Most Overrated Cards From The Witchwood Expansion

The Witchwood has been out for nearly a month now, so it’s already time to look back at the pre-expansion predictions and see how close they were to the actual, post-release state of the game. I have to say that overall, the community is getting better and better at rating cards, but we still make silly mistakes – overlooking a certain card’s strength or thinking that some new reveal is stronger than it really is. In this article, and the second part which will come out very soon, I’m going to look at the cards that were overrated by the community, talk a bit about the predictions and compare them to the current state of the game. Yes, CURRENT state of the game, because that’s the only point of comparison we have. One can always say that “X card will get stronger once Blizzard prints more synergy!” or “Y card will no longer be great after Blizzard finally nerfs Z!” – and sure, that might be right, but talking about it is pointless right now, as we don’t know the future.

An overrated card isn’t necessarily a card that was thought to be meta breaker, but turned out to be completely useless. By overrated I simply mean a card that was rated significantly higher than it turned out to be. For example, a card that was rated as 9/10, but turned out to be 5/10 is overrated. Similarly, a card that was rated as a 6/10, but turned out to be a 2/10 is also overrated. Given that there are many more overrated than underrated cards, I won’t list every single one, only the ones I feel like belong on this list most.

All of the ratings were taken from the Vicious Syndicate’s Witchwood pre-release poll, which you can find here. Why from there and not from out voting system on Hearthstone Top Decks? It’s simple – because in case of the Vicious Syndicate’s poll, the voting started after the WHOLE SET was revealed, unlike here, where you could vote for the cards right away at it was revealed. A lot of the cards are rated incorrectly early, because we still don’t know the context of the entire expansion. It also closed before the expansion’s release, so not votes from people that already knew the power level of some cards slipped in. Thus, I think that it’s the best source, even though the players voting in that poll tend to be more competitive than the general playerbase. I will refer to votes from our site too, but mostly as a supplementary thing, not the main reason I put a card on one of the two lists.

P.S. Remember – the point of these articles isn’t to bash the community! My ratings for so many of the cards were wrong too (I will actually write an article looking back at my own ratings too, in a while). On top of that, the majority of the cards were predicted pretty well – but where’s the fun in talking about those?

Check out our look at the Most Underrated Cards from The Witchwood Expansion!

Shudderwock

Rated #2 out of 135

Oh Shudderwock. I actually like the card – and don’t get me wrong, by no means Shudderwock is a bad card. It’s just not as strong as it was supposed to be. When talking about it, I will ignore the animation time issues, since they were already fixed, and focus on the card itself.

Shudderwock opened The Witchwood expansion in a big way. The OTK Shaman deck built around it was all over the ladder for the first few days, but people have very quickly realized that it’s not as strong as it might seem, and that the initial success got attributed to the fact that no one knew what was going on and people were playing all kinds of unoptimized decks. Once the dust has settled, people have learned how the deck works and started playing actual meta decks, well, Shudderwock OTK Shaman was no longer a thing.

Not long after, a new Shudderwock deck was created – it completely omits the OTK part and goes for the value/board swing approach. It’s a more Control deck, with Hagatha the Witch, all kinds of value/tempo Battlecries, such as Prince Keleseth, Sandbinder or Mind Control Tech etc. It’s a fun deck, but it’s not really super competitive – something like low Tier 3.

As much as I like the card, it’s definitely nowhere close to being the second strongest card from The Witchwood. I wouldn’t even put it in the top 20 or top 30.

To be completely fair, I think that we’ll still see Shudderwock in the upcoming expansions. After all, he has nearly two whole Standard years ahead of him and the card has lots of potential. It’s just that the Shaman in general is in terrible shape right now, once more powerful cards get printed, I could see Shudderwock being a part of some Tier 1, dominant deck.

Countess Ashmore

Rated #3 out of 135

Funny thing, I haven’t seen a Countess Ashmore even a single time after release day. I rated her high too – after all, she’s like The Curator v2.0. She sacrifices a Taunt for better stats, and instead of drawing tribes, she draws keywords. Comparable in terms of power level, and The Curator was actually a solid card – nothing meta-breaking, but it was a part of many decks over its time in Standard. That’s why I believe that Countess Ashmore might find a home too at some point.

The main issue right now is that there is no deck that really wants to play her. We need a relatively slow (Control or slow Midrange) build that runs at least two of those keywords and needs more card draw. Yeah, that’s the thing, it’s hard to find one right now. I mean, for example, Cube Warlock would like it, but the deck just doesn’t need more card draw – Hero Power is already more than enough. A deck like Deathrattle Priest might want it, but that deck is not a thing. Some Control Warrior builds would run it, but the main Deathrattle they want to draw – Blood Razor is Even-costed, and Odd Warrior is the better build than a classic Control Warrior. As you can see, things just haven’t worked out for Countess Ashmore.

