Running Wild: Cards To Keep Post Rotation

Introduction

Greetings, dear readers, and welcome to another installment of ”Running Wild”, the article series where I cover just about everything related to the wild format. We are two months away from the next standard rotation and some players have probably begun saving their dust and gold. Many of those players are probably going to dust their non standard cards to gather dust for the upcoming cards and this article is for those players. If you’re thinking about dusting your cards but you don’t know what is safe to keep and what is not, in case that you’ll want to give wild a go in the near or distant future, then this article is for you. Here I will go through every card that I deem worth keeping for the wild format aka the ”not safe to dust because wild exists” cards.

There are a LOT of cards to go through so I will go through only those that are really important and/or epic and/or legendary because you can always easily re-craft commons and rares.

With all that out of the way, sit back, relax and let’s just jump into this 🙂

All C’Thun Cards

This goes without saying.

cthun has a mechanic that is unique to the Whispers of the Old Gods set and has been confirmed to never be printed again. It is a mechanic that has been removed from the arena as well and the only place where you can play with it will soon be the wild format. Sure, cthun decks aren’t as powerful as they used to be, at this moment, but there is always a possibility that, if given some sort of support in the upcoming sets, they will be powerful once more. The only functioning cthun deck right now is cthun druid (proud owner of a fully golden deck) because warrior is still recovering from the last nerf and cthun priest has never been a thing (nor can I imagine it ever being a thing but it is priest so you never know). I think that if you dust your cthun cards that you will be missing out on a unique gameplay experience that can be obtained only through them, which would be a shame. If you’re adamant on dusting them then at least keep your cthun because it is the most expensive part of the deck and you’ll have to craft it again if you ever wish to play a cthun deck. Other cards are commons and rares so it is ok to dust those.

All Jade Druid Cards

Just like cthun, this goes without saying.

Jade mechanic is one of the most, if not the most, busted mechanics in the entire game and it is soon going to rotate into the wild format. It is safe to say that we are never going to see it again, thankfully, so if you will want to play it again then you will have to do so in the wild format. Why would you want to do that? Well, contrary to the popular belief, there are people out there who genuinely enjoy this mechanic, me being one of those sick, twisted bastards. Like the mechanic or not, we can’t deny that it is extremely broken, especially in druid, a class that has seen better days. Jade cards provide you with a board presence in a good portion of shaman decks and have a whole deck build around them for druid. A deck that, above all else, is a control killer so if the meta ever goes too far into the control direction (hahahahahaha) you will have something to combat it with.

Fandral Staghelm

For the love of all that is good and holy in this world, do not dust fandral-staghelm. It is, without a doubt, the single most powerful druid card in the game. Yes, even more powerful than ultimate-infestation. fandral-staghelm is a part of what I call the ”Eternal value trinity”, the 3 most powerful minions, in terms of value, in the entire game. The other two are brann-bronzebeard and nzoth-the-corruptor. This is a card that will only get better as time goes on and more choose one: cards are introduced to the game. You literally can’t lose value if you keep fandral-staghelm. Besides, it is a staple in many druid decks (it should be in all of them but that is just my opinion). In summary, if you have fandral-staghelm, keep him. If you don’t have fandral-staghelm, craft him, you won’t regret it.

Vilefin Inquisitor

I hate everything that this card stands for. Just remembering that it exists fills me with untold amounts of salt.  Why am I so salty about this card? Did I lose to often to murloc paladin? I play wild so no, not really. Why does it bother me so much? It bothers me because it encourages paladins to play murlocs. Paladins…playing…murlocs. I haven’t played WoW in years but I’m a huge Warcraft lore fanatic and paladins are without a doubt my all time favorite class in the entire lore. Champions of all that is good and just in the world, standing tall against all those who would seek to bring harm to others, the jedi knights of the Warcraft universe….and their main deck in Hearthstone are murlocs?! Really? Gone are the days of the classic control paladin, now there is only murlocs, sometimes mixed with aggro paladin, but more often than not murlocs. Ugh, I can’t stand it. Just imagine Uther training young Arthas in a room filled with random murlocs that are just standing there and being useless -.-”

Enough about the lore. I deem this card as a necessity for non combo murloc paladin decks. It transforms your silver hand recruits into murlocs, minions that then later get buffed by other minions, and although I haven’t nor will ever play this deck I can’t imagine it being played without this card. As much as it pains me to say this…keep it, you will need it to continue playing this deck (not that you would want to but ok)

Evolve and Devlove

You’ve probably noticed the trend by now. All cards on this list are the key cards that you will need in order to make certain decks work and although I’ve said that I won’t be mentioning commons and rares, these two are super essential so I can’t skip them. evolve is an essential card if you wish to play evolve shaman. Woooow, who would have though?! Now, I’ve got a confession to make…I’m really, really, really enjoying evolve shaman in the wild format. It is the most fun that I’ve had with this game in a long time and that says a lot because I’ve pretty much stopped playing between Knights of the Frozen Throne and Kobolds and Catacombs. It is this deck that brought me back and I’ll gladly share it with you in the next article.

devolve is a card that you don’t necessarily need in order to play evolve shaman. Lately it has been seeing play in various wild shaman decks because it can provide you with a lot of value. It is a semi board clear that can counter combos and deal with oppressive boards. Lately I’ve been running two of these cards in all of my evolve shaman decks (I have several of them) and they have been doing wonders for me. My absolute favorite interaction is between devolve and living-mana. Play against druid, wait for them to play living-mana, play devolve and take away all of their mana crystals. I honestly can’t praise this card enough. There is a malygos with stealth on the board? devolve. Druid has a board of 1/5 taunt minions preventing you from going face? devolve. Opponent has a ton of jade golems on the board? Concede.

