Low Rated Scholomance Academy Cards That Turned Out To Be Good

Reveal seasons are always exciting. Soon we’ll be entering (a really early) reveal season for the upcoming expansion – Madness at the Darkmoon Faire. But before that happens, let’s look back at the current expansion. Back in July, most of the players had rated (or at least had strong opinions on) Scholomance Academy cards. Those, of course, varied from “broken” to “terrible”. But, just like always, not every of those ratings turn out to be correct. Sometimes cards that end up seeing no play are rated highly, other times the ones that become expansion’s staples are down at the bottom. And today we’ll focus on the latter.

The ratings are taken… well, from you. I based it on this website’s ratings, and even though the sample size is not massive, I have to say that they are more or less with line in other ratings I’ve seen online. You tend to overrate some cards, but I don’t blame you, because so do I. Keep in mind, however, that you rarely give the card below 2 stars – maybe 2-3 cards are rated below 2 stars each expansion, making those 2.5-3 ratings seem even worse in this context.

Let’s get straight to the list of most underrated cards from Scholomance Academy – cards that you didn’t like a lot during reveal season, but they still turned out to be good (or great).

Commencement – 2.3/5

Starting off with Commencement. While, let’s be honest, it’s not the best card from Scholomance, its performance surprised me (positively). And since it was one of the lowest rated cards on our website, I’ve decided to include it. Big Warrior was never a popular meta deck – maybe for a few days early in the expansion, but those are always full of experimental decks. All in all, it was a low T2 / high T3 deck most of the time – good enough to play, but not good enough to reach the mainstream. For a good reason – it had some clear weaknesses and counters, but to be perfectly honest, Commencement was exactly the card it needed.

Given that Big Warrior skips basically all the early and mid game minions, and it runs a lot of cards that are dead until late game, it tends to fall behind. While this card costs one more mana compared to the original “Big Warrior” cheat tool – Gather Your Party – it has a huge advantage of giving the minion Taunt and Divine Shield. Like sure, it’s great that you can cheat out Rattlegore or a 12/12 Dragon for 6 mana… but so what if the Aggro deck you face is killing you and you’re forced to kill off small minions with those big bodies just to survive? Commencement turns those into huge walls, and unless silenced (and let’s be honest, Silence hasn’t been very popular since Spellbreaker rotated out) or transformed they can often just seal the game vs a fast deck.

We also had some Big / Duel! Paladin experimentation using this card, but it didn’t work out very well. Maybe next expansion? But if any “Big” Paladin or Warrior decks will be competitive over the next few sets, Commencement will definitely be one of the main reasons why.

Pen Flinger – 2.6/5

HEY, LOSER! My god, it has to be one of the most annoying lines in Hearthstone after you hear it for the 30th time during the same match. I have to say that I also undervalued the card – while I thought that it might see some play in decks that play lots of cheap spells, I didn’t think that it will be so popular. The most obvious candidate was always Libram Paladin (thanks to the Libram of Wisdom), but the card found its way into other meta decks too. It was commonly teched in likes of Zoo Warlock or Soul Demon Hunter (it’s also MVP in Quest Shaman – but the deck isn’t very good this expansion anyway). But let’s get back to Libram Paladin for a second… the card is just SO GOOD in the build. Not only because you can keep pinging the minions, but also because it gives you a realistic win condition in the long run vs decks that clear your board constantly. While Control decks might clear every minion you play, as long as you keep poking them for 3-4 damage per turn and bouncing it back before your turn is over, it’s all good – even if you won’t get any minion attacks in, you’re still putting your opponent on a clock.

People (apparently including me) severely underestimate pings. Having access to 1 extra damage is always nice – you can clear off a 1 health minion, trigger some effects that require damage etc. But you could already do it with Elven Archer, a card that – as we all know – isn’t spectacular. But the best thing about Pen Flinger was that you could do it multiple times without losing the card. The 1/1 body on the board is pretty much irrelevant, now the access to infinite 1 mana 1 damage pings is much better. That’s why I expect Pen Flinger to remain being playable as long as decks that run a bunch of cheap spells (or decks that really need some ways to ping minions) exist.\

P.S. I forgot – in case of Zoo Warlock, it wasn’t even pinging opponent or their minions that made it so good. Yes, that was one of the ways to use it, but you could also ping your own Hero to gain extra mana (Darkglare), activate some cards (Diseased Vulture, Brittlebone Destroyer) or reduce the mana cost of Flesh Giant.

