Determining which Epic Hearthstone card to craft can be a tough decision for experienced and new players alike. If you craft a card and find it less useful than initially expected, the best you can get is one-fourth of your Arcane Dust back.
Our Hearthstone Epic Crafting Guide will help ease the anxiety of burning 400 dust on a single card. This guide will take you through a logical Crafting Strategy to ease the pain of Standard rotations and focus on those cards that are most likely to get the best value from your dust. For each Hearthstone Set, we provide the Best Cards to Craft and Good Cards to Craft to assist you through your next crafting conundrum.
Please note that this guide is intended for Standard players. In Wild, Epic cards have different power levels than in Standard due to additional synergies available in the format. We have separate guides for Wild cards! (listed below)
Hearthstone Epic Crafting Strategy
When choosing the next Epic card to craft, you should consider both the strength and set of the cards you’re considering. Typically, Neutral Epics fit into more decks and offer the best variety when crafted. As with all class cards, however, class-specific Epics tend to be stronger and offer additional synergy and/or class identity options.
Crafting Categories
The Best Cards to Craft are either Epics played in a variety of decks or ones that are staple in a strong meta deck. Given their strength, they’re very likely to continue seeing play before their rotation. Good Cards to Craft are Epics that are less popular and possibly not as strong, but also playable in the current meta. They are usually necessary (or at least very helpful) in a specific, less common archetype. Some of them are more of a tech cards / Epics specific to this meta and might not see that much usage in the future.
In general, cards listed in the Best Cards to Craft for each set should be given priority over those in the Good Cards to Craft. Of course, it all depends on the decks you want to play, your favorite classes and so on – you need to apply your own filter to the list too.
Card Sets
In terms of sets, the best long-term value for your dust is always going to be cards in the Hearthstone Classic Set. Barring retirement into the Hall of Fame, all of these Epic cards will always be included in Standard. Even if crafted cards are banished to Wild, a full dust refund can be expected.
After the Classic Set, the sets from the current year should be given priority. Sets remain in Standard for two years, so the current year sets have a longer lifespan than the sets from the prior year. And finally, cards from last year’s expansions have the lowest priority – and the closer it is to their rotation, the lower priority they have.
Classic Set
The Hearthstone Classic Set is the core set in the game. Introduced with the game’s release, the set still has many of the game’s strongest Epic cards. Due to their unrestricted duration in the Standard format, Classic Set Epic cards are more likely to remain playable than those released with expansions.
Hearthstone Classic Set Best Cards to Craft
There are no “best” Epics to craft from Classic set right now. However there’s still a bunch of good cards to craft that you can find below!
Hearthstone Classic Set Good Cards to Crafts
Brawl & Shield Slam – I’ll group those two together, since they belong to the same archetype – Control Warrior. We’ve seen many variants of the deck over the years – regular Control Warrior, C’Thun Warrior, Dragon Control Warrior, Taunt Warrior, Odd Warrior, Big Warrior, even the recent Bomb Warrior. And each one of those has played both Shield Slam & Brawl in at least some of the builds. Those are timeless Warrior Epics that will definitely be playable at one point. So they’re always good crafts if you want to play slow Warrior decks.- Shadow Word: Ruin – It’s a relatively new Priest card, added after the latest rework. It’s an AoE version of Shadow Word: Death, or alternatively Shadowreaper Anduin‘s Battlecry. It’s amazing against boards full of big minions – even clearing a single one for 4 mana is okay at times, being able to hit multiple at once makes it very powerful in certain scenarios. Of course, its power heavily depends on the meta (and how many 5+ Attack minions are commonly played), but it sees some play right now and will definitely see more play in the future.
- Cabal Shadow Priest – Oldschool Priest card – it’s not really good by itself, but it had a few cool combos across the years. Right now it’s most commonly played alongside Wave of Apathy – reducing the big minion’s attack to 1 and then snatching it with Cabal Shadow Priest is a huge tempo swing and a quite popular combo in Priest class.
Doomsayer – Doomsayer is simply a staple Classic Epic. The card has seen at least some play in nearly every meta for the last few years. It’s a great anti-Aggro tool, dropping it on curve means that you very likely clear their 1-drop(s) or 2-drop and stall for a turn. Later in the game it can be used to tank 7 damage, or can be combo’d with other cards such as Mage’s Frost Nova to have a higher chance of a full board clear. The best thing about it is that if it goes off, you get all the initiative – board is empty and you can start developing first.- Preparation – After the card was nerfed from giving you 3 mana to giving you 2 mana, it hasn’t seen AS MUCH play, but it’s still solid. Getting 2 mana for free in a deck like Rogue is good, especially in decks that run Secret Passage / Cutting Class / Voracious Reader / other ways to cycle through the deck very quickly. If you have lots of ways to draw, the problem is now using those cards as effectively as possible, and getting lots of free tempo with Prep is a solid solution. Not a must-have card, but it sees some play.
- Murloc Warleader & Southsea Captain – While those two don’t go into the same deck, they’re similar – 3-drops from their respective tribes that buff other cards from that tribe. Whenever those tribes see common play, their respective synergies do too. Right now Warleader sees play in Murloc Paladin and Captain in Pirate Warrior, although neither of those two decks are particularly popular.
Year of the Phoenix (2020) Sets
The Year of the Phoenix consists of Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy and another expansion that is yet to be revealed. All three sets will rotate out of the Standard format with the release of the first expansion in 2022 (most likely in April).
Scholomance Academy Best Cards to Craft
Since Scholomance Academy is the latest set, and we’re still in somewhat of a “testing” phase, this section is most likely to change in the future. Some of the currently popular Legendaries may be overplayed, while some of the less popular ones might turn out to be good. Be cautious about crafting any card from the newest expansion.
