The success of Activision-then-Blizzard’s Hearthstone should not come as a surprise, Blizzard having mastered the art of operant conditioning. The game swept literally 100% of the world’s nations, especially the ones without internet, with the exception of North Korea excluding the rumpus room of King Jong-un. Hearthstone’s importance to humanity cannot be understated, being so great that the Battle.net launch screen should be carved beneath the foot of every monument.
It is critical for citizens of the world to understand how to play The Hearthstone effectively, and so I have taken chisel in hand to engrave here wisdom I’ve divined from the cards and for the benefit of all mankind. Here are the 10 Improbably Best Hearthstone Cards: cards so great that their greatness has been concealed with great care, now greatly revealed.
You may thank me with glorious comments.
10. Flare
For the measly cost of a single mana, draw a card: what more is there to say about Flare? The value of card draw is hastened progression to get you past the useless stuff plus versatility in a pinch, and you get it on the cheap here. This card does something else too, but I can’t remember because it’s never relevant. Something about nullifying rarely used abilities? Something like that.
Flare really shines (pun: intended and strictly enforced) when you acquire the superbly rare gold version, or just craft it for 800 arcane dust. The magnificent coloration and hypnotic animation typically disorients or mystifies opponents, often leading to slower turn times and sloppy mouse-overs. With your foe out of the moment and a new card in your hand, shift your position to their weakness and attack.
9. Nozdormu
Sun Tzu’s Art of War states “he who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.” Nozdormu allows you to deny the advantage of prudence by reducing the turn timer to 15 seconds, and you get an 8/8 for 9 mana on the board too, which is great for absorbing that removal card your opponent was storing for something he thought would be a threat.
Remember: it’s important to get dragons into play at any opportunity. Our monkey brains contain genetic memory of an era when dinosaurs and other tyrant lizards ruled the land, so playing a dragon innately terrifies mammalian opponents and may even temporarily paralyze them with fear. With the reduced turn time, this can be enough to win the game handily.
Additionally, playing Nozdormu begins a special effect that overlays the screen with wind-blown dust. Due to the unrelenting realism of modern gaming, this often confuses people into believing a real dust storm has stricken their computer desktop or possibly their eyeballs; vigorous scrubbing will ensue. Again, take this momentary advantage and use it.
8. Lorewalker Cho
If primary school taught me anything, it’s that sharing is caring and I can’t be trusted with sharp scissors. Lorewalker Cho is the K-12 teacher’s dream in that he forces sharing, but also nightmare because he’s sharing everyone’s scissors.
And 2 mana is a miniscule fee for such a pleasant image, I might add. Who doesn’t love pandas? I know I do. This one plays on fun Asian stereotypes! Is that rapscallion holding a menu? :D
It’s as if he’s inviting us to a land of wonder and chow mein and they can also seat three friends. But those eyes belie a simmering animosity, a foreboding Charybdis of intent to consume all good things. Those eyes say, “I’ll teach you how to live on the land then murder you at a mountain overpass and eat your liver.” And when Lorewalker Cho backfires on you, it’s exactly like trusting someone only to have them eat your liver.
But one ancient teaching must be noted here as much for any kind of danger as for bear-type cards, which you play to your advantage: “I don’t have to outrun the bear; I just have to outrun [or outlive] you.”
7. Murloc Tidecaller
The Murloc Tidecaller’s boggly eyes give it the look of one of those Amazonian urethra fish, but if it were conscious of its absurd place in the world. Like an Amazonian Dick Fish, Murloc Tidecaller is perfect for jamming immovably into your foe genitals.
At 1 mana, a 1/2 sells itself, but this one also gets +1 attack whenever a murloc is summoned. As with just about every other murloc, this confines you to the wonders of a rush-deck-with-murlocs play style that demands a robust inventory of murloc cards. And which of us hasn’t dismantled every spare card to complete our murloc decks?
As such, it makes complete and irrefutable sense to include such a naturally harmonious card in every deck no matter what anyone says about its dick-fishiness.
6. Kidnapper
Kidnapper excels at infiltrating the enemy’s psyche and taking leverage ahead of their strategy. Play Kidnapper for 6 mana to deliver a 5/3 that can return a minion to its owner with a Combo, but also a clear message that you can hit the enemy where it hurts any time you want.
One’s sense of security falters once Kidnapper removes a beloved minion. After getting hit the first time, you can’t even observe the field without wondering, “Will it happen again? Will I ever be able to protect my family? Am I even a man anymore?” If the wily-tongued gold version of the card is any sign, No, No and Yes, yes it will happen again and it will hurt more the second time.