Lake Thresher & Guardian Animals – 2.7/5

I feel like those two should be bundled up together, because they got the same score and because they basically depend on each other. While Guardian Animals would still see play without Thresher, Thresher wouldn’t see play without Animals. And that’s why I think that it was rated so low. Because – let’s be honest – by itself it’s not really that scary. A 4/6  for 5 is only okay-ish, and while Cleave is a great effect, you first need to attack in order to get it. In reality, if you drop him from the hand, he rarely survives even a single turn. And that’s where Guardian Animals come handy – by giving it Rush, you can get an immediate trade – often one that works great for you. Alternatively, you can give it Rush with Animated Broomstick, but I don’t think that you would want to play it if it was your only way to Rush it. The card gets even scarier after Survival of the Fittest, but that’s another story.

As for the Guardian Animals… I’m honestly not sure why it was rated so low. While I could understand Hunter, which a) can’t ramp, b) doesn’t have that many strong 5 mana Beasts and c) often wants to run lower cost Beasts, Druid could easily build a deck around it. And Twilight Runner was already announced at the time, so pulling two of them and giving them Rush was already a theorycrafting possibility – an obviously strong one. In the end, it turned out to be one of the most expansion-defining cards. Variants of Guardian Druid were popular throughout the entire expansion, starting from Day 1. In the end, both Kael'thas Sunstrider and Guardian Animals got nerfed – and while the Kael’thas nerf didn’t hurt the deck that badly, Guardian Animals one did – delaying its most powerful play by a turn is a big deal and it’s now a ~T3 deck. That said, it’s still far from useless. You can see it on the ladder from time to time, and lots of players brought it into Masters Tour – one even landed in Top 8 with it in his line-up. Maybe if we get some more support for the build next expansion, it will see common play again.

Cult Neophyte – 2.7/5

Cult Neophyte is a miniature version of Loatheb – well, the comparison might not be fair given that one increased the cost of all spells by (5) and another only by (1), but they served a similar purpose – disruption. Making it hard for your opponent to play cards is a serious strategy that can win you a game in many scenarios. And increasing the cost of spells is one of the best kinds of disruption you can do.

But wait, isn’t 1 mana mostly irrelevant? Honestly – no, it’s not. Add 1 mana to any popular card and it’s suddenly much, much weaker. It’s mostly the case for low cost spells – that Ray of Frost, an all-around great card, is terrible at 2 mana. But it’s not like Neophyte is useless vs higher cost spells, not at all. If you time it right, that is. If your opponent is at 5 mana, wants to play a 5 mana spell, but you increase it by 1… He can’t do it. It’s a great way to delay an AoE clear by a turn, for example, which is the reason why it was mostly played in faster decks, where one extra turn of damage is a massive difference. Delaying key spells is also why the card is so amazing vs Guardian Druid. Drop it when they’re going to 4 mana or 7 (now 8) mana to stop their key turns (Overgrowth / Guardian Animals).

Overall, it was commonly teched into many meta decks – Zoo Warlock, Aggro Demon Hunter, Highlander Hunter and – of course – Rogue. Rogue in particular is an interesting case, because the card has great synergy with Shadowstep. The fact that you can drop it for free afterwards also means that this combo works very well with cards like Edwin VanCleef or Questing Adventurer. You can buff those AND disrupt your opponent’s turn at the same time (increasing the cost of every spell by (2) is a big deal) – which hopefully means that your big minion survives.

While Cult Neophyte’s usefulness depends on the meta, favoring spell-heavy ones, it’s much more flexible than other tech cards. A card like Acidic Swamp Ooze is just useless against deck that doesn’t run weapons (so… a huge part of the meta). On the other hand, nearly every deck runs SOME spells, so it’s actually pretty hard to find a build that Neophyte is completely useless against. Overall, it’s a really solid card, and I expect to see it more until it rotates out.

Sneaky Delinquent – 2.9/5

Sneaky Delinquent is the least popular card on the list, and I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that it’s a Rogue class card… but it’s not. It’s a Neutral, but as it turns out it fits most into Rogue. And it fits well, alright. Over the course of expansion, Rogue has been playing many different tactics – Stealth Aggro, Weapon Aggro, Secret (Miracle), Galakrond, even Highlander… and while Delinquent didn’t go into all of them, any build running Stealth package simply loves it. For a few reason, in fact.

