Hearthstone: Situational Cards

In its current state, Hearthstone, after the Goblins vs. Gnomes expansion has just over 380 collectible cards. This number increases to around 500 when you include all of the token cards and other non-collectible cards that exist in the game. Although not all cards are equal in strength when comparing their mana costs, this is usually offset by giving a card an incredibly powerful effect that’s meaningful given certain situations. These cards are typically seen in the ‘Epic’ quality and include cards like Blood Knight, Big Game Hunter, and Hungry Crab. As their title suggests, these are cards that have their moments against certain types of decks and overall how the meta game is in the current state of play.

When the meta ‘slows down’ or in other words, decks that involve slower mana curves, you’ll want to craft a deck that has strong situational cards that counter this type of playstyle. Cards such as Black Knight (6 Mana, 4 Attack, 5 Health), which destroys an enemy taunt upon summoning can really turn the game around for you solely because of its effect. However, in any matchup where you go up against an opponent in which this ability can’t be activated, the card is typically outclassed by other cards in that specific mana slot. For example, you might want to tech Sylvanas Windrunner (5 Health, 5 Attack, Battlecry: When this minion dies steal a random enemy minion) which is far superior in more general situations in comparison. Now although Sylvanas’ effect is incredibly powerful, it doesn’t provide nearly as much tempo as playing Black Knight against a strong enemy taunt does, and there’s no randomness factor that you have to play against either. Now although these cards are incredibly strong given the situation, they stick out like a sore thumb when the meta game changes.

This is fundamentally how these cards are balanced. When a specific type of deck archetype begins to run rampant in Hearthstone ladder, situational cards are there to help give other decks a fighting chance in stopping what the current hot decks are. If Druid’s didn’t have access to hard removal like Big Game Hunter (3 Mana, 4 Attack, 2 Health, Battlecry: Destroy a minion with 7 attack or greater.) you’d see it barely played at all if the ladder is full of ‘Handlocks’ and Control Warriors.

Even though most situational cards are balanced around what the opponent is playing, there are some situational cards that can be added to your deck as a way to give yourself value with some cost attached to it. Cards such as Hungry Crab (1 Mana, 1 Attack, 2 Health, Battlecry: Destroy a Murloc and gain +2 Attack and Health) and Blood Knight (3 Mana, 3 Attack, 3 Health, Battlecry: All minions lose divine shield. Gain +3 Attack and Health for each shield lost), are ways in which you can build your deck to essentially build a stronger minion. Paladins might find themselves running a deck that has a lot of divine shields, and thus decide to tech a Blood Knight in the deck so that they can potentially get a large minion from their own cards. The only trade off in this situation is the fact that the other cards are losing some of their natural value when running these kinds of situational cards. This is offset by the rewards of growing a card into an absolutely monster card that normally wouldn’t be played at such an early point in the game. Dealing with a card that only has 3 health and 3 attack on turn 3 isn’t usually that big of a deal, but dealing with one that has 6 health and 6 attack is much more threatening, and some classes might find it hard to remove the card before it starts gaining any lost value taken on by the player of the card.

One final thing that I’d like to touch on is the fact that the most recent expansions (Naxxramas and Goblins vs. Gnomes) failed to have situational cards built in the expansion upon its release. The way that Blizzard has designed this is rather controversial as if the archetype that Blizzard introduces turns out to be incredibly strong, it’s hard to react to the meta game without simply building decks that also utilize the synergies found within the newest expansion. As such, there currently aren't any cards in the game that specifically gain value out of dealing with mechanical creatures, and thus we see a lot of decks with mechanical token synergy run rampant in ladder because without any way to easily remove these cards, they provide strong amounts of tempo for playing them in your deck. A lot of people see this as a mistake because if a meta game doesn’t have any direct counters, they’ll simply run rampant until Blizzard releases the next set that may include some counters to the current meta game.

Overall though, situational cards have their place in Hearthstone, and more importantly should be largely taken into consideration when filling out the rest of your deck slots. Though be wary that filling your deck with too many of these types of cards leaves your deck thin as they should only be used when they can commonly be found getting yourself value!

Jason Mulchay