Most Underrated Cards From Rastakhan’s Rumble

Rastakhan’s Rumble was released 2.5 months ago. To be completely honest, I wanted to do this comparison sooner, but two nerf patches kind of ruined my plans (when the meta has completely stabilized after the first one and I’ve started preparing to write it, Blizzard has announced the second patch). So while we’re a little late, it should still be as interesting as always.

I will take a closer look at the pre-expansion predictions and compare them to how strong the cards turned out to be in reality. Rating cards pre-release is really difficult. You can never guess how the meta will look like, not to mention that some of the cards might look insane on the paper, but turn out to be mediocre in the game or vice versa. It’s tough, but it’s part of the reveal season fun. And part of the expansion fun is looking past at those ratings and seeing how wrong we were. Yes, we, because I’m guilty of underrating some of those cards too.

In the first part, I will be looking at the most underrated cards from Rastakhan’s Rumble (there will also be a second part about overrated cards – stay tuned!). An underrated card isn’t necessarily a card that was thought to be very weak, but turned out to be a meta-breaker (like the infamous Corridor Creeper). By “underrated” I simply mean a card that was rated significantly lower than its real power level – for example, a card that was rated to be #110 of the expansion, but turned out to be above average is still underrated, even if it doesn’t see play in any Tier 1 deck. Similarly, a card that was rated #30 out of 135, but is turned out to be the best card in the expansion was also underrated – even though it wasn’t rated as “garbage” at first, it is much better than players have expected.

Before I proceed, let me explain where I got the average ratings from. First of all, those are community ratings, not pro ratings – I feel like it’s the best way to show how an average player felt about the card (or, to be honest, above average player, since casual players most likely didn’t care enough to vote). The ratings I will be using come from two different sources – our site (I screenshotted all of the card ratings on the release day, I can upload those if anyone wants to see them) and HearthPwn pre-release ratings (Source). I will take the card’s position (e.g. #35 out of 135) from both sites, take the average, and look for the cards that stand out most (one way or the other). When talking about card’s current popularity, I use HSReplay.net statistics (Last 7 days, Legend-10).

Check out the Rastakhan’s Rumble Most Overrated Cards compilation too!

Mosh’ogg Enforcer

Average rating – #125 out of 135

First card on the list has to be Mosh’ogg Enforcer, one of the lowest rated cards from Rastakhan’s Rumble. It was rated similarly to cards that have never seen any play yet (and most likely won’t), such as Arena Patron, Gurubashi Chicken or Dozing Marksman (yes, that’s a card – I honestly didn’t remember that such a card exists).

Right now, Mosh’ogg Enforcer is the 6th most popular card from Rastakhan’s Rumble, played in 9% of the decks on the ladder. In all fairness, the card didn’t see THAT much play early in the expansion, but it was still much, much better than #120. Players have quite quickly discovered its potential in Combo Priest, as well as how good it is to pull out of Master Oakheart, but it took them some time to combine both of those. After the 2nd nerf patch, Wall Priest became more popular (if you still haven’t seen or played it – it’s a bit like a mix between Combo Priest and Resurrect Priest) and so did Mosh’ogg Enforcer.

Massive health pool combined with Divine Shield makes the card very hard to kill without hard removal. And because it starts at 14 health, just a single Divine Spirit brings it up to 28 – almost enough to kill an undamaged opponent after Inner Fire or Topsy Turvy. All of that makes it a deadly weapon in Priest class.

Cheaty Anklebiter

Average rating – #118 out of 135

While not AS underrated as the two cards that surround it on this list, I still had to mention it. 2 mana 2/1, which deals 1 damage is just bad. We had a card like that in the game (Blowgill Sniper) and it has seen exactly zero play, even in Murloc decks (although it was an okay Arena card). However, in this case, Lifesteal is what makes the difference. The only class Cheaty Anklebiter sees play in is Warlock, and extra healing is exactly the reason why. Between Life Taps and all of the cards that inflict damage to your own Hero, Warlock is a class that needs healing most. But it’s also a class with rather limited access to healing options. That’s why it takes anything it can.

The card is especially good vs Aggro. 1 damage ping not only can clear some early game minions (such as Springpaw, Acherus Veteran, Kobold Librarian or 1/1’s from Paladin’s Hero Power), but also heals the owner for 1 immediately. Then, if your opponent wants to trade into it (or you will trade into something next turn), you get 2 extra points of healing. 3 health doesn’t seem like much, but if you add that onto a 2-drop that already did something on top of that, then it gets better. The card is especially useful in meta with a lot of early game 1 health minions, and I’d say that we have plenty of them right now.

