Hagatha the Witch
Hagatha the Witch is a 8 Mana Cost Legendary Shaman Hero card from the The Witchwood set!
Card Text
Battlecry: Deal 3 damage to all minions.
Flavor Text
Curse-bringer, tree-twister, mother of wretched things…Hanzo main.- Mana Cost: 8
- Crafting Cost: 1600 / 3200 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 400 / 1600 (Golden)
- Rarity: Legendary
- Class: Shaman
- Card Type: Hero
- Set: The Witchwood
- Mechanics: Battlecry, Damage All Minions
Hagatha the Witch Additional Information
Hagatha is the only Hero card in the Witchwood set!
Hagatha the Witch’s Hero Power
Hagatha the Witch Card Review
So, we’ve got a new Hero card, this time for Shaman. The previous one, Thrall, Deathseer, was supporting the Token/Evolve playstyle. Even though this one seems to synergize with lots of small minions too, it obviously doesn’t belong in such a deck. This is a Control card. From the initial effect to the passive Hero Power you’re getting, it’s just more board control and more value for slow Shaman decks.
For every minion you play, you get a random Shaman spell (the Hero Power is passive, so you don’t have to use any mana on it). In the long run, the card can give you insane value. But hey, I’ve just said that Shaman has lots of bad spells when reviewing Witch’s Apprentice. And it’s still true – but this time you get multiple spells over the course of the game (assuming a game vs other slow deck) – which means that it’s both more consistent, and that bad spells don’t really hurt you that much, since you have tons of value even if 50% of the spells you get are bad.
The thing about this is that it’s a win condition by itself in slow matchups. You can play mostly defensive cards and this should accumulate enough value over the course of the game. Getting 10-15 spells for free, even if they aren’t best, means A LOT. Which means that you can build a pretty defensive deck, and this can serve as a big part of your main late game win condition.
And I think that the card is actually solid. If Control Shaman sees play, it should see play too. It’s especially potent in some kind of slower Elemental Shaman for the extra synergies. For example, a Fire Fly becomes AMAZING with this card. It’s a great early game card, but it also gets a great late game scaling once you play the DK (two spells for free). Grumble, Worldshaker could also shine – bringing back some of the cards to your hand means more spells. Other cards that have multiple bodies, e.g. Stonehill Defender or even some Echo minion can give you lots of value too.
But I haven’t talked about the Battlecry yet. I don’t think it’s impressive in slow matchups, but it’s actually good against Aggro. 3 AoE damage might sometimes save you, and even though you’re losing the tempo (because 3 damage AoE is worth ~5 mana – e.g. Excavated Evil), it’s not that bad.
THAT SAID, this card will see play only if a slower Shaman deck, like the Control Elemental Shaman I’ve mentioned, will be a thing. Given the current state of the Shaman, it actually might not happen. Shaman would need some really broken cards this expansion to work, and after seeing three Shaman cards, none of them is terrific.
Card rating: 7/10, but probably won’t see play, because Shaman (including Control Shaman) is in a terrible state right now.
I write this comment before Saviors of Uldum, and now Hagatha is one of the best cards. No shudderwock shaman can miss it. Add randon spells to your hand, is great, there are some AOE shaman spells, and removals. With Krag’va, you can use tgem again, and with Electra, you can double it. (And there are spirit echo, so you can get them back.) So Hagatha is ‘Pretty Good’ and every shudderwock shaman HAVE TO CRAFT IT!
The problem with all the cards that change your Hero power is that they aren’t minions and they’re not spells. There’s no way to counter, kill or change the power.
Playing against all the DK cards is difficult. (Warlock is just plain Broken)
And, if you make this change to Shaman, there’s no turning back. (all your token synergy is gone)
If you wanted to change your hero power back eventually (not the opposition) you could run Justicar.
That would require you to play the dumpster fire mode and wouldn’t be good at all anyways.
