Witchwood Piper
Witchwood Piper is a 4 Mana Cost Rare Neutral Minion Demon card from the The Witchwood set!
Card Text
Battlecry: Draw the lowest cost minion in your deck.
Flavor Text
She rids villages of annoying pests, like rats and children.- Mana Cost: 4
- Attack: 3
- Health: 3
- Crafting Cost: 100 / 800 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 20 / 100 (Golden)
- Rarity: Rare
- Class: Neutral
- Card Type: Minion
- Minion Type: Demon
- Set: The Witchwood
- Mechanics: Battlecry, Draw Cards
Witchwood Piper Card Review
3/3 for 4 that draws a card is average. However, that card being a specific kind of card (so-called “tutor” effect) makes it significantly stronger. For example, if some cheap minions (1-2 mana cost depending on the deck) is a part of your combo, you can reliably draw it. For example, in Exodia Mage you could draw either Arcane Artificer or Sorcerer's Apprentice. If you play a combo Priest, you could draw either Northshire Cleric (which is pretty good card even in the mid/late game) or let’s say Radiant Elemental.
You COULD potentially run a Prince Keleseth deck and tutor it if you don’t draw it earlier, but running a Keleseth deck without 1-drops doesn’t make much sense.
The main advantage of this card is that, depending on how you build your deck, you always know what you will draw. Regular draws are random, so you can’t really plan around them. With this, if the lowest cost minion in your deck is 2, it’s Turn 4 and you have a 3 mana card in your hand, you might plan your next turn already – I draw that 2-drop and then play the 3 mana card alongside. With a regular draw, you might not get a luxury of planning ahead like that.
However, this is also a disadvantage at the same time. If you don’t need that specific 1 or 2 mana card, you might prefer a regular draw instead – e.g. if you play vs Aggro you might want to draw an AoE board clear instead of your low cost minion, even if it’s a part of some combo.
In an average deck, this card is comparable to Gnomish Inventor, which obviously doesn’t see lots of play. However, it might be much better in decks that specifically want to draw low cost minions, because they either synergize very well with the rest of their deck, or are a part of some kind of combo. This will probably be a niche card, but it will be good in the decks that can take advantage of this kind of effect.
Card rating: 6/10
Witchwood Piper Full Card Art
Wow this card is the first proof I know of that female satyrs exist in Azeroth! I wonder if they will ever add them to WoW.
The flavor of this card is awesome! Nice Hamelin Piper reference (or however you spell that). Now to the competitiveness of this card… this probably only works consistently for minions costing 1-3 mana. If you put 2 of these guys in your deck and you don’t have lower mana minions, you risk drawing the other one, and that is a tempo loss. If you want to draw a 3 cost minion you have to forego 1 and 2 drops, if you want a 2 cost minion you have to forego 1 drops… It definitely got my gears in my brain thinking on possible ways to make this card good, and that is always a plus! Make us think on how to build our decks! 3.5/5 stars.
Gnomish inventor is not good. Piper can tutor something. But for it to be worth it, that something has to be the key card of your deck.
For keleseth you need a deck with no 1 drop and no 2 drops, it’s horrible, not to mention playing keleseth on 5 is not good (hi, the mistcaller).
For exodia mage, tutoring an apprentice is hardly good. The combo requires a lot of cards so you will need to draw your whole deck anyways, and at this point, the fact that you drew the apprentice sooner is actually a drawback, it means you had one less card to work with. And for it to work you need to remove the other 1 and 2 drops, making the deck much worse than it already is. Anyways, this deck dies with the rotation.
Nothing else, really. This won’t see competitive play.
lul
One niche could be the ability for priest to guarantee a chameleos or northshire cleric as their draw, and both of those are relevant all game long, so that could be one niche, but which priest deck could fit this card and chameleos in? I have no idea.