Another selling point of this card in Warlock class is how good it is at setting up Defile. Let’s say that your opponent has 3, 3 and 4 health minions. Normally Defile wouldn’t come close to clearing this board, but Cheaty Anklebiter can fix that. It’s a 1 health minion itself, then it brings one of the 3 health ones to 2, and then you have a perfect Defile. The card has saved my life many times, since it makes Defile way easier to use by always adding 1 health target as well as Battlecry that helps you line up the other minions. In this case, any extra healing past the first single point is lost, but it’s still worth it most of the time

Until recently, Cheaty Anklebiter was mostly seen in Mecha’thun Warlock – a deck that wants to survive and cycle through the entire deck until it gets to fatigue and OTKs opponent. Lately, it has started seeing play in other Warlock archetypes, such as Control or even Cube Warlock. I think it that it deserves a much higher spot than #118 it was voted into before the expansion.

Amani War Bear

Average rating – #116 out of 135

While Cheaty Anklebiter is still a rather niche card, Amani War Bear definitely isn’t. 12th most popular card from the expansion, played in 3.6% of the decks on ladder), but the number used to be higher when both Deathrattle Hunter and Quest Warrior were more popular.

Let’s start with the obvious – 7 mana 5/7 Taunt is not a good card. Furious Ettin has 2 more health and it sees exactly zero play. Even Ancient of War, which used to be the Druid’s ultimate Taunt Option, hasn’t seen competitive play in a long time, despite being a 5/10 Taunt (although 5 of the health can be Silenced off, so that’s a downside). In other words, what had to carry this card is Rush. And it did.

What’s great about this card is that it acts as a single target removal that leaves a body behind. Remember Firelands Portal? It was an amazing card exactly because of that (plus it could also be used as a burn, but still). Let’s say that your opponent has a 4/4 minion that you want to clear. You can play Amani War Bear, get rid of it, and still have a 5/3 body with Taunt behind, which might get another trade or eat a removal. It’s especially handy in a deck like Deathrattle Hunter, which has limited access to removal (even though Charged Devilsaur was still a more common option, a lot of the builds did play Amani War Bear).

Rush also made it a potent card in Odd Quest Warrior, who wants it because it’s an Odd Costed Taunt, as well as can draw it with Town Crier (an absolutely busted card in decks running Rush cards – 1 mana 1/2 that draws a card is something you would play in nearly every deck).

Both of those decks used to be more popular roughly a month ago, and so was Amani War Bear. But it’s still a solid part of the current meta, and it definitely did not deserve the poor ratings it got.

Hakkar, the Soulflayer

Average rating – #92 out of 135

Hakkar, oh Hakkar. From the first moments he reminded me of Mecha'thun – a Neutral, high cost, build-around combo card. And honestly, me (and the community) have been surprised by the performance of both of them. While Mecha’thun is clearly a better combo win condition right now (easier to make it work and it kills the opponent immediately), Hakkar has seen a fair share of play in off-meta decks from different classes – Druid, Paladin or Warrior.

The goal behind those decks is usually playing Hakkar, killing it off, and then either dealing with the Cursed Blood in their own deck somehow (e.g. Paladin can play Prince Liam, Warrior can flood their deck with more cards thanks to Dead Man's Hand) or comboing the opponent. The latter is Druid’s domain – once Cursed Blood is in both decks and Druid is out of cards (other than Blood), the goal is to switch the decks through King Togwaggle and then Naturalize something to force opponent to draw. The first Blood only deals 3 damage, but each other draw doubles that. Which means that just a single Naturalize deals 3 + 6 + 12 = 21 damage (counting the natural draw at the beginning of your opponent’s turn, not counting fatigue), while two of them are most likely enough to kill any opponent, even Warrior who stacked lots of Armor.

It’s a slow card, and the combos are a bit sketchy compared to Mecha’thun, but it’s definitely worked out better than players have initially expected. The general consensus was that Hakkar will be a meme card, MAYBE played as Mecha’thun counter (since, funnily enough, it hard counters the other Neutral combo card). But it turned out to be more than that. At this point, I’m quite sure that at least some Hakkar decks will be played throughout next year, even if they won’t be Tier 1.

Baited Arrow

Average rating – #91 out of 135

To be fair, not many have expected Spell Hunter to be THAT dominating early in the meta. If you forgot already, Spell Hunter used to be ALL over the ladder during the expansion’s first week. At one point, almost 20% of the meta were Spell Hunters alone (and it doesn’t account for other Hunter builds, such as Midrange or Deathrattle). And while Zul'jin was the main reason why, Baited Arrow also played an important role.

Spell Hunter is all about spells that summon minions. Even though the deck can’t play minions, between Animal Companion, Flanking Strike, Lesser Emerald Spellstone and To My Side! it already could summon more stuff than a lot of the decks. And Baited Arrow added yet another one.

The card worked best against decks running small minions. Not only you could clear something immediately, but you’ve also summoned a 5/5 that could trade further. It also fixed the Spell Hunter’s curve a bit. Before, the only Turn 5 play was Spellstone, and it was pretty bad if you didn’t upgrade it on the way. Baited Arrow added an alternative T5 play – in case you didn’t have Spellstone or didn’t manage to upgrade it.