The card itself seems pretty lacklustre but Runespear and the other supporting ‘random shaman spell’ cards suggest a bit of investment into that design space. So with a bit of crystal ball gazing it wouldn’t be hard to see a big supporting card (or cards) that brings it together. My favourite idea at the moment would be the introduction of a Legendary spell that pretty much wins the game on second or third cast in a game.
Seems fun and meme-ful enough for Team 5’s palate. If it doesn’t happen I’ll just continue to live in my own little world where it does.
Another thing is yes this card gives lots of value in slow matchups, but with the passive hero power, you will get a spell every time you play a minion. This means that it functions somewhat like Rin the First Deciple seals and that you can’t just play seals (or in this case, can’t just play a minion every turn) and be content because you will eventually over draw your hand. Shaman doesn’t have the best spells in the game, so you will be forced to play spells that are not good or useless in slow matchups. In the slow matchups and control decks which this card is made for, you usually have a full hand anyway so this can be dangerous. So yeah I think that this will bring the rating down a little because it doesn’t ever end like Rin’s seals do so you will constantly have to play spells from your hand.
This card will be really strong in spiteful shaman, if shaman gets an 8 9 or 10 cost spell. Hagatha allows a spiteful deck to almost double its value given constant supply of spells to the hand. Just waiting on that big shaman spell.
Spiteful takes spells from the deck not hand
That is exactly the point. You almost only play minions in your deck to support the heropower and get a lot of spells.
I think this card is ok. The battlecry is really good but wont help allways. Now the hero power seems good at first, but then you think, “do i need these many spells?”. Spells can help sometimes if you get GOOD spells. There are alot of bad spells and some good spells are leaving standard like jade lightning. I dont think this card is anything like shamans runespear. This card gives the spells to you and the weapon give you 3 selections when atacked and then chosen randomly what it hits. You want alot of minions in your deck for this to work, but then you also need to work with the spells. This card can be good but its not insane like some say. its good with genn greymane, but will the deck be good.
Hmm ok,if you survive to play that with an nice deck (with atleast good tempo cards),your hand will be full out spells the entire game,you can atleast scare your opponent even if you just got garbage spells and a single good spell,in the most pessimist situation…and the fact it enters clearing the opponent board is pretty good!
Elementals could be “too OP” with spell support.
Had fun running over people with 1 drop elementals in this week’s Tavern Brawl.
Definitely will try in a mid-range or control deck.
WHAT ABOUT FREEZE SHAMAN!!!!! NOT 1 NEW FREEZE CARD
Watch out dude, your caps lock is on.
Yh, I would too like that blizzard supports freeze shaman, but in order for that archetype to be viable shaman really needs aoe that has more impact then avalanche.
Probably because freeze is a rly cancer archetype. Nobody liked freeze mage except for the ones that played it.
As a shaman main, I am absolutely so sad to say this, but this card just isn’t good. Many are pointing to quest and saying that it synergizes very well. No. As somebody who played a ridiculous amount of quest shaman, that deck is now gonna be more dead than it ever was before. Call in the finishers was, in my opinion, the card that made the deck playable. That’s gone now. The way it always ends up playing is you throw all your stuff at the board. They clear. You basically wait to topdeck the end of your quest, finish it hopefully by turn 6-7 and wham. You reload. If they clear again you’re out of luck. This is an Aggro deck that literally just throws away its turn one, as well as a card. Sorry to rant about the state of that deck in Hagathas section, but as to how she fits in: you can’t have an eight cost that clears your o
Sorry, misclicked. Anyways, an 8 drop that clears your own board doesn’t work in an Aggro deck. As for the spells you can get, I can’t really think of really good ones to get, even outside of Murloc shaman. I mean unstable, bloodlust, generic low damage board clears yes. Yes this card has value potential, but it’s just not going to work in any shaman deck we’ve seen yet, and I’m worried their gonna do is like they did with freeze shaman: a garbage deck that will never see play, nor future support. I say all this as somebody who loves the class, and really wishes it were strong. This card just isn’t what we need right now. If they give us some really strong spells, great. I’ll throw those in my deck, but cards like this where you just get a random spell is atrocious considering the current pool. I’ll make a bold prediction here: from what it looks like, Warrior is gonna be tier high 3/low 2, but shaman will stay garbage tier
Oops forgot to mention it, and sorry for spam, but I will say I will be acquiring this card be it from packs or crafting. I think it’s really nearby that shamans getting a bit more class identity, and I really like the concept. I just don’t think it’s going to be competitive, and there is absolutely no was it will work with quest shaman like some people are saying. At least that’s my two cents…granted I am a pretty garbage player…sooo take everything I say with a grain of salt
Another trash hero card from Blizzard! why u tell me? Cuz shaman has a lot of bad spells. If it has been a Mage or rogue card then it would be good, but in shaman its kinda crap. there is no good control shaman deck in standart right now. And it will not be cuz to make it playable in constructive you have to add a tone of GOOD spells, so good spells dominate the bad ones(like it is in mage case) and also add 2-3 strong high tempo midrange minions then and only then shaman can rise again!