N’Zoth the Corruptor

nzoth-the-corruptor is one of the three best cards in the game, as mentioned above. This card is value incarnate. It goes into any deathrattle deck and it will get stronger as more deathrattle cards come out. It is one of those eternal value cards that will just keep going up in value and can’t possibly lose in value unless they themselves get nerfed. Although it has been 2 years since nzoth-the-corruptor came out, it still sees play in a lot of different decks, and now with cubelock opening doors to new deathrattle combos and possibilities, and extremely powerful deathrattle minions like voidlord, nzoth-the-corruptor is just going to go up in power. You know, here is my prediction for this card. It is pretty clear that the developers don’t really care about the wild format. To me, voidlord is a sign that they are getting more comfortable with making powerful deathrattle cards now that nzoth-the-corruptor is about to rotate out and I think that the next set, the April set, will have some pretty insane deathrattle cards. I really hope so because I love nzoth-the-corruptor and I can’t wait for it to get new toys 🙂 DON’T DUST THIS ONE!

Barnes

I originally wanted to say that you shouldn’t dust any adventure cards at all because there is no way of opening them in packs so you will need to craft them again but I’m sure that some of you wouldn’t listen to me anyway so here are some One Night in Karazhan cards that I urge you not to dust. Don’t dust barnes, barnes is a great card with a lot of potential to become even greater as time goes by. It is essential for a Big Priest deck because it summons huge stuff that you can easily resurrect for a cheaper price. It fits well into any deathrattle heavy deck if the deathrattle is really good. Imagine playing barnes and then pulling out a 1/1 voidlord that then dies and you get three voidwalkers. It can work in some combo decks. There has always been talk about barnes and malygos combo deck but I’m pretty sure that we will need to wait until a card that allows us to shuffle our hand and draw new cards comes out before this combo sees the light of day. In summary, great card with a lot of potential, don’t dust it.

Arcane Giant

arcane-giant is one of the better giants out there. Last year there were a few decks that were playing it, including miracle druid and giants mage, and I think that I even saw some miracle rogues playing two copies simply because it was easy to get it out fast and for cheap. Nowadays you see even more of them being played thanks to, you’ve guessed it, naga-sea-witch. There is a deck that has been going around lately and it is called Giants Warlock. Some version that I’ve seen play arcane-giant. Basically, you play some spells, you draw some cards, you play a naga-sea-witch and then you slam cheap, often 0 cost, giants from your hand onto the battlefield and watch as your opponent concedes. arcane-giant will surely see play in some future spell heavy combo decks or other giants deck so I would hold on to it.

Drakonid Operative and Dragonfire Potion

drakonid-operative and dragonfire-potion are key cards for every dragon priest deck out there. This is really a mindless one. You want to make a dragon priest deck. You open your collection, enter ”dragon” in the search bar, look up priest cards and immediately put these two inside. I especially love dragonfire-potion. Because it is the nature of the wild format to be plagued by standard decks because people don’t have the necessary dust for wild cards you don’t see many dragon priests nowadays, nor dragon decks at all, so dragonfire-potion works wonders against most of the decks out there. It clears the board while keeping your board intact, most of the time. Also, because dragons are a popular tribe, dragon priest will always be getting new support so I would not get rid of this card…ever. Don’t dust it. If you don’t have it, craft it. Same goes for drakonid-operative.

Kazakus

Second to last spot on this list goes to kazakus.

This is simply put a staple highlander deck card. I can’t imagine anyone playing a Reno deck and not wanting to run kazakus. Ok, I can imagine every class besides mage, priest and warlock not running kazakus but you get my point. This is one of those cards that is just a shame not to keep. Reno decks will always have great support, even if there are no more highlander exclusive cards coming in the near or distant future, and you will always want to run kazakus in them so why would you dust it? Like with many other cards on this list, I honestly urge you to craft this one if you don’t have it. It can provide you with some really powerful, game changing swings, especially if you play it with brann-bronzebeard for some nice extra value. Can’t go wrong with kazakus, get it and never dust it 🙂

Patches the Pirate

I’M IN CHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGE NOW!!!!!!!!!!! 

(pretty self explanatory)

Honorable Mention

I want to put raza-the-chained here as an honorable mention simply because I firmly believe that it is going to get nerfed soon and I don’t know how good will it be after the nerf. They might nerf it into making the hero power cost 1 or they might nerf it in a way that it does something completely new or increase its cost or make it completely unplayable and bad so I don’t feel comfortable in putting it anywhere on this list. If the upcoming nerf, if there is any, doesn’t kill this card then I guess that it is safe to keep it for your wild games. I’ve wrote a pretty lengthy explanation on why I think this card should be nerfed and you can find it right over here.

Conclusion

We’ve reached the end of yet another ”Running Wild” article. I hope that my suggestions have helped you if you’ve been struggling with deciding what cards to dust and what cards to keep.

For those of you who want to see more deck guides, don’t worry, I’ve got an article coming up on the 28th and it will cover wild evolve shaman, the deck that I’m playing right now.

Do you have any cards of epic/legendary rarity that you would add to this list? Are there any cards that you would like to see removed from this list? Leave your comments and feedback in the comment section below. A s always  if you’ve liked this article do consider following me on twitter https://twitter.com/Eternal_HS. There you can ask me all sorts of Hearthstone questions (unrelated to this article) and I’ll gladly answer them as best as I can!