Bandersmosh
Bandersmosh is a 5 Mana Cost Legendary Shaman Minion card from the Descent of Dragons set!
Card Text
Each turn this is in your hand, transform it into a 5/5 copy of a random Legendary minion.
Flavor Text
The Shudderwock finds him particularly frumious.- Mana Cost: 5
- Attack: 5
- Health: 5
- Crafting Cost: 1600 / 3200 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 400 / 1600 (Golden)
- Rarity: Legendary
- Class: Shaman
- Card Type: Minion
- Set: Descent of Dragons
- Mechanics: Transform
I actually don’t know what to think of this card. On one hand, it seems the usual random trash, like Shifter Zerus was, that is too random to see play. On the other hand, it is a turn 5 drop that might highroll extremely well. I feel like Bandermosh could be either the worst or the best card in Hearthstone, no in between. I think that by playing it we’ll understand if this card is any good.
I think when this card is released it will be okay when it first releases, but will become significantly better once year of the raven rotates out. Team 5 seems to have taken a different tact on legendary minions trying to make them all actually good in Year of the Dragon. Some might be better than others, but there are no terrible legendary minions.
This card at this time I think is a 2 maybe 3 for highroll potential, but assuming legendary minions continue to be made like they are this year, it will be much better after rotation.
– Such a great card – Insta craft!
– I hope that RNG will prioritize minions from recent expansions
– it will be so much fun to play this card. so many cool outcomes in many situations.
Alright I have done the math, there are currently 155 minion legendaries in standard. The chance of getting a “just generally good” legendary (e.g. Al’Akir, Emeriss) is 40 out of 155, this is already about 26%, so one in every 4 legendaries is good. I have also rated cards as “good in certain circumstances” (e.g. Brann, Sir Finley) is a whopping 52%, so, you have an EXTREMELY good chance of getting a moderate to good legendary. The reason why people think this will be bad is because of cards like Shifter Zerus. Shifter Zerus had WAY too many cards to turn into. This seems like Blizzard trying to make up for their mistake, and honestly, it seems really good. I think we should give it a chance.
A 5mana 5/5 alakir or emeriss isn’t “just generally good”, it’s op
By “just just generally good”, I mean that no matter what circumstance, it’s a good card. There is also onyxia, Ysera, ect.
The pool of legendaries is soo hugh even in standard and rotates every turn in hand. Maybe you have a good one but can’t go into play cause of board state you need to play other card…
Funny shamen man gets shifter zerus but with better odds.
can be thrown into highlander shaman with the new Alexstrasza and Shudderwock.
i like it.
3.5-4.0 stars
With this even a crappy legend could be a pain imagine a 5/5 Lorewalker Cho dropped on an empty field. That card isn’t usually a threat more a nuisance to avoid using spells but if it was a 5/5 without having to buff it now opponent may need to use spell or waste a big rush/charge minion. Go over all the legendaries and if turned them into 5 cost 5/5s they’d be a lot more threatening even if they’re power isn’t that great. It also shrinks the pool of legendaries you wouldn’t want or would do nothing.
Zilliax, Emeriss, Alextraza, ysera, malygos, cenarious, tirion, tekhan, Shudderwock, alakir, shirvallah, kalecgos, Myra rotspring, heistbarron, swampqueen hagatha, godfrey, hireek, voone, Crowley, possibly grommash, thalnos, weaponized pinata, snip snap, gruul, collosus, and any charge legendary really. That’s just a few you also have more legends that cost more but have lower stats or cost more and is only like 1/1 stronger like Siamat.
Basically yeah there’s alot of bad legends but they look a lot better as a 5 cost 5/5 than they did before. Take note I did not include Highlander triggered cards or any currently released for this set. So yeah while there’s plenty won’t like it changes every turn so odds are it will turn into something useful even if just getting stats on field.
Exactly. There’s a huge pool of awesome results for this card, some of which can potentially straight up win you the game. I didn’t even consider Alakir… That’s insane.
And people fail to understand the power of mana cheat and the fact that even in worst case it’s a 5 mana 5/5 with some ability. This is so much more powerful than Shifter Zerus or other cards with similar effect.
The ability gets scarier if add in the new cards.
Dragonbane looks rather nice to a quest shammy since pop hero power every turn after finish. Dragonqueen Alextraza is a nice possibility if your deck ends up without duplicated can get 4 0 cost random dragons.
Flik skyshiv would be a removal that’s 1 cheaper and 1/1 stronger.