Shaman spells can be very strong. The shaman weapon(even though it’s garbage) did have some power combinations. This is like a much more control version. It clears the board, and now you can begin to start over with Hagatha.
Nah, you will just keep filling your hand with trash, like elemental destruction, totemic might, forked lightning, rockbitter weapon etc.
Maybe blizzard will move stuff like totemic might to the hall of fame in order to buff it after 6 months.
Hold up since when were the cards you just mentioned (totemic might and forked lightning excluded) “trash tier”? Elemental destruction isn’t even in standard, and it is run in every wild control shaman. Rockbiter weapon is basically just a lightningbolt (prime removal) without the overload. Those are pretty great in my book. Plus, you’re getting these for free! You get these cards just for playing minions, and any free card is a good card.
the real reason this card is strong is because in about a year, theres a good chance it may be the only hero card available for standard play. thats why the power level in not insane like some of the other hero cards. no one plays uther but could you imagine if he was the only hero card.
Uther is very good in Paladin control decks. Paladin conrol isn’t good in the meta right now. Slight difference.
Another trash hero card?
Why is she holding Jade claws while they are rotating out?
lol its a world of warcraft thing, the shaman class used fist weapons that took various forms including some that looked similar to jade claws.
Is milling yourself a valid strategy yet? Seriously, a lot of people aren’t considering how horrible of a position you could end up in using this card.
It doesn’t draw cards from your deck, if that’s what you’re thinking.
No, but for every minion you play, you get a spell. In order to empty one card from your hand, you have to play the minion and the spell. Thus, card can force you to play cards that you don’t want to or mill you.
And at turn 9+ with a control deck and cheap shaman spells you think its actually a problem? If you go to turn 9 against aggro you dont care about getting milled. If you go turn 9 against control you are rarely playing full mana worth of cards a turn anyway, so you can get rid of your extra cards.
Shaman spells are on average cheap. The problem with this card is that shaman spells are on average pretty bad aswell. Their is a decent chance that with each minion you play you get a card that is useless for you.
This card is retardly OP with murloc shaman! they can easily fill their hand with murlocs and should they go behind they can use hagatha power plus murloc flood plus spells which might give that summon murloc crap = RIP
imagine it with the Murloc Quest
Imagine also, with the zola the gorgon. hahaha
I think this could fit nicely into many Shaman iterations. Murloc Quest fills your hand with Murlocs which then become spells. Elementals like Firefly add minions to your hand which then become spells. Grumble turns minions into 1 cost minions which in turn become spells. Basically anything that puts cheap minions into your hand is gonna do well with Hagatha. I am excited for this card.
Guldan, take that wig off, it’s embarrassing.
lol, if there is a like button on this comment, you will get one
This card is bonkers. People saying that it sucks are probably the same people who said Lyra would suck. And keep in mind — this is not a minion. You NEED to kill Lyra the turn after she drops, or you get steamrolled. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves.
With this, well… You can’t just kill a Hero card. I see a ton of potential for this.