Can’t wait to use this in Holy Wrathadin as a 2-of with Hemet x3
As long as you get one by turn 4, you’re guaranteed an on-curve Hemet, Jungle Hunter into destruction: turn 4 drop one, pull the other, turn 5 drop the other, pull Hemet, turn 6 Hemet, turn 7 Wrath for win 😀
Problem is you’re not going to want a single minion besides Hemet, 2x Piper, and 2x Molten Giant, plus you don’t want ANYTHING 4+ mana (besides the aforementioned minions and Holy Wrath) to make the deck consistent, so… But it’s still a fun deck to try, and a lot more consistent than otherwise 😀
Only one piper actually. Otherwise they would draw each other.
But two is fine though; drop one, draw the other. The other one draws Hemet, since you already dropped the first one.
Right. 10 points to gryffindor.
If you wanted to cut one drops, it could be an extremely powerful way go pull a keleseth.
Is a turn 5 keleseth good?
About as good as the mistcaller
And the mistcaller is amazing kappa.
This card is 5/5. it could be compared to Elven Minstrel (1 less draw, no combo, +1 health). It gets terrible draws off your deck,
But this is neutral so expect to see it a lot in ton of combo decks to get your key cards.
Examples:
Any class: Doomsayer, Loothoarder, Stonehill, Ooze, Thalnos
Rogue: Get shiny finder/Edwin/vilespine.
Mage: Sorc Apprentice, pyros, the new 2/2 legendary, Arcanologist
Warlock: Librarian, spell power, doomsayer
Dead Mans Hand Warrior: Any shuffle shenigans 😉
This card is not even close to Elven Minstrel. Drawing a card is worth about a mana more than a health. Granted, this doesn’t need combo but combo is not too relevant (maybe worth 0.5 mana???).
Arcane intellect is 3 mana draw 2
Power word shield is 1 mana give 2 health and draw 1
Yes, power word shield is slightly better than arcane intellect but both these cards are used in legit ladder decks. Power word shield is 2 health + 1 draw. Intellect is 2 draw. Arcane intellect costs 2 more mana than power word shield.
This is 4 mana 3/1, battlecry cast power word shield on itself (1.5+1 = 2.5 mana for stuff and +1 = 3.5 mana for stats + 2 cards built into 1). So this is essentially worth 3.5 mana.
Minstrel is 4 mana 3/2, battlecry cast arcane intellect (2+3 = 5 mana for stuff and +1=6 mana for stats + 2 cards built into 1). So it’s essentially worth 6 mana – 0.5 mana for combo so 5.5 mana worth of stuff.
This card does draw a more specific card but I don’t think it’s that relevant? It might be but I just don’t think it’s worth 2 mana so this card is clearly worse than minstrel. I don’t even think that it’s close.
This looks very good in the new Warrior rush deck, you draw the rush drawer or a rush card very good card. 5/5 in Rush Warrior
Really combo potential card.
4/5 star with wild mode in mind.
I can see this working out in a slower combo deck like Exodia Mage to more quickly find their Sorcerer’s Apprentice. I’m not saying that deck will work in The Witchwood format, but given how that deck plays Simulacrum, the would probably want to play this too.
There might be some application in Zoo decks just to draw out you minions to throw at the meat grinder, but the body is a bit too underwhelming on turn four for the aggressive board control strategy Zoo decks use.
This will end up seeing some amount of play at some point during its time in standard because it can specifically tutor cards to your hand. It may not be in The Witchwood format, but it will happen eventually.
This card is perfect for that splintergraft stonetusk boar deck everyone is hyping. Also can work in a keleseth druid deck, because druids one drops suck anyway.
You can run this with Malygos to tutor it up and just load the rest of the deck with spells and giants.
This is a combo piece tutor that will be abused
It’s a good idea, but should be played 1x, otherwise it will end up tutoring his other copy
And that’s good because you get 2 cards off your deck instead of 1
Honestly this card is ok. It could be good no matter the situation because it removes the worst card from your deck so your next draw is better. Although in some cases you want to draw your big cards in some cases you just want to get that fire fly out of your deck so you can dry your finishers.
The only deck I could see this working in is weapon rogue but coldlight is rotating.
draw keleseth
keleseth deck with no one drops? how could that ever win
I mean..After turn 4, you don’t mind not seeing 1-drops.
