Cannon Barrage
Cannon Barrage is a 6 Mana Cost Epic Rogue Spell card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!
Card Text
Deal 3 damage to a random enemy. Repeat for each of your Pirates.
Flavor Text
Why fire your cannons strategically when you can fire them all at once?- Mana Cost: 6
- Crafting Cost: 400 / 1600 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 100 / 400 (Golden)
- Rarity: Epic
- Class: Rogue
- Card Type: Spell
- Set: Rastakhan's Rumble
- Mechanics: Damage
Cannon Barrage Card Review
Pirate synergy in Rogue! I was actually waiting to see some. Rogue was always in a weird spot when it comes to Pirates. At times, it had enough Pirate cards / synergies to for a Pirate deck to ALMOST be viable, but it was never good enough.
It’s an interesting card, and it can actually be a solid finisher in Pirate Rogue deck. However, in order for it to work, you can’t just run a Pirate package and call it a day. You need a full-fledged Pirate deck, when most of your minions are Pirates. If you have 3 Pirates on the board, which is kind of a good, but not the best case scenario, this is 4x 3 damage for 6 mana – 12 in total. Ideally you would want for it to go face most of the time, but sometimes clearing minions can also be good, especially if you aren’t winning the game yet. Even with 2 Pirates, that’s 9 damage in total, which is not terrible (comparable to Avenging Wrath, but it’s 3x 3 instead of 8x 1, for better or for worse).
Still, there are a few problems. First of all – you need a Pirate Rogue to be viable. Right now there aren’t even enough Pirates to support a half of Pirate deck, so this expansion will have to do A LOT of work in order for this card to work. Second problem is the fact that this card is a bit win-more. It works best when you already have a bunch of Pirates on the board, and at that point you have a relatively high chance to win. However, it’s not EXACTLY like that – it’s in the same way that Savage Roar is a win more card. Having 3-4 small pirates doesn’t mean that you’re winning the game, and this can push enough damage to finish the opponent. Savage Roar is actually a good comparison – this is like a Pirate Savage Roar for Rogue.
It also combos nicely with the new Sharkfin Fan – it can spawn a bunch of 1/1’s which then deal 3 extra damage each with Barrage.
The card has a higher chance of seeing play in the Wild, actually. But it might be playable in Standard in case enough Pirate synergy gets printed.
Card rating: 3/10 right now, but might be much higher if Rogue gets enough good Pirates to build a deck around them
Cannon Barrage Full Card Art
Pirate Rogue yass… Bring the crew i have something to say:
YOU GET A CANNON, YOU GET A CANNON, EVERYONE GETS A FREACKING CANNON.
So…who’s in charge now? Everyone?
Why is this rating so low? This is such a great finisher.
It looks like they’ll add a few pirates, and then this seems excellent!
2 sharkin fan + attack + prep + cannon barrage + prep + cannon barrage = 30 damage for 10 mana
With 2 pirates on board, this is a Greater Arcane Missile for 1 mana less. Probably won’t see much play unless rogue gets cards to generate lots of small pirates for cheap, but even then… Looks like a fun card nonetheless.
Welcome back standard pirates, we’ve missed you
even paladin runs a copy of avenging wrath, with 2 pirates on the field this is a better version of that, with shark-fin fan, preparation and spell damage increase cards this card could help make a new deck
Interesting, but hard to rate, yet.
On average you’ll have maybe 3-4 pirates out on the field. Meaning this’ll (on average) be 6-mana deal 12-15 damage randomly spoilt in 3-damage increments. Now look at Greater Arcane Missiles. This seems… Strong… Even with only two pirates out it’s a cheaper GAM. And in a tempo-oriented deck when the opponent has a good bit of minions out, it seems REALLY good as a last-ditch effort to either push for lethal or clear a sticky board.
Also I can’t wait for wild shenanigans, stealthing a Malygos into throwing a bunch of pirates onto the field, prep Cannon Barrage. That’s fun x3
Oof yeah, already looking forward to that. Potential 2 turn lethal.
As you said Maly + stealth first turn
And for the second turn you would need a weapon equiped, play 2 of the new 2 mana pirates which spawn a pirate after attacking, attack with the weapon, and you will have 5 cannon balls of 8 damage per ball, resulting in a 40 damage combo randomly spread across the board.
You could kick it up with using prep and already having a weapon equiped, to play a few more small pirates, dealing +8 for every pirate.
Sounds like a very wacky but fun combo
+prep
Imagine if rouge got a pirate that gives the weapon windfurry. Then so many possibilities open up.
Impossible, then Kingsbane Rogue will be too strong in the wild meta(double attack)
Hopefully rogue mains aren’t forced to play pirate decks with more pirate cards lol.
Well, it’s ceiling is a full twenty-four damage, but you would need at least two but probably three pirates out on the board to make it worth it generally. I can see this working in Wild as a finisher but not necessarily in Standard.
The potential scaling is way higher than that. With a thalnos and 6 pirates its 7×4= 28. If you instead use the 2 mana tuskar thing to give a pirate spell power its 8×4=32. Now if you use the tuskar thing, shadow step it and use it again, that scales up to 8×5=40. And if by some miracle you manage to get out malygos and 6 pirates (gang up an amount of patches or something), that is 7×8 for 64
If you’re willing to make the combo even less competitively viable, yes, the ceiling would be higher, but with Pirates being a rather aggressive tribe, I cannot see that deck incorporating Spell Damage elements to get even more out of the card.
I know combos have already been figured out with this, but they all seem too out there and too easily complicated by an opponent’s wide board to see play outside of the first couple weeks of play.
If a Pirate Rogue decks comes about during the next format, it will play this, but the extra complications that will be brought with playing Spell Damage in it and with how Pirates themselves will be beating down an opponent during the first five turns of a game, it won’t also water itself down with combo enablers.
Let’s also note the other card that was posted the shark fin guy who summons a 1/1 pirate everytime your hero attacks. Combos are bound to happen with this
At least 4/5 in a tempo pirate rogue deck if there is a semi-decent new rogue pirate package and if you can draw one within the first 6 or so turns. Otherwise 2/5 at best.
Whilst it’s situational, that situation should be fairly achievable fairly often. Can definitely see it being a deck defining card which is great whether or not that deck is competitive.
Soooooooo, it heavily depends on how much pirates will be in the expansion. Right now the pirate package is really weak, but of course there will be a lot more pirates in this expansion. In a pirate deck, this card can be REALLY good, like a bloodlust but far better in almost every matchup. Of course, I assume that a pirate rogue deck will run a lot of pirates like a murloc deck does with murlocs, but it is too early in the expansion to be sure about it.
many*
I hope there are a lot of pirates. Because even at 7 pirates on the board, while this can go face as a 21 damage burst (winmore) it can be blocked by minions pretty easily. Quest Rogue finisher for if they don’t get their quest off and instead Zola a whole bunch of Deckhands?
3.5/5
You need two pirates to make this on par with Greater Arcane Missiles (which cost one more, but wasn’t mindblowing at that price). Is that feasible? Depends on how many token pirate cards they print- we’ve seen one already. With those aggressive pirates, it’s very plausible that this card will simply threaten lethal by the time you get around to casting it.
“the time you get around to casting it” is turn 3 because this is rogue, with prep
Looks fun
3/5
This is how you truly rate a card