- Secret Passage – (The card will be nerfed in Patch 18.2, so its power level after the nerf might change – at the same time, there’s no downside in crafting it, since you will be able to disenchant it for full cost anyway) The card is really insane and it pushed faster Rogue decks into T1 territory. Getting access to 5 (4 after the nerf) cards from your deck for just 1 mana is huge – not only you can usually play at least 2-3 of them, making it draw 2-3 for 1, but you also get to pick which ones you play. It’s amazing way to find specific cards too – let’s say that with 15 cards left in your deck and 2x Eviscerate / Sap in there to find lethal, the chances of getting it are very high. It’s basically an auto-include in Rogue, and I assume it will be the same way after the nerfs.
- Guardian Animals – The card pushed Druid back into the meta in a big way after it nearly disappeared late last expansion (when Fungal Fortunes got nerfed). Between this and three strong 5 mana Beasts you can put into your deck (Twilight Runner, Lake Thresher, Teacher's Pet), you’re pulling out 10 mana worth of minions for 7 mana AND giving them Rush. The fact that you can ramp up to 7 mana quicker, or even cheat it out with e.g. Lightning Bloom on Turn 5, makes the tempo swing insane. Every popular Druid build right now is built around Guardian Animals, and I don’t think that it will change until the card gets nerfed.
- Devolving Missiles – Devolving Missiles is an auto-include semi-removal card in this meta. The effect alone is solid – e.g. you can turn a 4-drop into a 1-drop for 1 mana. That 4-drop might have been a 4/5, and a 1-drop can often get pinged down with Hero Power, and even if it can’t, it’s rarely threatening. You can get rid of a Taunt in your way. You can deal with Stealthed minions (making it really good vs Aggro Rogue or Druid’s Twilight Runner). You can get rid of minion buffs, including key ones like Libram of Wisdom. And it’s a cheap spell for the sake of many Mage synergies. A great card all-around, it should see a lot of play.
- Devout Pupil – Who would have thought that a card which is a Sunwalker as a baseline, and it gets cheaper and cheaper throughout the game will be bad? It’s kind of like Thing from Below was in Shaman – at one point, it’s a 0 mana Taunt that you can drop for massive tempo gain, and thanks to the Divine Shield it’s even more annoying to deal with. Right now it’s better in Paladin simply because the card has easier time casting spells on friendly characters (mostly buffs) in a viable build – but in theory it’s also solid in Priest, we just need a right deck for it.
Scholomance Academy Good Cards to Craft
Argent Braggart – Even though Braggart costs 2 mana, you shouldn’t treat it as a 2-drop – it’s more of a mid/late game tempo play. Whenever either player has a bigger minion on the board, you can just drop it and copy its stats. Even better – you can copy Attack from one minion and Health from another. And you don’t even need to make it huge – dropping it alongside a Devout Pupil as a 2 mana 4/5 can win you the game. That said, it has great synergy with buffs like Blessing of Authority – giving a minion +8/+/8 and then basically copying the buff on Braggart is huge. While it’s not absolutely necessary to play Paladin, it’s a really good card.- Cabal Acolyte – (The card will be nerfed in Patch 18.2, so its power level after the nerf might change – at the same time, there’s no downside in crafting it, since you will be able to disenchant it for full cost anyway) The card is mostly used in combination with Wave of Apathy as a cheaper Cabal Shadow Priest. Stealing a big minion from your opponent can turn the whole game around. Alternatively, you can just steal a straight up 1-2 Attack minion – some of them are really valuable, and even just a vanilla 2/3 minion is better when it’s on your side than on your opponent’s. While the nerf to 2/4 from 2/6 might not seem big, I would say that it matters quite a lot – previously it was also a solid Taunt minion with okay stats, now it’s easier to get through and you absolutely need to steal something to make it worth (previously you could sometimes drop it as a 2/6 and it was okay).
- Survival of the Fittest – Playing the card by itself is a really huge tempo loss most of the time. You can’t always guarantee having a board on your side, and spending 10 mana on nothing is something you can rarely afford to. However, luckily Kael'thas Sunstrider comes for rescue – if you can play the spell for 1 mana instead, now it’s suddenly much better. Even without Kael, if you follow it up with Guardian Animals and pull out two buffed minions, it’s often worth it. Most of the builds running it also play Animated Broomstick to catch up in terms of tempo after dropping it. So, all in all, despite it being incredibly slow in theory – in practice it’s playable sometimes even in the fastest matchups. And even though you don’t run that many minions, giving them +4/+4 is big. You can also use it on a big board of Dragons created by Ysera, Unleashed, often closing out the game.
Flesh Giant – Big minions that get cheaper and cheaper as the game goes by are quite scary, and the same thing goes for Flesh Giant. It’s mostly played in Warlock, simply because of how easily the deck can a) deal damage to itself and b) sometimes heal itself with Soul Fragments. Getting the Giant down to 3-4 mana is super easy, and by Turn 6-7 it’s often free. It’s played in Zoo, which is a deck that LOVES to win on the board, and cheap / free 8/8’s are certainly a way to do so. If not answered – you just smack your opponent to death over 2-3 turns.- Steeldancer – Mostly played in the weapon-oriented variant of Aggro Rogue. With Self-Sharpening Sword and a bunch of weapon buffs, it’s super easy to summon a 5+ mana minion from it, and, as you can imagine, that’s a great result. To be honest – you don’t even need to go as big, getting a 2-3 mana minion is already good enough unless you low-roll. The thing is that spreading the power between two minions is quite strong, as your opponent can’t just use a single target removal to get rid of them, and since one of them has at least 4 health, they’re often out of AoE range. Besides Rogue, the card also sees some play in Pirate Warrior, but the deck isn’t really popular right now.
