Overlord’s Whip

Overlord’s Whip Card

Overlord’s Whip is a 3 Mana Cost Common Warrior Weapon card from the Rastakhan's Rumble set!

Card Text

After you play a minion, deal 1 damage to it.

Flavor Text

"This merit badge is for cruelty. This one's for whipping. And this one is for embroidery..."

Overlord’s Whip Card Review

We already had a card that damaged everything you’ve played – Animated Berserker – and it didn’t run out to be very good. It had pretty weak stats and damaging your minions turned out to be good less often than players have expected. But this seems like a better version of that card for a few reasons. First of all – 1/3 for 1 are your average stats for a while now, it’s nothing impressive. But a 3 mana 2/4 weapon is pretty good – while 2 is not the most exciting amount of damage (as many early drops have 3 health right now), the amount of durability makes up for it.

Since it’s a weapon, it’s also harder to destroy than a 1/3 minion. 1/3 minion dies to anything – weapons, small removals, other minions. Weapons can only be destroyed by a specific tech cards that your opponent might not even run. In that case, you can guarantee that you will have this effect up for a longer time.

However, another problem is that even in a deck with minions that you want to damage, you also play a bunch of minions you don’t want to damage. Let’s say that you run Kor'kron Elite – you’d rather not turn it into a 4/2 for no reason. And the fact that it damages EVERYTHING, no matter what, makes it a bit awkward.

That said, there are some nice synergies with this card. Acolyte of Pain, for one – you get one draw immediately, nearly guaranteeing two draws in total. Grommash Hellscream is a 10/8 minion with Charge since his effect is automatically triggered. Redband Wasp is a 2 mana 4/2 with Rush, also quite good. Rotface summons a random Legendary minion immediately. Yes, there are definitely some cards that benefit from this weapon, but it’s still a bit weird to use.

One more thing worth noting is that it’s an Odd weapon – Odd Warrior might want to play it depending on the meta (if there will be a lot of 1-2 health minions running around), 2/4 stats can be much better than a 3/2 (Fiery War Axe) in that kind of meta, and War Axe was already played by Odd build.

I think the card has some potential, but it doesn’t look amazing so far. In order to make it 100% consistent, we’d need an ENTIRE deck with self-damage synergies, and that’s not something easy to achieve (given that we know nearly every card from the set, it’s pretty much impossible for now).

Card rating: 4/10

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26 Comments

  1. Einar Thor Trastarson
    November 24, 2018 at 7:57 am

    The stats are great, you can attack with it 3 times while using cards that synergize with it, when you don’t need it anymore attack with it for the fourth time, 4 x 2 = 8 damage for 3 mana, pretty good.

  2. PandaWolf525
    November 23, 2018 at 2:58 am

    Its obvious that people dont realize that Berserk Warrior was and still a thing. Might not be Tier 1 but I still play it in Standard for Warrior and works like a charm since its not meta and most of the decks are not built to deal with it. Thats the joy of playing old tempo decks. no one expects them and only thinks that Odd Paladin and Rouge are the only Tempo decks played. Though for what I’m running now, I’m not sure if this will find a place in it. But Does help by having 1-2 extra Animated Berserker in the deck to help Trigger Grom and other damage effects.

  3. Shamaniac
    November 22, 2018 at 11:44 pm

    I just woke up and my brain doesn’t work as well it normally would… I have one thing to say though: Sudden Genesis

    Im not sure is there anything or not, maybe u guys can fill the rest pieces up?

  4. Camerom127
    November 22, 2018 at 9:44 pm

    Guys, this will auto-enrage your angry chicken when you play it. 7/6 will see play.
    In all seriousness the devs seem to want to push “enrage” warrior (even though they removed the enrage keyword) but the main problem comes from the fact that you will need to build a deck around that idea, otherwise you risk damaging normal minions. The cards are there, but I’m not sure how well it will work. 3.5/5 because it will help push this idea.

  5. Soup And Salad
    November 22, 2018 at 6:01 pm

    The 2/4 statline on the weapon really doesn’t bode well in its favor. At least it is only three mana, but its effect really needs to be built around to make useful. I know of the cards that this is meant to work with, but the biggest mark against the card is that there’s nothing worth curving into it on turn four.

    The sort of Enrage Tempo Warrior this was built to enable or at least work within just doesn’t have the support for it outside of Wild. Even there, the deck’s not great, something fun to screw around with for a couple days, but not great.

    If this is a hint of things to come in future, which is something Team 5 hasn’t really done on purpose in quite a while now, it could be made to work well enough in Standard come April. As it will be in a couple weeks, it won’t see play.

  6. Byk
    November 22, 2018 at 5:27 pm

    Would like to see a stronger weapon for the penalty. I know it technically might not be a penalty, but it still will often not work out well.

