Captain Hooktusk
Captain Hooktusk is a 8 Mana Cost Legendary Rogue Minion Pirate card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!
Card Text
Battlecry: Summon 3 Pirates from your deck. Give them Rush.
Flavor Text
"You three! Get in the cannon!"Captain Hooktusk Card Review
Pirate Rogue really shaped up over the course of this reveal season, and this looks like a solid finisher, something to top your curve.
The 6/3 body is worth roughly 4 mana, although the stat distribution is pretty bad. Then the effect is just insane. I’ve seen people comparing it to Call to Arms, but it’s way, way better than that. Not only it can pull out minion that cost 3 or more (Southsea Captain, Captain Greenskin, Cursed Castaway), but it also gives everything Rush, so you can impact the board immediately. Let’s say that your opponent has dropped The Lich King and you have some board already – you can drop this and use the Rush minions to punch through it (while leaving a 6/3 body behind), while hit your opponent with the rest of your board. The Rush would even make cards like Ticket Scalper much more powerful (although I’m not sure if you would want to run it in the first place anyway).
And if your board sticks, you can follow it up with Cannon Barrage next turn to absolutely decimate your opponent.
But here’s the thing – this would fit more into a Midrange deck than into an Aggro deck, and Pirates are pretty aggressive. So far, every iteration of Pirate Rogue we had in the game was Aggro or at least a fast Tempo deck – Hooktusk would be too slow for the most part. So while in theory this card is quite powerful if you curve a bit higher with your Pirates, a Midrange Pirate deck might just not work enough in the first place, and relying on this card to win every game is not the best strategy.
Also, I feel like the current pool of Pirates is a bit lackluster. We MIGHT still see a Pirate or two in the upcoming reveals, and I hope that we’ll get something Midrange-y to fit into a deck I’ve envisioned.
Card rating: 8/10 in the right deck, but might be too slow unless some Midrange Pirates get printed
what will happen with this card is most probably refill and regain control. On summon you will get pirates that draw two cards from the deck, or pirates that draw combo pieces and with two mana open and coins on your pocket who knows what crazy moves will unfold. Captain Prosperous is here.
I’M IN RUSH NOWWWWW!!!
Rogue desperately needs to have full control over the board to prevent early face damage, without that Rogue is bad, while other decks like mage, druid, warrior and priest can either stall the board with freeze and/or taunts and/or make their way back up to full health in no time.
Rogue has a hard time doing all of those things which means that if you want a Rogue deck to be successful you have to have a lot of early game tempo.
So considering those factors, how does one make a card like this viable? You play for the board.
Much better way to fill your board (with Spirit of the Shark) than Hi’reek the Bat. 3/5.
Yesss, yessss, YESSSS, best babe so far 20/5.
If they add more big attack small hp pirates i’ll only play them for as long as they are half-meme viable.
A fellow rogue member, I will admit nothing beats my bae, Tess. Hooktusk is up there xD
Tess was best bae for me, untill a pirate lady like this showed up.
I hate how itz just one mana off of being a combo with prep cannonfire which wouldve made it so much better 3/5 at best.
Looks like Blizzard completely remove charge effect from HS. Too sad.
charge is a toxic mechanic
Charge is very hard to balance. It is not toxic, by itself. Actually, it is important for the game to exist.
hard to balance is the right term for charge
If “give them charge” than yeah, that a WOW effect. Rush? Meh…
Pirates as a tribe has always been aggressive. While it can definitely be argued that an aggressive deck would not want to play a card as expensive as this, some are and have historically played seven cost cards like Vinecleaver and Dr. Boom as finishers. Ragnoros also wasn’t exactly a stranger to being a source of fast, late game damage for aggro either.
Captain Hooktusk looks to be Team 5’s attempt to slow down Pirates as an archetype just enough that such a massive tempo swing that is created by here, especially if at least one Ticket Scalper is pulled out. While her power is undeniable, I doubt a deck that plays her would also play some of the other smaller pirates like Bloodsail Raider, Dread Corsair, and Southseas Deckhand.
Where ever she end up, it’ll be part of a deck that plays larger pirates, preferably with Deathrattles. There are a couple of those right now, but some of the best ones like Southsea Squidface and Luckydo Buccaneer (In terms of stats) are restricted to Wild.
If there are at least two more Pirates given at least eight stats total and/or have deathrattles yet to be revealed, this should see play in a newish version of Tempo Rogue. If there aren’t, I at least wouldn’t disenchant her if you open her day one.