Worse yet, rogues are able to rehand cards repeatedly, meaning everything you love could be removed and your throat slit before you even felt it. Before long, you’ll abstract that this could happen in real life, to your real family, and you’ll have to wonder if your opponent is themselves a kidnapper, a Kidnapper even, playing a sick Saw-Hostelian game hinting at your fate before letting it crush you. You stop trusting others and barricade yourself inside, when you realize you’d forgotten you were even playing Hearthstone. The game is long over.
You realize… you’ve already lost, and you’re left with only a question:
“What kind of sick game is this?”
5. Silence with Mass Dispel
Silence and Mass Dispel usually fail to impress individually. However, at 0 and 4 mana cost respectively, these affordable disables are best appreciated when used in combination.
In exchange for 1/7th of your deck, you can potentially disable upwards of 5 minions, if you’re really lucky. Maybe 6.
Of course, that means you’re trading away the option of killing those minions instead, but you shut them up nonetheless.What I wouldn’t give to have that option with my wife, amiright?
sigh…
I’m not right. We have problems. These are terrible cards.
4. Void Terror
Nothing shows you’re serious like devouring your own cards so that using a removal spell becomes substantially more appealing to your opponent.
Void Terror traditionally combos well with Power Overwhelming, feeding from an otherwise dead unit after it uses its attack, but I offer instead that the better option is to eat the Overwhelmed minion before it attacks.
Who would even do that? You would, you heartless raging void psycho. Now your enemies know what true terror is.
3. Tie: Wisp or Ysera
On one hand, Ysera draws a Dream card at the end of every turn bestowing you buffs, the best vanilla minion in the game and essentially an immense advantage over your opponent. On the other, Wisp costs zero mana and thus can be played on any turn.
That’s right: any turn. First round? Use Wisp. Just spent 10 mana to Siphon Soul a taunt and smash through with Leeroy Jenkins? Drop Wisp and rest assured that Leeroy’s inevitable death will not be in vain with Wisp to reinforce the way. Mind Controlled a big unit and want to drive the threat home? Put Wisp into play and the menace practically guarantees a concession.
Put them together, though, and you can stack Nightmares (+4/+4) on Wisp, at the bare minimum making her a 5/5 BEAST. You see now why it was so hard to choose between them, so why not both? Dropping 5/5’s and 0 cost cards after the 9th turn?
That’s what I call Korea-pro ;)
(when Koreans aren’t around).
2. Thaddius
Blizzard has taken flack for its partnership with Activision for countless reasons, but especially since Bobby Kotick was caught on CCTV kicking a breast cancer survivor that he’d confused for a homosexual into a coma. As a political gesture to alleviate their CEO’s lack of marketing foresight, Thaddius was conceptualized as a nod to, quote, “how super fantastic those gays can be.” An 11/11 is certainly super fantastic.
You’ve rarely seen Thaddius in play? That’s hyper-realistic representation: homosexuals are a relatively small demographic and so the card was made Legendary.
But to really play the song well, Blizzard flourished by having this summon as a Deathrattle effect of two other cards, Feugen and Stalaag. Feugen and Stalaag are clearly homosexual zombies (though their sex isn’t obvious) bonded in death by love as they were in life, and Thaddius must then be some kind of gimp, gimpbot or possibly franken-bisexual.
Some details have been left to the imagination, albeit clearly not many, and some critics have damned Thaddius as an offensive and misguided intimation of equality.
Note: Thaddius only triggers when using the Rainbow card back. If you missed that season and thus can’t get that card back, too bad. Homosexuality isn’t a choice, get that through your head.
1. Alarm-o-Bot
Alarm-o-Bot, Alarm-o-Bot, Alarm-o-Bot: Alarm-o-Bot all day. If I could have an entire deck of Alarm-o-Bots, I would make two decks with the same hero and only Alarm-o-Bots just so I could rest assured that another identical deck of Alarm-o-Bots would always be at my back in my time of need.
The misunderstood beauty of Alarm-o-Bot lies within its incomprehensible gift: well-rested minions. 3 mana may seem costly for an impotent 0/3 that puts a random idle minion into play, but notice how Alarm-o-Bot ultimately coagulates into a minion that can’t attack for two turns instead of just one.
First, you play Alarm-o-Bot, which can’t itself attack and will also lose any given buffs when returned to your hand (presuming it survives). That way, it cannot possibly cause much of a ruckus. Second, it puts another minion into play that again can’t attack until the next turn (but, hopefully, not one of the minions that would consequently lose their amazing Battlecry and really screw you over right now!)
Meanwhile, you’re extinguishing a third or more of your mana hoping to save a few crystals on a big drop, which means less mana tempting you to play other minions. So not only does Alarm-o-Bot’s drawn minion get extra time to relax before they can do anything, your other minions get spare time to wait around too!
With these improbably useful tips, you’ll never be more ready, for a new game, after this one’s lost.
All images were improperly borrowed from HearthHead.com, a fantastic resource for Hearthstone fans and satirists alike. My thanks to them.
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