Totally agree with you.. Yes maybe its not that great when its played but if match is longer this is just too good hero 🙂 they compare minion and hero what is stupid xd lyra can be dead next turn but this…you actually need to win to kill it and as i see they dont understand that xD
Could be interesting if shaman got decent aoe. The overload aoe crap that lets the opponent have free turns to create an even bigger board that they have right now is terrible.
That overload aoe crap you mentioned was played at the shamanstone era, and was really powerfull when meta had smaller minions. No other class could wreck a board of smaller minions turn 3. Its not bad, its just the meta right now.
Boards of small minions absolutely is the meta right now and it is still terrible.
At first I hated this card but after giving it some consideration I guess it could be pretty fun to make use of the free resources the hero power generates and the AOE can be useful for clearing small and large minions
also it could potentially be more more powerful than Lyra value wise
The only Shaman spells that would really suck after getting it for free would be Totemic Might, Unite the Murlocs and Ice Fishing (at least Totemic Might costs 0 mana the others cost mana to clear space for your hand)
Hopefully the new Shaman Spells don’t suck
I’m not sure at all, but something tells me you can’t get the quest that way
I sure hope so
Finally the Dk hero Shamans deserved
Hm. Hagatha’s a weird card. You want minions to play, but you get punished for playing minions before dropping Hagatha… Weird.
If there are more echo minions, this could be really good. Then again, can’t cost less than 3 because… well…. Quest Rogue. I reckon this could work decently in Elemental Shaman because of the cards giving you more Elementals to play. Buuut let’s take a closer look at the Shaman spells first.
Control tool… Control tool… Control tool… Burn spell… Bloodlust… Bad totem stuff… Eh. Looks like the most-beneficial deck for this would be a control deck. Which wouldn’t run the flood of minions to fully benefit off of it… Myeeeeh… I mean, I guess a control deck which runs a bit of Elemental tech could be a decent use of Hagatha… Maybe some Ancestor’s Call in Wild w/ Malygos… Idk, that deck generally doesn’t run minions… meh…
Overall a weird card to try to build around. It seems self-contradictory what kind of deck one would use with this card. Idk, probably if Control Shaman ever rises up, or if Elemental Shaman sees a resurgence, then this might see play, but seems pretty bad for now. That being said, there could be good Shaman cards released later which could affect how this card performs… So idk.
So after this is played, you simply can’t dispose of cards in your hand. The rest of your deck is basically Azari’ed by yourself. Your constructed deck with an idea behind it gets replaced with random bad on average shaman spells. This is dust.
I mean, you could play a spell, weapon, or hero card and then it frees up a card slot in hand for you… Did you miss get that it specified “After you play a MINION”?
This comment just makes no sense I mean you can just play the spells and free up space in your hand so no cards get burned…….
i think this card better than shaman’s dk
Why blizzard do as much as they can to make shaman more random every expansion ??
Boring…
Murloc Quest Shaman
It’ll only work for Control and Shamans aren’t particularly known for Control. If they can last to late game I can see this doing some work but they’ll need a win condition once they get there and Hagatha itself is not a win condition.
One or two snowfury giants for 0 mana + spirit echo + greater sapphire spellstone. If they clear the board you can refill it and get a lot of spells; if not, they die for 32 or 40 damages
Disappointed. It was supposed to be OP… So you want cheap minions to get value with spells. Well once you have a board of tokens say goodbye to it if you play Hagatha thanks to its battlecry. And if you haven’t played Runespear enough, let me tell you: Shaman spells are on average quite bad. DK Rexxar has a better AOE and a better value-oriented Hero Power. And costs 2 less mana. Disappointed -> 2/5 stars.
Wasn’t Lyra the Sun Shard touted as OP by the designers, then the community said it was a joke of a card because most Priest spelled sucked, and only once the card dropped people figured out it was quite a good card?
Granted, Shaman and Priest are very different classes, but this and Lyra do appear to be rather similar. Plus we have as of yet to see any new Shaman spells and those could be decent. Additionally, a lot of Shaman spells like Frost Shock, Earth Shock, and Farsight are cards you wouldn’t put in your deck since they are rather low value similar to Paladin secrets. However, cards like Hydrologist have proven getting a low value card in addition to a body on board is really good.
