Crystallizer

Crystallizer Card

Crystallizer is a 1 Mana Cost Epic Neutral Minion card from the The Boomsday Project set!

Card Text

Battlecry: Deal 5 damage to your hero. Gain 5 Armor.

Flavor Text

This elf's winning the arms race.

Crystallizer Card Review

I think this might be one of my favorite cards of the set. While it appears really pointless when you first look at it, the more you think the better it becomes. There are lots of builds that could utilize trading health for Armor.

First of all, it has solid stats. Of course, 1 mana 1/3 is better in a fast deck, but you wouldn’t be very sad dropping it on Turn 1 in a slower deck too. And it has quite a lot of synergies:

In decks that run healing, you can’t really heal yourself over 30, but with this you “technically” can. For example, one of the issues with a Paladin deck running healing is when you are at full health and some of your cards are useless. You can’t even activate Lesser Pearl Spellstone (had to google the name right now, I haven’t seen it in Constructed even once).

In Warlock, there are some ways to use it. First, in Heal Zoo, you need to be damaged to heal yourself and play free Happy Ghoul. You already have some better ways to do it on Turn 1, but still. Then, in slower Warlock, this can get you in the Hooked Reaver range or activate the Spellstone while not actually dealing any damage to you (win-win!). Also, it synergizes with the new Nethersoul Buster. A single copy of this guy turns it into a 6/5 minion for 3 mana. Indeed busted!

In Warrior, you nearly always prefer Armor over Health. Not only Armor does synergize with your cards (e.g. Shield Slam), but dealing damage to yourself early might activate Battle Rage. When Warrior is running that card, people often skip attacking his face early to not activate it!

The main downside of this card is that you can’t play it when you’re at 5 health or lower, since you will just kill yourself. But then again, if you’re that close to dying, I don’t think that a 1 mana 1/3 would save you anyway most of the time, so losing BECAUSE of this card would be a niche situation.

All in all, interesting card with lots of applications. The ones I listed are just examples, I bet there are more ways to utilize it. So while I don’t think that it will be broken in any deck, it can be slotted into some of them for an cool upside over other 1-drops.

Card rating: 8/10

Leave a Reply

17 Comments

  1. Mrthejazz
    August 3, 2018 at 12:57 PM

    Proof of what happens if you stick your arms in a deep fryer.

  2. billius
    August 2, 2018 at 8:09 PM

    works great with warrior/heal pally & lock, I like it

  3. Scrow
    August 2, 2018 at 1:12 AM

    This on turn 4 with NETHERSOUL BUSTER is a great combo

  4. PhilNox
    August 1, 2018 at 10:27 PM

    Gratis upgrade for the warlock spellstone … and body 1/3 … what else ? … op

  5. chef3000
    August 1, 2018 at 2:53 PM

    Maybe not a bad 1 drop for Priest

  6. Dustin
    August 1, 2018 at 2:07 PM

    Odd Priest maybe? 😀 start with 34 heath
    Turn 1 Crystalizer
    Turn 2 Heropower face
    Im sure if odd priest ever be a thing this will be in it.

    • chef3000
      August 1, 2018 at 2:55 PM

      hm sounds interesting, will give it a try in odd priest

  7. Mrthejazz
    August 1, 2018 at 12:11 PM

    What a buff for healock. Nice!

  8. David Peng
    August 1, 2018 at 12:07 PM

    This plus the new warlock three drop that gains attack off health lost

  9. Tim
    August 1, 2018 at 11:36 AM

    Really cool card.

  10. Soup And Salad
    August 1, 2018 at 11:05 AM

    Crystallizer is a card that enables both low health and armor synergies for one mana and it comes with a 1/3 body. Plus, decks with a lot of healing effects will probably see this battlecry as simply “Gain 5 armor.”

    This will absolutely see play in something at some point.

  11. SpectralTigerDude
    August 1, 2018 at 11:04 AM

    Sweet card. 4/5

  12. MockRock
    August 1, 2018 at 10:54 AM

    Man, what a cool card! Decently statted, works with Warlock self-damage, Warrior and Druid armour gain, allows Paladin to get its own Spellstone up and running…love the design and seems fairly powerful, this HAS to see play somewhere.

  13. Ziggars
    August 1, 2018 at 10:45 AM

    Really cool design. Synergises well with heal decks, armor deck and self damage decks. Because it has good stats it could see play. 4/5

  14. Jed
    August 1, 2018 at 10:44 AM

    Yeah it’s a good one drop in any heal synergy deck.

  15. Earthrouge
    August 1, 2018 at 10:33 AM

    Really good in a sort of heal paladin type of deck, as it usually struggles losing life for their heals to have the proper effects on lightwarden etc.