Spirit of the Shark
Spirit of the Shark is a 4 Mana Cost Rare Rogue Minion card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!
Card Text
Stealth for 1 turn. Your minions' Battlecries and Combos trigger twice.
Flavor Text
It has Stealth, but its ominous theme music keeps giving it away.- Mana Cost: 4
- Attack: 0
- Health: 3
- Crafting Cost: 100 / 800 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 20 / 100 (Golden)
- Rarity: Rare
- Class: Rogue
- Card Type: Minion
- Set: Rastakhan's Rumble
- Mechanics: Stealth
Spirit of the Shark Card Review
This card reminds me of Brann Bronzebeard. He has proven that doubling your Battlecries can be a very powerful effect. But, he costed 1 less mana, came with a better body and wasn’t played much in Rogue anyway (was good in Jade Rogue, but that was more of a meme deck). However, Spirit of the Shark has something going for it – not only it starts with a Stealth, making it much harder to clear (unless your opponent wants to commit an AoE), but also works with Combo cards. Those two are big deal.
The thing about Rogue is that it’s the highest tempo class of them all. It lives and dies for the tempo, and playing a 4 mana 0/3 is a massive tempo loss. So whether it will be good or not mostly depends on how well the class will be able to regain that tempo back. Right now, there aren’t many Battlecry and/or Tempo minions that would take the tempo back. Edwin VanCleef is the one that comes to mind, but it would just create a bigger body, which has diminishing returns. A 18/18 is of course better than 10/10, but if your opponent has removal/Silence it’s the same thing anyway (and if he doesn’t he probably loses anyway). Elven Minstrel draws 2 extra cards, but that’s a low tempo play followed by a low tempo play. SI:7 Agent deals 2 extra damage to the target, which is cool, but not something to put it to the next level.
This card doesn’t seem to fit into your Classic Tempo/Miracle/etc. Rogue, but I feel like it has a lot of combo (not keyword combo) potential. For example, it would go really well into a Pogo-Hopper deck. I know that those decks are meme right now, but doubling the Battlecry makes them grow twice as fast. You play Pogo + Shadowstep + Pogo with this on the board and you get +8+/8 to your Hoppers. And of course, it HEAVILY depends on the new Battlecries / Combo cards we’ll get this expansion. Overall I think that it has some potential, but most likely not in the current popular Rogue strategies, because it’s too slow for the decks that rely early/mid game tempo. It looks more like a combo activator.
My biggest worry is that Mossy Horror might become even more relevant if Spirit cards see common play, and it can completely destroy them. Removing a 4-drop and possibly some other small minions for 6 mana with a 2/7 body is well worth it, on top of being an answer to stuff like Spreading Plague.
Card rating: 5/10 (but HEAVILY depends on new Battlecries/Combos)
Spirit of the Shark Full Card Art
Like the spirit cards, they are here to support a certain gimmick, and so, they are as good as they can push the potential of this gimmick, in the case of this doubling battle cries and combos is strong by itself, but even after ALL the cards have been reveal there is not a really strong gimmick for this to back up, and even feels even more over costed, but new cards shall come, new cards shall come, and unlimited potential/infinity.
I just wanted to point out the possible mistake in the review – Pogo Hoppers do not really grow twice as fast (they do if the Spirit of the Shark stays present on the board forever, which will not happen), the battlecry triggers twice but it does not count as playing two Pogo’s. So, in the given example (with Shark on the board), playing Pogo + Shadowstep + Pogo gives you a 5/5 minion and the next one would be 9/9, but if the Shark dies in the meantime, the next (third) Pogo played will be a 5/5 minion because there were a total of 2 Pogo’s played before it.
Cool, as just a card is like good not awesome not bad, just good, doubling baclecrys and combos could be sick, but 4 mana is like a turn off, this being countered the exact same way by mossy horror the same way than cheaper totems and even bigger turn off.
i wonder how this works with perdition’s blade
Is perdition’s blade a minion?
This card is being hilariously overrated. It’s only for Rogue, and Rogue never ran Brann, which was cheaper and better statted.
yeah but it effects spells to….evising face for 8 is super powerful
ok nvm i re read this. ur right its hot garbage
Mill rogue ran brann
but yeah this is a 4mana 0/3 that doesn’t even do anything on it’s own
You guys are dumb, bran is in WILD AND THIS CARD HAS STEALTH! This card forces apponent to have board removal OR face double the trouble of alot of good cards
Oh noes, his SI now deals 2extra damage! And it only cost him 4mana and a card! How am I going to deal with that 4mana arcane shot?
Oh no his fungalmancer givers adjacent minions… +4/+4? making your 0/3 into a 4/7 and your firefly into a 5/6? and its on curve into 5?! hot garbage.
My point is odd rouge might turn back into keleseth rouge so they could use a card like this. imagine a perfect hand of going second: turn 1 keleseth, 2 play a dagger, turn 3 hired thug and attack into this as a 1/4 or atleast a 0/3 stealth if it was in your hand into a fungalmancer into something like leeroy cold blood(i know spells dont work with this) to quote the flex seal guy ” That’s a lot of damage”.
So the conditions are: you get your 2card combo and your 3drop is still alive on turn 5
And the reward is: 4mana for 4/7 stats
Is that good? No.
As expected, spirit of the shark is terrible. It’s the worst card of any list it’s included in.