- Combustion – Just a solid early/mid game removal – you can often deal with 2-3 small minions in a single card, but you can also use it to clear off one mid-range minion (4 health, or 5 health with ping). It’s also quite tricky to use at times, as you need to set up the board so it clears as much stuff as possible. It’s played in Highlander Mage now and I suspect that we should commonly see it in slower Mage builds for a while.
- Potion of Illusion – Potion of Illusion, as it was quite easy to predict, is mostly a combo card. Initially players have thought about Exodia Combo with Sorcerer's Apprentice + Archmage Antonidas, and while it DOES work, it’s not really very strong. However, after a while, an interesting strategy was discovered in China, revolving around Tortollan Pilgrim and only 3 different spells in your deck, Potion of Illusion being one of them. If you don’t draw both copies, you can make infinite copies of Tortollan and any other (usually Battlecry/Deathrattle) minions you have on the board. If everything goes correctly, you put your opponent into nearly impossible to win spot (because you get a full board refill with multiple positive effects each turn).
Ashes of Outland Best Cards to Craft
- Greyheart Sage – A staple in Stealth-based Rogue decks, and let’s just say that they are some of the most popular meta builds right now (because nearly every Aggro build runs Stealth package). 3 mana 3/3 that draws 2 cards is nuts. Of course, you need to have a Stealth minion on the board first, but in a Stealth Rogue deck you’re (obviously) running a bunch of those, making it nearly guaranteed – even if not on curve, then usually by Turn 4-5. If you want to play Aggro Rogue, craft it, no way around it.
- Libram of Hope – A must-have in both Pure and Libram Paladin, which are some of the better decks in the meta right now. At the very base level, it’s quite weak – yes, the effect is strong, but it’s not really worth 9 mana. However, with just a couple of discounts, the situation changes drastically. After playing Aldor Attendant + Aldor Truthseeker combo, you can drop Libram of Hope for just 6 mana, and now it’s a whole different story. It’s a huge threat and a powerful defensive tool in one card. If you’re a Paladin player, you should definitely have it.
Ashes of Outland Good Cards to Craft
Sethekk Veilweaver – A solid addition to slower Priest builds. It’s a bit like a mini-Lyra the Sunshard. I mean, it’s weaker than Lyra mostly because only spells played on minions trigger it, so you need one to start the chain and it’s quite easy to break it if you get another card. Still, it’s some nice value, especially in the late game (on 10 mana you often end up generating 4-5 spells in a single turn, and that’s quite amazing) and in the end it’s also a 2 mana 2/3 that you can just drop on curve in case you need board presence.- Bladestorm – It’s an interesting combination of single target & AoE removal. If there’s just a single minion on the board – Bladestorm will just clear it. I mean, it stops at 30 damage in total, but you don’t often face minions with more than 30 health, so let’s just assume that it kills anything. But since it stops after the first minion, it’s a very tricky card to use as an AoE. In the worst case scenario, it’s a 3 mana Whirlwind, which is SOMETIMES good enough, but not really what you want. You often need to set up the board the right way (a bit like with Defile), but if you manage to do it, the pay-off can be pretty great. E.g. clearing three 5-health minions for 3 mana is quite powerful, and it happens.
- Darkglare – (The card will be nerfed in Patch 18.2, so its power level after the nerf might change – at the same time, there’s no downside in crafting it, since you will be able to disenchant it for full cost anyway) A Zoo Warlock staple – most of the current builds are heavily built around self-damage, and gaining extra mana for doing what you want to be doing anyway for the sake of other synergies is great. To be honest, the card wasn’t really overpowered in Standard (strong, but Zoo Warlock wasn’t over the top), but it was dominating Wild, which was the main reason for its nerf. It’s hard to say how good it will be after the nerf – probably still good enough to see play, but we’ll have to wait.
Year of the Dragon (2019) Sets
The Year of the Dragon consists of Rise of Shadows, Saviors of Uldum and Descent of Dragons. All three sets will rotate out of the Standard format with the release of the first expansion in 2021 (most likely in April).
Descent of Dragons Best Cards to Craft
- Lightforged Crusader – A Pure Paladin card, and since Pure Paladin is one of the best decks in the meta, it’s a good craft. 7 mana 7/7 are War Golem stats, but War Golem doesn’t add 5 cards to your hand. Most useful against slower builds – it’s a big threat and refill in one card. While random Paladin cards aren’t necessarily the strongest, at least 2-3 from them should be good. Sometimes you might get game-winning cards like Lady Liadrin, Tirion Fordring or Libram of Hope. That said, you only need a single copy, since most of the popular builds run only one. If the meta slows down a bit, though, I could totally see going for 2 copies instead.
Descent of Dragons Good Cards to Craft
Mana Giant – Yeah, cheap / 0 mana 8/8’s are always good, which is the reason why most of the Giants have seen play. This time around, Mana Giant is a Tempo Mage staple and one of the deck’s win conditions. You generate A LOT of cards, thanks to the likes of Primordial Studies, Magic Trick, Violet Spellwing, Evocation and – of course – Mana Cyclone. Most of the builds also run at least one Conjurer's Calling to make the Giants even better. The current pool of 8 mana minions is very strong, and dropping 0 mana Giant + 2x Conjurer’s on Turn 8 often threatens lethal the very next turn.- Toxic Reinforcements – At first I thought that it’s going to be too slow, but it turned out to be a really solid Face Hunter card. Since you Hero Power a lot (obviously, it deals damage to your opponent), Toxic Reinforcements might be delayed, but it still summons 3x Leper Gnome for just 1 mana and – more importantly – a single card. Unless they get silenced / transformed (which is rather uncommon), it’s another nearly guaranteed 6 damage on top of the 6 damage you dealt with Hero Power. It can stack really quickly and is great card in Face Hunter – even better with the new Tour Guide. However, since not every build runs it, you don’t NEED it – you can play Face Hunter without it.
