Shallow Gravedigger

Shallow Gravedigger Card

Shallow Gravedigger is a 3 Mana Cost Rare Neutral Minion card from the Knights of the Frozen Throne set!

Card Text

Deathrattle: Add a random Deathrattle minion to your hand.

Flavor Text

It's hard to put them six feet under when you're three feet tall.

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25 Comments

  1. Max Hohmann
    July 27, 2017 at 6:35 am

    It ist Random ^^ that means You can become the new Druide leg. And mage leg. !!!!

    I Like it !!

    • Playwright
      July 30, 2017 at 12:36 am

      You actually can’t get Sindragosa (The Mage Legendary) since it is a battlecry that summons a deathrattle. And that deathrattle is a token minion means you probably can’t get it from this.

  2. DumbEndumber
    July 24, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    Well, I got to say, the reveal of Ticking Abomination didn’t really make this card any stronger 😀

  3. cardviewer9000
    July 24, 2017 at 9:33 am

    0/100

    3 mana 3/1 battlecry: draw a card will not see play
    why in a million years will this see play

  4. Th0massn
    July 24, 2017 at 6:58 am

    Deathrattle: give yourself a card that will remain dead in your hand for the rest of the game.

    4/10 Could improve with more deathrattle releases.

  5. DumbEndumber
    July 21, 2017 at 11:47 am

    The only partial saving grace would be a lot of deathrattle popping effects in this expansion, because as it is, this card is just bad. There are better cards that discover(!) from better pools as a Battlecry while more often than not having better stats and/or special effects for their cost.

    Not to mention that a 3 mana 3/1 is literally unplayable. No way anyone would put this thing on the board on turn 3, as opposed to a body that actually accomplishes something besides generating a random card on death.

    • Brann
      July 21, 2017 at 7:57 pm

      Yep completely right, Unless we see some really strong death Rattle cards, it’s just not worth it for the crap stat-line, it’s not gonna be like stone-hill because you actually don’t get to discover and choose the best of 3 cards, it’s just random.

      It could be good in some classes that might get strong death Rattle minions like (paladin-Tirion)

      But there’s also a lot of crap death Rattle minions you could get to

      And it’s not a defensive card like stone-hill too so it’s much harder to play, because it dies to hero powers and trades with 1-2 drops

      (Seems like a pretty greedy&risky 3 drop to me)- If you wanna go for that 5+ Tirion dream in Paladin

      10 with N’Zoth ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

      • DumbEndumber
        July 22, 2017 at 5:53 am

        Yeah, the fact that it doesn’t discover a card makes it kinda lacklustre. Overall, compared to stonehill, it has less stat points (in an arguably worse distribution), it doesn’t give you the card instalntly, doesn’t have taunt, picks cards from a worse pool, etc.

        Similarly, kabal courier gets to discover, does it on battlecry, has a better pool to get cards from, and has a better stat distribution (though arguably the 3/1 is more preferable for the deathrattle effect, even if 1 health is horrible).

        You could also compare it to Acolyte of pain to some extent, which is another resource-generating neutral 3 drop, though it can draw you more cards, and has a better statline as well. However, compared to acolyte, this card gets a card from outside the deck, which I consider usually to be beneficial (though in the case of such a horrible card pool as deathrattle cards, it might very well be a drawback).

        Overall I fail to see why I why this card would be used in any deck at all. Pickable in arena, I guess?

    • Jaych
      July 22, 2017 at 3:18 pm

      Ummm…a 3 Mana 3-1 with a deathrattle is abosolute trash and will never see play?

      Huh. I guess Eggnapper just doesn’t exist anymore?

      Yeah, I understand that that’s a poor comparison, but I’d actually like to point something out. This card is basically a Loot Hoarder that can’t be taken by Potion of Madness, has an extra attack, has a more specific utility, and doesn’t draw from your own deck, instead drawing from an omniscient deck that both players can use whenever it’s needed.

      • DumbEndumber
        July 23, 2017 at 11:08 am

        Well, loot hoarder is only 2 mana, as opposed to 3, and I doubt the +1 stat point is useful for many things besides immunity from the Potion of Madness.

        Of course, as I have previously mentioned, drawing from outside your deck can often be considered a superior effect for many reasons, but the draw pool you get a card from does heavily influence the card’s worth.

        I doubt deathrattle cards as a pool is good enough to make this card comperably goodto loot hoarder, which at least is guaranteed to get you a decent card, an is one mana less which is quite significant for small mana costs). Besides, Loot Hoarder is used to cycle and little else (at least I think so), and this card cannot do that.

