by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

While a lot of people scream for nerfs when cards feel overpowered, I don’t see many people calling for buffs to long forgotten cards. In my mind, every non-joke card should at least be a decent fit in a viable deck. Also, the meta would grow a lot more interesting if a wider array of cards suddenly started seeing play. So without further ado… Welcome back to Mending Mondays, a weekly feature where I, Dannie “IAmDiR23” Ray will take a look at some of the worst cards in the Hearthstone and evaluate why they are deemed to be horrible, and what could be done to fix them.

I love Gnomes, I love Mages, my first ever WoW Character was a Gnomish Pyromancer. Sadly, I don’t love this Mini-Mage. I should, but I don’t. It is hard to love something that sucks as bad as this dude does. Join me in our quest to determine why this little fellow turned out so terrible.

Why is it so bad?

One Health Minions are usually a liability, so we are off to a bad start. Sure, the stealth cuts the inherent vulnerability to Hero Powers, but dying to any possible AOE effect isn’t really a positive quality. Knife Jugglers and Flamewakers have a good chance to snipe this, and its vulnerability to Whirlwind effects makes it a dead card in a Patron-heavy meta. Magma Rager is considered the worst card in Hearthstone, sadly Mini-Mage isn’t much better.

Now, lets focus on Spell Damage +1. Lets take a look at Kobold Geomancer and Ogre Magi. They have 1 HP less than an standard vanilla minion for the cost, and that seems to be a bad trade-off. Chillwind Yeti is considered an OK card, but Ogre Magi is deemed bad. Crocolisk is pretty bad, but is Geomancer any better?  You can argue that Ogre Magi is worse than the Geomancer, as the 2 mana cost makes it easier to play a spell in the same turn to get instant value out of the Spell Damage. So basically we’ve learned two things; a card doesn’t really get better if it trades 1 HP for Spell Damage +1, and Spell Damage +1 is more valuable on a smaller cost minion.

I’m guessing you can immediately see the issue here. Mini Mage doesn’t only trade 1 HP for Spell Damage, which as we saw generally makes the card worse. But also costs one more mana. How did anyone ever thought this was a good idea, let alone for an Epic Card? Well, the designers probably overvalued the synergy between Spell Damage and Stealth. In theory it makes perfect sense that a card that has both Stealth and Spell Damage would be fairly powerful. I mean, the Stealth keeps it from getting killed by enemy minions which means you can use the Spell Power over and over again, right? The problem with that line of thinking is that this requires a minion to sit on the board without attacking. Best case scenario you play this in an open board, your opponent plays a minion, then on the next turn you can shoot it down with a spell thanks to the Spell Damage bonus. Even then you lose out on 4 damage to the face if you want to keep the Stealth. Worst case scenario your opponent whirlwinds, then plays a minion, and all of a sudden you are 3 mana behind.

Are we supposed to start out aggressive, going all face with early minions, then play mini-mage and go face with all the spells aswell, finally attacking for extra 4 damage when you run out of steam? Somehow I’m not buying that line of strategy.

Are we supposed to play all stealth minions and plenty of AOE clear, let your opponent build his board (hitting you in the face for a few turns) and then suddenly wiping him with an spell powered AOE that leaves you in a commanding position? Again, I’m not convinced.

If the Mini-Mage opened really powerful strategies, we could’ve overlooked that he probably costs 1-mana more than he should, but that’s not the case.

Summary of Badness:

• Bad Stats for the Cost.
• Way too vulnerable to AOE.
• Requires rare scenarios to be worth it.

Finding this Card’s Heart

An obvious buff to this card would be to turn it into Azure Drake or Bloodmage Thalnos. But that’s not what we are interested on, we want to stay true to the heart of the card and thus we need ask ourselves what is what really defines this card.

I don’t think this Mini-Mage is based on Warcraft Lore. The Spell Damage +1 and Stealth Combo is likely the key component here. Perhaps it is also important to make sure our finished result still has more attack than health. Personally I don’t like this card’s name too much as I feel 4 mana and attack is way too much for a “Mini-something”.

Possible Improvements

at 3-mana cost, it’d be an alternative to Jungle Panther. While that still seems a bit weak, perhaps the synergy between Stealth and Spell power could actually make the card worth something. What about going greedy with it and cashing into some Spell Power +2? Perhaps at 4 mana, you could afford upping the stats. This seems bad enough that you could give it +1/+1 and it would probably stay in line.

The Results

Is this worse or better than Jungle Panther? Is 3 mana cheap enough to combo this with spells? Does stealth protect the 1-hp body enough for the body to actually matter next turn? Personally, I’m not sure if this would be a good card in the metagame, but unlike the official version, at least this looks like it could be worth considering.

This is a slightly less “Mini” version. The problem with High Attack/Low health minions is that is easy for your opponent to trade-up on them. But Stealth does protect this and makes sure you can try and get a favorable trade. 2 HP also means that this won’t die to Fan of Knives, Swipe, or Whirlwind, which is a very good thing. I like this version a lot, as it provides what potentially could be a strong 4-drop and hopefully even replace Piloted Shredder in some decks.

Finally we have the greedy version. This makes something like Arcane Explosion or Swipe to be insanely better. Still, 1 HP is a huge liability, stealth or not. What I like about this version is that it really feels like it could open different playstyles. This probably isn’t enough to make such playstyles good, but at least its a card that could see it self getting a new-found purpose after a new expansion release. Just look at how Frothing Berserker became a meta-staple when BRM released.

Do you think some of the versions above are still too weak? Maybe absurdly overpowered? Messing with cards without the ability to test them is actually pretty challenging, but I try to do my best.

Be sure to check out past editions of Mending Mondays, and if you have any suggestions, be sure to leave them on the comments or hit me up on Twitter @DannieRay23.