Most Important Cards Rotating Out Of Standard In 2022 – Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior (Part 2)

Year of the Gryphon is coming to an end. A new Standard year should be announced shortly (probably next week!) and released in early-mid April, with the launch of the first expansion of 2022. It’s a huge event for every Standard player since it changes the meta landscape completely – all decks relying on cards from 2 years ago will have to either develop a new gameplan or simply disappear.

In just a few weeks, all cards from 2020 expansions – Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy, and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire (+Darkmoon Races mini-set) will rotate out to Wild. That’s a total of 440 cards out of the picture. And not just any cards – Year of the Phoenix was an incredibly impactful year, with tons of powerhouse cards that today’s decks rely on.

In this article (or rather a series of articles, because covering all 10 classes + neutrals in one was just too much), I’ll showcase the most important cards rotating out soon. Of course, it only includes expansion cards, because we don’t yet know what will change in Core Set 2022 (we’ll have a separate article about that soon after the announcement).

Now, a few words by what I mean by “most important”. I will cover cards that are commonly played right now, or cards that have made a substantial meta impact in the past. For example, if a card hasn’t been seen in almost a year, but it was played in a very popular meta deck before that, I will still include it. That’s because it being gone would still impact the upcoming meta, let’s say in case more related synergies get printed. What I won’t include are cards that were once key, but got nerfed and were no longer played after the nerf (let’s say Mindrender Illucia). The reason is that they’re most likely too weak to see play after the nerfs and them rotating out won’t really make a big impact.

Without further ado, let’s get to the first five classes. I will cover the next five in the second article, and neutrals in the third.

• Check out Part 1 – Demon Hunter, Druid, Hunter, Mage, and Paladin – here!

To be perfectly honest, Priest hasn’t been doing that well this Standard year. Control Priest has been a solid deck back in the Barrens, but after a around of nerfs and a new expansion, it’s been relegated to a more meme category. And it honestly stayed that way. We had a few variants like Big Priest or Deathrattle Priest, but they were all… pretty weak in the grand scheme of things. Looking at the combo side, Miracle Priest had very mixed results over the year. Even at the times it’s present in the meta and it can have blow-out turns like it does right now, the matchup spread is still not favorable and the deck isn’t consistent enough. It doesn’t stop some players from taking it to high Legend, but for a general populace, it’s a Tier 3 deck at best. The only shining beacon was (ironically) Shadow Priest, which was juggling in and out of the meta, but whenever it was viable, it was a solid deck – usually Tier 2 and sometimes even Tier 1. But will rotation help the class, or maybe on the contrary, it will be its final nail in the coffin?

Maybe let’s first look at the archetype that loses most in the rotation. No matter how I put it, it’s going to be an understatement – Miracle Priest is just gone, all variants of it. Miracle Priest always relies on some form of mana discounts, and this time it was Nazmani Bloodweaver – the card is gone, so Miracle Priest is gone. Even if you would somehow try to play it without Nazmani, other hand-wide discount (Palm Reading) is also gone. Support cards like Psyche Split, Gift of Luminance or Insight? Gone. Even if those stayed, some variants would still be unplayable with Sethekk Veilweaver and Rally! gone. Yep, the deck is just dead, at least for now – it’s not the first time Miracle Priest was in the meta, and might not be the last time.

What about a more regular Control Priest? I’ll just bundle up all different Control Priest archetypes here and say that they might not be losing that much, but the problem is that they’re already weak. If you have a Tier 3-4 deck and still take away a few good cards it has, it might suffer much more than a Tier 1 deck losing many more. Besides Palm Reading I’ve already covered, it also loses more card generation + healing combo in a form of Renew. It was one of the most powerful Priest cards, letting you Discover whatever you needed at the time while healing for 3. That 3 points of healing might not seem like a lot, but when facing an Aggro deck, it was often a matter of life and death. Draconic Studies is yet another card generation the deck loses – Control Priest often didn’t pack a lot of power in its main 30 cards, but it could discover way more threats – Draconic Studies was one of the ways to do so. And finally – AoE removals like Hysteria and Soul Mirror. The first one was more of a meta call, but Soul Mirorr was key in the current Control Priest decks. It was the only big board wipe that didn’t require any setup (Xyrella is also great, but to get rid of a bigger board you had to heal a lot first on the same turn) and it let Priest benefit from opponent’s Divine Shields, Deathrattles etc. I would assume that Priest is going to get another big board clear either in Core Set or in the first expansion of the year, because that’s been a pattern so far – when one was rotating out, Priest just got another one (Lightbomb, Dragonfire Potion, Psychic Scream etc.)