- Kobold Stickyfinger – It’s an anti-weapon tech – instead of just destroying it, you can get it for yourself. In lots of matchups, it’s much better than Acidic Swamp Ooze, but also than Harrison Jones, because it gives you tempo instead of value. The problem is that unlike Ooze, if you play against a deck that runs no weapons, a 5 mana 4/4 is way worse than a 2 mana 3/2 with no effect (which is already bad). That’s why the card is relatively uncommon and played mostly when you face A LOT of weapon decks – mostly Rogues to steal Self-Sharpening Sword / Hooked Scimitar and Warriors to get rid of their Wrenchcalibur and even throw a few Bombs their own way.
Rolling Fireball – Rolling Fireball has became a staple, go-to slower Mage removal. And I can absolutely see the reason why. Just like always – flexibility is the key. It can be used as a single target or semi-AoE removal, depending on what you need. If your opponent has a single, big, 8/8 minion – you just shoot it and kill it. But if he has two 2 health and a 4 health minion, you can also get rid of all of them with this single card. It’s a great value for 5 mana and has mostly replaced Flamestrike in Highlander Mage. Good craft for anyone who plays Mage (although since it’s mostly played in Highlander build, one copy is enough for the most part).- Stormhammer – No matter whether it’s a Highlander version or a regular Dragon Hunter, Stormhammer is a big part of the reason why they’re strong. A 3/2 weapon for 3 is already okay-ish. If add just a single durability, it’s great. But in practice, Stormhammer often has 4, 5 or even more durability. In many games, it will be virtually infinite, since you will drop some Dragons every turn. It’s a very strong card and if you want to play any Hunter build running Dragons, you definitely want to have it too. That said, Dragon-based Hunter builds aren’t necessarily most popular right now, so craft it only if you want to play those.
Saviors of Uldum Best Cards to Craft
There are no “best” Epics to craft from Saviors of Uldum right now. However there’s still a bunch of good cards to craft that you can find below!
Saviors of Uldum Good Cards to Craft
Vulpera Scoundrel – Vulpera is rather simple – it’s just a 3 mana 2/3 that gives you a card. Doesn’t seem strong, but the fact that it only discovers spells makes it an interesting addition to slower builds like Highlander Priest (it’s also played in Soul Demon Hunter, mostly because the build is also a bit slower and it has amazing class spells). Its main strength is flexibility – you get 3 choices, one of which might be useful in a given situation. And if you don’t like any, there’s a fourth, “Mystery” choice, which adds a random other spell to your hand if you’re feeling lucky (most of the time it’s not a good pick, but hey, if you get 3 bad cards, it’s often better to roll for something better).- Anubisath Defender – If you run a Druid build playing more expensive spells, there’s a solid chance that you will also want to play Anubisath Defender. While weak in the early game, later it’s a nice tempo swing – 3/5 Taunt is not the strongest thing ever (it normally costs 4 mana and sees no play), but it’s great if it’s for 0 mana. Right now in particular, it also has a really good Survival of the Fittest synergy. Instead of a 3/5 Taunt, you get a 7/9 Taunt, and you can play it on the same turn as Survival. It’s not a must-have, but lots of Guardian Druid variants play it.
- Plague of Death – An ultimate AoE board clear – not only you clear every single minion, but you also silence them beforehand, which means that no Deathrattle, Reborn etc. effect will trigger. However, it comes at a hefty 9 mana cost – which might be too slow in some metas. Right now it’s mostly played as an one-of in Highlander Priest, although some Galakrond Priest builds also include it. Overall, it’s a good Priest card.
Diseased Vulture – Played in the current Zoo Warlock builds, which are heavily based around self-damage. Every time you deal damage to yourself, you summon a random 3-drop, and since you can deal damage to yourself quite easily, you end up with a lot of those. Even getting a single trigger already makes it worth it, since a random 3-drop is not bad at all, but if not answered, the card can snowball the game by itself – it creates more and more minions every single turn. A very powerful Zoo Warlock card.- Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron – Puzzle Box has became sort of a Mage “casino” staple. It’s mostly used as a “Hail Mary” card. Once you have no other options, but you need to do something – just cast Box! Most of the time it will clear the board at least partially and probably draw some cards, maybe summon minions or cast Secrets. However, there are also decks which want to cast it as soon as possible, hoping for some good outcome (because, on average, it’s going to do much more good than harm). Commonly played in Highlander Mage.
- Tortollan Pilgrim – Right now Pilgrim has two uses. The first one is the one it’s been used for ever since it was printed – to cheat out some more expensive spells in Highlander Mage. Getting something like Deep Freeze or Power of Creation is great, because it creates a massive board presence without even “using” the spell from your deck. Another use, however, is quite more interesting – it’s a must-have in an Illusion / Turtle Mage build, based around replaying it over and over with Potion of Illusion. It’s really off-meta and frankly not THAT powerful, but when it works it can do wonders.
Rise of Shadows Best Cards to Craft
There are no “best” Epics to craft from Rise of Shadows right now. However there’s still a bunch of good cards to craft that you can find below!
