The Grand Tournament Cards Review PT. 3

Welcome to the last part of this series! I hope you all have enjoyed it so far, and I look forward to doing it for the next set whenever that is! Find part 2 here.

In this series, we’re going to focus on The Grand Tournament cards that aren’t stellar and explain how they can be used to their best potential. I’ll start out with how each card can be used in constructed, and what type of deck it could be used in (even including a few deck lists), and then moving on to how it can be used in arena. I will be telling you when to pick it and what type of deck it should be in, as that can be more difficult with the RNG of arena.

Undercity Valiant

Undercity Valiant is the little brother of SI:7 Agent. One less mana, health, and damage from the combo effect and it is still a pretty solid card. The hard part is finding cards for it to combo with, since you want it to hit the field pretty early to remove some smaller creatures.

With constructed, this could be played in a Zoo Rogue deck. Being able to hit and remove an opponent’s creature and having a 3/2 take the field is pretty strong. It would also be easy to trigger the combo since Zoo runs lower cost creatures. Another thing is the fact it is in Rogue. Rogue has strong removal cards with weapon buffs such as Deadly Poison and Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil.

This is one of Rogue’s strongest cards in arena. It allows you to remove a creature and gain a creature. Board presence is everything, and if you can get this out by turn three or four, you will have a very easy game ahead of you. Make sure you don’t have too many two-drops though, as you will have to wait longer to cast this, and make sure you have solid zero or one-drops to play before it.

Elemental Destruction

This is another board wipe for Shaman other than Lightning Storm. It is a little less user-friendly but it does deal more damage. Base of Lightning Storm is two and base of Elemental Destruction is four for the same mana cost. This can even be buffed from your Spell Damage Totem, but the bad part of this is the Overload 5. Locking all of your mana on turn four is pretty harsh, especially with almost every deck running Piloted Shredder. Even if you do wait to play this, locking five mana at any time is pretty harsh.

The decks I’ve seen this played and worked well in are Malygos Shaman or Dragon Shaman, which are pretty similar. This allows you to stabilize the early game and not worrying about taking too much damage while still having a really strong late game to come back. Twilight Guardian is also outside of the damage range of Elemental Destruction, which makes it a great card so you can take little damage during your turn with no mana.

This is decent in arena, as it can wipe the board and allow to catch up if you are down, but it can also be a big drawback if you use it at a bad time. If you do play this, be careful as to when. Also, make sure you aren’t sacrificing too many of your own creatures when you do.

Charged Hammer

This is the fourth weapon for Shaman and is one of the most unique weapons in the game. It’s not the first weapon with Deathrattle, but it follows the path of being focused on Hero Powers. It mimics the weapon in the Ragnaros vs. Nefarian Tavern Brawl, but with a much weaker effect in comparison. It comes in at a hefty four mana for just a 2/4 weapon, which means that the earliest you can trigger it is turn eight.

Constructed is very difficult for this card, as you have Doomhammer competing for just one more mana, and it can lay out double the damage. If you do end up playing this, you could possibly play it in a Spell Damage Shaman, where laying out damage from your Hero Power is going to be helpful. Also, don’t play anything that relies on Totems if you are going to play this. You will end up losing your ability to make Totems and you will just have useless cards in your deck.

Arena is a little more flexible and this card can be very useful because of how little the Totem Hero Power does and also the fact you can just put an extra two damage down anywhere you want. This helps you keep a board presence, or helps you put pressure on the opponent. Make sure you aren’t taking too many weapons, but if you take more than one weapon you can attack with Charged Hammer, then play your next weapon and get the new Hero Power quicker.  

Demonfuse

Demonfuse is a pretty unique card due to the fact that it is the one of two cards in Warlock that deals with your mana. They both put you “down” one mana, but I think this card is a little better. It gives you a huge bonus to your Demon, and it makes it very difficult to kill early on. Another bonus is that the mana effect goes away late game since your opponent will be maxed out, and you still get the +3/+3.

The best deck I have seen this played in is Demon Zoolock. With the amount of strong Demons out there today, and becoming easier to stick to the board, this is a definite in this deck. It allows you to push early pressure, which is huge when playing Zoo. It also makes your creatures extremely hard to kill, and the extra mana will just throw your opponent off.

The biggest thing to make sure of in arena is that you have Demons, and if you only have one or two it’s going to be an empty card just sitting in your hand. Another thing is, don’t play Demonfuse if the opponent has a creature that can trade in and kill it. You lose two cards for their one and they gain an extra mana crystal.

Thank you guys for reading the series! Feel free to go back and read the rest of the series if you missed any! Feel free to follow me on Twitter @McGuinnessMac or add me on the NA Hearthstone server JMcG#1300.