Ticket Scalper

Ticket Scalper Card

Ticket Scalper is a 4 Mana Cost Common Neutral Minion Pirate card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!

Card Text

Overkill: Draw 2 cards.

Flavor Text

Takes ten percent off the top.

Ticket Scalper Card Review

It’s the first Overkill minion we’ve got, and it’s a classic example of a high risk / high reward card. Because a 4 mana 5/3 that draws you 2 cards is absolutely amazing, and that’s after you trigger the Overkill once. Trigger it twice and it will be absolutely nuts, one of the best cards in the entire game. The good news is that the minion does not have to survive in order for the Overkill to trigger. So if you attack a 4/4 minion and both die, you still get two cards. However, the trick here is that even triggering it once won’t be easy. 3 health minion on Turn 4 is very easy to clear. And here’s the catch – Overkill can only trigger on your own turn, which means that if your opponent runs his 3/2 minion into it, you won’t draw anything.

So in order to make it work, you need to play it, wait a turn and hope that it lives, then trade it into something while overkilling it. That’s really difficult to do, and I suspect that in practice it won’t work very consistently. Nearly every deck has a way to clear a 3 health minion on Turn 4 – aggressive builds have weapons and early minions, while slower builds have spells. It will die to most of the things that isn’t meant to kill 4-drops – e.g. Lesser Amethyst Spellstone will kill it without any upgrades, and it will also die to Flanking Strike – both of which are usually used against 2-drops or 3-drops.

Another difficulty is that your opponent will have to actually play a minion you can overkill into it most of the time. Because if he already has a 3/3, 4/4 or something like that on the board, he will just trade it into your 5/3 and you get nothing extra. So you need to drop your Ticket Scapler, and THEN your opponent has to play a minion that you can overkill. Sure, sometimes it will be the only play they can make anyway, but most of the time they will either drop something you can’t Overkill that easily (like a 3/6) or just remove your minion first before playing their own stuff.

The Pirate tag is a nice bonus, but is it really relevant? It doesn’t seem like a great fit into Pirate decks, which are meant to be aggressive. In a Pirate build, you prefer going face and not trading, at least most of the time.

It has some synergy with buffs (but if you aren’t buffing it on the same turn, it will probably die, and if you are, you’re not using your buffs efficiently) and with cards that give minions Rush (e.g. Rocket Boots or Charge), but it’s still a 2 cards combo that might not work that consistently.

Overall, it seems like a card that is great in a “perfect case scenario”, but this kind of scenario won’t happen consistently enough for it to see play. There are just too many ways to counter the card draw. The only upside is that you might sometimes force your opponent into making suboptimal plays. Like when it’s turn 4 and he wants to drop Saronite Chain Gang, he might be forced to play something else instead (or even not play anything at all).

Card rating: 3/10

Leave a Reply

31 Comments

  1. Fatsbourne
    November 27, 2018 at 8:08 AM

    This WILL be in a deck that runs Captain Hooktusk

  2. Creepy TallKinGuy
    November 21, 2018 at 4:14 PM

    Wuu Even more Pirates, me like, and also this is the kind of cards screaming “Please make a half bad turn and remove me”, 5/5 to all the pirates.

  3. KaihatsuJai
    November 14, 2018 at 3:10 PM

    Genzo tne Shark, remember that?

    He only really saw play in Token Druid and sometimes Prince Rogue back in the day.

    So with that in mind, I think it’s entirely possible this card will be in Token Druid again at the very least.

  4. CD001
    November 14, 2018 at 6:13 AM

    I could see this in some kind of Pirate Warrior maybe… a deck that has a couple of problems, 1: taunt minions 2: no way to rebuild if your opponent survives the initial rush.

    This allows you to (potentially) remove a taunt minion and draw 2 cards… or make your opponent think twice about playing Saronite Chain Gang before removing the Scalper. It’s also another high priority removal target – one that can immediately follow up Frothing Berserker.

    … and it almost might make it worth putting a single Charge spell into the deck – maybe.

    Depending on how the meta shapes up, there could be a niche for this.

    • tompasqu
      November 14, 2018 at 10:57 AM

      maybe instead of charge running rocket boots,it makes the combo cost more,but you cycle even more cards,if that is your goal

      • CD001
        November 15, 2018 at 5:29 AM

        Possibly an even better option yeah, I’d forgotten Rocket Boots existed 🙂

        … could possibly also work with with The Boomship – but that would be a completely different deck.

  5. Taznak
    November 14, 2018 at 5:07 AM

    3/10? I disagree. This card only needs to find the right aggro deck to go into. When your aggro opponent has board control, you have two options, generally speaking: play a taunt to get in their way, or use weapons/spells to deal with the enemy minions. Ticket Scalper removes one of those options- or, at the very least, makes it really unappealing. What are you gonna do, play a 4 mana 7/7 Hooked Reaver? Ok, I’ll trade my 3/2 and my 5/3 into it, draw two cards due to overkill, and keep piling on the aggression. And that’s assuming your opponent plays one big taunt; against Rain of Toads or Spreading Plague (with a little help), Ticket Scalper can draw you two cards and survive.

    It’s not for every deck, but I can definitely see this being a good fit for some aggressive decks. I’d give it 5/10.

  6. Hmm
    November 14, 2018 at 1:07 AM

    Quest druid can make use of this 🙂

  7. Tuscarora87
    November 13, 2018 at 1:18 PM

    Again _a just fair_ card which is ruining the new mechanic, the same as it was with the rush and the magnetic. Vanilla stats: 8 for 4 mana. Upside: text and a tribe tag. Downside: unpractical health stat line -> everything immediately falls into the water. We can wait to see other cards for synergies in a specific (aggro/tempo?) deck, but why not just play Gnomish Inventor or something, which is actually – consistent. Ticket Scalper not only needs to survive but also needs to have a specific target usually played after your card. 50% trigger probability is low for 4 mana 5/3, but this one doesn’t surpasses 20%.