Rise of Shadows Good Cards to Craft
Wrenchcalibur – Bomb Warrior has slowed down in Scholomance Academy, mostly turning into a Control build and not a Midrange/Tempo one, but it’s still really solid. Wrenchcalibur is its main win condition – by itself, it’s already up to 16 damage to the opponent in the long run. Now if you draw it from Corsair Cache, add an Upgrade! – that’s up to 16 IMMEDIATE damage (assuming you hit face) and then 20 extra from Bombs. You’ve also got more buffs, possibly a way to replay it (Hoard Pillager) and – of course – a second copy in your deck. If you want to play Bomb Warrior, Wrenchcalibur is an absolute must-have.- Mana Cyclone – A Tempo Mage staple – since you run a lot of cheap spells, if you drop it on the same turn you play Sorcerer's Apprentice and sometimes nearly your entire hand, you will get A LOT of value on top of a 2/2 body. Generating 5+ spells it not uncommon, and that gives you not only a lot of tempo (because all of your cheap spells had some effects), but also value you can play over the next few turns. It’s one of the most important cards in Tempo Mage, so if you want to play the deck, you should definitely consider crafting it.
- Power of Creation – By itself, the card is okay – summoning two 6-drops for 8 mana is usually a nice play, but probably won’t win you the game. Of course, it’s amazing if you high-roll something powerful, but you will often have to pick e.g. 2x 4/4 because there’s simply nothing better. However, the card works pretty nicely in current Highlander Mage builds, because they have some ways to cheat it out or get something extra from it. Dragoncaster lets you play it a turn earlier AND with an extra 4/4 body, then Tortollan Pilgrim plays one from the deck with an extra 5/5 body, and it also combos very well with Kalecgos. It’s one of the “win conditions” of Highlander Mage, so you should probably get it if you want to play the deck.
I want to ask something
I saw some streamers has x3 star bonus in diamond rank ı finished in the legend and my star bonus is x2 ı was wondering what should be my legend point for having x3 star bonus ı know it is not about the epic crafting but ı need to ask somebody
To get the 3x star bonus, you need to get top legend to get this. Not sure where the cut off is but maybe top 100 or 500.
To be precise, it’s around Top 10% of Legend. It depends on the month, server, format etc. but it’s usually easier than Top 100 or even Top 500.
E.g. last month on EU Server we had ~34k Legend players in Standard, so ~3.4k Legend would be enough to get 11 bonus stars. On NA we had ~22k Legend players so it was top ~2.2k Legend for 11 bonus stars.
This is of course not 100% precise, but you don’t need to climb THAT high. I’ve been finishing on around 1-1.5k Legend for the last couple of months and I had 11 bonus stars every time.
Thankss
Thanks. that makes it a lot clearer.
Question: I am a Wild Player from time to time.
I have a golden copy of Stormbringer. Should I DE it? I consider it to craft a current Legendary.
I am not a budget player but I dont buy packs with money either.
I always DE golden Legendary unless 2 exceptions:
– If i expect that there is some chance of a future nerf to this legendary card
– If I use this card frequently (if it’s a “meta” legendary)
Hey, I have two copies of rat trap. One is golden and one is normal, if I needed the dust, would It be okay to dust the golden version?
Most decks with rat trap only run 1 copy, so if you need the dust, dusting the golden copy would be perfectly ok in my opinion.
Rastakhan’s Rumble Good Epics seem off … I didn’t see any of those cards on the ladder before and after the second nerf (when they’re not discovered, that is).
And Town Crier has to be a ‘best craft’ for sure – it’s played in every single warrior build and has a wider use than Scion (that makes up for the earlier rotation imho).
Besides that, article’s on point.
Crowd Roaster actually had ~2.5% play rate at the time I was writing this (which is not that bad), mostly in variants of Highlander Mage and Embiggen Druid, as well as some random Highlander Dragon Paladin builds. Masked Contender has seen play in some full Secret Hunter decks (although they’re rare) as well as certain versions of Highlander build. Haunting Vision I will probably remove – the card is played in some Galakrond Shaman builds, but let’s be honest, those are pretty bad after all of those nerfs (and even then the card is not necessary).
But in general, I would not recommend crafting any of the “Good” cards from Year of the Raven UNLESS you have lots of spare Dust and you really want to play a given deck. That’s mostly because those will rotate out in less than 3 months. The only one I could truly recommend to every Warrior player is – like you’ve mentioned – Town Crier. The card will bump your win rate by even a few %, it’s really amazing (and it’s in the “Best” section for Witchwood, by the way).
100% sure it wasn’t when I wrote my comment … because there was no ‘best craft picture’ of him. But maybe I was blind and overlooked *shrug*.
Epic Crafting Guide was just updated for the Descent of Dragons Post-Nerfs Meta. Just like Legendary Guide, it was a nightmare to update, because we didn’t have a single meta that was stable for more than a week because of constant nerf patches as well as the upcoming content releases. Still, I decided to push it out, because an update that will get outdated quickly is still better than no update at all.
I’ll try to push out another update after all of the Galakrond’s Awakening cards launch in February.
Epic Crafting Guide was just updated for the Saviors of Uldum Post-Nerf Meta. Comments below this one might be outdated.
Let me know if you spot any mistakes!
Good read, but you said Twisting Nether is a “Warrior board wipe”. Please, the last thing Control Warrior needs is another board clear.
Sorry, fixed it :p
On the Witchwood’s best epics the text in background it says Boom’s day. Not a very influencing mistake but catched my eye. Great guide btw, We love u Stonekeep
4 from 8 cards are warrior cards and blizzard don’t do anything about it :/
Out of curiosity, what is your complaint here? Is it that Warrior epics are so much better than epics from other classes, so other classes need better epics?