    • Ewalden
      November 22, 2018 at 7:27 pm

      Dealing one damage to friendly minions when they enter play isn’t necessarily a penalty. There are quite a lot of neutral and warrior cards that are either empowered or activate an effect when damaged.

      Acolyte of Pain, Axe Flinger, Eternium Rover, Val’kyr Summoner and Grim Patron springs to mind. And then there are minions that trigger when something is damaged, like Armor Smith and Frothing Berserker. Then there are all the enrage minions, like Grommash Hellscream, Amani Berserker and Raging Worgen.

      This might not be a very good card for constructed standard, but it might find a place in Wild, where its effect can be a benefit.

  7. Thrombin
    November 22, 2018 at 3:38 pm

    Don’t understimate the 4 durability, it means every weapon buff is multiplied by 4. That plus Sul’Thraze and you can have a weapon in hand constantly for the synergies and face damage. Maybe this is for aggro with Raging Worgen, Tauren Warrior, Amani Berserker, Redband Wasp and Grommash synergies. Maybe even Pirate Warrior if there are some more good pirates.

    • Soup And Salad
      November 22, 2018 at 6:07 pm

      Warrior really hasn’t played weapon buffing cards since Pirate Warrior was nerfed out of Standard, and the Rumble’s current offerings for the class isn’t really pushing it in that direction. The cards to exist for it to maybe happen at some point, but Upgrade is such a low value card, it’ll be difficult to get the class to actively want to play it again.

      Plus, any sort of aggressive Warrior deck would rather play faster weapons than weapons with more durability.

  8. MockRock
    November 22, 2018 at 2:41 pm

    Absolutely 0% chance this sees play in Standard while Blood Razor is still around, why would you even think about it? Afterwards, with some new Enrage cards coming in and sets rotating out? We’ll talk then. For this expansion, though, no way.

  9. Ogrelord
    November 22, 2018 at 2:35 pm

    whip me mommy

  10. Eh
    November 22, 2018 at 2:32 pm

    I’m sure this will find it’s way into some obscure combo deck somewhere. Wild or otherwise.

  11. Daha
    November 22, 2018 at 1:26 pm

    1/5

  12. politzo
    November 22, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    It has its synergies scattered about but as of right now its so situational, maybe it synergizes amazingly with their loa but other than that rather weak 2.5/5

  13. Jed
    November 22, 2018 at 1:06 pm

    I mean eh.
    Good in arena

    2.4/5

  14. Anarchy
    November 22, 2018 at 12:54 pm

    First of all, without being able to abuse the effect, there is little reason to play this card (war axe would be better), because 2 damage is not enough to kill most 2 or 3 drops. On the other hand, if you can profit from the effect (enrage, berserker, patron, rampage, gromash), it becomes much better. This belongs into a Tempo deck (it’s horrible in odd, only good with acolytes, and I would play war axe over it every time), but I don’t think that there are enough synergies for this kind of deck (at least in standard).

  15. OddWarrior
    November 22, 2018 at 12:52 pm

    I think this is pretty solid weapon for odd warrior decks. Good early removal tool against tempo rogue, odd paladin, even shaman and what not. This might also work in tempo warrior deck, berzerker, grommash, acolyte (for draws), rotface…

  16. Enemy
    November 22, 2018 at 12:49 pm

    I’d say this is not a bad mechanic. But there are many better decks than this “self damage” warrior deck that they’re trying to push.

    The weapon is not half bad, 3 mana 2/4 with maybe an upside? It’s a 3.5/5 for me.

  17. SimEgg
    November 22, 2018 at 12:13 pm

    Might be good in Odd Warrior. Could be a 3 mana 2/4 with no down siden in that deck, it dose not play that many minions.

  18. 312
    November 22, 2018 at 11:46 am

    Worst Hs Mecanic

    • Agapito
      November 22, 2018 at 6:08 pm

      Yeah, patron warrior was the worst deck ever

  19. Jason
    November 22, 2018 at 11:23 am

    4/5

  20. Piterno
    November 22, 2018 at 11:07 am

    Better than the 1/3 in that it doesn’t die to a 2 drop. But feels very punishable by weapon removal.
    Still, Rotface giving a free legendary and Hellscream an 8 mana 10/8 charge are pretty good options this card brings to the table.

    4/5

  21. MrMxyzptlk
    November 22, 2018 at 11:05 am

    This could work in Wild Patron Warrior

  22. Jansuko
    November 22, 2018 at 11:05 am

    Rotface?? Tower?? Frothing?? Hellscream?? Self damage Warrior might see some play because of this new version of activation besides the 1 mana 1/3 minion

    • Bootsthemonkey
      November 22, 2018 at 12:49 pm

      Also Acolyte of Pain, Armorsmith and maybe some new cards…