have at least one left in the deck by turn eight, but in such a deck, it wouldn’t be surprising that if it ends up being easily cut for other cards.
Would this work in a more tempo-centric deckstyle? Rush Warrior was a big flop in the Witchwood but maybe with this card and others the whole Rush package might come together more smoothly. This is a bit slow but it does generate value and all, and i like the flavour of ‘getting out your guys and buffing them for a big fight’. It doesn’t synergise with War Master Voone but maybe more puzzle pieces will fall in place later in the reveal season, especially after they reveal Spirit of the Rhino.
Rush Warrior failed not so much to its own failing so much as Shudderwock Shaman and other combo decks forced it out of the format. It didn’t really have a win condition outside of traditional Hearthstone “Outlast the opponent” control, which made it easy pickings for decks that can exploit that.
Putting this in a tempo deck seems tricky perhaps. It could work, but it is an understatted eight drop that conditionally fetches a card that won’t exactly win the game on the spot when played. It could work, but I am not quite seeing it.
You could play this with Dead Man’s Hand and then every turn you would get a 10/10 with Rush
Might be a good combo with Oondasta. But warrior has too little beast for Oondasta to work.
It might work if they had been printing beast synergy card instead of dragon
Warrior is dead on arrival.
Probably. It seems like Blizzard is still trying to push Rush warrior from the Witchwood, and that deck was never really good enough to see top tier play. On the positive side, I have a feeling that Dragon Warrior will be insane in 2 or 3 expansions.
8 mana hunter card that can’t hit face.
0/5
Sorry it’s warrior wasn’t looking
0/5 not a dragon
Why do people like this? it’s a worse Don’Hancho effect on a worse body for more mana.
1. You can’t hit ANY good minions like you could with Han’cho like a Charge minion or a handbuff minion.
2. The effect is conditional, your opponent needs a 4 or less health minion.
3. You need to be running enough rush minions for this to consistently work (and you’re not playing Baku).
4. Han’cho WASN’T a good card, so this is absolute garbage.
Yes, I know he was rush, but 4 damage rush doesn’t make every other aspect being worse than an already awful card.
I would say what you’re maybe not thinking about is how good rush actually is. It may be the best keyword we have(other than charge obviously) and the fact that this is also removal can’t be underestimated.
You’re playing an 8 mana 4 damage removal so you can have ONE piece of better removal later? Seems pretty awful to me.
Could be rather good in arena though, dealing with a minion and drawing a card. The problem is more that at 8 mana, the opponent might have multiple 5+ health minions.
bruh, you do realize that after you played Dr.Boom, this works with any mech you draw from your deck right?
The Mechs won’t have rush while in your deck, so this should not draw them unless they already have rush; like Ziliax.
I don’t know about that man, the card says battlecry: for the rest of the game, your mechs have rush, so I figure they would already be rush minions the moment you played Dr.boom?
Countess doesn’t draw elementals after jaina, it doesn’t work.
Note it says “Rush MINION” instead of “Minion with Rush”. Like N’Zoth summons all the deathrattle MINIONS that died this game, but not cards that acquired deathrattles, this card means cards that have Rush even while out of game, in your collection, where they’re not affected by Dr. Boom magic.
What mechs are you playing in your deck besides dyn-o-matic and zilliax? Also that’s not how it works, Rush minion =/= minion with rush, as in it needs to actually say Rush on the card. Countess doesn’t draw elementals after jaina so this won’t pull mechs after Boom.
My god you suck analysing cards.
Zilliax, Crowley, and any rush minion are great targets for a Handbuff becouse they have an instant impact. Then you are drawing it and then aplying the buff, far better that just giving it to a random minion in hand. Also the rush in Akali makes it so this has an instant impact on the board, and the effect can trigger more than 1 time, again unlinke Han’cho. If anything this is a far better version of Han’cho that improves on all of his weaknesses.
But, why? Why are you running bad removal to make efficient minions more efficient? Even if this does improve on han’cho it would have to do so a hell of a lot to make him good, which this absolutely does not. The likelihood of Akali’s effect triggering twice is abysmal, he has 5 Health, if he isn’t on like 1 Health after the first trade, he can be traded in to by a nothing minion. He might be okay against specifically a midrange deck that for some reason hasn’t stuck a big minion by turn 8 but against aggro and control this card is worthless.
Exactly, also am I the only one who thought of this with Baleful Banker and if Akali is your only rush minion and when u get to 10 man’s? I know ppl gonna say ‘when is that combo ever gonna happen’ I say to them…THIS IS HEARTHSTONE! Some crazy lunatic is gonna make it work xD
This isn’t handbuff. It’s either a tutor with upside or deckbuff.
are they though?
Completely agree, i honestly give this 1/5.
1) Town Crier is sometimes run in warrior
3) Assuming that you are just using this for the card draw, let’s say you want 10 rush cards
Darius, Zilliax, Militia Comander, Redband wasp, Viscous Scalehide make 8. there should be some more rush minions coming.
4) what would you say if instead of don han’cho i said that it was Mana Tide Totem after 2 Prince Keleseth activations?
It’s a Good Thing that Blizzard is not pushing 0/3 minions in every class, as the worst thing about Akali is his 5 health.
Was hoping for some armor synergy but that works, lets wait for the spirit
Holy cow…. i really like this! And it looks awesome!
Give Ziliax +5/+5…
As long as you haven’t drawn him yet.
But Crowley will also be happy to have this buff on him.
*cough cough*
Give Darius Crowley +5/+5…
Complete garbage way too slow and too reliant on still having rush minions. Anti synergy with town crier, as it is horrible to get it turn 1 and he reduces the probability for still having rush minions in deck that late in the game, while he is the only reason to ever play rush warrior. Difficult to overkill something with it at turn 8, horrible stat line, slow effect. Even if the spirit buffs it, it would still be bad. Does not work with doctor booms effect.