Or is the complaint that Warrior needs an expensive deck full of epics and legendaries to play properly? A Hunter can play a tier 1 meta deck for 6400 dust, a Shaman can do so for 4400 dust and a Druid can do so for 2960 dust, while a tier 1 Warrior deck costs 12880 dust.
They’re two sides of the same coin, so I genuinely don’t know which one it is that you think is a problem, haha
Haven’t seen such an insightful reply in a while! The cost of building a warrior deck (mage also) is ridiculously high and forces newer players to either expend all resources to one deck or try cheaper alternatives.
For me personally, I literally only experience warrior in Wizbang. I wish there is a better way for newer players to also play as warrior.
Epic Crafting Guide was just updated for the Rise of Shadows Post-Buff Meta. Comments below this one might be outdated.
Let me know if you spot any mistakes!
Baleful Banker: “Right now, it’s mostly used as a way to shuffle an extra Archivist Elysiana into your deck in Control builds. But I wouldn’t put it high on the priority list, because using Youthful Brewmaster gives you a similar effect in Control mirrors – some players even prefer to run Brewmaster instead (since it has some more applications).” – This text is outdated. Since Elysiana’s nerf to 9 mana, most builds have dropped the extra shuffle because you can’t always be on the Coin.
Thanks a lot for pointing it out – must have missed it. Updated it! 🙂
there is not a single priest card
What does it say about the current position of priest class.
The raw Powerlevel of 90% of all priest cards are currently utter garbage
i mean:
Priest has a 3 Mana +2/2 twin spell
while Mage got a fill the fucking board with Giants and Priest Taunts Twinspell
wtf blizzards seriously
Will there also be lists like this for Rare and Common cards?
Unlikely. Commons and Rares don’t take that much dust to craft, so it’s not a huge waste if you craft the “wrong” cards of these rarities. For commons the best way is actually to buy packs of the expansion you need. With 40 packs opened you should have almost all the commons.
Epic Crafting Guide was just updated for the Rise of Shadows Meta. Comments below this one might be outdated.
Let me know if you spot any mistakes!
Wow, that was fast! Thanks a lot, this will really be useful!
Looking forward to the updated guide with Rise of Shadows!
“Spreading Plague vs big boards. I think it’s the Classic Epic that EVERYONE should get” …. ummmm, Classic?
Ah – my bad, reading comprehension fail … ignore me 😉
Hahah, no worries, it started in a new line so it kind of looked wrong 🙂
Epic Crafting Guide was updated for the Rastakhan’s Rumble Post-Nerf meta.
Comments below this one refer to the previous version of this article and might be outdated.
Kobolds and Catacombs is such a deranged set. Just look at ALL the epics that are good crafts our auto-crafts – 17 total. 3 of those were nerfed already: Corridor Creeper, Call to Arms, Spiteful Summoner. And Branching Paths and Carnivorous Cube could hit the nerf hammer in the future too. It’s just insane compared to the epics in other sets. I’m still missing many of those cards even though it’s the set I crafted the most epics from. And yes, I did open the only useless epic of the set four times: Shimmering Courser.
I agree, and it’s not just Epics. K&C’s power level in general was INSANE. It seems like Blizzard has this weird thing with last sets of the year – first Gadgetzan and now K&C. They both had very high power levels. On the one hand, I get it, they will be in Standard for the shortest period of time, so Blizzard wants them to have a big higher impact. But they want way overboard with that.
I hope that they have learned from that mistake and the upcoming, 3rd set of Year of the Raven won’t be THAT powerful.
I definitely agree with you on the desire to have a weaker 3rd expansion for the Year of the Raven. That said, I would be okay with a similar power level to KnC and Gadgetzan as long as every class has a viable or semi-viable meta deck to play with. Part of (or most) the reason the post-nerf Witchwood meta was so fun to play was because there was a reliable way to make at least one deck work in the meta for each class. I’m hoping for something similar in the post-nerf Boomsday meta (and hoping the 3rd Raven expansion gives Priest some much-needed TLC 🙁 ).
To My Side! … from zero to hero.
I should search for links regarding the shitstorm that card received. But I’m one lazy dude. 😉
And +1 to ‘the end is missing’: It’s missing.
also the author of the guide here received a shitstorm, because before WW he listed it under “good cards to craft”, anticipating that there might be a nice updrift for this card once the kraken year rotates out….
Heh – you don’t have to search far, just look at the comments for the card on *this* site:
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/cards/to-my-side/
My personal favourite being: “A hunter deck without minions??? Sorry what?”
It’s been said, many times before, HS players are bad at predicting the power level of new cards…
At least one thing’s for sure: To my Side! has the best golden animation of all cards from that expansion. 😉
I think the post is incomplete, not because it lacks something, but because it literally end on “…over the ladder, so were the Voidlords. After the balance changes, the deck’s”
I already left my remarks on the legendary craft guide, would like to do the same here 😀
# classic: I personally see more merit to craft sea giant than mountain giant. The latter is very powerful, but it really requires to play even warlock – I would rather place it in the good cards to craft. Sea giant sees more play imo as there are various board flood decks (even shaman, token druid, …) or even as a counter to these decks.
As for the good epics to craft: I would not mention the following cards:
– Cabal shadow priest: it sees very little play right now (haven’t seen one in ages, not even in decks with twilight acolyte). And there have been many times where this card saw little play in the past, too.
– Far sight: played in one deck right now, which can leave the meta easily. This card is not good as a standalone. I am very confident that if someone really wants to play shudderwock, that person will check all the decklists out there and come to the conclusion that this card is necessary. For anyone else this card hasn’t seen play since we saw weird OTK decks….