Good news for Priest fans is that Shadow Priest is not losing THAT much. The biggest hit is definitely losing two good 1-drops – Imprisoned Homunculus and Frazzled Freshman – but replacements shouldn’t be THAT hard to find. Disciplinarian Gandling was a great card if you played a “cute” build with 0-cost minions, but it was never the only and best way to play the deck, so while it means that the deck can’t fall back on it, it’s not the end of the world. And also there’s Raise Dead, which was a nice, 0 mana refill for the deck. Self-damage didn’t matter most of the time as you were the one in Aggro seat, so it often acted like “draw 2 minions” for 0 mana. All of that said, I think that overall the deck should be doing just fine after rotation.

If you like Aggro decks, then Shadow Priest should be the way to go after rotation. But if you prefer slower builds, the future doesn’t look very well for Priest right now. Of course, everything can be changed by the Core Set rotation and the first expansion, but I’m basing it only on what I know right now. With Lightmaw Netherdrake‘s recent release, I think that what would save slower Priest builds are some more Dragons and Dragon synergies. Especially some more proactive card, which would let Priest create a sort of Midrange-Control build, like Dragon Priest decks in the past. I think that kind of playstyle was received much better by the general playerbase than the slow, grindy Control deck with tons of card generation. Alternatively, some more good Deathrattle cards and board clears could make a deck built around Xyrella, the Devout the main way to play the deck.

Rogue is losing some really powerful cards cards here and there, but to be completely honest, I don’t think that any of the recently popular archetypes should be completely “killed off” by the rotation. Cards like Secret Passage, Brain Freeze, Swindle, Wand Thief, Foxy Fraud, Prize Plunderer or Tenwu of the Red Smoke didn’t really “belong” in one deck and were played across a variety of builds this year. Losing all of those at once will be a big hit, most of the builds will suffer, but the good news is that their core should remain relatively intact. I won’t mention those cards when discussing individual decks, because every Rogue deck run at least a couple of them.

The deck that will be hurt most is definitely Poison Rogue. Again, the “core” of the deck is still there – Swinetusk Shank and Poison cards will remain playable (assuming Deadly Poison doesn’t rotate out of Core Set). However, a much bigger deal here is losing Cloak of Shadows. Cloak allowed Rogue to just focus on dishing out as much weapon damage as possible without the need to clear the board. With how much the deck drew, as long as it survived until mid game, it could have a few “free” turns with Cloak on T6, T7 and then Scabbs on T8. Without that kind of leisure, it will have to adapt to a more board-oriented playstyle. Losing Cutting Class also hurts it quite a lot, because in the mid game it was generally a 0 mana draw 2 cards. There’s also Self-Sharpening Sword which was a rare tech if you needed more weapons, but losing it won’t make that big of an impact.

Then we’ve got Thief Rogue and Questline Rogue, the other two decks that have been popular recently. Again, core of those decks was released in 2021 – Questline Rogue in Stormwind and Thief Rogue in Alterac Valley. That core remains intact, but the decks are losing a lot of the “good” Rogue cards  I’ve listed at the top. Somewhere between 6 and 10 cards in those decks (depending on the build) will rotate out and they won’t “break” them per se, but will make them weaker overall. Whether they will still be playable really depends on the replacements we get, be it in the Core Set or the upcoming expansion.

And if we take a look at the decks that haven’t seen much play recently, the one that will lose the most is clearly Secret Rogue. The entire Secret package is gone so the deck will be unplayable until Blizzard prints another Secret-focused expansion for the class. While probably even less important right now, the small “Stealth” package of Spymistress and Greyheart Sage is also out. We never really had a dedicated Stealth deck, but we often had a small Stealth package including those two (and sometimes a few more like Sneaky Delinquent which is also out) in more aggressive Rogue builds.

Shaman, just like Rogue, is losing a lot of great “general purpose” cards that were present across multiple decks. One such example is Devolving Missiles, which wasn’t core in any deck, but it was a great tech card that was playable in many builds. However, unlike Rogue, the class is also losing some key pieces that will make some quite popular decks simply unplayable. The class might be in a pretty rough spot and it will really have to be carried by Elemental and Freeze synergies – or whatever gets released in the next expansion.