Not in standard, but in wild there are mill rogues who use Brann, coldlight oracle, shadowstep, coldlight to bust our cards and kill us with fatigue
Besides, this is cheaper than Brann
In dust
Bran is a 3mana 2/4
This is a 4mana 0/3
This is terrible.
The extra mana cost is a big deal, but Bran wasn’t generally played for his statline . . .
Anyone who says stats don’t matter is wrong. Stats fully matter outside of OTK combos (and they still matter even for otk combo, because you won’t always go for the combo). There’s no OTK with this, so stats fully matter, which makes the card worse than brann by over 2mana.
Brann isn’t one of the strongest card in the game’s history, not even close. Go check HS replay: in wild, brann is never played outside of Reno decks.
If brann was a bit worse, a 3mana 1/4 for example, it probably wouldn’t be played. At 3mana 1/3 it would just be bad. 3mana 0/3 would be terrible. This is a 4mana 0/3.
“Its like ssaying spreading plague at 6 is bad because we used to have a way better card in 5 mana plague”
no
it’s like saying spreading plague at 8-9mana would be bad because spreading plague at 6mana is just ok
bran is one of the best card ever it makes some crazy combo with loatheb and zola or oracle almost every mill rouge runs bran that card is still on decks of many player in wild including me and its one of best i guess best card is loatheb .mb bran is 4th or 5th place after reno and others.but it a top card dude.your dates are wrong.
I was going to say that Brann maybe made the top 50, but then realized I can rather easily find 10 cards in every class that are better than brann. So brann maybe makes a top100, but no more.
And it’s super easy to check, you just need to look at any list that’s not genn or highlander on HS replay wild. Even decks like shudderwock shamans don’t run brann lol
If you said that brann was one of the best neutral cards, that might be true.
Yes, being a weaker version of one of the strongest cards in the game’s history is terrible. Bran’s statline dont matter in stantard. Its like ssaying spreading plague at 6 is bad because we used to have a way better card in 5 mana plague
see Zalae’s review on youtube (13:40)
This has the potential to be broken, if and only if there’s some Battlecries and Combos that get out of hand when doubled. Faldorei Strider for example is good, and you can make a yuuuuuuuge Edwin Van Cleef. It’s even better in the late game, when you can get value of it two turns instead of one (I assume this will be a high priority target once Stealth is gone). Even if the card ends up being subpar, it still looks like a very fun card. 3.5/5 stars, although we’ll see what toys Rogue gets to exploit this.
4 mana for a 0/3, only to trigger one extra battlecry of combo at later turns is just meh.
You can trigger one the turn you play it and you can potentially trigger 2 the next turn
Shark+myra rotspiring =OP
This card is super broken. Can be abused with life drinker shadowsteps and maybe even with ancient mage insane combo
What are you smoking?
Giggling Inventor the turn after you play this card
Would be good if elegiggle was 5 mana
Rogue has a lot of good combo and battlecry cards, and this may be worth the initial tempo loss of playing a 0/3.
Blizzard has a heart for Quest Rogues.
Yeah, blizz is mostly boosting quest decks (quest pally)
Does cold blood work with this card?
“Your minions” so no
It says your minions’ Battlecries and combos trigger twice. NOT your minions’ Battlecrises and your minions’ combos trigger twice. So maybe cold blood does work.
No, it doesn’t. It’s a spell. It doesn’t matter if it’s cast on a minion.
Uh? This doesn’t respond to either of the past two post…
Do we have confirmation on that? The wording is ambiguous.
That being said, it may only matter in wild at the moment, as the standard combo spells say “instead” or “return this to hand next turn”…?
This will be in every deck that can even remotely think about running it.
I think this is going to be a sleeper card that pundits don’t think is very good. Within 24 hours of release, streamers and pro-players are going to break it in some degenerate deck lol.
It’s a Bran that protects itself for a turn and applies to Combo cards, as such, it will likely be rather good. It’s cost is higher than Brann’s, but the stealth and the extra stuff it applies to makes up for it.
It’s cost is a bit a problem, but I have to agree with it, because this plus VanCleef would be just overpowered. It’s still not bad, I’m 90% sure that it will be use in some decks.
What combo/Battlecry cards exist right now? There’s Tess, but usually that’ll fill up the board on one Battlecry. Of course this is rating cards based on one card from the class so far, and there will definitely be more rogue cards from this exp. With good battlecries. But ykw: this is a quest rogue card.
Think about it- Dane made Brann Shadowcaster work when thaurissan was around, but now you can do without thaurissan in standard with this, Zola, and valeera the hollow hero power on turn 10. Sure, you can already go infinite using that power, but you can go infinite much easier now. 4.5/5, will be the defining card for quest rogue season 54-57.
let’s ignore that a spirit lasts 2 or more turns and look at what 1 turn gets you
in combo cards:
6 mana vancleff
8 mana sprint that tutors
9 mans 8/3 with stealth 1 turn
in battle cries:
6 mana forge of souls
8 mana to fill your deck with spiders
and there’s a decent amount of buffing or tutoring battle cries…
It’s already season 55 i think
Same cost as Brann, so probably viable. It plays into Rogue’s current major weakness though- earlygame aggression.
Think of the Pogo-Hoppers you can make, though! ?
Similar cost, I should say.
Brann costs 3, mate. Or do you run that 2 Mana 2/2 that makes all minions cost 1 more in your Battlecry value deck?
Yeah so I like this card.
So many combos hehehehe
9/10 not enough shark
Vilespine Slayer to destroy a minion twice 😮
Yes please