– Hungry crab: If it’s not a good craft right now, then it should not be mentioned here… kinda confusing. I mean…. It’s a counter card. One cannot play it if there is no murloc meta. Far sight or Cabal shadow priest can at least be played even without a support deck, but this card….
# WW: agree on the best epics and I would remove also here the sandbinder from the good cards, for the same reason I’d remove far sight. It’s a combo piece for one deck only and might not see play ever outside of it (could be wrong, but a lot of epics could see play somewhere)
#Un’Goro: total agree here on the best cards. I would add more decks where primordial is played, which is: niche shudderwock decks, dragon combo priest, taunt druid to name a few. This card absolutely rocks. I would leave Shadow visions under good cards, but I would point out that it is a staple card in almost any priest deck (it’s just that priest is not doing good right now) and also extremely powerful in wild
# KFT: I agree with the choices, but I disagree with the short list. I mean, there are some KFT epics that can be considered good crafts, and for sure better general crafts than e.g. the classic epcis listed above, namely: obsidian statue (currently not really viable) and gnomeferatu (very much viable in control warlocks, even in wild warlocks, btw)
# K&C: no real disagreement (except personal bias), one might want to mention next to the dragonhatcher that usually one copy is enough.
In general: would it not be interesting to add some more comments about the “wild viability” of some cards? I primarily craft for standard, but I do also have wild in my mind. And some cards are good in standard, but unlikely to see much play in wild (e.g. corridor creeper, nightmare amalgam, corpse taker, …), while other cards might not shine in the current standard meta, but are likely to stay viable cards in wild even long time after rotating out of standard (psychic scream, UI, …).
just my 2 cents 🙂
Thanks for updating the list! Murloc Warleader didn’t make the cut but was referenced as being relatively better than Gentle Megasaur, which did.
It’s early, yet, but we might be sleeping on Ratcatcher from The Witchwood set. Having the chance to destroy your Cube or Voodoo Doll while buffing your Rush minion is pretty good.
For F2P players, Kobolds & Catacombs represents very good value. Every ten packs purchased gets you at least one from a very deep pool of quality Epic cards.
Oh, sorry, I meant to put it into Good cards from Classic! I cut it from the “Best” (since Murloc Paladin is no longer as popular as it was), and forgot to add it to the good ones. Silly me.
I agree that the list might be incomplete, but it’s better to not recommend something than recommend something that might not see any play! I will update it again a few weeks from now once the meta settles down more.
Hi, how do you know that? 1 epic guaranteed every 10 packs?
My understanding is Blizzard uses a “pity timer,” so you are very likely — perhaps guaranteed — to get at least one legendary card in every 40 packs you open and one epic card in every 10 packs you open. Note: this applies to each set, so there are separate counters for The Witchwood, Kobolds & Catacombs, etc. Here’s a post from reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/3znt9m/continuing_information_on_the_pity_timer/
This has certainly been my experience. I started tracking several weeks ago and have consistently received at least one epic in every 10 packs and a legendary in every 40. The K&C expansion is full of strong epic cards, so it’s a good set in which to invest your gold.
Iceblock will be HOF’d so probably want to update this article?
…and Corridor Creeper went from Best to not even on the list in one nerf.
It was one of the biggest nerfs Hearthstone ever experienced, not counting total remakes. Usually cards gets +1 Mana or let’s say -1 Health, but in this case it was -3 Attack. Changing a 5/5 to 2/5 basically makes it nearly unplayable.
The only deck it still can see play in is basically Evolve Shaman, because if you Evolve it, it still turns into a random 8-drop.
Yeps. On the plus side, I got a lot of dust for the pair of them. ?
Of course, I opened a Golden one post-nerf, too late to melt for full value.
Here we are four months later and I have yet to see anyone drop a creeper on me. I’d say the nerf was effective if the purpose was to kill the card. Glad I dusted the pair of them while I still could.
Actually, Odd Paladin also runs two copies. Since Odd Paladin is still one of the best decks right now, I’d say it’s still a good card to craft.
Where is hungry crab? Murlocs are seeing quite a bit of play right now and I doubt they’ll be going away any time soon, and it’s essentially an autoinclude in aggro Druid because of that and it’s a low cost good beast.
Should we get our dust back after wotg and gadgetzan leave standart?
You can dust the cards, but you only get their normal dust value. No full refund for cards that rotate to wild.
If you think about a full Dust refund, then sadly no, nothing like that happens. The cards will still be usable in the Wild and this is just a normal rotation.
They only fully refund cards if they rotate them “out of schedule” to Hall of Fame. Since they’ve promised that the Classic cards will be available forever in Standard, when rotating some of them out they’ve “broken” that promise and refunded players with full dust (while leaving the card in their collection).
We will probably get more announcements regarding this year’s Hall of Fame rotation soon, if it will happen at all (but I do think it will).
Which cards could you predict going to hall of fame, if there is a HoF rotation?
Is it worth keeping extra copies of these cards to get more dust, does that even work?
I’m a new player and never experienced a rotation before :/
Currently, the community is pretty certain that ice block and alexstrasza will rotate out in HoF. After that, the community is a little bit divised about nourish, but most of them think that nourish will rotate out in HoF.
Beside these card, i’m not aware of any other candidate. Others may help ^^
Ice Block, Alexstrasza, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Wild Growth, Doomguard and Preparation are some of the predictions.
But those are only guesses – no one really knows what cards will rotate out (if any). Given that the rotation will happen with the first expansion of 2018, somewhere early-mid April, they should make an announcement soon if anything.
