Pen Flinger
Pen Flinger is a 1 Mana Cost Common Neutral Minion card from the Scholomance Academy set!
Card Text
Battlecry: Deal 1 damage to a minion. Spellburst: Return this minion to your hand.
Flavor Text
The pen is also a more aerodynamic short-range projectile than the sword.- Mana Cost: 1
- Attack: 1
- Health: 1
- Crafting Cost: 40 / 400 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 5 / 50 (Golden)
- Rarity: Common
- Class: Neutral
- Card Type: Minion
- Set: Scholomance Academy
- Mechanics: Battlecry, Damage Minion, Return to Hand, Spellburst
Brazen Zealot, Knife Juggler, History Buff, Questing Adventurer, and holy shit DARKGLARE synergy.
Ah yes and Arcane Fletcher
Toxmonger exists and this card fits perfectly with him.
My biggest concern is how the spellburst will interact with the return to hand, since this card doesn’t stay on the field would the initial spellburst be the only time it triggers?
Eeeeeehh… This is fiiine? I guess. But the biggest problem is who is really going to use this?
Maaaaaybe, if you want to use it with Rouge, and just spam Pen into Headcrack, but that’s going to take a while. Your only going to deal 4 damage to the face for 5 Mana, and that’s if you have nothing else to do.
I don’t think not even Full on Face Hunter wants this, and I think this needs a buff. make it a 3 Mana 2/1 and buff it to dealing 3 damage, and I think now you could consider grabbing One Pen Flinger, and using it as a Neutral Headcrack.
As for Mage, I can see how It might work, but the nitpick that I can see is Evocation, and Mana Cyclone. when you just casting a whole bunch of spells. But mind you that you want to be spamming your spells, so you can only really do this by sacrifice some of your Mana Cyclone Value for like, what? 2-4 extra damage on average? or you can use it as a last resort idea, and using it to start chipping away your opponents. Big problem about that idea however is that, it’s already Turn 10 or over by than. So you have to go for only specific minion that’s threatening you the most, and it usually has to be damaged too.
Prove me wrong though, and see how Pen longer could work, but I just don’t see it yet. 2 Stars.
Utility.
good card imho
Reminds me of shadowreaper anduin’s hero power.
This card has such an amazing name. I love it!
“Name is obviously not correct, we’re waiting for translation.”
Darn it!
I find it fascinating that Blizzard continues to create such interesting card ideas like spellburst, dual class and other good card ideas like Rattlegore and the priest/warloc health change concept. Yet also simultaneously creates such brain dead cards like Frazzled Freshman and this. Its saddening that Blizzard decided to take a previously existing card and buff it, call it a new card and have it pass
Every card has a reason to be printed.
For example Frazzled Freshman was created to: Push tempo priest, by giving him more good minions to buff, and making a galakrond pool weaker.
This card has anti-synergy with spells, you cannon buff it for example, so it isn’t a strict buff it’s a sidegrade, also by design expansion cards are better than basic or classic cards.
Just because the card is good in a deck or pushes a certain deck type, doesn’t excuse its lazy behavior. A 1 Mana 1/4 should never be allowed in general due to its stats. Back when Whispers of the Old Gods and Karazhan was around, BS stat cards like frazzled freshman didn’t exist. This card is literally a Elven Archer but being able to play it again. I cant remember the last time someone told me that Elven Archer was a good card because you could buff it, meaning that unless you really need a 1/1 on a board, then its a straight buff (think of the Hunter Twinspell deal 1 damage, but with an effect that keeps repeating)
This isn’t a lazy design. Lazy design whould be giving a class OP card to increase it’s win rate for example: 4 mana 7/7 which happened during your Old Gods; also in Karazan druid get 1 mana 2/2 BEAST while having Mark of Y’Shaarj, so please don’t tell me that in that time there wasn’t any “BS stat cards”.
Frazzled Freshman is 1 mana 1/4 which is killable by 2/2 which is neutral 1 drop, also Soulbound Ashtongue is another 1 mana 1/4 that exist.
Nobody talks about ability to buff a minion because nearly all cards can be buffed.
In addition to that as Thraben said power creep exist.
Soulbound Ashtongue is a 1/4 because it has a bad effect, meaning good stats in compensation, which is alright design. If frazzled freshman was something like: 1 mana 1/4 spellburst deal 1 damage to itself, it woudlve been cool because its a 1/4 until you play a spell (just an idea). Now 4 mana 7/7 (a meme that lives on in my heart) was balanced because it meant that shaman only had 3 mana next turn (if played turn 4). this meant essentially, it was a 6 mana 7/7, which isnt as op as you think. Yes it caused problems but it payed off the next turn. Druid having a 1 mana 2/2 is funny that you mention it because “back in my day” (the best 2 years of Hearthstone) that was only for 1 class. Now everyone can have a 1 mana 2/2 because of Blazing Battlemage.
Power creeping is stupid because it invalidates soo many classic and loved cards that have been used for years for newer flashier ones because they need to appeal to children who cant put in the time nor commitment as older players. Hell ive only been playing since old gods, dropped out during rhastakan to uldum and came back in time for descent and i’ve already got meta decks, not because i needed newer cards, but because i’ve been playing since last year
As for card strength, there are two reasons:
1. Power creep. New more powerful cards give the players a reason to get the new cards or they’ll fall behind in power. This is something that happens in pretty much all collective card games as well as in lots of constantly updating video games like LoL.
And 2. The game is always balanced around standard. Some cards might appear very weak or strong in relation to others in the current standard which is why sometimes one needs to make “the same card” but weaker or stronger. For example MTG has alot of cards that do the exact same thing but have a higher or lower mana cost. That way if your new standard sets are full of big minions for example you can make a remove spell that costs a little less since it’s balanced in a set full of big things. In Hearthstone this mostly happens through power creep though.
Fucking hilarious they named it BETTER eleven archer.
“Name is obviously not correct, we’re waiting for translation.”
Could actually be cool in Rogue. At only one mana this could be a good combo enabler. And you can get him back easily with backstab and other cheap spells.
This might not be that likely, but Rogue was once so desperate to activate combo that they were playing wisp
…..are you kidding me this card is just asking for possible use in a non pure pally deck running librams. This is basically a perfect card for pally that would let you peg off the minions you drop to 1 health. Outside of that it doesn’t match up as great as a support card due to Mana cost to keep playing.
I think libram paladin is possibly an incredible use for this.
may have some use in masochist zoo, considering new 8/8 and Felosophy