I really like the idea of pirates being a slower deck (though that’s more because I despise aggro in all its incarnations) but there just isn’t enough support for it, and putting it in Rogue basically ensures it can’t be THAT slow…
It seems people got accustomed to 6 mana ‘summon 7 1/5 with aunt’s or 10 mana ‘draws 5, heal five and summon a 5/5’, or again 4 mana ‘summon a 4 mana minion and heals for 6’.
That being said happy goul was trash too, nobody really understood why you would want to copy your opponent’s hand, switch deck, draw your entire deck and summon a 10/10 with deathrattle to win a game, or again brun all your under 3 mana.
Finally, and related to rogue I can’t remember people saying quest rogue would ve broken (when it got out) but rather ‘why would you want to play 4 times the same low cost minion this is such of loss of tempo’. Also, Sherazin had its day to, when underrated when released.
Just to say, give it time the potential is good, but it couldn’t cost 1 less within being too good in a odd rogue
I agree with your thinking but you’re saying people shouldn’t get accustomed to strong cards and no one thinks of combos with what seem like dead cards right away? But anyway the reason she cant be discounted by 1 mana is because of prep and that fire the cannons card(I forget the name). That could end up being a “trade your minions so they dont die followed by 15 damage to face” that’s the big reason
Welp I would have preferred if they gave that combo a chance since it’s still not an insta win. It’s turn 10 after all sometimes you may want to play Hooktusk at turn 8 and you could be unlucky and not draw Canon barrage or prep it’s huge setup but might have shaped the deck a bit more. Like I said I think they should have at least tried
It would be a lot better if it was recruit insteas of summon so u could run some not that good pirates just to get value from this card but still this card has a lot of potential.
3/5
What is the difference between ‘summon from your deck’ and ‘recruit’?
My bad friend. I thought summon wouldnt use the card from ur deck but as i saw in a video it recruits the minions.That way u play some not that good pirates so that u can just recruit them with this card and never have to play them from ur deck like Cursed Castaway (5/3 rush deathrattle:draw a Combo card from ur deck).
Could potentially be a combo deck. If you have spell damage and some pirates on the board and this, two preps and cannon barrage in hand or even one prep and coin, play this then trade some rush minions but try to keep them alive then use barrage for huge damage to face.
Doesn’t sound that good but it’s an idea.
If you have Valeera the Hollow, two preps, another from shadow reflection and a coin (could be from going second, counterfeit or wanted) you could play this and two barrages. However, that seems really unlikely.
You can’t 2 preps as first prep will just reduce cost of the second prep so yeah.
It would be so fun if this could work though.
With evasion, valeera and all of rogue’s control spells like vanish or execute getting to turn ten shouldn’t be too difficult.
For card draw you could have oracle, elven minstrel, fan of knives, myra’s unstable element and sprint but this will be very costly and RNG based.
Please i want to see you cast 2 prep in a row. SoGuDoMgDoUbLePrEpOp
Maybe a semi-combo deck ( not OTK ), which is what I was originally thinking of, would work.
You play like you would with a normal deck and do a bit of damage to face but keep your pirates a priority. All while trying to bounce to turn 10 with secrets and good removal.
Then, when you have enough damage and cards, you play this and cannon barrage. Even if it’s not a finisher, you probably still have enough tempo on the board and another barrage.
As of now, the highest-statted pirate is either Salty Dog at 7/4 or Luckydo Buccaneer at 5/5. Now whether or not you want to pull that is another story, but there’s a 7/4 Rush or a 5/5 Rush if nothing else.
Ticket Scalper almost guarantees two draws if you pull it with Rush, but it kinda relies on your opponent having minions. That being said, 8-mana 6/3 deal 5 damage to a minion draw two cards seems pretty decent (if not good) to me even as a baseline, but having the ability to throw two more pirates on top of that is definitely notable at worst. I mean, it’s a bit of a pseudo UI (yes, comparing ANYTHING to UI is unwise, but think about it x3).
Not many charge pirates, so you can’t use this as a last-resort bunch of damage to the face (unless you for whatever reason Ganged Up or Lab-Recruited Skycap’n Kragg and got a Shark Spirit or Brann to stick). Can’t *quite* prep Cannon Barrage unless you have a coin, but if you CAN get it, that’s a lotta – Er… A decent amount of damage.
