Five Best Hero Cards From the Early Fractured in Alterac Valley Meta – Are They Safe to Craft?

Hero cards were undoubtfully one of the most important aspects of the Fractured in Alterac Valley expansion. There’s a reason why Knights of the Frozen Throne or Descent of Dragons expansions were generally well-received – you might not necessarily enjoy the presence of Hero cards in the game, but you can’t deny that playerbase, in general, is very fond of them. Alterac Valley brings the most Hero cards ever – one for each class (technically Frozen Throne also did the same thing, but Demon Hunter didn’t exist back then). It was a really bold move, but did it actually pay off?

In this article, we’ll list the top five Alterac Valley heroes so far. While the expansion has only been out for a few days, we already have a lot of data and can more or less determine which of them underperform and which are just too good to pass on.

The list is based on each of Heroes’ win rates – but those are of course affected by the overall class/deck win rates. Even the best card might not be playable if the rest of the deck is bad, but it’s the most objective way to measure their power in the current meta. With that out of the way, let’s start.

5. Shadowcrafter Scabbs

Scabbs’ main power lies in the Battlecry and not Hero Power. The latter is a nice addition, but it doesn’t have such a big impact in most of the decks.

The Battlecry, however, is quite insane. Not only it brings Vanish back to Standard, a card that used to be a staple in every slower/combo-oriented Rogue deck, it also immediately fills the empty board with two 4/2’s with Stealth AND gives you 5 Armor on top of that. If Vanish was a good card, then this is simply insane. It lets Rogue gets out of really unfavorable boards states, and the opponent always needs to have it in the back of their mind – “I can’t overextend into the board, or else Rogue will Vanish everything”. For example, the card works phenomenally against the current “plague” of Irondeep Trogg. Of course, it can’t deal with a T1 Trogg, but if Paladin drops Trogg + Blessing of Authority later in the game, without Scabbs you would probably be doomed unless you’re really ahead on the board.

4/2’s are good, because you either force your opponent to AoE them down (wasting a big chunk of their turn), or redevelop minions, but then you have the initiative – those might be extra 8 face damage for lethal, maybe a way to kill a big minion, or activators for some Stealth synergies (you probably won’t run the card in the same deck as aggressive Stealth package, but hey, who knows what the future might bring).

Then there’s the Hero Power. It’s quite simple – you get 2 free mana every turn (including the turn you drop Scabbs) and you can use it however you want. It can be a good combo activator (play it, drop a 0 mana card without Combo, and then all of your Combos are live), or it can be used for your OTK combo. For example, you might be able to pull off a better Garrote combo because you can play Guild Trader for extra Spell Damage.

The only real downside is that you lose the ability to dagger up, so it’s harder to play it in decks running weapon buffs, and the extra 1 damage from weapon often did help you with clearing some minions or even setting up lethal over a couple of turns. However, it’s a really small downside for what the card is.

4. Kurtrus, Demon-Render

Kurtrus is one of the Hero cards whose power lies not so much in the Battlecry (which is often quite mediocre, to be honest – especially if you drop him on curve), but the Hero Power. Summoning Demons with Rush can save your skin, but they start as 1/4’s, and that’s… bad. It gets improved with Hero attacks, but the “problem” is that – realistically – you aren’t going to attack many times if you curved out well, and if you didn’t curve out well then the Hero card might not be enough to bring you back into the game. However, that’s not really an issue for one main reason – Kurtrus is more like a combo piece than a Hero card. You can delay playing him until the late game, when the Demons summoned are bigger, and – most importantly – when you can combine him with

The main goal of Kurtrus is finishing the game with Hero Power. There are two ways to do it – regular way and combo way. By “regular way” I mean just playing the Hero Power whenever you can, at the start of the turn, whenever a minion dies, and slowly grinding your opponent down. You can often deal 2-6 damage per turn without any combos, and that’s a really nice way to close out the game over multiple turns. However, the more interesting and powerful part is its combo potential. When you drop Felfire Deadeye, your Hero Power costs 0, so you can play it as many times as you want. Now play Expendable Performers to refresh the Hero Power up to 12 times – that’s 26 damage combo, more than enough to close out most of the matchups. Yes, your opponent needs to have enough minions on the board for it to work (a total of 12 health across all the minions is necessary for full combo), but most of the decks do play some minions, so it’s not a big deal.

