Hearthstone: Underrated Cards of TGT

Sometimes a card game has an eagerly awaited expansion and it doesn’t live up to the hype. The game survives, and in the case of Hearthstone, this is exactly what happened. The Grand Tournament hasn’t been as exciting, groundbreaking, or innovative as most of the players hoped, but it’s not a bad expansion. Cards like Justicar Trueheart, Savage Combatant, and Effigy have revolutionized certain decks, and new archetypes have emerged thanks to cards like Wyrmrest Agent and Mysterious Challenger.

This brings us to the point of the article: although The Grand Tournament may have been a let down, not every card was a bust. Furthermore, there are still cards that have yet to emerge fully into the meta which have the potential to be game changers, but don’t currently fit, or are still being tested to their full potential. This article will go over a couple of these cards and the way, or the situations, in which they can be powerful.

Holy Champion

This card being sidelined at the beginning of TGT is quite understandable. With the advent of Dragon Priest and the ladder domination that the deck brought, standard control priest has largely been put on hold. However, constant experimentation, along with SK Zetalot hitting rank 1 on the ladder with it, has brought Control Priest back into the forefront, with the only TGT cards being Justicar Trueheart and Holy Champion. Justicar has had its strengths realized for a while now as a powerful control card, making its way into Control Warrior as well.

Holy Champion though, has the strength of being a powerful card to play on curve with Injured Blademaster, or a 5/5 for 4 in the late game since you’re generally using your hero power every turn. Light of the Naaru made many players realize the strength of Lightwarden, and Holy Champion can be just as powerful. The card trades up just as easily, and enables ridiculous combos with Pyromancer and Circle of Healing. While the card might not be auto included into most priest decks, it’s a solid card that has made Control Priest much more powerful than it was first thought to be.

Refreshment Vendor

This card was actually hyped quite a bit before The Grand Tournament was released, and was seen as a better tempo card for anti aggro than Antique Healbot. Since you don’t generally deal damage to your opponent until the aggro deck runs out of steam, the health restored to your enemy isn’t a huge deal, and it coming out a turn earlier and being more hardy makes a noticeable difference. However, something occurred that not many people predicted: aggro decks aren’t really played as much anymore. Face Hunter has largely been replaced by Midrange Hunter, and Aggro Paladin has been replaced by Midrange or Secrets Paladin.

So while this card is actually strong, there hasn’t been much of a reason to tech it into decks. This card was seen as a strong replacement for Antique Healbot, but right now the only card that really runs Healbot is Handlock, and they benefit from Healbot much more than other classes. Once a stronger aggro deck that makes heals more of a requirement comes into the meta, we will most likely see more of this card, but for now it’s a card that you shouldn’t just sit on.

Varian Wrynn

The Hearthstone community has had a strange relationship with Varian the last few months. When the card was first announced, it was seen as a very powerful card that would make its way into Control Warrior, and shore up their already strong late game by drawing a bunch of cards with a strong body to back it up. However, after a couple of weeks everyone just kind of seemed to agree it wasn’t that powerful and it was replaced, generally going in favor of Justicar Trueheart, as people realized that she was a good card.

However, the card has largely been forgotten about in the time since then, but it’s still a good card. Drawing three cards that late into the game is usually strong as long as you aren’t in danger of fatigue, and as long as you aren’t wasting any super powerful battlecries once you play it, filling up your board is pretty great. In addition, other than the Control Warrior matchup, most decks aren’t running heavy board clear spells at the moment, making him even more powerful. It’s very possible this card may be the Troggzor of TGT, super hyped before the expansion but then not really used. However only time will tell, and the card shouldn’t be forgotten in the meantime when it’s still such a powerful effect.

Jason Mulchay