Spellshifter
Spellshifter is a 2 Mana Cost Common Neutral Minion card from the The Witchwood set!
Card Text
Spell Damage +1 Each turn this is in your hand, swap its Attack and Health.
Flavor Text
He also goes by "worg-lock."- Mana Cost: 2
- Attack: 1
- Health: 4
- Crafting Cost: 40 / 400 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 5 / 50 (Golden)
- Rarity: Common
- Class: Neutral
- Card Type: Minion
- Set: The Witchwood
- Mechanics: Spell Damage
Spellshifter Card Review
Only one good thing could be said about this card – it’s better than Dalaran Mage. But that’s about it.
Neither 1/4, nor 4/1 for 2 mana would see any play. We had minions like that before and they never did. To be fair, I feel like this minion shifting in your hand is a downside not an upside. It would be much better as a 2 mana version of Dalaran Mage – the 4/1 minion is bad, because it dies to any 1-drop, it can get pinged easily etc. 1/4 has a chance of surviving a trade or even sticking. The Spell Damage part is a nice addition, of course, but not enough to make it playable. Both Bloodmage Thalnos and Tainted Zealot seem to be better. The first one cycles, so is more disposable, and the second one is more durable – it will always survive two hits. While technically 1/1 with Divine Shield is worse than 1/4 in some scenarios (e.g. facing two 1/1 minions), it’s still better in the late game, because it’s resistant to AoE and such. But the fact that this can switch to 4/1 when you don’t want it makes it a much worse choice. And Zealot doesn’t see any play right now anyway, it has seen some play in Control Warlock thanks to its synergy with Defile but that’s about it.
So I don’t really see any reason to play this guy right now. Possibly in Warlock after the Zealot rotates out, but I still doubt that, because it’s so inconsistent. The card has good synergy with both Defile (1/4 version) and Shadowflame (4/1), but the thing is that you can’t control which one it is, so it’s super inconsistent…
Card rating: 2/10
Spellshifter Full Card Art
If there’s atleast a single utility to a card,so there’s a reason to you want get this in a pack and use it in ranked,and i can think in atleast two utilities in two different kinds of decks rigth now:control warlocks(together defile(replace Godfrey in my overdose warlock)or shadowflame destroying the board)and aggro mages that can use it as a very good drop in any turn…i loved all this card design
Swipe Card
Druid Card !!!
The Worgen mechanic of swapping Attack and Health each turn is NOT good. 50% of the time you have to wait for a whole turn to drop a minion with the desired stats, and that is too inconsistent. That said, these are not bad minions in Arena, when you can usually play other minions until you wait for the desired form, and the stat-distribution is pretty vanilla. The only way we are going to see these in constructed is in a Lady in White deck (which highly boosts these minions, not just by stats but also they become consistent minions that always have the same attack and health), or when summoned by random minion generators. Many of these rotate out (Portals from Karazhan), so we may not see this minions practically at all in Constructed.
This minion seems to me the most useful of all three, since 1/4 stats and Spell Damage is great in a 2-drop. I think this is Stronger than Bloodmage Thalnos and Tainted Zealot on Turn 2, since it will probably stick better in the early game. From Turn 5 onwards though, Thalnos and Tainted Zealot are clearly better. Also the inconsistency of the Worgen form can be overcome somehow if you manage to get this in your Mulligan. If you do, you’re guaranteed a 1/4 2-drop on Turn 2. The 4/1 stat distribution is terrible, you will never want to play the minion like that unless you need the Spell Power in a pinch. EVERYONE has ways to ping the 4/1, in the best case scenario the oponent takes 4 damage to face for removing it with a weapon, or a small 1-attack minion takes it out. You don’t want a Magma Rager… I’m giving this minion 3/5 stars, I’d probably still run Thalnos or Zealot for consistency and for value in the late game. But in an aggressive Mage Deck this might fight in better, possibly.
Call Dalaron Mage, he’s crying.
good card
this cards seems very good to me 2 mana good stats and spell dmg and good pair for lady in white
Look at it from the bright side. At least the “filler” cards are more interesting than usual.
There’s none “pack filler” card,there’s just cards don’t enter the meta decks
Another fodder card that will never see play. The mechanic doesn’t seem very exciting also. I really miss the old Hearthstone when the chillwind yeti was considered a good card, though it being a vanilla minion with just good stats. This card really reminds me of the old times, but with all the powerfull carfs released as of recently it just doesn’t add up. Although the seemingly negative opinion i left above i did notice that Blizzard seems to implement some conditionality when considering to run those cards in your deck, like building the whole deck around a specific card like Reno. Will the game go on to a new path? Only time will tell.
That’s pretty much the point of most expansions sadly. Underpower the f2p stuff so that there are more sales on card packs. C’thun sorted that out last year (Though C’thun decks didn’t really see much play after its initial hype died down) So maybe we’ll get something similar to that for the more casual players.
Obviously that’s not the only point of expansions, having a constant rotation of cards means you also don’t play the same boring OP deck that can’t be beaten.
I think this blog by Mark Rosewater of Magic the Gathering will illuminate as to why weak to bad cards even exist in card games: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28.
It is worth a read.
Powercreep on Dalaran Mage, but reverse powercreep from that one 4/1 stealth with the spell damage +1.
Arena early drop.
It can be both a Dalaran Mage or a Mini Mage (though this one doesn’t have stealth)
You can’t really powercreep a card that does not see play at all from being too weak.
I would’ve actually like this if the stats didn’t switch up every turn
Also, rip Doloran Mage (wtv the name), it’s not like anyone played it anyway
Id like this card more if it didnt swap attack and health.
I dont know why you would play it as 4/1 unless you play quest mage or something.
4/1 for Defile?
But even then, the 2 mana 1/1 Divine Shield Spell Dmg +1 would easily outclass this, cause the spell damage stays on twice during its activation.
if he’s 1/4 it also stays twice on defile, he’ll take 2 damage twice.
Well, in the late game against decks that aren’t Mage or Druid, a 4/1 stat line will apply a lot more pressure than a 1/4.
Pack filler.