While it looks like Token decks are where Kurtus was intended to be played, and the Hero obviously fits into them, I can also see him being playable as a finisher in other builds, like Deathrattle Demon Hunter or maybe other, future Midrange DH decks. It’s also one of the Heroes which CAN quickly turn out to be broken in the right meta or if the right deck is found for it.

3. Bru’kan of the Elements

Bru’kan probably works the closest to the old Hero – Dr. Boom, Mad Genius. Its power doesn’t lie in a very strong Battlecry, Hero Power activating some combos and so on, but rather in its consistent, late game value. In fact, when you first play him, he might feel underwhelming – for example, dealing 2 AoE damage and summoning 2x 2/3 Taunt + gaining 5 Armor… isn’t impressive. While it gains some extra points for flexibility – like using him to finish the game with 6 burn damage, or maybe heal yourself and your minions instead of dealing AoE, no combination of 2 effects is really worth the 8 mana asking price.

But then, once everything starts rolling, it’s just a nice, long-term win condition. You get some free AoE, free healing, free burn damage, free board presence (and by “free” I mean that it doesn’t cost a card, not that it doesn’t cost mana). The downside is that you can’t control it, similarly to how Dr. Boom worked, but you just plan the rest of your turn and your use of resources around the Hero Power. It’s definitely a big upgrade over Shaman’s regular Hero Power, which is – without special synergies – one of the weakest in the game.

Bru’kan won’t blow your mind, it won’t win you games on the spot, but if you play a slower Midrange or Control build, adding and playing him will unnoticeably give you a bunch of extra wins in late-game matchups (and it will only get better if the meta would move away from Combo and more towards Control).

2. Dreadlich Tamsin

With Tamsin, we’re entering the “probably too strong” territory – while the previous Heroes could already push some boundaries, it’s here where you start asking yourself “how did they pack so much into a single card and still decided to ship it in this state?”. The thing about Tamsin is that she would still be played, at the same mana cost, if it was just a spell, not a permanent Hero that upgrades your Hero Power too. Having 3 AoE damage, 3 card draws, 5 Armor and very often summoning a 3/3 from the Rifts you shuffle is a really good value for 6 mana – some would compare it to a mini-Ultimate Infestation (and AoE damage is generally even better than single target one).

The Hero Power, compared to the regular one, no longer damages you. That might not seem like a big deal, but it technically means that each Hero Power use “heals” you for 2, and we all know how much Warlock likes to use Hero Power. Shuffling Rifts is also a nice addition – when you play Tamsin, you should already be around the middle of your deck with earlier Taps/Draws + all the draws from Tamsin herself. So the chance of drawing one of the Rifts is pretty okay from the get-go and only gets better. Now, the 3/3’s might not push your gameplan, but they’re free board presence. Whether you need them to trade, have something to sacrifice for one of your spells (like Grimoire of Sacrifice) or just push some extra damage with – they’re free, so no complaints here.

There’s just no reason for a slower Warlock deck to not run Tamsin. It does everything you want – it’s card draw, it’s removal, it’s extra survivability. Well, okay, maybe Questline Warlock is an exception – in that deck, “upgrading” your Hero Power might not be so much of an upgrade because you can no longer damage yourself. But even in Questline Warlock there’s an argument for running Tamsin – we’ll need more stats to make the final decision (Questline Warlocks have low sample size, because everyone plays OwlTK now).

1. Lightforged Cariel

And finally, the strongest Hero in the game right now – Lightforged Cariel. To be honest, Cariel and Tamsin are pretty close to each other, and they’re both noticeably ahead of the rest of the pack. But, according to the early stats, Cariel is just performing ever so slightly better.