I believe that as the meta changes and more cards are printed, she will get better. Some powerful Deathrattle here, some cool Rush minion there and she can fit into some builds. But right now, it’s a bad card.

Book of Specters & Archmage Arugal

Book of Specters: Rated #7 out of 135

Archmage Arugal: Rated #11 out of 135

I really get where these high ratings came from. When you see a 2 mana spell that draws you 3 cards, you immediately think that it’s completely broken. I also thought so, but when reviewing this, I mentioned one thing – the card will be broken IF it finds a home, but it might be very, very hard to build a Mage deck based around minions instead of spells. And as it turned out, indeed, it is very hard.

As we all know, the Mage class is basically built around spells. It’s known for some of the most powerful removals, burn cards, and even class minions usually come with some kind of spell synergy. And suddenly, you need to build a deck with no more than… probably 4-6 spells (not counting Book) and fill the rest of slots with minions. It’s a very, very hard task.

So far, two kinds of builds were tried out. First, and most obvious one – Elementals. Mage has some Elemental synergies, and we have quite a solid Neutral Elemental shell… but it’s just not good enough. The deck misses some really powerful cards to make the tribe worth running. And honestly, Elemental decks are more Midrange-ish, and a card like that would fit a more aggressive deck more – Midrange decks don’t need the refill THAT much anyway, especially since cards like Pyros, Bonfire Elemental or Servant of Kalimos exist.

And a second deck, so far the only semi-successful build running them, was actually a Murloc Mage. Apxvoid piloted one to Legend this season. But don’t open your collection to craft those yet, because Murloc Mage is a funny experiment, but nothing more than that.

If Mage will get some better minions, or the Neutral minion shell will get stronger over the year, those cards might see more play. But right now, they will be played in experimental, off-meta decks, which sometimes work, but won’t likely become popular.

Wing Blast

Rated #9 out of 135

Rating cards is really hard, and I mean it. For example, I was quite sure that Wing Blast will be very common. After all, minions dying is not a big requirement, and having a 4 damage removal for 1 mana is a huge tempo move. And yeah, the card sees some play – mostly as an one-of in Spell Hunter (which already is not a great deck) just to fill the gap from the cards it lost. It’s far, far from the top 10 cards of the expansion – I don’t think that anyone would feel the difference if the card didn’t exist.

A part of that can definitely be attributed to the fact that Hunter just isn’t in a good state right now. But even the deck that seems would want to play this most – Spell Hunter – runs only one copy. While it’s hard to say why the card is not successful, my guess is that you need to do something first in order to “activate” it, and before that it’s quite useless. For example, you want to clear a 5 health minion with weapon hit + this. If it was an actual 1 mana removal, you would play it first, hit with the weapon and that’s it. But no, right now if you want to play it for 1 mana, you need to go ahead and kill something else first… if there is something else to kill and you can do that.

I still believe that the card is solid and that it might see more play, but its time isn’t now yet.

Chameleos

Rated #14 out of 135

Without a doubt, Chameleos is one of my favorite cards from The Witchwood. I just love this concept – having a guy that shifts into whatever is in your opponent hand. Gives you more information, allows for some interesting combos, adds difficult decision making (“do I play this good card now, or let Chameleos stay in my hand just to give me more intel”), but… the problem is that information isn’t worth as much as you might think.

In a settled down meta, if you’re a good player, you should know nearly every card in your opponent’s deck anyway (barring some tech choices). Also, based on the decision your opponent makes, you should be able to more or less judge what their hand looks like. You don’t need a card to do that for you. Yes, being able to play one of those cards is sometimes cool, but other times it just sits dead in your hand for multiple turns in a row, because it rolls into something that’s bad or at least not worth playing in your deck.

Chameleos was played in the most popular early Spiteful Priest build, but even then it was more of a filler card. Or rather, a card some pro player put to test it out and then it was copied by everyone. It was one of the worst performing cards in the deck. Not to mention that Spiteful Priest is not really a great deck right now, as it was mostly pushed out by the Spiteful Druid.

Even Control Priest, a deck that seems perfect for this kind of stuff, doesn’t really want to play it. Which, I believe, means that Chameleos will mostly remain an off-meta, “fun” card. And there is nothing wrong with that – the card is DEFINITELY fun and you can actually fit him into most of the Priest builds. It won’t improve your win rate, but honestly, it won’t bring it down much either, and it leads to some interesting situations.