It could definately win. Keleseth was used in Tempo Rogue as…Tempo. 1-Drops weren’t really what made the deck powerful, although they were a good addition.
Keleseth doesn’t mean aggro. u can Play control kele
It can get you Sorcerer’s Apprentice or Archmage Arugal in a mage OTK deck. You would have to cut Doomsayer/Arcanologist/Artificer, but still might be worth it.
If you combo it with Arugal on the board you get a copy of Sorcer’s Apprentice which did not start in your deck and can be discounted to 0 by Leyline Manipulator…
Seems bad, poor stats and high cost.
3/3 body= 3mana
Draw card=2mana
Card is worth=5mana
no, 3/3 minion barely worth 2 mana,
draw a card is good but not worth 2 mana.
Please tell me a 1 and 2 cost minion with 6 stats that doesn’t have a drawback. The average stats for 3 mana IS 3/3. But draw a card is worth 1 mana, so it’s not under/overstattetd. I’ts average
Druid has 2 man 1/5 + taunt + beast, right?
a plain 2 mana 3/3 minion is barely playable.
Hahahahahahahaahahahahahhaahahahah
draw card is not 2 mana .its 1 mana and always combined with something else.
like powershield or kobold librarian.
mb its .5 mana .
so this card draws a specific card like keleseth or something like that i guess its good for 4 mana
drawing a 1 mana card really isnt that great, also people who think it works with keleseth are deluded because playing nothing on 1 or 2 and a 3/3 on 4 keleseth on 5 has no chance of beating anything
You ideally have keleseth on 2. You also run backstabs in rogue (which rogue would like the get keleseth specific card) so you can get early tempo control. Hero power on 2 for rogue is not aweful. There are plenty of 3 drops. If you have this on 4 you can play it then on 5 keleseth your deck and or have more bounces
3/3 draw a card = 5 mana? Seriously?
Gnomish inventor is bad at 4mana.
Outside of tutoring combo cards, piper is a worse gnomish inventor, and therefore has zero chance of seeing play.
The only low-cost combo minion is the quest mage’s apprentice, and even if that deck survives the loss of ice block, this card is probably still bad there, because the combo requires a lot of cards, so tutoring one of them doesn’t matter, you’ll need to draw your whole deck anyways.
We had 2/4 draw one card, which is regarded as a decent draw power in both constructed and arena.
Now this card comes with a draw condition that can be utilized in combo decks
– the 2/4 saw (some) play in raza priest only (and Patron in the past), which was desperate for card draw.
– Draw the lowest cost minion is not strictly better than regular draw (I agree it can help combo, but which one?)
draw cards always are good.this card always draws a card for u is it bad?
No theyre not, if they were ALWAYS good then why doesnt ancient of lore see play, this also always draws a bad card
3-Mana will get you a 3/4 with no drawback. That’s the highest amount of stats before things get a bit out of your control. 3/3 isn’t too far off of that. Compare that to, say, 4-mana 2/4 that draws you a card, and you get a bit more of an advantage by building your deck to complement this card.
Draw a card is generally 1-Mana attached to a card, plus two mana for each extra card. So think Arcane Intellect is 3-Mana for two (1 for first card, two for the next), while Sprint is 7 for 4 (1 for first, 2 for each of the other 3).
The beauty of this card isn’t that it simply draws you a card; the beauty is that it draws you SPECIFIC cards. In a deck with a specific win-con requiring a specific minion (Exodia Mage, Keleseth decks, etc), this card would shine, as it allows you to get the card you need, ESPECIALLY if your deck is mostly spells (Exodia Mage, in which your deck is either draw for win-con, or spells to get your Quest done).
I think this is actually good. Me and a friend of mine were thinking about a kind of otk hunter that could maaaaaaaaybe work.
Stonetusk Boar would be the lowest costed minion, the objective is to cast a Dire Frenzy on the boar, draw all three buffed boars and double their stats with Emeriss. Then it’s 24 dmg for 3 mana.
