Phantom Freebooter

Phantom Freebooter Card

Phantom Freebooter is a 4 Mana Cost Rare Neutral Minion Pirate card from the Knights of the Frozen Throne set!

Card Text

Battlecry: Gain stats equal to your weapon's.

Flavor Text

There's no such thing as a free boot.

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26 Comments

  1. CD001
    August 1, 2017 at 6:06 am

    Might be more viable for a new take on Water Rogue rather than Pirate Warrior I think… if only it gained attributes from the weapon as well; Envenom Weapon or Leeching Poison for instance.

  2. billius
    August 1, 2017 at 4:09 am

    all we need now is to make the lich king a 4 mana 7/7 pirate

  3. Sine
    August 1, 2017 at 2:38 am

    I don’t think that this is too strong, there are many situations where other Pirate cards would be better.

    1. You don’t have a weapon equipped:
    You are forced to play tempo based turns and you don’t draw a weapon. Even playing a Naga Corsair without receiving the Buff already feels awkward, not to mention playing a Dread Corsair for 4 mana. But both cards are much better than Phantom Freebooter in this situation.

    2. You have a weapon equipped, but hold it with 1 durability, lets say War Axe:
    Bloodsail Raider would be a 5/3 for 2
    Dread Corsair would be a 3/3 for 1
    Naga Corsair would be a 5/4 for 4 plus weapon buff
    Phantom Freebooter would be 6/4 for 4
    In this situation it is on par with Naga Corsair, the other 2 are hard to compare but are much cheaper

    3. So there comes the last situation, where we have big durability, which is rare. Lets say we have Rusty Hook equipped buffed with Upgrade and Bloodsail Cultist … 3/3:
    Bloodsail Corsair, Dread Corsair won’t change and are still good plays.
    Naga Corsair gives a Buff on 3 swings, which is great in this scenario.
    And Phantom Freebooter turns into a 6/6, which is great – but hey at Turn 5 there waits the 7/7 Hydra. Or in Shaman there is a 7/7 4 mana powerhouse waiting.

    I would assume situation 2 happens 50 % of the time, situation 1 and 3 25 %. You will drop concistency for a Powerhouse which only works in 25 % of matches. Hydra, Naga Corsair and Korkrons are better and consistent.
    The weapon buff is too important for this card, and it would only be good, if Warrior gets a card to disover Weapons or some stuff like that.

  4. Kanarey
    July 31, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    aggro decks still need to exist, because domination of freeze-iceblock and jadedruid bullshit isn’t always funny, like, sometimes you just want to relax at simple decks or play on mobile

  5. Rormiester
    July 31, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    T H I S ? C A R D ? D O E S ? N O T ? N E E D ? T O ? E X I S T ?
    Pirate decks are already the guy who feels the need to join and ruin every conversation of hearthstone. All criticisms of the meta aside this could be a solid replacement for Naga Corsair and contest Bloodsail Cultist in Warrior for the 4 mana slot. Ladies and gentlemen: prep your Golakka crawlers because Bloodsail Raider’s big (spectral) sister is here.

  6. Jaych
    July 31, 2017 at 10:09 am

    Honestly, I don’t like Pirate Warrior. I can’t stand playing AGAINST it, and I hardly ever have fun playing AS it. That being said, I really like this card.

    Let me put this in perspective. When Golakka Crawler was first revealed, everyone immediately took it to be Blizzard’s acknowledgement of the domination of Pirates in the meta at the time. But no one seemed to realize how good it could actually be in the very deck people assumed it was printed to counter. Golakka Crawler ended up being in almost every Pirate Warrior list after the Un’Goro meta settled, and they just ended up having an extra tool to keep their decks interesting. Pirate Warrior ended up getting decent support.

    While I despise the deck, I’m not going to pretend that no one likes it. And if an entire expansion came and went without a single card supporting their most played deck, they would be understandably pissed. It’s nice to see Blizzard reaching across both sides of the isle. While I do think Warrior was designed for more Control/Midrange style matchups, there’s nothing wrong with Blizzard helping out every archetype at least a little.

    Besides, this could still be decent in Control Warrior. Can you imagine playing this with a Gorehowl equipped and suddenly having a 9-4? There’s potential here.

