Watch Posts in Forged in The Barrens – How Are The Hearthstone’s First Building Cards Doing So Far?

With the release of the new expansion, Forged in the Barrens, Hearthstone has seen a new type of card added to the game: the Watch Post. There are three such cards, all complete with the “Can’t attack” text.

• Far Watch Post, a 2-mana 2/4 which increases the costs of cards drawn by the opponent by 1 mana.
• Mor'shan Watch Post, a 3-mana 3/5 which summons a 2/2 each time the opponent plays a minion.
• Crossroads Watch Post, a 4-mana 4/6 which gives each of your minions +1/+1 each time the opponent plays a spell

While the expansion has only been out for a little bit over 24 hours, they’re already proving themselves to be very powerful – maybe even a little bit too powerful. And maybe more importantly, not always fun to face.

Watch Post Concept

In terms of their functionality, these Posts are somewhere between a Minion and a Secret. They offer the ability to do things during an opponent’s turn and have various triggers the opponent can try to play around, but can be directly targeted and attacked. They are all under-costed for the amount of stats they have, but try to make up for that advantage with the “Can’t attack” text. Unlike previous cards such as Ancient Watcher, however, they don’t require any other cards (such as Silence or Defender of Argus) to allow them to have an effect. That’s up to the opponent.

In terms of flavor, it’s pleasing to see the building aspect of Warcraft come to Hearthstone. These structures were a huge part of the original game, yet their impact had yet to be felt in Hearthstone. They represent new design space and lore opportunities to be explored in future sets, and that’s always a win for Warcraft fans. It’s quite fun to imagine what other buildings could do and under what circumstances.

In terms of play experience, however, the Posts are proving to be less than pleasant. As Reynad – founder of Tempostorm and part-time inventor of Hearthstone – would say, their effects represent a metaphorical kicking-over of the opponent’s sandcastle, rather than building one’s own. That is, the posts are used strictly to disrupt the opponent’s game plan and make it more difficult for them to play the game, rather than advance the player’s own game plan. In practice, they end up feeling like over-stated, early-game threats that actively prevent the opponent from answering them efficiently. And make no mistake, these Posts often need to be answered unless you’re willing to abandon some large parts of your game plan, like playing minions.

How Strong Are Watch Posts

It’s hard enough to kill a minion when it has more stats than usual. It gets harder when that minion increases the cost of your cards or puts a minion on the opponent’s board each time you put a minion on yours. If you aren’t prepared to answer these early, a Watch Post played by the opponent between turns 1 and 3 can leave you on the backfoot for several turns, if not until the game is over (usually not in your favor). Just because they can’t attack, that doesn’t mean these Watch Posts won’t end up killing a lot of your opponents minions or eating tons of removal and forcing awkward plays. The text on these cards makes them must-kill threats for the opponents, as each turn they are on the board they can prevent the opponent from making good plays.

The most devastating of these would be the Far Watch Post. At two mana for a 2/4, this post can come down as early as turn 1 with the coin and will always do something to the opponent each turn, regardless of what they play (or don’t). It’s not uncommon for this Watch Post to increase the cost on two or even three cards before it gets removed, and the lengths I’ve seen players (including myself) go to in order to remove one as quickly as possible speak to that level of threat.

It only took two back-to-back games of my opponents coining a Far Watch Post into a second Far Watch Post to make it quite clear these things are powerful. This feeling was supported by the mulligan stats on the card from HSReplay, showing it to be a clear frontrunner in each deck that played it. To get a sense as to why it’s so strong, think back to the times cards in Hearthstone have received a mana-cost increase during a balance patch. It’s not uncommon for such cards to go from deck- or meta-defining inclusions to weak cards that don’t see much, if any, play. Well, Far Watch Post sort of nerfs every card an opponent draws, and at 4 health it’s not exactly the easiest thing to remove early in the game.

The Mor'shan Watch Post is not quite as strong, but can still be devastating for any minion-based strategy when it hits the board early. Minion-based decks usually run many cheap threats, meaning the 2/2s that get summoned by the Watch Post will usually be able to trade into the very minions that summoned them regularly. Even if the minion deck already has minions on board capable of answering the Watch Post immediately, it still represents a 3-mana 3/5 with Taunt, as the opponent needs to clear it before they continue on building their board. And Tar Creeper wasn’t a bad card at all.