I kniw hunters have had a bad time building combo and control, but i think that the new tools like Wing Blast and the Echo and Rush dogs rexxar has some potential.
How many times you guess this combo could work? You should dont win before the combo,you should have all the combo pieces in hand,at same time,drawing so much cards,you should to not use none boar before the combo(considering their would muddle your card draw,replacing better cards or cards of equal value anyway) so,ok,in a very optimistic scenario,where we consider you not fail in half of these situations (you need try the combo half of the games,you draw emeriss and the boars half of the games and you can hold all the cards in your hand without die in half of these times,annnnd,realize the combo is enough to kill your opponent half of these times(considering if you not kill him is cause he have so much life or prevent lethal with taunts,armor,heals…) you would win 1 each 16 games cause this combo,in a optimistic,but I don’t know if really worth spend so much draws and slots,if you can just put king crush or Leroy to win even more times…
I mean… and what about other combo decks? It’s the same thing. If you draw your combo pieces before the time you keep them in your hand. Th
Sorry the page crushed. The difficult part is surviving the turn you cast emeriss. You have plenty of ways to draw your buffed boars without having to wait in witchwood ministrel and the tol’vir guardian. In wild this would be even better with the help of the Curator which draws you emeriss and a boar. Then you have Death Stalker Rexxar’s hero power for value. The turn you play the boars is not weak at all, if he has taunts, armor, or whatever, you still have 7 unspent mana crystals to do what you want. And if they survive, they have to deal with at least three 8/8. I don’t really get your points. Leeroy and Krush? They could be ok in a midrange or aggro build, but what i meant to do was COMBO.
I’m not saying this deck will be tier 1 and the new most-played deck, I’m just saying that it has potential.
Combo decks that don’t work past taunts historically don’t work.
its big druid’s card why dont u think that
most of the good big druid cards are rotating, barnes ,ysharrj , yogg , mire keeper, jade blossom , etc. without those it needs serious help, not a mediocre 4 mana 3/3
How about putting it in a deck with Keleseth as your lowest cost minion? Perhaps an even rogue deck?
On second thought, could be tough with no cards costing 1-3 in the deck…
Even Rogue doesn’t make much sense. Rogue’s Hero Power is the worst one for the discount – not only it works for 2 turns, but you often don’t have to repeat it, because you can save the dagger charge if you have nothing to hit.
On top of that, drawing Keleseth would be great, but not only he won’t be that efficient on Turn 2, but Keleseth decks are Tempo decks, and playing Tempo decks without 1-drops (and 3-drops too in case of Even deck) is a really bad idea.
To counter that, part of the reason Rogues don’t use the HP a lot is because they are often pretty tight on mana and playing (2) is often a big ask. Even decks roughly expect to HP every other turn, which means it is more than reasonable to just be always attacking something with dagger. I don’t know if that would still be worth it, but a midrange rogue deck could be better than expected.
The problem with trying to restrict Rogue, either odd or even, is that neither the upgraded hero power nor the discounted hero power are that GOOD to begin with. So you’re probably better off just building a regular Rogue deck.
But yes, building a Keleseth deck with this card could be cool. It’d be difficult to not run any 1-Mana OR 2-Mana minions (since you’d want to guarantee getting Keleseth), so… ye.
It’s nice late card. As you find all your little minions, then you can find one you needed right now. But i think that it must be taken in only one copy, to not drawing same card.
Might as well play just the 4 mana 2/4 draw a card so that you’re likelier to get your bigger cards for more tempo
Unplayable card per se but amazing in a potential combo deck that can abuse it. It’s not bad until we see what next year’s last expansion brings
I think its good. Chameleos can b easily pulled out from deck.
And why would you play it to draw chameleos?
Lol obvious chameleos is stronger if you get him early.