    Philosophy of the card? 5/5

    Prospect of getting destroyed by it in Pirate Warrior again and again? -74/5

    • DumbEndumber
      July 31, 2017 at 2:44 pm

      I will have to heavily disagree with you on several points in your perspective story about Golakka. First and formost, it would be wrong to claim that noone anticipated it to be played in Pirate Warrior – you definitely should look up the card discussion for Goakka, as well as the HS blizz forums and reddit, and you’d see that the most frequently mentioned point was actually “free value from eating your Patches”, which ofc hardly makes sense,

      Secondly, I wouldn’t really say that Golokka is really string in Pirate Warrior – it only works because a high proportion of the enemy decks does run pirates, and indeed, it wouldn’t warrant a place in the deck if it could only target your side of the board. Ofc the heavy lack of decent 2-drops in the archetype did help it find a place, but I’d say Golokka isn’t “good” in pirate warrior right now, it’s just a tech card that happens to be strong against many decks currently in the meta (mirror matchups included).

      Not that I saw it played that frequently in Pirate Warrior either, and as a mostly Priest player I seem to recall to have had a better win percentage against those decks which have opted to include it (though I guess it could be because of my personal bias). But nevertheless, I think Golakka is merely a placeholder tech card in the archetype, so I would definitely disagree with the version of events you’ve written down in your post above.

      • Jaych
        July 31, 2017 at 2:58 pm

        Check major tournament-play deck-lists. You’ll see what I’m talking about.

        • Dominik Kren
          July 31, 2017 at 4:42 pm

          Tournaments are not the meta game. There is almost no deck without a tech card in tournaments. It’s just about picking good decks against certain matchups

        • SpenserG
          August 3, 2017 at 6:11 am

          I’ve looked at many decks from tournaments and there are hardly any pirates that tech Golakka.

  7. Xix
    July 31, 2017 at 10:04 am

    Uch will we be ever freed from pirate war?…. I guess not….

  8. mm
    July 31, 2017 at 7:23 am

    nooooooooo, why??? i’m tired of pirates

  9. Joseph
    July 31, 2017 at 7:16 am

    Does stats mean plus 1 plus 1 or will the minions attack and health equal the weapons attack?

    • Some Dude
      July 31, 2017 at 7:33 am

      If your a warrior with a 3/2 fiery war axe, then it will gain +3/+2.
      A rogue with his hero power will gain +1/+2, which is basically a yeti (4/5)

  10. Kenchilada
    July 31, 2017 at 7:01 am

    If the decks are complaining about pirate warrior, why would they give it a better turn 4 play than Naga Corsair? At rare quality?
    I understand that the tribe didn’t get any cards in Un’Goro, but damn, if you curve with fiery war axe -> Blood d’ail cultist/upgrade, that’s a 4 mana 7/4 pirate with no downsides.
    Don’t think we needed this, Blizz.

    • Kenchilada
      July 31, 2017 at 7:01 am

      Not decks, devs. Mb

    • gg
      July 31, 2017 at 11:38 am

      the downside is if you don’t have a weapon it’s a 4 mana 3/3

      • Kenchilada
        July 31, 2017 at 11:53 am

        The same thing was said about small-time buccaneer and that card was meta-shattering

      • Dude
        July 31, 2017 at 1:24 pm

        When was the last time a pirate warrior didn’t have a weapon in the first 4 turns? Sure if he runs out of cards and top decks this,… but then the pirate warrior has probably already lost unless he top decks mortal strike, and he won’t cut mortal strike for this, so it doesn’t matter.

  11. Moltar
    July 31, 2017 at 6:55 am

    Is this real? The text just looks wrong.

    Stats? What are stats? Health and attack?
    “Equal to your weapon’s” what? Stats? What are weapon stats? Attack and durability?

    How can a minion gain attack and durability?

    • Skyler
      July 31, 2017 at 7:01 am

      Yes, a minion can get attack. It’s the yellow orb on the bottom left of the card. The “durability” will be health

    • Kalo
      July 31, 2017 at 7:19 am

      If you “misunderstand” it on purpose maybe. Would you prefer 3 extra lines of text?

    • elira
      July 31, 2017 at 7:47 am

      wow does this simple text really confuse you

    • Moltar
      July 31, 2017 at 7:50 am

      I guess a little sarcasm and hearthstone don’t go along.

      Yet, the game is getting another good pirate.

  12. tinyfinn
    July 31, 2017 at 6:42 am

    GOLACKAAAAAA!