Probably the most prominent deck that will no longer be playable post-rotation is Bolner OTK Shaman. The entire OTK relied on cards from Darkmoon Faire – Dunk Tank, Circus Medic and – of course – Y'Shaarj, The Defiler. The deck will be completely unplayable without the win condition. Of course, it doesn’t mean that we won’t get a “Control Shaman” build with another win con, but this one is dead.

Another dead deck is Evolve Shaman. Boggspine Knuckles, Revolve and Bogstrok Clacker are all of the evolve/transform synergies we have right now in Standard, so the deck is just gone. But let’s be honest, it hasn’t been popular ever since the weapon got nerfed. Still, players have attempted to revive it every now and then.

Maybe not “dead” dead, but Aggro Shaman with Doomhammer is taking such a big hit that it might as well be. Having Doomhammer on curve absolutely makes or breaks the deck, and losing a way to tutor it – Cagematch Custodian – is a massive hit. Not only that, but Stormstrike and Inara Stormcrash gone means that you will no longer have ways to buff it other than Rockbiter Weapon and that’s just not enough. And that’s all assuming Doomhammer won’t even rotate out of the Core Set – if it does, that’s just a nail in the coffin.

Now, if we look at the decks that might not be dead, but heavily crippled, Questline Shaman is definitely one of them. Lightning Bloom, Guidance and Serpentshrine Portal were one of your best Overload cards and you need Overload cards to finish the Questline. Losing Bloom, in particular, is a HUGE deal because early Bloom was massive in the deck. It let you win the early game tempo while not having to suffer from the downside because it got cleared by Command the Elements. In a similar vein, no Diligent Notetaker means no early game double Bloom shenanigans and no massive Lightning Bolt bursts later in the game after Questline was finished. Even Instructor Fireheart being gone is a big deal, because late game Fireheart was a powerhouse with double spells, often being able to find lethal, board clears, heals etc. It could get you out of most of the bad situations.

And then we’ve got Burn Shaman, which loses a lot of damage potential. No Bloom means less mana to work with during late game massive burn turns and less damage from Overdraft + you will no longer be able to Bloom out Wildpaw Cavern on T1/T2. Serpentshrine Portal is one burn card less, and one that could even be used on curve at that. Primordial Studies lowers the potential of finding extra Spell Damage, especially extra copies of Novice Zapper. Landslide gone means that the deck will struggle hard against Aggro, losing its main (very efficient) board clear.

All of that said, between all of the Elemental synergies (which were mostly pushed out of the meta for being too “fair”, but I can see them making a comeback after rotation) and Freeze synergies (INSANE in any board-oriented meta), I think that Shaman should still be doing fine. While it’s losing a lot, the class got a lot of overpowered cards in the last few expansions that should cushion the fall after rotation.

If we judged the rotation only by the number of cards the class loses, Warlock would be in a really good spot. But since it’s not only about quantity, but also quality, things are looking a bit more rough for the class.

By far the most important Warlock archetype this year is Questline Warlock. And while it might not lose a lot of cards, the cards it loses were really important. The first one is Flesh Giant, probably the deck’s main win condition. It was very easy to discount them to 0 (or just a few mana points) and tempo from free 8/8’s was the most common way the deck would win. And even if not win – waste opponent’s time while completing the Quest (which was the inevitable, late game win con). Then, we’ve got Backfire and Raise Dead, losing them will be a massive hit, because they were helping with self-damage part + adding more resources to Warlock’s hand. Warlock will now have to rely more on Fatigue to deal enough self-damage, but the problem is that without Backfires, getting to fatigue will take a few extra turns (and that’s a lot). Notably, rotation of some Neutrals like Tour Guide will also make drawing/self-damage more difficult. Questline itself is still technically playable, but the deck got hit so hard that I’m not sure if there will be a reason to still play it. We’ll see.