Cariel’s biggest power actually lies in her weapon – The Immovable Object. Not only it’s something you can swing every turn without worrying that you will run out of Durability, but it reduces all the damage you take. And that is a really, really big difference. If you play against a Combo deck, the chances are that they will HAVE to destroy your weapon, otherwise, they won’t be able to perform the combo. Which already might slow them down a bit, and in case they don’t draw it, they might have to wait with the combo until they do. Against Aggro – it buys you time to close out the game while protecting you from burn damage. And against Midrange/Control – well, the protection from damage part is not as important as having an infinite weapon that gives you a way to slowly close out games, something that Paladin lacked in their arsenal before.

Of course, other aspects of the card are also important. The initial 2 AoE damage can save your skin against board-based decks (or let’s say against Scabbs Hero – Cariel is a really nice answer for it). And then the +4/+4 handbuffs means that even your bad topdecks might become pretty good topdecks. Drawing that Righteous Protector in the late game sucks, but a 5/5 Taunt is suddenly much better. Hitting anything with Divine Shield or Rush gives you nice advantage, and then there are some cards that are even better at taking buffs – like Saidan the Scarlet (every hit on him is +8/+8), Blademaster Samuro (big AoE) and even Irondeep Trogg (get two Hero Powers on Trogg and it can serve as a late game win condition – if not removed immediately, it basically stops opponent from playing spells).

Sadly, unlike most of the other Heroes, Cariel comes with a big downside – she can be “countered” much more easily. A big part of her power lies in The Immovable Object – and right now Rustrot Viper is the most popular card in the game (and it gets more and more popular every day). Of course, removing the weapon doesn’t make her completely useless – she still has a really nice Hero Power. Not every deck runs Viper, and even if they do, they won’t draw it every game. But it’s something to keep in mind. Around 30% of the decks already run anti-weapon tech, and if the number rises to e.g. 40% or 50%, Cariel’s position might easily shift below Tamsin’s (but I don’t think that it will fall even further, at least not without balance changes).

Does It Mean That Other Hero Cards Are Bad?

Definitely not! While some of the Heroes are definitely more powerful than the others, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the bottom 5 are “bad” per se. Some of them aren’t even “bad” in the current meta – Wildheart Guff, Xyrella, the Devout or Beaststalker Tavish are actually just outside of the ranking, being slightly below average.

Now, sadly the same can’t be said about Rokara, the Valorous and Magister Dawngrasp. Rokara seems a bit underwhelming compared to other Heroes and while useful in slow Warrior decks, I wouldn’t call her gamebreaking. However, Dawngrasp is in an even worse state, currently sitting at the very bottom, with only around ~40% win rate. Why is the Mage Hero so bad? Unlike the top Hero cards, Dawngrasp requires a very specific kind of deck to be viable. You really NEED to play the card in Big Spell Mage, otherwise the Battlecry is quite useless. But it just so happens that Big Spell Mage is not viable at all – while it has some nice, it lacks the direction and a meaningful win condition (Mask of C'Thun is not enough, and Rune of the Archmage is just too random to close out the games consistently).

I think that, outside of Dawngrasp and Rokara, all of the Heroes are quite safe to craft if you like to play a given class. For example, Xyrella might not be as strong as Tamsin, but if you play a lot of Priest then you will probably want to run decks including Xyrella, as she improves the slow Priest’s power by a significant margin. The decision is even simpler for the top Heroes – they are very strong standalone cards that should see a lot of play throughout their time in Standard unless they get nerfed heavily. As for the bottom two – I could still see crafting Rokara if you really like Control Warrior (the deck has some potential and might become stronger if the meta changes). But I don’t think that Dawngrasp (or Big Spell Mage for that matter) will be viable before the class gets some more synergies – so at least not until the mini-set, and probably not until the next year. But let’s say Guff or Tavish might jump right into the meta in a few weeks for all we know. However, we didn’t even have the first balance update. It will surely come before Christmas break, and it can have a major impact on the meta. So if you want to be really, really safe, then you should probably wait until the patch and then think about crafting.

While it’s way too early to be sure, I think that this batch of Heroes might end up being quite successful. It seems like with a tiny bit of balancing, they could very well be a big part of the next Standard year without feeling oppressive.