I have one thing to say
IM IN RUSH NOW
So just for a giggle. This card, same art, was on Custom Hearthstone a while back. Trump even reviewed it in a video. The stats, effect, cost, and funny enough the tribe all changed but I think its odd that the art is the same. Kind of like a, hey is this good enough? then back to the drawing board moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOGcAdBNtvU
If you were trying to say blizzard copied the card, they print most cards two year before the expansion is released usually.
so someone probably saw the card early and made a custom one.
Sry think I misread your comment if you were trying to say that’s how they originally designed the card but changed it last minute, then yh that could be possible but I think they tend to print the final card before the reveal season.
*meant to say ‘two expansions’
and by going back to the drawing board, they just made it worse. That custom one was actually really good.
The custom card was WAY overpowered and design limiting. He didn’t even bother giving it a balance rating.
The art was released at Blizzcon which was the very beginning of November. Everyone could use it to make the custom cards. Its not that strange, since Trump is rating cards from this month.
Ok, Artifact – I’m gonna buy in.
Every single expansion, Rogue gets these stupid low stat legendaries that see no play because of their stupidly low stats for stuipidly high mana cost. Im sick of this.
N ever
U nderestimate
T he
S ynergy
Gurubashi Hypemon buff.
I like this card – simply for it’s similarities to Patches’ text, instead of Recruit.
Also, this card was revealed on literally the exact time of my birthday – in “American Time”, 11:00 of the 25th.
The birthday of King Togwaggle. Nice.
The disappointment I am feeling right now is just indescribable…
Although, it might be good in wild Kingsbane Rouge with Southsee Squidface cleaning the board AND buffing your Kingsbane at the same time.
I see your idea but Kingsbane Rogue already has better tools to get her weapon buffed, and doesn’t really want to draw these minions from Elven since you’re normally looking for Oracles.
I’m wondering since this says summon from deck instead of recruit could this trigger battlecries.
Would be an interesting effect and would open future possibilities.
Battlecry only activates on play from hand. This effect is basically “Recruit three pirates. Give them rush” But like Echo is tWW flavor, Recruit is KnC flavor, so they use “summon from deck”
This goes well with a card everyone forgot about from the witch wood. Cursed castaway. For those that don’t remember 6 mana 5/3 rush, when it dies it draws a combo card. This works well with captain hook risk, as you pull high value pirates.
I don’t like pirates, 1/5.
The stats are terrible. But summoning 3 pirates is good, right? Not exactly. In standard, can you name any decent pirates you would want to give rush? Maybe Captain Greenskin just for his body. The only use I can see for this card is to simply get pirates on the battlefield (e.g 2 Hench – Clans). Overall I would say 2.5 stars.
You forgot about Cursed Castaway. A 5/3 Pirate with “Rush. Deathrattle: Draw a Combo card from your deck” – a pretty good Pirate to summon from your deck with this card. This expansion might even have some other cool Pirates in stock worth summoning with this card.
I’M IN CHARRGE NOW!
You’re all going to be salty af when even/ pirate rogue comes through to mess you up.
For Christ’s sake she’s holding a cannon and cannonball, the synergies are too obvious to ignore guys. Prep cannon barrage or whatever it’s called after you fill the board with pirates? The 2 mana pirate generator? You’re all complaining about no finisher when each pirate gives +3 damage. Yeah sure this can get cleared but that’s the point. Keep flooding with pirates until you get a decent barrage to finish. Seems legit.
The problem with this card is that cannon barrage costs 6 mana. Prep only reduces 3 mana… Unfortunately, you can’t play the two on the same turn unless you save the coin or play WANTED!.
Also, the card costs itself is 8 mana.
2/5. Big rogue disappointment
I never said to use it on the same turn. You wait until your barrage is doing 15+ damage. Let’s say two pirates survive the pull. You then have 6 mana to play pirates and 3 to play barrage. Drop the 2 mana pirate and swing your weapon that’s now 4 pirates on the board. 15 damage. So say you’ve done some chip damage and you drop this and they do a full clear. Then on your next turn with a clean board, Let’s say you just had BOTH of the 2 drop pirates, now you’ve created 4 pirates with a weapon swing. that’s 15 damage for 7 mana, still leaving enough mana to perhaps add another pirate for another +3 burst.
I predicted a pirate-even rogue four weeks ago on the Rastakhans rumble page but now that I think of it the hero power isn’t needed much and you lose too many good cards like Patches, Sky Cap’n Kragg and Southsea Captain.
Don’t rate this card yet. There are plenty of card yet to will be revealed (3 rogue) so there is a chance that few of them will have a nice synergy with this. If Blizzard really wants pirate rogue to be a thing, they just can’t make useless legendary.
Why not use the keyword recruit?