    Today we got another card Belligerent Gnome: 2 mana 5-6 of stats, which is above average and we are still debating usefulness of the card, so what then to think about the 4 mana 5/3 with a hard condition?!

  8. IWILLDEFEAT
    November 12, 2018 at 7:07 PM

    3 health kills this card. Not a big enough reward to make up for it.

  9. Omnitarian
    November 12, 2018 at 6:48 PM

    My heart says no but my body says.. maybe…

    It’s a strong effect.. and her stats, while unflatteringly distributed, are technically vanilla for a 4-drop. Worst case is that your opponent can trade a 3-attack minion into it. In that case, keep this in your hand, of course. It’s also easy for control decks to fire off a smaller spell to off her, but that costs them a spell you can punish with a follow-up threat. And notice how this card can really pin your opponent if they don’t have a board. They can’t play weak minions to draw your fire, or you’ll score a ton of cards off them. They can’t Saronite, they can’t drop a totem/dude, they can’t plop an Elven Minstrel or Arcane Tyrant or any of that sorta stuff. If they instead chose not to play anything, you now have free reign to smack their face for 5+ damage each turn. They’ll really wanna kill with this with a spell, but that’s not always possible or efficient.

    This also is a rare draw tool that gets much better with buffs! A Keleseth or Southsea Captain buff makes this look a lot more dangerous. In a pirate deck, you can try protecting her from pesky minions with Southsea Deckhand or Dread Corsair, then making up for those cheap plays with her draw effect.

    • Jonnymeerkat
      November 13, 2018 at 3:25 PM

      It’s stats are not vanilla for a 4 drop. A 4 drop vanilla has 9 stats. See, for example, Chillwind Yeti.

  10. Soup And Salad
    November 12, 2018 at 3:58 PM

    If a deck can give this Rush and doesn’t have any other way to draw cards easily, it will at least try this. Otherwise, I don’t see it working.

    A 5/3 is probably too easily removed by turn four under most circumstances for this to survive a turn. Granted, it will probably Overkill something if it does.

    Perhaps, the more desperate a deck is for card draw, the more likely a deck will be to play it. It is a potential source of neutral card draw with better stats than Gnomish Inventor if anything else. Granted, Gnomish Inventor will always draw a card. Ticket Scalper gives you no guarantee,

  11. Jed
    November 12, 2018 at 3:34 PM

    Almost as Yee haw as elven minstrel

    4/5

    • IWILLDEFEAT
      November 12, 2018 at 7:09 PM

      Except the effect has a low chance of actually triggering and it’s not immediate.

  12. TNTOutburst
    November 12, 2018 at 1:52 PM

    Does overkill activate if an enemy attacks it?

    • SimEgg
      November 12, 2018 at 2:14 PM

      No. It must attack to trigger Overkill.

  13. InfinityMinusOne
    November 12, 2018 at 1:36 PM

    I like the card in any Hunter deck that has Shaw. Granted it won’t be too consistent because Shaw is a Legendary, but when you /do/ get both out at the same time, this card can effectively read “Deal 4 Damage to a minion, draw 2”, or just flat “Deal 5 damage to a minion”. Might not see play in other decks (idk about Even/Pirate Rogue yet), but an interesting card nonetheless.

  14. Jordan Tsigas
    November 12, 2018 at 12:57 PM

    eVeN rOgUe

  15. Piterno
    November 12, 2018 at 12:37 PM

    Hmm. For one, it’s a pirate, so it can go in rogue to be a replacement for Elven Minstrel. It can draw a good number of cards, present a threat, or go face with that body. The 3 health kind of feels bad, but it can clear a 4 health minion and draw 2 cards out of it. I’m giving it a tentative 3 stars.

  16. Smellberg
    November 12, 2018 at 12:10 PM

    Does overkill trigger if your minion dies?

    • akaji
      November 12, 2018 at 12:28 PM

      I guess so… overwise this card is way to slow and will not survive

      • Danielfyr
        November 13, 2018 at 5:19 AM

        Overkill only happens when you attack with it on your turn

        • Danielfyr
          November 13, 2018 at 5:21 AM

          Oh, my bad. Did you mean when you attack with it? Then yes, the effect does trigger even if it dies

  17. NIGHTxBLADE
    November 12, 2018 at 11:51 AM

    GOoD

  18. Ribbuster
    November 12, 2018 at 11:12 AM

    At first this card is too weak to be played at 4 mana and 3 health. The only hope I see is pairing this with the hunter goblin prank or the warrior rocket boots. For rocket boots, 6 mana deal 4 damage (because of overkill to guarantee card draw) draw 3 isn’t that bad.

    • TheTallRonan
      November 12, 2018 at 11:19 AM

      Still you’re spending 2 cards to do it . . .

      Does Overkill only work when the minion is attacking? If so I think this still has potential, but it’s way too easy to remove.

      • Thraben
        November 12, 2018 at 11:23 AM

        Naturally it also works if a minion hits this one and dies but the best way to use it is a single remove draw 2. That being said.. This card is awesome if it doesn’t get removed, 5 mana is enough to force an enemy to trade in if he/she has no other ways to deal with it.

      • Old Guardian
        November 12, 2018 at 11:54 AM

        Overkill only works on your turn. The opponent can freely trade into your overkill minions, you will not get the effect.

        • Moridain
          November 12, 2018 at 11:55 AM

          Really? That seems like an odd design decision.

        • Thraben
          November 12, 2018 at 12:33 PM

          It does…? Wow.. Way to make a keyword half useless Blizzard.