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The Grand Tournament Revisited (Standard – Kraken)

by - 8 years ago

 


 

Disclaimer: This article is written for Standard play mode and competitive or ladder play in mind. The content is my subjective impression of the game. If you disagree or like to comment about anything else related to this article please do so below or tweet @OtakuMZ1978. Most importantly I hope you enjoy reading. Have fun!

 

The Grand Tournament Before Standard

When The Grand Tournament (TGT) came out, it was considered a bad expansion. With the extreme power of Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs. Gnomes only a very select number of cards made it into competitive play. Atop of that, the Inspire mechanic did not become a thing. Inspire is powerful but just too slow. Following, you will find TGT cards that were highly relevant in competitive / ladder play (besides fringe play) before Standard (Cards that were flex cards only or saw only fringe play are not included) :

Class cards (13):

living-rootsdarnassus-aspirantbear-trapKing's Elekkarcane-blastcompetitive-spiritmurloc-knightmysterious-challengerancestral-knowledgetotem-golemflash-healwyrmrest-agentBash

 

 

Neutral Cards (6):

argent_horserider_360gormok-the-impalerrefreshment-vendor twilight-guardianjusticar-trueheartchillmaw

 

Is TGT a garbage Expansion then? Yes and no.
14.4% (19 of 132) are not too much impact for a 130+ card expansion, right? We also have to note that Competitive Spirit and Mysterious Challenger did not see regular play in Standard so far because of the loss of Avenge and Muster for Battle. There is a huge “but” though, which I will explain in the next section.

 

Rise!

With Naxx and GvG out and some huge nerfs that happened right before the release of Whispers of the Old Gods we have to find replacements or alternatives for staple cards like Piloted Shredder, Haunted Creeper, BGH, etc. Therefore, with the beginning of the Year of the Kraken and Standard, there is some merit to take a look back and identify cards that are viable right now or that have to potential to emerge from the ashes of TGT.  At this point, I want to give credits for the idea to our friends at hearthhead.com, as they inspired me for this article when they recently released an article by Skiffington called “Surprisingly Relevant Cards in Standard” that focused on basic and classic cards that rose with the advent of Standard. I highly encourage you to check that article out too.

Druid of the Saber, Savage Combatant

DruidoftheSaberFanTranslationsavage combatant

With the introduction of Whispers of the Old Gods, the real advent of Beast Druid has begun. Fandral Staghelm as well as Mark of Y’Shaarj are the tools this archetype needs to make it viable. How viable it will be has yet to be seen, but at least it is reasonably playable. Knight of the Wild, however, will probably continue to see no play, as it is too slow and has no immediate impact. Druid of the Saber is a natural fit. It is good on its own and can be amazing for a 2-drop combined with Fandral. Savage Combatant was a flex card before but has good potential to become a staple in Beast Druid.

Mulch

mulch

With the nerf of Big Game Hunter (BGH), the prime removal for big bodies became a lot less attractive. Now, every class, apart from Hunters, Mages and Warriors, has to consider if it is still worth running BGH or if they are better served using class specific removal. Mulch seems reasonable enough to run being the best hard removal available. I used it and I was positively surprised by its effectiveness without having the feeling that I got backstabbed by the random minion too often. There are plenty of great random minions your opponent can draw off a normally supreme minion removed. Of course, I must admit that it never feels good to give your opponent card advantage.

Ram Wrangler

ram-wrangler

Piloted Shredder is replaced by Infested Wolf which turns Ram Wrangler the obvious follow up on turn 5, at least as a one-of with the Princess Huhuran contesting the 5-Mana slot. The fact that the Spiders that drop from Infested Wolf are beast although helps a lot to consistently being able to trigger the battlecry. Variance of the outcome is quite high, ranging from Stonetusk Boar to King Crush. I’m considering making an infographic and calculating the math behind that card to see if it is reasonable or even favorable to run this conditional card.

Flame Lance

flame-lance

Flame Lance will not likely be included primarily in any Mage list. It is just too expensive compared to the more flexible and lower prized Fireball. Anyway, it is a nice pickup from Ethereal Conjurer or Cabalist’s Tome if you need to remove a big body from the board.

Eadric the Pure

Eadric-the-pure

N’Zoth, Ragnaros Lightlord and, surprisingly, Forbidden Healing have revitalized the Control Paladin Archetype that has fallen out of favor for a long time. Eadric recently saw play in Chakki’s Control Paladin at Dreamhack Austin and I see the potential of it remaining viable in this cycle. Perhaps it is notable that Chakki won the whole tournament securing his first 1st place in a major tournament ever…

Elemental Destruction

elemental-destruction

Shaman is the new big player of Hearthstone classes, literally rising from worst to one of the best classes due to a lot of new very powerful cards introduced with the Old Gods expansion. TGT already had good Shaman cards with Totem Golem and Tuskarr Totemic, but they weren’t enough. We also got Eternal Sentinel as another “unlock overload” card which combos with this very nicely. Maybe we will see a viable control Shaman as we get deeper in the expansion. In theory, Shaman got all the tools for a good control class: prime AoE in the form of Lightning Storm and Elemental Destruction, prime hard removal through Hex, viable silence in the form of Earth Shock and powerful control-y minions like Fire Elemental and Earth Elemental. The more I think about it, I’m getting to work on a good Control Shaman right after finishing this article!

Thunder Bluff Valiant

thunderbluff-valiant

This one was already considered to be good before Standard play mode was introduced, but Shaman wasn’t. It serves midrange as well as the control Archetype with the latter profiting to a lesser extent. There is nothing more to say here than that it already proved to be worthwhile in XiXo’s newest ladder crushing Primal Infusion Totem Shaman.

Varian Wrynn

varian-wrynn

In the last days of pre-Standard, the king already showed his viability in Tempo Warrior. When TGT was announced, he was one of the most hyped cards that never made it into competitive play after initial testing. It was simply overshadowed by the prime archetypes of Control Warrior and Patron Warrior. He simply did not fit the fatigue game of Control Warrior or the general game plan of Patron Warrior. In Tempo Warrior, on the other hand, Varian is a big bomb that helps to find tools to finish the game and provide the kind of pressure that is expected from such a fatty. Additions form Old Gods like Malkorok and Bloodhoof Brave bring even more to the Midrange Warrior (I think midrange is the better description than tempo btw). To stop some of the hype, there are some serious contenders for his spot, namely Nefarian and the Arch-Thief Rafaam himself. Ysera and Deathwing are control tools that do not fit optimally in this archetype.

Flame Juggler

Flame Juggler

Flame Juggler took aggro and aggressive midrange style decks by a rush. It is a better fit for these kind of decks that are not as minion centric as Zoo Warlock. Simply put, the guaranteed one damage from Flame Juggler is often better than the possibility of more. This card combines a good and consistent tempo effect with vanilla stats which results in a superior card.

The End?

I have so many more cards up my sleeve that are resident sleepers but are not as obvious as the ones mentioned above. If this article is received well, I will come back to these cards in a second part.


Martin "OtakuMZ" Z.

Real life physician and afterhour card battler. Martin "OtakuMZ" contributes to the Hearthstone team of BlizzPro since late 2015. Additionally, he contributes analytic articles for Hearthstone and Gwent as a member of Fade2Karma and in his collumn on the Gwentlemen site. He is best known for his infographics which can be accessed at a glance at https://www.facebook.com/hsinfographics and https://www.facebook.com/gwentinfographics


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