And last, but not least, the the fact that you could use it as a 3 damage burn was relevant. Obviously, 3 damage for 5 mana is not great, but it’s often exactly what you needed to close out the game. Spell Hunter was a pretty aggressive deck in the mid game, so having another source of late game burn wasn’t something to complain about. Of course, most of the time you’d rather use it to clear something and summon a 5/5, but you never complain about an alternative use.

Spell Hunter’s popularity was falling slowly over the course of the first 2 months, but the latest nerf patch delivered a final blow. Nerf to Lesser Emerald Spellstone, as well as Hunter's Mark, made the deck way, way worse than it once was. It’s not completely unplayable, and it’s still in top 25 most played cards from the expansion, but if we look at how popular it was early in the expansion (it used to be in top 5 cards from RR), Baited Arrow was definitely underrated.

Shirvallah, the Tiger

Average rating – #75 out of 135

Oh boy, while we were more or less wrong about the cards above, rating Shirvallah this low was a huge, huge error. Not only the card has almost single-handedly brought back Combo Paladin back into the meta, it also lead to a rather quick nerf of Equality. And yet, some people still play it. But first things first.

At first, for quite a while, Shirvallah has seen quite a lot of play in Exodia Paladin, the deck built around Uther of the Ebon Blade. While it wasn’t a part of the combo, given how many spells the deck ran, it was pretty easy to get her down to 0 mana, and it was a great way to stall the game (or just pretty much win it vs Aggro). After that, however, players have realized that maybe it’s not the best way to play it, and built a different combo deck instead (which was also popular during the first few days of expansion, but fell out of favor quickly) – Holy Wrath Paladin. It’s not an entirely new concept, as it was already tried out with Molten Giant before, but it was never that successful. The idea behind the deck is that high cost cards that get discounted throughout the game keep their original mana cost while they’re still in the deck. So a 0 mana Shirvallah, the Tiger shuffled back into the deck, did in fact cost 25 when it was pulled with Holy Wrath. And thus, it dealt 25 damage. With two copies of Holy Wrath and Baleful Banker (the card used to shuffle it), you could deal 50 damage over the course of two turns – more than enough to kill most of the opponents.

And those who stacked lots of Armor, such as Warrior or Druid decks, could still be killed with Uther of the Ebon Blade. Bankers could be used to shuffle the Horsemen back into the deck, and you also played Zola the Gorgon to get the final one. While the deck was never really Tier 1 on the ladder, it started dominating the tournament meta (plus a lot of players found it unfun to play against), which lead to its nerf. With Equality‘s cost increased to 4 mana, the board clears are now much slower and thus less reliable. You need 6 mana to combo it with Wild Pyromancer and 8 to combo with Consecration, which is way too slow against faster decks. Before, a Turn 4 or 5 Pyro + Equality often saved the entire game – something that’s no longer possible.

The deck is still kind of playable, some players climbed to high Legend ranks with it, but it’s mostly off-meta now, working well only against the specific opponents (basically, it’s still good vs certain slow decks, but it gets ran over by Aggro now).

That said, remember that Shirvallah still has an entire year before it rotates out, meaning that we might get another opportunity to see it in action. It was definitely one of the most underrated cards from the entire expansion.

Springpaw

Average rating – #50 out of 135

As much as I could understand underrating any of the cards below, this one I just don’t really get. Technically, #50 out of 135 is not an incredibly low rating, but it’s pretty average. And we’re talking about one of the most impactful cards from Rastakhan’s Rumble, currently the 2nd most popular card from the expansion and 23rd most popular card in the game overall.

Springpaw is like a Fire Fly made for Hunter, and we all know how good Fire Fly is. While it has -1 health, which does matter, between the Beast tag and Rush, it works way better than one of the best 1-drops in the game. Sure, dropping it on Turn 1 is not the most optimal play, but it’s still a Beast for the sake of Crackling Razormaw‘s synergy and it still leaves a token in your hand you can play later. It works especially well in Midrange Hunter, which is built around Beast synergies. For example, for 3 mana you can play it and Adapt it with Razormaw (which I’ve already mentioned) – getting Poisonous or +3 Attack turns it into a cheap removal. They turn into 2/1’s with Timber Wolf or Leokk on the board. They’re a solid target for Dire Frenzy – while it’s not the most impactful card to buff, the 1 mana 4/4’s with Rush are godlike tempo plays once you draw them (e.g. with Master's Call). And last, but not least, they can be used to buff Scavenging Hyena quite well. Dropping Hyena and then Springpaw + token to clear a 2 health minion (or two 1 health minions) and buff Hyena to 6/4 works really well.

Overall, the card is incredibly flexible and I’m positive that it will see a lot of play throughout the upcoming Standard year (unless Hunter gets some even better 1-drops, which would be really scary). Definitely one of the most underrated cards from the expansion.