Lyra the Sunshard was effectively underestimated, but here’s the thing:
(1) It generates spells when casting spells. This means you can rotate cheap useless spells until you get something good. Silence? No problem. Fire Smite? Cast, next spell.
(2) Priests have Radiant Elemental, which further accentuates point 1. This means both 1 and 0 mana-cost spells can be rotated effectively until you get a good spell.
For Hagatha to be as good as Lyra, you would need 0-mana cost minions with Echo, or a broken interaction like Radiant Elemental was with Lyra. Also, Hagatha can’t rotate useless Totemic Mights or Ancient Healings like Lyra can rotate Silences. Finally, Lyra doesn’t destroy your board when entering play (so Hagatha with Aggro or Midrange Shaman is a clear anti-synergy). I can be wrong, of course, but my instinct says this will be quite worse than Lyra. And Lyra is a goodish card that is only OP with Radiant Elemental.
Those two points were important to Lyra’s success, but where as Lyra is a Priest’s Fandrel, the spell generation effect of Hagatha, which makes it so every minion from then on replaces itself in the hand, lasts the rest of the game. A lot of the Shaman spells are also improved by getting them randomly rather than actually placing them into your deck.
When it comes to the AOE damage, there are minion based Shaman decks right now that use Volcano. They may be slower decks, but the as long as the opponent will lose more through its use, throwing it out will usually be fine.
Runespear is different it casts the spells with random targets and you only get three, most of shamans spells are actually pretty useful when they aren’t casted with random targets. Hex, lightning bolt, lightning storm, windfury, unstable evolution, far sight, healing rain, avalanche, spirit echo, forked lightning, frost shock, earth shock, feral spirits, can all get pretty good value and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head
Exactly. Not to mention that almost all Shaman spells are cheap. So in most cases you can play a minion and a spell on the same turn. Overloading 1 or 2 mana crystals after turn 10 is not so bad, you won’t always need to use up all your mana every turn.
I’m sure you’ll love getting Totemic Mights and Ancient Healings, those “great” cheap Shaman spells.
I think you mean ancestral healing and honestly getting that card in the late game for free really isn’t that bad since you can value trade a minion and then heal it and give it taunt for 0 mana. There will be 27 Shaman spells left after rotation (not counting the hew ones they will add) and 23 of them are actually good especially when you get the for free for just playing a minion. That means that 86% of the time you will get a good spell and on the off chance you don’t guess what you can just do it again the hero power cannot be removed by your opponent and it never goes away
Runespear has different RNG. Targeting is Hagatha’s advantage, but Runespear has two other advantages:
1 – you DISCOVER the spell. Less chance of getting useless Totemic Mights or Cryostasis.
2 – you do NOT pay the mana cost of the spell.
All in all, I believe the advantages cancel the disadvantages, and that Hagatha will be in the same meme-level as Runespear. We still need to see the Shaman spells, of course, but RIGHT NOW Hagatha looks bad.
1. There will be 27 shaman spells after rotation and only 4 of them are actually bad/useless in the late game (unless your playing murlocs then only 2 bad spells) so that means you have an 85% chance of getting a good spell that you can find a use for, and on the off chance you don’t get a good spell you can just get another spell because the effect never goes away for the rest of the game your opponent cant remove it
2. Yeah you have to pay the spells mana cost but most Shaman spells are cheap
Keep in mind there are minions with echo. You could create more spells then people giving it credit for.
Your hand capacity is limited to ten
Hand size doesn’t really limit you since you can just play a spell to free up more space
So what?
Its really solid. Maybe not as good as all DKs, but all DKs see play, and this one is not half bad. Late game overload is less of a problem and the extra spell for each minion is huge in long games. Against aggro its a board clear and a small defence boost. It works against all kinds of decks, which is just as important as pure max potential vs mana cost.