If ran galakrond getting a second copy of kronx would be good.
Malygos aspect of magic would be great if you had a dragon in hand generating an upgraded mage card.
Could also make a 1 cost cheaper nithogg.
How about a 5 cost Sathrovar for a huge Mana cheat of 4.
Shu’uma looks better as a 5/5 fill board with 1/1s.
Valdriss Fellgore 2 Mana cheaper and 1/1 stronger get Max hand size boost and draws 4 cards.
Waxadred it would be 2/0 weaker but the resummon would be at full power.
Ysera unleashed in quest shammy add 14 cards into deck that summons random dragons. That right there is scary for generating board value.
And there’s still a few more legendaries haven’t seen yet.
Does this mean there’s no Galakrond for Shaman?
I had actually not thought about that. That’s indeed disappointing.
Actually. I just read that EVIL classes get 3 legendaries this expansion, since Galakrond is a free legendary. So Shaman does get their Galakrond!
Really? That’s crazy!
Yeah ever since evolve and token shaman I think they’re purposely trying to lower the power level of their card pool. 4/10
The average legandary is a 4.5atk 5.5health 6mana minion. So bandersmosh is a 1mana discount on average. And if you have the oportunity to wait a couple turns, you’ll easily get a 2+mana discount.
Considering that standard will be full of high cost legendary dragons with powerful battlecries, I think this card is massively underrated.
So it’s basically Muckmorpher but it’s worse..? Kinda? I guess? I mean, it’s interesting, to say the least that’s for sure, but I don’t think Shamans would Reeeealy want to play this for Competitive play. I see it again as just another use for newer players once more. Could be just me though. 2 Stars.
“RNG-reliant” and “doesn’t synergize with anything” isn’t a recipe for a card you’ll want to include in a deck, even though it’s probably an OK card by itself. You can include it as a target for Mutate, and for sure there’ll be fun highroll scenarios you’ll encounter, but I don’t see this dude making the cut.
This is a really interesting card. The fact that it keeps its cost at 5 mana means you could get some really greedy high cost legendarys with a big discount. That’s pretty cool but this is still an unreliable RNG card that may be too slow even for the greediest Shaman decks. I’m getting Chameleos vibes from this.
Regis gave this 5 stars so it is five stars from me
I want this card in GOLD.
I personally think it’s a pretty poor one. What do you like about it ?
Remember Face Collector ? This is obviously better, by a long way. But still, Face Collector emphasizes one thing : getting just any random Legendary really, really isn’t this good, in a lot of situations, the legendary is designed to work in a specific deck. Legendaries that are just strong in virtually any build like Dr. Boom, Lich King and Ysera aren’t commonplace anymore. This isn’t great, especially since it has to sit in your hand for a while to get a decent chance of having an optimal minion with it.
At best it’s a Shudderwock or Hir’eek (board full of 5/5 for just 5 is super powerful) and at worst it’s just a 5 mana 5/5 with an effect from some legendary, I really don’t see why this card is considered bad when it’s actually scary good.
Yes, random legendaries are bad but that’s because you usually can’t make use of the high cost powerhouses in most decks. But this cheats mana alot and we know how poweful that can be. In other words it’s mediocre at worst and extremely powerful at best. I really don’t see why alot of Shaman decks couldn’t run this aside from aggro ones.
Not just shudder or hireek could also have it turn into an Emeriss which would be scary as hell to happen in quest shaman. Think his complaining is the fact it’s not a set card and can’t guarantee to drop it on a curve. Which most of the time your big cards won’t be dropped on curve and can spend half the game sitting in hand doing nothing. Hell if doing quest shammy imagine this turning into the make Lackeys 4/4s I’d drop this right then no questions.
Have to remember Shan runs plenty of cards that sit in hand doing nothing already this is nothing new and any deck running a high cost minion has it sitting around doing nothing for long time. If pull your decks SUPER card during your Mulligan well guess what your stuck waiting maybe 8-9 turns before you can even drop it this card after 4 turns it’s available to play and from then on you can just wait for a decent legendary.
Honestly, I wouldn’t call you wrong, but in the current meta most Shaman decks run a more aggro kind of build. Quest Shaman is pretty much aggro oriented, with many small minions. I’m not saying it’s that much of a problem having a sitting card in hand, but you want to limit that as much as you can. This card being slow is its biggest problem, but other than that it also heavily depends on the Legendary minion pool. It could range from being good to subpar depending on what you can expect to get with it within a reasonable time span, like say, 2 to 4 turns.
