There are many cards in Hearthstone, currently and in the past, that aren’t good at the moment, but have a lot of potential. Cards such as Mark of Y’Shaarj, which works with beasts. Well, currently there aren’t enough beasts to make the card work, but the card itself is very good, so if more beasts are released down the road it could suddenly be extremely strong. However, there are some cards that simply never find their place. Now, with the Standard format cycling out the oldest sets of cards, there are cards that had a lot of potential that will never see competitive play.
The cards that see this loss of potential most are synergistic cards, if the others simply aren’t there yet. For example, Dragon Consort was put out while there were only a few other dragons in the game, and it simply didn’t make sense to include him, despite his ability being really good in theory. Or Bloodsail Raider, which is currently making its competitive debut in a Pirate Warrior deck.
This article will look at the cards that simply don’t belong in the cycle they are in. Cards from Goblins vs. Gnomes that never quite made it, and some newer cards which lost their synergistic partners. This article is best read while listening to sad music and eating chocolate, as we delve into the seven forgotten cards of Hearthstone.
1. Druid of the Fang
Druid of the Fang is one of the best cards in the game if you can reliably get it off. However, just like Mark of Y’Shaarj, it requires more reliable and useful beast minions before it can see play. Blizzard has clearly been trying to make Beast Druid work for quite a while, but unfortunately this bad boy won’t be there to see it. Unfortunate, since it would be one of the best cards for the deck, no doubt.
2. Metaltooth Leaper
Metaltooth Leaper’s potential is obvious. If it’s not obvious, then go back and look at that Tavern Brawl recently where you picked two cards to fill out your entire deck, and Mechwarper + Metaltooth Leaper was very common as a turn three win deck. Unfortunately, not too many classes were able to make mech decks actually work, and Hunter was not one of them. Now not only has Leaper cycled out of standard, but it seems as if mechs are becoming less and less frequent, meaning that even in Wild Metaltooth Leaper may never find a home.
3. One-eyed Cheat
One-eyed Cheat is remnants of a time when Blizzard was attempting to make pirates work. He isn’t the best card, but with a truly synergistic pirate deck he represents a solid four damage per turn – a big swing even over a few turns. Unfortunately even now there aren’t enough pirates for a proper pirate deck, and certainly not one that’s restricted to Rogue. One-eyed Cheat will always remain as one of those cards you only know because you used to get it from Shredder every now and then.
4. Siltfin Spiritwalker
Siltfin Spiritwalker is one of the strangest cards. Murloc decks were fairly competitive in the early days of Hearthstone, but by the time Siltfin Spiritwalker came out they were falling out of favour. After he was released promptly came a dry spell of Murlocs, giving absolutely nothing to make him viable. Similar to One-eyed Cheat, Siltfin Spiritwalker will hold the spot of being known because he came out of Murloc Knight occasionally.
5. Ship’s Cannon
A much sadder remnant of the pirate attempt. Ship’s Cannon fell victim to all the same issues as One-eyed Cheat, but is actually a very strong card if it manages to get its effect off even once, forget the board piling that pirate decks tend to encompass. With pirates making a bit of a comeback at the moment, I wish Ship’s Cannon had made it there to join in.
6. Hemet Nesingwary
Hemet Nesingwary is known as one of the worst – if not the worst – legendaries in the game. He clearly was introduced around the same time as the Beast Druid attempt, and also while Hunter was very strong. Unfortunately his awful stats simply aren’t made up for by the odd chance that you may get extra value from it. It doesn’t help that there haven’t been any competitive beast decks for him to even be teched in against. He will go down in Hearthstone history as one of the worst legendaries ever.
7. Gorillabot A-3
Unlike the others, Gorillabot A-3 is still in Standard. However, the issue is that almost every other mech has rotated out. This means that not only is it much more difficult to get his ability off, but he also has far fewer and far worse cards that can be discovered. Now that it seems that there won’t be any more mechs introduced, Gorillabot is doomed to die a slow death devoid of any friends to synergise with.