by JR Cook - 8 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 competition-based mind, every non-joke card should at least be a decent fit in a viable deck. Just ignore the fact that some bad cards do have their purpose design-wise, ok? Still, I believe 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.

Interesting concept, but poor execution. This is a minion that boast a rather interesting mechanic, but an interesting mechanic does not a playable card make.

Why is it so bad?

Would you play a  vanilla 2 mana 2/4? You probably thought about it, maybe it would be worth it in some decks, but I don’t think that would be an auto include. a 2/4 is ok, and has its uses, but its not good enough to warrant such a punishing ability, that’s exactly what makes the Argent Watchman a complete afterthought. Compare it with the Ancient Watcher, the trusty statue packs a lot more value when Silenced or Taunted up, making it worth it for some decks. The Argent Watchman has no such value.

Summary of Badness:

• Awful negative ability.
• Stats not good enough to compensate.

Finding this Card’s Heart

To be honest this card is pretty straight forward, an interesting use of the inspire mechanic. We want to leave the text unchanged, but the statline should be tweaked in someway to make this card worth its salt.

Possible Improvements

Make him one mana, playing this guy on 1 mana would allow you curve nicely into a turn 2 hero power. This might be specially useful with a class that has Hero Powers that can be somewhat worth using on that second turn. Summoning a Recruit or Totem is at least something, and you can’t go wrong with drawing a card, specially if you have a sturdy minion to do the early trades. Even as a 2/3, it might be a worthy replacement for Zombie Chow in slow warlock lists. As a 1 mana card, it can also be followed up with an Ironbeak Owl so it can attack freely. Maybe Sparring Partner or Sunfury Protector could also be interesing follow-up options.

If not one mana, maybe then 3 mana would be key. Combining him with something Wailing Soul, Spellbreaker, or even Keeper of the Groove could give this guy a niche spot on Silence lists.

The Results

To be fair, this might be stat point too strong. But I’d really like to see how this version would play out. I guess a 2/3 might be more inline with how things work in Hearthstone but this should at least be a nice experiment. Probably too strong with Sunfury or Sparring Partner?

Turn 2 Ancient Watcher, Turn 3 Argent Watchman, Turn 4 Wailing Soul = The Dream.  This is a nice and flexible card that can be decent even on its own, and can probably be a great board presence with combined with a turn 4 silencer such as Keeper or Spellbreaker. I’m a sucker for Wailing Soul decks and I’d love to see the archetype get stronger tools, but this is probably 1 stat point too strong as well.

How would you build a deck using these versions of the cards? Are they ok, or did I go too far with the buffs? Let me know using the comment section below.

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