Woodcutter’s Axe & Militia Commander

Woodcutter's Axe: Rated #15 out of 135

Militia Commander: Rated #16 out of 135

Rush Warrior was one of the more theorycrafted decks before the expansion. Everyone was comparing it to the Midrange/Tempo Warrior build we had back in the Whispers of the Old Gods – a fast deck built around getting ahead on the board, trading efficiently and utilizing Whirlwind effects. And yeah, to be fair, the Rush Warrior decks share a lot of similarities… but it’s just not good enough.

While the other two Rush Warrior cards were rated, let’s just say more correctly (Rabid Worgen – #60, Redband Wasp – #89), those three were pretty overrated. I mean, they all look good on the paper. High tempo, lets you get some efficient trades on the board while leaving a body, they can snowball the game etc. But it juuuust didn’t work out that well.

Warrior isn’t doing great (it’s not the worst class in the meta, but let’s just say that it’s not top tier either) and Rush Warrior is actually the worst build for the class currently. It just doesn’t work. While Rush minions are enough to get ahead on the board and win vs Aggro, the deck just doesn’t have a win condition vs slow builds. Rush minions are usually understatted, they can’t attack opponent immediately (which makes the deck pretty slow), and there aren’t enough broken synergies or some combo that will let you beat slow decks. And so, Rush Warrior wins in faster matchups (but still not absolutely demolishes them) and just loses to slow decks.

Another Rush Warrior card that was rated pretty high was Darius Crowley (#19 out of 135). But I’ve decided to not put him on the list of overrated cards, because he actually sees some play in Odd Warrior, which is one of the better archetypes Warrior has access to right now. The card was still slightly overrated, but not as much as the other two.

Lady in White

Rated #18 out of 135

(Note: The card was even more overrated in other votings – #7 on our site and #3 on HearthPwn)

Oh my fair Lady in White. I was so hopeful about that card before the expansion. I mean, how cool is that – putting Inner Fire on every minion in your deck! But no, it just didn’t work out. Lady in White was briefly played near the start of the expansion, in a Spiteful Priest build, but even that wasn’t good enough – after all, Spiteful builds want the tempo, they want to finish the game as quickly as possible, and Lady in White is best in a deck that aims for a long game.

Right now, I don’t believe that she’s played in any deck, and for good reason. No, the reason is not that the card is bad – the reason is that it’s very hard to actually fit into a deck. You DON’T want to build a deck around her, it doesn’t make sense. The advantage is not big enough to run a subpar deck until you play her, no. You want a deck that’s already solid AND runs a lot of high health minions in order to supplement her. So, for example, you don’t want to build a deck and put cards such as Unpowered Steambot that will completely suck until you draw Lady in White (and even if you draw her, she only affects cards in your DECK, so those in your hand wouldn’t get buffed).

Let’s take a look at the current Control Priest builds, for example. The one I’m playing actually runs an even minion/spell distribution – 15 minions and 15 spells. That’s already bad for Lady in White, as you want to run her in a more minion-heavy deck (doesn’t have to be 25-5, but a split that’s closer to 20-10 would be better). Then, out of those 15 minions, 5 would benefit from Lady in White (Northshire Cleric, Acolyte of Pain, Primordial Drake), 6 wouldn’t be affected (Gluttonous Ooze, Scaleworm, Duskbreaker and Alexstrasza), while 4 would actually get de-buffed (Wild Pyromancer, Twilight Drake). As you can see, it’s just not worth it – it doesn’t make ANY sense to put Lady in White into that deck.

It doesn’t mean that it will always be the case. Maybe next expansion’s Control Priest will be built differently, maybe it will support Lady in White more. But right now, the way Priest is played, it just doesn’t make any sense to play the card.

Black Cat

Rated #26 out of 135

Oh the Odd Mage. I’ve tried to make the deck as soon as I’ve seen the Black Cat. After all, a 3 mana version of Azure Drake is insanely powerful. The card could cost 4 and it would still be good. But it just didn’t seem to work. The thing is – many of the most powerful Mage cards are even. If you can’t run stuff like 2-drops, Frostbolt or Fireball, it might be hard to build an aggressive deck. But slow decks might be even harder to make without even cards – no Doomsayer, no Polymorph, no Blizzard, no Meteor etc. You simply aren’t left with enough good cards.

But it looks like quite a lot of people thought that it will actually work. I mean, 2 damage Mage Hero Power is actually solid – you get access to a weak removal spell every turn that doesn’t cost you a card – it’s a good deal. 2 damage can also put some pressure on your opponent if you need to, unlike the 1 mana pings, which let’s just say usually won’t get you too far in terms of putting enemy on a clock. But, after the expansion, the conclusion was similar to my early theorycrafts – you have to sacrifice too much in order to build that deck.

To give this card some credit, it actually works better in a normal deck than in an Odd deck. Some Tempo Mage builds run one copy as curve filler, only because it’s a 3/3 for 3 with Spell Damage, which can come handy sometimes.