Other than that, it’s not that it’s that bad. It’s just that it lacks any true synergy with any Shaman archetypes. Maybe Quest if you’re lucky… the problem is not that it’s absolutely bad but that it’s just not a combo piece because it’s too random. Rogue has a lot of random generators like these, but they do synergize with the Burgle archetype (Tess, Quest, …), so I think this card would make more sense as a Rogue legendary than a Shaman one (happy we didn’t get it, though…).
Overall, I might have underestimated it, but I still think the big problem is that its only true interest is randomly getting a good option regardless of your deck. There’s litterally no extra support in most archetypes for this card, it seems.
In other words, it just seems that this card’s design seems to fit more that of a Neutral one than a Shaman’s. Don’t you agree ?
Well for one the name sense ruins neutral Shudderwock = Jabberwocky Bandersmosh = bandersnatch.
And if this was a neutral every rogue would run it with quest because it can just sit in hand and every time it became another classes legendary it would give progress reducing slow period from mirror rogue.
Will this keep the mana cost of 5 when it transforms? If so this card is genuinely not that bad. There’s tons of legendaries that cost 8-10 mana in standard right now and getting them for 5 is can be very powerful. Definitely something to watch out for.
Heck, at best this card can actually be super scary when you realize that even something like Hir’eek becomes a “fill your board with 5/5 beasts” and at worst it’s a 5 mana 5/5 with some kind of effect from a legensary and that honestly isn’t bad at all.
Say what you want, this card is a hidden op and an easy 5/5 (assuming it keeps the mana cost when it transforms, Idk yet when I post this)
It costs 5, and is 5/5, even when it transforms into a random legendary minion, so with a bit of luck, this can be quite strong.
People who scoff at this: do you know how many high cost legendaries there are? Quite a bunch. This pairs nicely with Mutate to maybe put a 9 or 10 drop on board by Turn 5. And that’s considering you don’t high roll into a Legendary with a great battlecry like Alexstrasza and get even more value. What probably keeps this from being good enough (or at least as good as Fleshshaper) is that it’s a horrible topdeck and also that you can’t predict what you will get by turn 5. You can get a high cost Legendary or a low cost Legendary. And if you get a low cost legendary then you have to wait for a turn to combo with Mutate. Traditionally cards that transform with turns have been bad because you can’t predict well with them.
Even at worst the card isn’t all that bad? Topdecking this is naturally horrible but it’s still a solid 5 mana 5/5 even then. Alot of people seem to underestimate how powerful cheating mana costs can be. This card is something that you can put in almost any deck and it can potentially singlehandedly win you the game. Ngl I think this card is hidden OP.
I think you are totally right. 5 mana 5/5 is not the worst thing in the world. And you can get some game winning effects from time to time. It might be the exception to the rule that transforming cards are generally not good.
Wait a 5 cost version of that other minion with 5/5 stats and only turns into legendaries. This card can be very dangerous or very sucky but even as a sucky legendary it’s guaranteed 5/5. And depending on what becomes can be very scary in quest shammy. How about turn into a 5/5 Emeriss double stats of your hand twice.
I mean… we’ll laugh all we want until it gets a 5 mana shudderwock that one time and bounces it back with bog slosher
To be fair shaman has got their strongest legendary ever with Shudderwock so it’s only fair it waits until it rotates out before getting any other decent ones
If think it sucks just look up all the other class legendaries with battlecries and then imagine quest shammy triggering.
I am laughing in Shaman’s faces right now. What a great Legendary xD
Laugh all want until it turns into a 5/5 Emeriss I mean it does say random so it could pull from other classes legendaries.
Yes, but who will actually consider running a card that relies so much on RNG in a meta where most decks will be significantly stronger (and maybe faster) than in the current one ?
The thing to remember though is the fact that it’s legendary do you would only run 1 copy in the first place. And even if it’s RNG heavy to get good ones a guaranteed 5/5 looks a lot more appealing in some cases if have no other play. Shudderwock is used by a lot of shamans but if you get in hand early it sits there doing nothing for a long time. Until get in far late game you won’t play Shudderwock on average I’d have that in my hand for at least 10-12 turns before would even play it.
In that case having a card sit in hand for a while but that can actually become something useful and playable during that period is not as bad as you would think.
Most Shamans won’t want it. No synergy. Heavy reliance on RNG. Just… no true reason to run it.