        Also, I’d like to point out that deathrattle effect are really varied, and that makes this card really inconsistent, as opposed to loot hoarder, which gets you a card from your deck, or Stonehill, which gives you the almost always useful Taunt, as well as letting you choose from 3 options.

        Of course, discover wouldn’t work with this card, due to the nature of the deathrattle effects, but I feel the lack of choice and the quite random usefulness of the discovered card makes this card ultimately quite weak.

      • Playwright
        July 23, 2017 at 11:40 am

        It can also be compared to the Tomb Spider (Which has a solid rating of 3.5 last I checked) wince they are both cards that have horrible stats at the benefit of getting a card from them. They also both get the card from a pool that is widely considered worthless. The Spider is a battlecry which means you get the card immediately, has more even stats making it better at surviving AoEs, hero powers, and weak minions, and has discover which is preferable to a random cards most of the time. The Gravedigger has deathrattle which has far more synergies than battlecry, is able to get cards from outside your class, and is started more towards offense making it effective against larger minions, and big single target spells.

  6. Jaych
    July 14, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    Lots of people seem to be bashing this card, and I’m not all too sure as to why. It’s not awful, it’s just worse than average in most situations.

    I personally like this card. If you remember, “random minion” means a minion from any class. This could help Quest Priest out quite a bit, because several of the Priest Deathrattles aren’t quite good enough to hold the whole deck above water. With the possibilities of getting anything from Direhorn Hatchling to Possessed Villager, Rat Pack to White Eyes, Tirion Fordring to Sated Threshadon, Deathwing, Dragonlord to Loot Hoarder. There are just enough good possibilities that even the worst options aren’t completely terrible in terms of Awaken the Makers. While I certainly don’t think it’s great, I don’t think it’s unplayable.

  7. Kenchilada
    July 12, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    I rated 5 stars. I think that we’re missing the potential of the card in handbuff paladin, as it is almost guaranteed to be a much better and more mana efficient version of Polluted Hoarder. Similar aspects with Flame Elementals were underrated pre-Un’Goro, but almost every aggro deck other than pirate warrior runs two Fire Flies now. The deathrattle aspect is just for card flavor, the idea of adding a minion to your hand to restock instead of drawing makes for some interesting decisions with cards like Grimestreet Enforcer. Most deathrattle cards are either very good curve plays (such as any hunter deathrattle) or very big game finishers (such as Deathwing, Dragonlord or Tirion). The card will certainly have great highlights, but I don’t think it can really fail to do the job it was designed to do.

    • Peter
      July 13, 2017 at 7:19 pm

      First off, handbuff Paladin is really bad right now. Yes i get it might be better with this expansion but i doubt it.
      Second, Fire Flies are run because you always know what you get. It’s consistent.
      Finally, while you might get something good, you can also get Anomalus.

  8. Safari
    July 11, 2017 at 7:32 am

    4 stars for me.
    It seems very playable for Priest Decks as a Quest accelerator to ensure you complete it before you are death (both Wild and Standard).

  9. Anton
    July 8, 2017 at 7:09 am

    I think this card will be played widely, because nzoth is leaving standard. This combined with the theme of death in this expansion, there will be pretty overpowered deathrattle cards, maybe even class-specific ones, that might be straight up broken in another class.

    Also very good to finish the priest quest and i expect priest to be very good this expansion.
    This card is highly underrated.
    Also might be good in hunter with the new mistcaller, as a 4/2 add a card to your hand.
    The stats are ok at 3/1, if it trades it has done a perfect job otherwise it was ok.

    • Peter
      July 8, 2017 at 8:24 pm

      N’zoth isn’t leaving standard for another 7-8 months…

  10. Peter
    July 7, 2017 at 11:43 pm

    2/5
    Some potential, but the stats are too weak to really see play
    Might see play in something like aggro Druid but otherwise not happening

  11. TheGrimone
    July 7, 2017 at 6:18 am

    Cheap zoo card, so that you can fill your hand while playing cards, meh beyond that? Maybe quest priests want to run less deathrattle minions?

  12. Playwright
    July 7, 2017 at 3:56 am

    I admit that my opinion may be biased since I love cards that add more cards to my hand or deck, I think this card is really solid. There are very few deathrattle cards that I wouldn’t like to have (Especially if I build a deck to maximize deathrattles) and considering that I enjoy playing the Tortelan Eggnapper which has the same stats for a somewhat similar effect I would be willing to try it in my decks.