While many of Shaman’s spells are a bit lackluster (Farsight, Frost Shock, Earth Shock, ect.) giving every minion the battle cry of “Add a random Shaman spell to your hand” is extremely powerful, not as powerful as draw a card though. If the shaman spells in this set are of high quality, this card will be a lot better.
If anyone remember the initial reaction to Lyra the Sun Shard, it was pretty similar seeing as most classes have a lackluster spell line-up when pulling random cards out of it (Low value Paladin spells, Freeze support Mage spells, the overcosted Warlock Spells), but that card became a stable of Priest decks for that format and is still seeing pretty consistent play at the moment.
The Battlecry is worth between 4 and 5 mana by itself too, and with that and the Hero Power, I think some sort of anti-aggro if not full on Control Shaman will become possible perhaps on the back of the elemental package with Volcanos, Healing Rains, and this. Granted, such a situation is kinda scary for anyone who lived through the dominance of Midrange Shaman about two years ago now seeing as the class will still have Flametongue Totem and Bloodlust.
Is this what shaman needs to be good again? Probably not. Random effects just don’t offer enough consistency. Right now the only thing I’m thinking of that might run this is Elemental Control Shaman, but will it give you enough value? I dunno.
If Priest’s generally lackluster spell line-up wasn’t enough to stop Lyra the Sun Shard from being good, I doubt it’ll stop Hagatha from being good. I agree with you on the deck idea though.
“IT’S TOO OP!! IT’S TOO OP!”
My a** it’s too OP!
Wasn’t that the exact same reaction to Lyra the Sun Shard?
This one is quite far from comparable with the Snowballing effect of Lyra (at least at the moment), for a variety of reasons:
1) Most of Shaman Spells <<<<>>>> Minion to Spell; in a Control Shaman, you use more spells than minions AND, again, you can’t snowball into “infinite” with it like with Lyra; it’s more value for some Midrange Shaman, I guess, with Grumble helping out in there too; might end up as a better Hero card than Thrall Deathseer; also, a good, yet unrevealed, echo minion which could be used in Control, might be the bread and butter for this;
all in all, I’m not saying it’s bad; I just feel like I was pranked on when they revealed it, with Ben Broode teasing the crowd and screaming “IT’S TOO OP! IT’S TOO OP!”; this is not what I’d call “op”.
*1) Most of Shaman Spells Minion to Spell;
The comment got cut off.
Dog Damnit …
1) Most of Priest spells are better than Most of Shaman spells;
2) Spell to Spell can snowball more easily, unlike Minion to Spell;
There; hopefully this time it worked.
Priest’s spell line-up was just as bad as Shaman’s is right now when Lyra dropped last year.
While endlessly playing into spells is a bit easier to do, the benifit of functionally giving a battlecry of “Add a Shaman spell to hand” is that all minions replace themselves in your hand making it more difficult to run out of cards. The card they add may be bad, but a randomly given out Earth Shock, Frost Shock, or Farsight is better than actually playing a copy of the card in your deck.
Also, a Control Deck does not need to play more spells than minions. Just look at Cubelock lists.
This card seems not strong enough – except you can guarantee that you will have minions in your hand – which you can’t.
Isn’t very good actually… most of shaman spells are crap (right now ofc)
Wasn’t the same true about Priest’s spell line-up when Lyra the Sun Shard was revealed last year?
The problem with this card is that shaman has the worsed spells in the game. Their boardclears are on the weakest side. You have the overload crap and you can allways get totem buff spells or frostshock. They need to print some really powerfull shaman spells this expansion or this card wont see any play.
Shaman spells are mostly cheap. And about half of them are not as bad. They can well be used for additional value.
I don’t care if this decktype isnt high tier, baku hagatha shaman is going to be so much fun
I’ve got bad news for ya…
This won’t work -.- Good you guys can netdeck…
Oh boy so much value ! Control Shaman ?!
Battlecry LUL
I think this is a good card, but it definitely costs too much. Deathstalker Rexxar costs 6, deals 2 damage to all enemy minions, and has arguably a better hero power. This hero power would be better if it were summon a minion, rather than play a minion.
Can be interesting.
boi
Yuck