Because they just don’t want to agree with fact that Recruit mechanic is not new.
No man it’s different! Recruit pulls the minions out of your deck whereas she summon a copy of a minion in your deck and you still have it in your deck
I do not know if you are drunk but recruits take a minion from your deck to the board. You don’t get a copy of it wtf? And Captain Hooktusk in Principe recruits the minions but the effect Recruit will rotate in 4 months, that’s why they don’t write Recruit. If she would summon a copy it would say “Summon a copy”, but it doesn’t. Echo is just Recruit, it was just a theme with the witch wood that they wanted something spooky thing with the expansion. Unstable Evolution works exactly like Echo but there doesn’t stand echo anywhere.
Because Recruit is a keyword restricted to Kobolds and Catacombs. It’s the same reason why Unstable Evolution’s text hasn’t been updated either.
2 less mana and sure.
1/5 for now
Southsea captain, next turn this, preperation, cannon barrage. That would be cool.
+coin
Also Spirit of the Shark so this can summon 2 more pirates
Probably not competitive enough but unlike other legendaries revealed this one is really cool.
Aids is cool, too.
Indeed
what a bad card… with charge it would be nice finisher for now….meh, 8 turn in aggro tempo deck is usually finish or lose… so this one is slow not even finisher and dies to almost any good aoe..
Not playable but maybe could be a nice meme.. 2.5/5
If only rogue had some heal or a better neutral heal to prolong the game.
Evasion and Valera the hallow
Why the heck would any pirate deck want to wait for turn 8 to play this? Sure it gives you a nice board fill, the effect is quite strong but a pirate deck would want to end the game at this point.
The only way this card could be awesome is if there was a pirate card that gives all your pirates charge but this obviously won’t happen. 1.5/5 Frustatingly disappointing.
Alright now theres only one question.
Where’s the peterpan card?
6/3 is about 4 mana, so the battlecry for 4 mana is very strong. However, this is most likely too expensive for aggressive deck. If the pirates would have charge, it would be a nice finisher, but now… I don’t know. IF pirate rogue WOULD exist, the card would be used there, but it wouldn’t be super OP.
thanks for rogue trash cards…
Rogue is a trash class
Who says Pirate Rogue is an aggro deck? Just because it has been in the past doesn’t mean it will be. It’s shaping up to a more Midrange/tempo deck.
Yea, control pirates rogue… Go to a doctor, or let me switch to Artifact fast.
This card is the only Midrange tool the arquetype got. In standard RN pirates only count with aggresive cards, RR brings a 2 mana minion, a burst spell and a draw engine. Dont loose track just becouse of 1 card
4 Mana body with a pre-nerf Call To Arms and grants rush.
8 Mana is pricey, but this is definitely very strong, and makes Pirate Rogue seem pretty exciting. We just need to see some more pirates, although Southsea Captain being pulled makes it seem powerful enough, and if the pirates stick, you can hit a turn 9 Cannon Barrage and go face.
I think this is awesome. People are underrating it because the old “Rogue can’t play a card that costs more than 5 Mana” stigma, but this is a great Turn 8, that can be consistently tutored thanks to Raiding Party.
I’m pretty confident this card and Pirate Rogue could be really solid.
Lol
Pre nerf call to arms was strong in aggro becouse of how early it came , adding a shitty 4 mana minion to it and making it a late game card makes the comparison dumb. We’re not talking about any rogue deck, a pirate deck NEEDS to be aggresive and RR didnt add anything to change that. Also those low cost minions are far less sticky at turn 8/9 so forget any sinergy whit Cannon Barrage.
You know what else raiding party does? Cause you to run out of things to pull from this real quick. You dont want to pull deckhand or 2/2s with this effect.
As the good analyzers point out, comparing cards across classes can be trivial at times. But I can’t help myself.
The Boomship does the same thing, for one more mana, summons from your hand instead of deck (which is far worse) AND doesn’t come with 4 mana body.
Of course, this is restricted to pirates, and we have yet to see if Pirate Rogue is viable. BUT, this makes Ticket Scalper into the realm of possibly being viable in constructed. As everyone noted when that card was released, give it rush and it’s broken. Well here ya go. If any other overkill pirates are released, giving them rush with this card will be so, so good.
What’s fascinating is we have really only seen viable pirate aggro decks, but this seems to be heavily focus on a midrange tempo deck,
something Rogue has been good at historically.
There is still some work to be done regarding pirate releases, but this card makes me think Pirate Rogue will indeed be successful this next mega.
too slow 1 star