  13. brian
    July 6, 2017 at 11:37 pm

    this is an interesting card to be sure. Looking at the pool of neutral dethrattles in standard, id say about a quarter of them are absolutely awful and a quarter I would be pretty happy to see, the others being fine or a bit situational. Presumably the new set will include more deathrattles that will make the pool better, though we’ll probably get some weird ones too. Plus this is solid card generation with some of the deathrattle synergy cards like the hunter three drop, not to mention hunter having some great class cards to add to the pool. might be nice with priest as well, especially for quest completion. Honestly, I think this will find a niche home in constructed just for synergy.

  14. SHWC
    July 6, 2017 at 9:53 pm

    This card shouldn’t be seen in constructed play because statwise it is too weak and too slow and involve RNG that is not reliable

    But in arena, this maybe be a mediocre one

    • HamaAhli
      July 7, 2017 at 5:05 am

      Remember what everyone said about tortollan defender?

      Everyone said that it was:

      – Slow
      -too weak for competitive

      And now its seen in almost every control or controlish type deck.

      I know it’s discover and not randomly add. But still, this card can combo with some cards to trigger its effect twice.

      We haven’t seen the deathrattles of this expansion yet, but I’m betting that this will be a sleeper hit.

      • Sirama
        July 11, 2017 at 2:42 pm

        Do you mean Tortollan Primalist or Stonehill Defender? I assume you meant the Stonehill, but please correct me if I’m wrong.

        The two cards set out to do very different things. Stonehill Defender is a cheap anti-aggro card that gives you a great advantage against the many aggressive decks that dominate the meta right now. It’s great for taking trades against the N’Zoth’s First Mate/Bloodsail Corsair + Patches start for Pirate Warrior AND Token Druid AND Aggro Shaman, or it can possibly hit things like a Grimscale Chum if the opponent didn’t manage to get a health buff off. It’s great for slowing more aggressive opponents down and forcing them to spend buffs earlier than they might otherwise like to. It has a slightly awkward statline that easily punishes many of their early plays. Of course, each deck does have a multitude of ways to deal with it (War Axe, Kor’Kron Elite, Mark of Y’Shaarj, etc), but it can still slow them down enough to pull out a win if they get bad draws.

        The ability to Discover the minion is also essential to the card’s success. It allows you to choose the best minion for the situation, meaning you can choose another cheap, efficient taunt against aggro, or a big minion that can force a Control Deck to burn some removal allowing you to set up an even larger threat. Obviously you won’t always get what you want, but it’s so versatile that it can contribute to practically any match. Traditionally, these types of cards that aim to generate a card advantage for you have always been far more favoured towards helping you to out-do a control opponent simply by having more resources than them. Stonehill Defender avoid this by having a favourable statline against aggression whilst also being able to pick up a big card to threaten Control.

        The Gravedigger misses all of these aspects, and this leaves a card that is quite frankly underwhelming and downright dead in a lot of matchups. Firstly, the statline. This card’s stats are atrocious and are proably the most limiting factor. The fact is it dies to far too much to ever see play in a competetive deck. Remeber when I talked about all the things the Stonehill is great against earlier? This card is extremely vunerable to all of them, and considering they were all 1-mana plays it leads to a massive mana advantage. It cannot possibly be used against aggro as wasting your turn 3 is practically signign your death warrant. Against control, the body won’t make a difference. AoE, pings, trades with other early minions (think Babbling Book) – all will leave the minion dead without ever contributing anything. Besides, even if it does live to hit face or even to deal its damage to a 4/5-drop, you won’t get any advantage off it. Control decks aren’t bothered about their health total particularly (except Handlock), and they pack so many ways to stabilise that attacking a minion of a higher cost will rarely result in any discernable difference to the state of the game.

        The deathrattle also leaves much to be desired. A random minion with Deathrattle could be the best card for the situation, but just as often it will give you a minion that won’t have an effect. For every time it gives you a Bog Creeper against a control deck, you’ll get the same minion against an aggro deck and you’ll be dead before you even have the chance to play it. It’s far too inconsistent to ever be considered a good card at higher levels.

        Finally, we come to the issue of actually playing it. Control decks can’t afford to sacrifice their turn 3 against aggro playing this, whilst playing it in a control VS control means 1 or 2 slots of your deck can’t be used for removal or threatening minions that might actually influence the result of the game. Aggressive decks will always have a far better play on turn 3, and so the card can’t be used there either.

        Overall, the card is too weak and lacking in impact to be played in control, and too outclassed to ever see play in an aggressive deck. It lacks all the tools that Stonehill Defender benefitted from to make it see play.

  15. Name
    July 6, 2017 at 8:53 pm

    I feel like this would be better as a 3/2 or even a 2/2 so mage can’t ping it…