Anyway i wonder if it still draw’s you a card if you allready drawn your lowest cost minions. My guess would be it could even draw ysera if she is the lowest cost after you drawing all your lower cost. In that case this card is allways good.
only way this is possible is if there are no minions in your deck, in which case it’ll be like an arcanologist with no secrets in deck
This looks like a potentially powerful play in Big Priest (if it is still viable after the expansion) or big minion decks in general. Playing this on turn 4 ensures that you get a large minion in your hand (or in Wild, a minion like Barnes to cheat out larger minions). Someone could feasibly combo this with Dollmaster Dorian to get both a large minion and a 1/1 copy of said minion. Otherwise, it could be feasibly useful when you’ve drawn all of your 1-2 cost minions and need something a little larger on the board (e.g. Tar Creeper). It’s nothing spectacular in my opinion, but it’s not awful either.
Except that you ll draw your second Witchwood Piper instead of your big minion.
You don’t have to play 2 of every card.
But yea, dollmaster into this into statue or something seems worse than just playing statue.
Fair point. Whether comboing this card with Dorian is worth it or not would also depend on the power of the large minion in question (for example, I would love to get a 1/1 copy of Obsidian Statue just for drawing it, but it may be too slow and require too many moving parts. If nothing else, this can draw you a powerful minion for the later-game.
but most of the big priest cards that you can use without a bc (y’saargl and company) are rotating
Very good card in combo decks. And in general. 4 mana 3/3 draw a card is nice stated for the effect.
Questless Exodia Mage (now that they don’t need a secret tutor anymore) would love this card. Either draws a combo piece or a doomsayer (assuming you run doomsayer). In Kingsbane Rogue it always draws Shinyfinder.
Maybe not a stellar card but there’s potential here.
In Rogue, though, Elven Minstrel just feels much better. Yes, it has 1 less health and it has to be combo’d, but drawing 2 instead of 1 is a pretty big difference.
Yeah but with cold-light getting HOF’d why not run one of these as well as EM?
To be fair, Kingsbane Rogue is probably dead in Standard, at least in the way we know it (the Mill variant). So it’s really hard to say at this point.
Fair point, but if you can get your kingsbane out and buffed more consistently, the mill aspect might not be as necessary. I agree that it’s hard to say right now, but I still have hope for the archetype.
This card will always draw your cavern shiny finder so you would have your kingsbane allways at turn 5 or earlyer. But yes getting the weapon big after the rotation is going to be a real problem.
Card draw is great, and tutoring is generally even better, but this feels like a pretty bad tutor effect. How often are you actually going to want to draw the lowest cost minion in your deck? I mean, it can filter out your other draws, but that still doesn’t seem all that great.
Is it any good if your lowest cost minion is Lackey?
Yes, but if your lowest cost minion is Lackey then the deck itself is probably really bad. Warlock’s only early removal (before turn 4) is defile, early drops like librarian are pretty important.
You could always go back to setting up defiles with coil if geist falls out of favor.
It’s not the lack of defile set ups that matter, it’s that (with the exception of rogue, mage and druid) a librarian will require a card to remove, whether it’s trading into a minion or eating a cheap removal spell, either way it’s slowing your opponent’s tempo so that you can actually play lackey on 5 without dying. That’s why mistress of mixtures was so good i warlock, it traded into most 1 and 2 drops while also regaining the health you lost from hero-powering and playing your librarians. Those 2 cards often meant not needing to waste a defile on 1 or 2 minions, not to mention the librarian also procs your spellstones, and with MoM rotating out cutting librarian as well would be a mistake for sure.
It’s definitely a tradeoff. 50% more lackeys though.
If you’re playing this, you’re probably playing it a s 2 of for consistency, which means the first copy of this would fish out the other one instead of lackey. Besides, if you don’t draw lackey by this point in the game, it’s probably not going to be very relevant anyways because you’ve likely drawn your bigger demons so that they can’t be pulled out.
You obviously only play 1 if you are tutoring lackey. You are drawing all your big stuff by turn 4?
Maybe doomsayer in control but that doesn’t seem that great.
I stayed up to 1am while I’m sick as crap for THIS. FeelsBadMan. Card is trash.
Lesson learned, at least 🙂
It could tutor something maybe?
Well it could definitely tutor SOMETHING if you have other minions in your deck.
The better question is – can it tutor something valuable in the mid/late game? 😀