Hir’eek, the Bat
Hir’eek, the Bat is a 8 Mana Cost Legendary Warlock Minion Beast card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!
Card Text
Battlecry: Fill your board with copies of this minion.
Flavor Text
REPEL’S EFFECT WORE OFF.Hir’eek, the Bat Card Review
The biggest problem with Hir’eek is that it’s a combo card (you NEED to combo it with handbuffs for it to be viable), but you want to play it in Zoo. And Zoo doesn’t want to play combo cards.
It becomes borderline playable, but still probably not good enough for a 2-cards-combo if you hit it with one Soul Infusion. Realistically you would want to hit it with both copies, or get some more buffs from cards like Prince Keleseth or Spirit of the Bat for it to be worth it. But the thing is, it’s not that easy for a few reasons. If you draw it pretty early, not only it’s a dead card, but it’s a discard magnet. Any time you play Soulfire or Doomguard you will have a high chance to discard it. So you don’t want to draw it early. But then again, what if you draw your Soul Infusion / Spirit of the Bat early? You just keep it and not play it? That’s also a bad strategy because of the discards, but also because of the tempo – Zoo is a tempo deck, you don’t want to hold onto cards for a long time if you can play them. You will have a higher chance to win if you hit that Soul Infusion on your Chain Gang, Doubling Imp or whatever and play it as soon as possible than if you hold it for god knows how long.
And if you want a massive late game board refill in Zoo, why not just play Bloodreaver Gul'dan? Yes, it’s more expensive, but you don’t need to combo it with anything – you WILL play a bunch of Demons throughout the game and then resummon a big board. But you know why Zoo decks rarely play Gul’dan, even though it would be more consistent? Because it’s not necessary. That’s not the deck’s game plan. You want to finish the games in the mid game, Turn 7-8 is already very late for the Zoo. If you haven’t won by that point, if you play vs a faster deck, you’re probably dead (because they’ve got ahead and crushed you) and if you play vs a slower deck, they probably have some AoE kept just in case, because they don’t need it that much when you’re in topdeck mode.
And a slower Warlock deck definitely doesn’t want to play it. Spirit of the Bat is not a good card if you don’t run many small minions, especially tokens, so you would be left with Soul Infusion to combo with it. And then you basically get a 3 cards late game board flood like Dragoncaller Alanna in Mage… but Alanna is a single card, not 3.
Card rating: 2/10
Hir’eek, the Bat Full Card Art
So I used a Mutate on a Mogu Fleshshaper and thus c*** came out. Needless to say I lost that game
from 20 to 9 with this in a Zoo Handbuff , is really a sleeper card.
Any chance you could shoot me a decklist?
Yeah I got this as my free Loa … no, I’ve not been able to make it work yet.
There just aren’t enough reliable ways to buff your hand with Warlock (2 class cards + Arena Fanatic, which is terrible) – and unlike other token decks, Warlock doesn’t have many good ways to flood the board AND buff it effectively – or make it sticky – so the tokens trade badly and you’ve got no Bloodlust/Savage Roar type spells for a big spike in face damage…
Warlock can use cheap minions, or tokens, and sacrifice them to make better things, but that’s never been a terribly successful strategy in Hearthstone (Black in MtG, yes) beyond Nerubian/Devilsaur eggs. There’s nothing really impressive enough to support the sacrifice mechanic; Ravenous Pterrordax is no Demon of Catastrophes.
The more tributes you bring to the bat, the bigger he will be to crush thoose who get in your way, i have clasified this loa in 3 categories: The “I’m the boss, build your deck for me” like this guy, The “just chill bro, i got ya” like shyrvalla, and the ” don’t worry bro, i’m here for you and only you, bro” like gonk.
4/5
Okey guys imagine this with soul infusion and 2 stacks from Spirit of the bat. 7 7/7 for 8 mana on board. Only board clear for this is Deathwing, which none use, and a really great highroll on dragon’s fury, the 5 mana LK card and twisting nether, and thats about it, 1 neutral, 1 warlock card that none use and mage spell that rotates in 4 months. I call it probably broken
Probably not now but after the rotation when Zoo is not as impressive and Evenlock is probably dead because of the outrotation of Gul’Dan the bloodreaver.
Can you get this from rexar? To make zombeasts?
For the first no it is a warlock card and you can only discover hunter and neutral cards, secondly no since it cost more than 5 mana and. 5+ mana can’t be discovered in zombeast because if makes it possibly cost more than 10 and unplayable .
I can dream can’t I, this combined with stonetusk would be hilarious
This + Soul Infusion is 21/21 worth of stats (or seven 3/3 minions) on 8 without any preliminary board requirement.
Now let’s talk about your usual turn 9 Level Up!
I feel like a legend card like this is meant to help push and encourage deck design of current popular classes in new directions. Sometimes that’s not fully conceived until later when the more powerful go too options are gone. When healzoolock rotates maybe we see a more midrange tempo warlock deck that uses this the spirit card and/or other unspoiled cards yet to create more than narrow chances to trigger this ability and utilize it for big turns. So time will tell of this becomes a great card or becomes a throwaway cute concept like discard themed legendaries
this in paladin would be absolutely bonkers… cant understand why they dont do it in there… completely fail class i´d say
it doesn’t seem all that powerfull but running cards that can bounce copies to either your hand or deck would be kinda fun. With this and Omega Agent, that would be alot of late game value.
*Uses Psychic Scream for infinite value*
I could see this work in a more midrangy zoo list after the rotation.