But to answer your second question, no, there is no need to keep extra copies. You are getting a refund only for the amount of cards you can put into your deck – so 2 in case of Common/Rare/Epic and 1 in case of Legendary. However, there is a certain cool trick to gain more Dust if you don’t own a certain Legendary, for example.
Refund for a Golden Legendary is 3200 Dust. So if you don’t own one, you can actually craft it before it rotates out, gain the full Dust refund (3200), and then Disenchant it for 1600 (normal value) to gain +1600 Dust. It only works if you don’t own a copy of that certain card. But don’t sweat about it yet, we will definitely explain it on the site if they announce Hall of Fame rotation 🙂
Hmm I am not sure if I agree with “Faceless Manipulator” listed under best epics of classic. Its certainly a good card in the decks where its used but there arent that many decks that can make use of it, the only ones I remember are renolock and cubelock (maybe I missed some that were popular whenever I took a break from this game). I would personally put it under “good epics” instead.
The hard part about making lists like this is that you need to balance out cards that “see a lot of play right now” and cards that are just generally “solid crafts”. Given that Faceless is a Classic Neutral, and it has seen play in multiple decks ever since the Classic, I feel like it just belongs to the second category.
It’s not only Warlock decks that used to play it. While it was most common (and amazing) in decks like RenoLock and Handlock, decks like Control Shaman, Worgen Warrior (and other Combo Warrior decks like Giants Warrior) or Ramp Druid also played it. If we go even further back, it was actually a common card in Miracle Rogue (Deckhand / Cold Blood combo).
Even right now it’s played in Malygos Druid, even though that’s an off-meta deck.
So my reasoning was that the card was never “must-craft” at any point, but it overall a good craft given how many times it has seen play in the past, and the fact that it’s commonly seen in the arguably most poweful meta deck right now.
To my side! is terrible card by the way. Most of the spell hunter decklists don’t include it. I really don’t think it should be considered “good to craft” … Maybe good to dust.
I thought that I explained it well enough in the post itself. Y’Shaarj is a really bad craft right now, because it rotates out in just about 1.5 months. Not to mention that a lot of players don’t have Karazhan. While I acknowledge that the Y’Shaarj version is better, this is the second best option and it’s more future-proof.
To My Side! is not a bad card at all. It works very well in the Spell Hunter. It’s just that you simply CAN’T run both Barnes/Y’Shaarj combo and To My Side! (because it would be too inconsistent, it still works with Rhok’delar, but that’s 1 card and not 3 in total). If not for that, the card would be played, and it’s the second best option if you don’t have the Barnes/Y’Shaarj. And while Y’Shaarj will no longer be played in Spell Hunter after the rotation, I’m quite certain that To My Side! will.
Not to mention that this list isn’t aimed at the pro players – they already know what to craft. If you’re a less experienced player, you can just as well play the slightly worse version at the lower ranks. In terms of fun, it should be even better – Barnes version is really unfun in a way that you so often need to high-roll your way to victory and drawing Y’Shaarj is a terrible feeling.
You’re right about barnes and all that stuff but I still think you overestimate the quality of the card itself. It really isn’t great at all. The fact that it is specifically designed for spell hunter, yet no spell hunter runs it, speaks for itself.
Like I’ve said, it only speaks about the fact that Y’Shaarj version is just better. If not for Y’Shaarj, every Spell Hunter would run it. Two Animal Companions on Turn 6 is not bad at all, especially since it fits right after the Spellstone (if Wolves survive, rolling Leokk makes them so much better and if they die, it’s a board refill). But you just can’t run those two cards together, that’s the deck’s restriction.
Let me give you another example – Northshire Cleric is a great card, yet Highlander (Razakus) Priest only used one copy. Does it mean that the card is not good enough to play two copies? No, it just means that if you want to run other, better cards, you need to restrict your deck building.
I am 100% sure that the card will see play in Spell Hunter after the rotation, unless another amazing incentive to play minions arises (like the Barnes/Y’shaarj in this case), but I don’t think that they would do that considering how people hate Barnes now.
Even more reason for people not to craft it. You basically recommend a card because it may get played after standard rotation. Maybe you’re right and it will be played but how can you know that spell hunter is going to be a thing then? Maybe it will be a bottom tier deck. To my side! is definitely not supposed to be on any “good epics to craft” list right now.
You’re still missing my point. I don’t recommend it because it might get played after the rotation. That’s just one of the reasons.
Barnes + Y’Shaarj combo is 1400 Gold (or $14) + 1600 Dust. 2x To My Side! is 800 Dust. That’s a massive difference.
Barnes + Y’Shaarj has exactly 0% chance of seeing play in 1.5 months, because it will rotate out. Even if you don’t think that To my Side will see play, it still can, unlike those two.
I haven’t even once said that To My Side are better in the deck than Barnes + Y’Shaarj. But if you’re a more new/casual player and you absolutely want to play the deck right now, you can do it for a much lower investment by crafting To my Side + it will still be playable after the rotation.
The card is on the list for the reasons I’ve already explained (not only in the comments, but next to the card itself too). People have their own brains and can decide whether they want to craft it or not after I explicitly said that it’s NOT the best-in-slot, but the best-in-slot combo of Barnes + Y’Shaarj is expensive and rotating out very soon. If you want to play the deck, you need to have either one or the other, and if I was a new/budget player who wants to play the deck, I’d definitely want to save 800 Dust and 1400 Gold.
Pretty sure Voidlord should be under Best Epics for K&C *sighs*
I’m pretty sure you are right
My god, sorry. I wanted to split them between Class & Neutrals first and then merged them together (because the split seemed a bit needless). Voidlord had to disappear somewhere along the way. Adding it now.