One of them is its mana cost. It lines up perfectly into Greyheart Sage. You can drop a 3 mana 3/3 that draws 2 on curve and then swing with your 3 damage Stealth minion – which is much better than keeping your 1-drop Stealthed until Turn 3 and skipping an attack. Rogue also rarely has good 2-drops, often being forced to Hero Power on T2 (which is not THAT bad, but as an Aggro you’d prefer a faster play). Another is its effect. There’s a reason why it costs twice as much as Spymistress (which yes, is still a better card overall) – after it dies, you get another copy of it (but without the Deathrattle effect). It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s quite important – between this Deathrattle, Sage and Secret Passage, the deck has a lot of steam and can drop a few waves of minions after each AoE. Its effect is also strong from a slightly different perspective. The damage is delayed, but this single card packs 6 damage in total (on average – each part can attack more than once, but each part can also get removed while it’s still in stealth, so I think that 6 damage is a fair assumption). And finally, the fact that you can drop it without worrying that you won’t have a card to activate your Stealth synergies is nice. You can easily play the 1st part and keep the 2nd part for a Sage turn.

Those are the reason why it was a Rogue staple, played in a few different builds (which I assume will continue in the future, unless Rogue gets better alternatives to Stealth package or a better Stealth 2-drop). But it’s not just Rogue – it has seen SOME play in other builds, like Highlander Hunter or Soul Demon Hunter, although rarely and mostly as an obscure tech. Still, after all I believe that it deserved a better rating than “slightly below average”.

Wandmaker – 3.1/5

While 3.1/5 is not a very low rating – it’s actually slightly above average – I can easily say that Wandmaker is way more than “slightly above average”. It is one of the most meta-defining cards of the expansion. While it didn’t see THAT much play at first, hovering around a few % inclusion rate, more and more builds decided to use it as the time went by. The card has seen play in some of the most popular and powerful Scholomance Academy decks – Soul Demon Hunter, Tempo Mage or Control Priest (as well as some Highlander builds or off-meta decks like Quest Shaman). At the time I’m writing this, the card’s popularity sits at almost 30% in Diamond-Legend (according to HSReplay.net) – which is a lot. In fact, it’s the most popular card in the entire game right now, by a pretty big margin (the second one is Kronx at ~17%). Yes, at 30% it’s not even close to stuff like Zilliax, Corridor Creeper or Giggling Inventor (both pre-nerf), but it’s still impressive. All of that begs a question – why?

Well, the answer is quite simple – it’s a 2 mana 2/2 that “draws” a card, and that’s terrific. Of course, adding a random card is almost never as good as drawing something from the deck, but in this case I wouldn’t necessarily say so. 1 mana spells are, in general, quite powerful. The classes that play it have pretty much no bad 1 mana spells – maybe 1-2 mediocre ones, but the rest of them are good or even great. So adding one to your hand is nearly like drawing a card… and sometimes even better. In the early/mid game, you’d often rather get a random 1 cost spell than draw a card, because those are easy to fit into a turn, yet pretty impactful. Dropping Wandmaker on Turn 2 means that you have some tempo, while your overall hand size doesn’t get lower – most of the decks that play it don’t have many great Turn 2 plays.

Another reason why it’s so good is that the decks that run it might have some extra synergies with those 1 mana spells. In case of Tempo Mage – no matter which spells you’re talking about, the entire deck is built around them (all the Sorcerer's Apprentice shenanigans, Mana Cyclone, Chenvaala and so on). For Priest – Wave of Apathy works well with Cabal Acolyte and Cabal Shadow Priest, targeted spells like Holy Smite or Renew work with Sethekk Veilweaver, Draconic Studies is just a value generator, but it also activates any Dragon synergies you might have (such as Cleric of Scales) etc. And well… Soul Demon Hunter can just straight up get more burn (Twin Slice), Silence that lets pass through Taunts or deal more damage (Consume Magic, or card draw (Double Jump) that gets Skull of Gul'dan that gets even more burn.

Of course, the pool of spells, including 1 mana spells, is something that constantly changes. Same thing for their synergies. That’s why Wandmaker might start seeing even more play over the next few expansions, or it might completely disappear – who knows? One thing is sure – the card is definitely a sleeper hit of Scholomance Academy, something that most of people have rated as “well, it’s okay”, but it turned out to be much more than that.