As of the time of writing, Crossroads Watch Post hasn’t seen almost any play, so it’s too early to judge it (or maybe the fact that it hasn’t seen play yet is enough to judge it).

Watch Posts In Decks

If the power of these Watch Posts entices you (as it probably should), there is almost no end of decks you can play them in. The most common list has been a Watch Post Rogue made popular by Feno:

Watch Post Rogue – Feno – The Barrens

• Format: gryphon
• Season: season-84
• Player: Feno
• 8,640

• 0Shadowstep2
• 1Prize Plunderer2
• 1Secret Passage2
• 2Swindle2
• 2Wicked Stab (Rank 1)2
• 3Efficient Octo-bot2
• 3Field Contact2

• 1Brain Freeze2
• 1Guardian Augmerchant2
• 1Pen Flinger2
• 1Wand Thief2
• 2Far Watch Post2
• 3Mankrik1
• 3Mor’shan Watch Post2
• 4Kazakus, Golem Shaper1
• 5Jandice Barov1
• 7Kargal Battlescar1

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Deck Import

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This deck utilizes the power of the Watch Posts to push opponents off the early game, all while cycling through its own deck and making boards at a rapid pace. In addition to the game-ending threats of Kazakus and Jandice Barov, the Watch Post Rogue also packs a copy of Kargal Battlescar, capable of generating a large board with a single card and then being Shadowstepped to do it again on the next turn. Indeed, even just summoning one or two 5/5s from it can be brutal for an opponent. Having played the deck for about 25 games, I can confirm there is definitely something strong about it, and it represents one of the frontrunners of the early meta.

Other options are less common, but because they’re neutral the Watch Posts can be jammed into basically any deck. This Secret Libram Paladin from Impact is one such example and has also been putting up impressive results for him in top legend. Like Rogue, it’s similarly capable of putting out tons of early-game tempo and late-game threats, all backed up by the incredible power of the Posts.

Combating these Watch Posts isn’t easy. They do have a lot of stats for their cost and hit the board before many opponents are ready. However, No-Minion Mage has been having success in that regard lately. Since they don’t play minions, they naturally aren’t very bothered by the Mor’shan Watch Post most of the time. The Far Watch Post is still a pain, but cards like Devolving Missiles answer it quite cleanly in a way that few other classes can and, to a lesser extent, cards like Brain Freeze and Combustion do the trick. In the later game, Flamestrike can take care of all the posts, Kargals, and most other boards the opponent might have. Here’s one example of such a list:

Spell Mage – #4 Legend (posesi) – The Barrens

• Format: gryphon
• Season: season-84
• Player: Posesi
• 6,060

• 1Font of Power2
• 2Deck of Lunacy1
• 2Runed Orb2
• 3Arcane Intellect2
• 3Combustion2
• 3Cone of Cold2
• 3Ice Barrier2
• 4Fireball2
• 4Incanter’s Flow2
• 4Ring Toss2
• 5Apexis Blast2
• 5Refreshing Spring Water2
• 7Flamestrike2
• 7Mask of C’Thun1

• 1Brain Freeze2
• 1Devolving Missiles2

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Deck Import

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Pre-Expansion, Watch Posts were actually on my list of cards that could be nerfed quickly for play experience reasons, regardless of their power (the other was Celestial Alignment). While they seem to be powerful in practice, what’s more important is that they fall into that class of card like Illucia that can really prevent your opponent from playing their cards, and few things in the game feel worse than not being able to do anything, despite having playable cards in your hand. I had imagined my opponent playing a Watch post on turn one or two, and me just looking at it and being sad that I couldn’t answer it. The sadness part of my prediction has definitely come to pass. Whether they will be examined in a future balance change is anyone’s guess, but they’re still high on my list of guesses for probable changes.

JalexanderHS

Hearthstone's resident Rogue expert. Stop by Twitter or Twitch for the authentic Jay Roguein' Experience Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/j_alexander_hs Twitter: https://twitter.com/J_Alexander_HS

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