And notably, the Odd/Even decks should only get stronger with time. They’re mostly kept in check by the fact that you have to run some weak cards, because there aren’t enough strong Even/Odd cards to fill all of the 30 slots. However, when more cards get released, we get more redundancy and it’s easier to find a replacement for let’s say that removal you’re missing. It was the same case with Highlander (Reno Jackson) decks – it was easier to build them as the time went by.

Dire Frenzy

Rated #30 out of 135

While 30 out of 135 is no longer that high, I felt like I should include this card, because I’ve seen it being played once after the expansion went out. But I think that my opponent didn’t really know what they were doing, because they played it on a 1/1 from Unleash the Hounds in Spell Hunter, and later played the To My Side! summoning only a single Animal Companion, since they shuffled minions into their deck..

Dire Frenzy is a very cool card, but I feel like it was really overrated before the expansion. To give you a better example of what people thought about this card, it is still #8 card from The Witchwood on our site. Similarly, it was voted #8 from the expansion on HearthPwn. And I can’t really get my head around it.

While the buff part is cool and very useful, +3/+3 for 4 with a Beast restriction is a significantly worse Blessing of Kings, not something you would ever play in a Hunter deck. And the shuffle part is… also very questionable. The thing is, as a Hunter, you generally want to finish the games quickly. While yes, if you get lucky and draw the buffed copy of the card right away, it’s great. But there is a high chance that you won’t even see a single one. And since as a Hunter, you often run out of cards, it’s not like shuffling that drawing a buffed 2 or 3-drop when you’re nearly out of cards is going to make you win the game. I mean, it’s still better than drawing an unbuffed one, but it’s not as good as it might seem. For example, having three more 6/5 Crackling Razormaws in your deck seems great, but if you’re in topdeck mode (which you often are when you play Hunter), you play that 6/5, Hero Power and pass, floating lots of mana (so basically negating the tempo advantage of playing a 2 mana 6/5), since there is nothing else you can do.

The only way to make it work is actually building a deck around it – you play a 1-drop like Stonetusk Boar, you buff and shuffle it, then you draw the extra copies with Tol'vir Warden and such, but it also doesn’t make much sense. It’s A LOT of setup to just play some 4/4’s with Charge, it’s better to just play Quest Rogue if you want even bigger Stonetusk Boars.

For this card to be useful, there would need to be some kind of way to fish for the buffed cards in your deck more easily (Note: Stitched Tracker does NOT pull the buffed version of the card – it gives you one with basic stats). Or maybe some other kind of synergy, I don’t know. Or AT LEAST a Control Hunter deck that would want more long-term value as opposed to the immediate tempo (such as Houndmaster).

Rebuke

Rated #45 out of 135

First things first. I mostly put this card on the list because of different rankings, not of the Vicious Syndicate one, but I just felt like it deserved a spot here. I’ve read a lot, and I mean A LOT of arguments calling the card broken and saying that it’s going to make Paladin unbeatable. The card was somewhere around #20 here on HSTD when The Witchwood first released (I remember checking it out), it was #9 on HearthPwn and lots of players were going crazy over it on Reddit and on the official forums. #45 ranking in the VS poll is not high compared to all of that, but I feel like it’s still heavily overrated.

But why? Why is a 2 mana version of Loatheb, one of the most notable Legendaries in the history of Hearthstone, not nearly as strong as the original? Well, mostly because it doesn’t come with a body. Even if it was a 1/1 minion with the same effect, it would be way more powerful. Loatheb’s effect was often just an upside to an already solid 5/5 for 5 body. Often you’ve dropped it on the curve even if you had no other board, or you weren’t anticipating any board clears / combos. That’s the reason why it was strong – it was a body FIRST and the effect second.

Rebuke, on the other hand, is just an effect. It doesn’t develop the board, but it consumes a card. Even better – it often consumes a card for nothing. Let’s say that you play it and your opponent didn’t want to clear the board anyway, but rather do something else? Well, if it was Loatheb, you’d still have a 5/5 body on the board. If it was Rebuke, you’ve lost a card and 2 mana to do absolutely nothing. Or let’s say that you play in a mirror matchup, where your opponent won’t likely want to play a spell next turn anyway. I mean, sometimes you will hit it in the right moment, like you might stall that Avenging Wrath for a turn and win the game thanks to that, but it won’t happen too often. Most of the time you’d rather have any kind of board presence card instead.

When reviewing the card, I’ve mentioned that Rebuke is basically a tech card vs a very spell-heavy meta. Just like you can tech Ooze vs weapons or Silence vs Deathrattles/Taunts, you can tech Rebuke if everyone around is running powerful spells that destroy your deck.