Spirit of the Bat
Spirit of the Bat is a 2 Mana Cost Rare Warlock Minion card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!
Card Text
Stealth for 1 turn. After a friendly minion dies, give a minion in your hand +1/+1.
Flavor Text
Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nahSpirit of the Bat Card Review
This is a Zoo card, but not really an amazing Zoo card. Let’s start with the mana cost – while 2 might seem cool, it means that you can’t play it in Prince Keleseth deck. It won’t be a big deal after the rotation (because Keleseth) will be out, but for now I guess that Zoo will still want Keleseth.
The problem with this card is that it’s good only in very specific scenarios. You already need to be ahead on the board, your opponent needs to have some minions too, and you need to trade your minions into their minions. It does nothing when you do efficient trading (which you should aim to as Zoo – you want your minions to survive trades if possible). It does nothing if you plan to go face. It does nothing if you play vs a slow deck that doesn’t play many minions. It does nothing if you’re behind on the board.
The card reminds me a bit of Sonya Shadowdancer. Everyone and their mother said that the card will be insane in Tempo Rogue, and it turned out to be okay there – it wasn’t even a staple. And Sonya was way more powerful than this is – you’d rather get 1/1 copies of the minions you lost than +1/+1 buff on a random minion.
Another point of comparison would obviously be Soul Infusion. You get +2/+2 for 1 mana, so in order for it to be really worth it you’d probably need to get at least 4 triggers. And even then, the advantage of Soul Infusion is that you can more or less control what will get the buff. And that’s actually not that easy. Faster mirrors are mostly about trading blows, you rarely stick many minions on the board. And in slower matchups you often prefer going face, or your board is constantly getting AoEd.
Yes, if this card sticks to the board, it can snowball it in the long run. But how often a 0/3 minion sticks to the board? If it did often, then Shaman decks would be absolutely busted thanks to the Flametongue Totem. But the truth is that after you get your initial value, it’s usually cleared.
The card has obviously great synergy with Loa – Hir'eek, the Bat, but that’s like a pipe dream. Hir’eek is a combo card and Zoo is not a combo deck.
Maybe it will see some play in token-heavy Zoo after the rotation, when Keleseth is no longer there. But even then I’m not sure. Right now it doesn’t look too strong.
Card rating: 3/10
Spirit of the Bat Full Card Art
It’s a decent spirit, not the best not the worst, it could see play in some decks.
3/5 even if clucky.
So, am I the only one who’s noticed that this card does not say “Random” anywhere on it? All other handbuff cards either say they affect a random minion in your hand (or random within a specific subset, like Trogg Beastamer), all minions (or all minions of a certain type, like Void Analyst), or a specific card (Void Infusion being the only one of this type I can think of). The wording on Spirit of the Bat doesn’t match the wording on any previous handbuff card. Does this mean you get to choose where the buffs land?
Difficult to get value of this right now. Maybe play this and then Fiendish Circle + Joy-e-bot + Defile for at least a 3-mana board clear and lots of +1/+1 in your hand. Even then I highly doubt it’s worth it. It synergizes well with the new Warlock Legendary, but that’s it. Maybe we get something interesting that will synergize with this? 1/5 stars.
Imagine if you have a card that costs 2 and its text is “give +5/+5 to a minion with stealth, rush or charge in your hand”
Im not saying we will build a deck around it, with stoneboars, wolfriders, worgen infitrators, im saying we can use it in a deck that already have cards like doomguard, Leroy, or have conditions to replace some weak card for an 5/5 with stealth, a 1/3 with rush and lifesteal, you can use the bat spirit as a double soul infusion to gain a lot of tempo, or as a win condition
Spirit of the Bat will not change the game for Zoolock. Even without Keleseth, the Heal-Zoolock shell is faster and better than some kind of Token-Handbuff-Midrange-Lock.
Aaaaand this card sucks. Cannot work in almost any scenario, isn’t a good engine, benefits are small, this is no keleseth.
Yeah, even with big bat this card sucks, also because big bat sucks.
It could see play only in a Standard format without Prince Keleseth.
Yeahhh……. I don’t like it. The legg for the handbufflock is beautiful, but this card is just boring and not even that strong in general. 2 mana for some handbuffs but only if you kill a lot of your minions in the turn. The card that paladin had that gave +1/+1 to all the minions in your hand will always be better than this card, and that paladin card was not even op or anything.
It’s probably too slow for next rotation but probably won’t see play now because Keleseth is just better.
I mean, buffs the big bat? A little bit slow, since zoo doesn’t want to trade, and at 2 mana it isn’t going to, not for 4 months while keleseth is still standard.
1 star
The benefit doesn’t seem super impactful or consistent, even if Warlock now has a lot of cards that synergize with this :\
Ahh. So that’s how Blizzard tries to balance Spreading Plague. Void Rippers incoming.
Too slow, I don’t see it working
Also not going to lie, the art looks a bit off.
1/5