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.

Master Jouster is the love-child of Sunwalker and Pit Fighter with the blessing of RNGsus, it has a chance at being a bigger Sunwalker, but it can also be a more expensive Pit Fighter. But how does this unholy union fare when put under the microscope? Not well, really.

Why is it so bad?

There are many problems with Master Jouster, the first of which is the relation with the aforementioned cards. Both Sunwalker and Pit Fighter don’t really see play, why would this one see competitive light? Yeah I know its not that simple, but lets go a level deeper. How better than Sunwalker would this be? The big thing is how he trades against 5/5 minions. You can completely swallow a Loatheb, or an Ancient of Lore. The problem is that Sylvanas can get insane value against this dude. But there’s an even bigger problem, when you really need a taunt, you really need a taunt.  A chance at a measly +1/+1 doesn’t really mean much when your joust fails and you just lose the game. At 6 mana, this is a joust that many times you can’t afford to fail, and even if you should have a decent chance of winning jousts against Aggro decks, the extra attack and damage isn’t doing that much, and not definitely not enough to compensate for all the games that a failed joust will lose you.

Sadly, if we compare this to Sunwalker, Master Jouster is a bad alternative for a card that doesn’t really see play.

But what if this is not meant to be a defensive card? Maybe this is just supposed to be a beefy minion that gets decent trades in the later stages of the game, even then, this appears to lack the required punch.

Summary of Badness:

• Unreliable
• Not good average value

Finding this Card’s Heart

This is Simple, Big Jousting Minion, Taunt and Divine Shield are highly recommended. Lets Roll!

Possible Improvements

First things first, Taunt should be guaranteed. Taunt is one of those things you don’t want to gamble on, the reason to play taunt minions is simple, protect your face. Unless taunt is guaranteed this is just a “heavy minion” and its not good enough as a heavy minion. So either guarantee the taunt or lose it all together.

There is not much to be said, this guy needs a slight power-up and maybe some extra oomph statwise. Lets see what we can do about him.

The Results

This is the defensive version, baseline its a 5/6 Taunt minion. With a bit of luck it also has divine shield. This should be enough of a buff to make this card a decent consideration for decks that don’t have a clear defensive wall such as the Druid’s Ancient of War. Perhaps this would’ve been a good defensive option to challenge Sludge Belcher for his slot in some decks.

Meanwhile, this is the Beefy McStrongjouster version. It’s a slightly worse Boulderfist Ogre, but it has a chance at becoming a very strong threat. A 6/8 Divine Shield minion is nothing to scoff at, specially for just 6 mana. Is this strong enough to warrant a deckslot somewhere? Is it too strong? You can let me know using the comment section below.

Can’t get enough of Mending Mondays? Check out all past editions here! Want to give your Hearthstone Brain a workout? Maybe try these cool puzzles. Don’t forget to take a look at my Top 5 ranking of Hearthstone Expansions.