The second most popular Warlock archetype of late, OwlTK Warlock, loses no combo pieces, which is good news if you like it. The bad news is that it loses so many support cards. Backfire gone means that drawing through your deck will be harder. School Spirits will need to be replaced with some other AoE clear like Hellfire, but that’s only assuming Hellfire will actually be present in the next rotation. But maybe, most importantly, without Mo'arg Artificer, it will be way, way harder to clear big boards or heal for a lot.  Armor Vendor and Tour Guide are other notable Neutrals lost. The deck will be hurt substantially, but I guess that it might survive depending on the replacements and meta.

Now onto the decks that haven’t really been playable lately. It’s been a year since Zoo Warlock was viable the rotation doesn’t look promising. Some of the only redeeming qualities of the archetype will be gone. For example, Nightshade Matron + Hand of Gul'dan combo was one of the best ways to combine tempo with value, Darkglare – even after the nerfs – could run away with the games if left unchecked, and even Wicked Whispers was the best way to capitalize on big boards available in Standard. Zoo would need a lot to be playable after rotation.

The entire Soul Fragment archetype is also gone, all of the cards rotate out. A full “Soul Warlock” deck wasn’t very common, but some of the Soul Fragment generators and pay-offs were present here and there – both in faster and slower builds. Spirit Jailer, Soul Shear and School Spirits in particular were often played for their “vanilla” stats/effects with delayed healing.

And finally, Tickatus is gone. Back in the day, when it was played in Control Warlock, I’ve seen complaints about it every day. I guess that it goes away without fanfare, as any attempts to revive it lately resulted in maybe a Tier 3 deck at best.

It’s hard to say what Warlock will look like after rotation. I think that OwlTK is the build that looks most promising after rotation, but it will also be hurt a lot. The next expansion and Core Set will probably be a big deal for the class, giving it some direction. Hopefully a bit different than for the last couple of sets.

Warrior is losing A LOT of cards, but many of those cards haven’t seen that much play lately. Don’t get me wrong, the cards that were played are very good and losing them will hurt, but don’t get completely discouraged by the number of cards posted here and assume the worst.

Let’s start with what is the most popular Warrior archetype lately – Control Warrior. And there’s a lot. Let’s start with removal – Bladestorm is a big, big hit. It was a great mix of single target and AoE removal. You could often set up the board to deal 2-3 AoE damage with it, and it could also always clear a single big minion. Then we’ve got Minefield, another solid semi-AoE removal. Amazing at answering early game boards, you could often clear 2 small minions with just one card (or, alternatively, one mid-sized minion later in the game). Lord Barov hasn’t been played that much lately because of Kazakusan, but it was still one of the best removal cards for the class. Finally, Sword and Board and Coerce – mostly tech choices, haven’t seen that much play lately, but were always solid options. Corsair Cache + Bulwark of Azzinoth + Cutting Class are also out, making the Control Warrior’s “weapon package” much worse. And finally, Rattlegore is gone, the card was a de facto win condition in Control Warrior builds for a long time, but things have changed a bit recently, so it’s no longer as key as it was. That’s about it, and as you can see, that’s A LOT of great cards that will no longer be playable. Good news is that both of the current “win cons” are intact – Charge combo with Captain Galvangar and Kazakusan are still there.

Questline Pirate Warrior will take a pretty small hit. Assuming nothing changes in Core Set department when it comes to Pirates (we’ll know soon), the only big loss from Year of the Phoenix is Sword Eater. That’s, of course, a big loss, but it’s still one card that wasn’t vital to the deck’s existence. Technically many builds also ran Lord Barov, but it was even less “important”. Pirate Warrior should be doing fine – again, assuming that they won’t remove Pirates from the Core Set.

Now onto the decks that are just completely dead – Big Warrior and Rush Warrior. Big Warrior is losing not only its main way to cheat out big minions – Commencement – but also most of the big minions it actually ran. Then, Rush Warrior is losing all of the synergies that made it a viable deck in the first place – Rush cards themselves (including Bloodboil Brute), Athletic Studies, Playmaker, E.T.C., God of Metal and so on.

The future of Warrior is quite interesting. I assume that Pirate Warrior should be able to survive and might actually be a really good deck in the first expansion. As for the Control Warrior, it’s hard to say. Win conditions are still there, but the deck will need A LOT of substitutes. It loses some really good removals, but Warrior has plenty of those, so it might not be the end of the world. What I’m more worried about is card draw (Corsair Cache, Cutting Class), because Warrior has struggled with that and finding either your Charge combo pieces or Kazakusan earlier is often a big deal. But we’ll see.