Has some synergy with necrotic geist, witch’s cauldron, knife juggler although violet wyrm is better unless you can get soul infusion or keleseth off. No telling if it will find a place in standard constructed right away, but it at least has the potential to be a fun card. You can return it to your hand with youthful brewmaster too. Will be interesting to see if they support it at all with a deathrattle spell similar to cybertech chip.
Tired of always hearing “8 mana do nothing the turn it’s played” how many cards have been labeled that and then work out and find a deck that works perfect? I’m seeing omega agent, this legend, doubling imp keleseth hand buff warlock. Probably not worth a craft but not an immediate dust if you open it. WISH it was a demon and not a beast though.
This looks like a finisher. In a Control-esque Warlock, you run 2x Soul Infusion and you hit this guy twice. Then you pay 8 mana to fill your board with 5/5s, a-la-Dragoncaller Alanna. Don’t underrate it, but it can actually be good. Problem is if you draw it really late and you still have other minions you have to play to make it the left-most-minion. 2.5/5 stars potential, 1.5/5 stars probably.
I don’t know. Many say this card is bad. I could see it in Zoo, little bit depending on the metagame.
It’s a one of, so I think you can afford to play it. Sometimes it’s just discarded. With Keleseth it’s 7 2/2’s. With Soul Infusion it’s insane.
I’ll guess this card will see play here and there, and similar to Myras Unstable Evolution in Odd Rogue, when Boomsday was released, some will say you have to play it, and the others say you can’t run it.
In the end, I think this card is Meta-dependent for Zoolock.
God this sucks. 8 mana do-nothing the turn it enters already kinda sucks, needs handbuff support, can’t fit neither in control or aggro, the former because you would need to run handbuff cards, and it doesn’t have enough of a impact to be worth it.
Playing this in aggro is just stupid. 8 mana. Do nothing when you play it. Needs buff, and you have to keep it in your hand to buff it, or you have a dead draw later in the game without buffs. Even 5-drops in aggro need to impact the board when you play them, think of doomguard, fungalmancer, leeroy, giggling inventor. They all do something, as the first three provide more damage, and the last provides protection.
It seems Blizzard really hates Warlock uh.
Not quite true. After one soul infusion this is basically fill your board with 3/3s for 8 mana (the turn after psychic scream) . This is 21/21 stats refill in an Aggro deck. The only problem with this card is that it’s a 1/1 so you do need to buff it at least once. It has immediate impact as it forces a board clear against control/ allows you to trade your minions against the board of an aggro opponent and instantly create a huge new one which potentially deals 21 dmg. This won’t see play because there is no consistent way to buff it. If it was at least a 2/2 you could still consider playing it in zoo. Of course, playing 7 2/2s on 8 wouldn’t be the best play, but playing them all in a single card makes it way better.
Don Han’cho bufflock? nice meme
Wrong Tribe.
Dust dust free dust
theres going to be a meme deck with this, omega agent and zola for sure. Might even be good in the meta.
Well, it is a perfect Soul Infusion target, but it is usually too slow to play in Zoo Warlock. The rest of the set will make or break this card.
The only deck I think would use this card would be Zoo, as a safeguard in case they fail to kill the opponent and reach the late game, just like some Face hunter decks would put The Lich King there just for late game value
being said it’d need buffs, so that screws over the Zoo flavor, since nowadays the only hand-buffing Zoo plays is Soul Infusion wich is highly RNG based and it’d need to run that other card whose name I forgot that gives +1/+1 when it dies
granted, if the meta keeps not having many large board clears being used, getting this to be a 3/3 is already more than worth it for zoo, even a 2/2 depending on the matchup
If not buffed, this is literally a worst Onixya
JEsus F*cking Christ, the art is sick.
Burn in hell damn satanist
😀 Amen
Really flavorful and interesting. This card is what the handbuff should have been from the start. I hope it won’t see play in the heal zoolock because if they print some other handbuff tempo cards the deck could be completely dominant. In general, all the handbuff warlock cards will have a completely different meaning from now on
Haha, no Demon so that the 2/2 dude that gives your demons +1/+1 doesn’t get out of hand. Also a buff to the 8-mana slot of creatures for Spiteful Decks. They’ll be summoning a 1/1 now apart from Tirions and Lich Kings.
So… uh, when you say dude I think you mean chick, and when you say buff I think you mean nerf. Lol kinda using the opposite of the words you are trying to use…
I had to look up Demonologist again because I hadn’t seen it not even once on Ladder (Rank 5 and up), so I had forgotten if it was a dude or chick. And yeah, I meant nerf, not buff.
Powerful. Between Keleseth and 2 Soul Infusions, this is 9 6/6’s, 3/3’s, 2/2’s, or 5/5’s for 8, which is pretty dang powerful as a late game push, but your opponent has to not have drawn a lot of clears
Between Doubling Imp and Omega Agent, it seems like they’re pushing Handbufflock as a thing. You’ll be pretty vulnerable to boardwipes (even if you get it up to, say, 4/4), but you only spent a single card to develop an entire board so it might still be worth it. Might need to wait until Spreading Plague rotates though 😉
A late game super heavy push card for zoo. Already has synergy with the bat spirit thing that allows you to get a return from trading your board. Most definetley will see play
I actually think this could go in zoo as a late game push card.
4/5
You guys are not thinking straight what if it keeps the buffs like +2/+2. To left most catd
Lol what? You serious? It obviously summons other copies with the buffs. That’s the whole point of this card. It’s unplayable without that, and still probably extremely situational.
It was 1.5 rating when i comment on this one