Top 10 Neutral Wild Cards

Introduction

Greetings, dear readers, and welcome to the first installment of ”Top 10’s”, an article series where I walk you through my own top 10 ”something Hearthstone” list. The spoiler season is upon us and, for my currently last Top 10’s article, I chose to go with a much wider card pool. Instead of going with wild cards from a single class, I will go with  neutrals. What better way to currently end this series than to do a Top 10 wild neutral cards format. Remember, this list is only my opinion and it might be different than your own Top 10’s list. Hopefully we will agree to at least some degree 🙂

Sit back, relax, and let’s dive right into this! 🙂

Number 10

justicar-trueheart is going to start of our list. Selecting the tenth card for this list was a very difficult task, almost as difficult as choosing the number one spot, because all of the cards on these list are among the best cards in the entire game. Some of you know this already but for those who are just joining us, welcome, control warrior is my favorite deck in the entire game and justicar-trueheart is the all star of that deck. It was in that deck that I’ve discovered this card and, as being unbiased as much as I can, I can say that it honestly deserves the number 10 spot. justicar-trueheart is played in control warrior and control/reno priest and while that isn’t a large number of decks, the ability that this card has is absolutely insane. The buffs to your hero powers (gain 4 armor/heal for 4) are insane. If you’ve ever played against a warrior or a priest with the upgraded hero power then you know just how hard it is to kill them once your opponent starts using the hero power more often. Honestly, justicar-trueheart is good in other classes, most of them, like paladin for example, but there aren’t really that many decks to put it in right now. I think that this is a very solid card and a good way to start off this top 10 list 🙂

Number 9

If there is one card that I greatly miss in the standard format then it is loatheb. loatheb came out in Curse of Naxxramas, the first ever Hearthstone expansion, and it was made as a counter to miracle rogue. For those of you who weren’t there at that point in time, you’ve had an encounter with loatheb and it was the most brutal, sadistic, nightmare inducing, heroic boss battle that I’ve ever had the displeasure to play. It was one of those encounters where you just had to have the absolute best starting hand imaginable or else loatheb would roflstomp you in 4 to 5 turns. I’ve lost so many nerves on that encounter that it is amazing that I’m still mentally sane after beating it. If you’re new to the game then I strongly recommend that you buy the old Curse of Naxxramas for yourself and see what a real heroic challenge looks like, not that poor excuse of a heroic mode that we got with One Night in Karazhan.

Enough of history, let’s talk a bit about the card itself and its role here.loatheb is the only card in the entire game that has this unique spell stopping effect. Yes, there will soon a another card with a similar effect, but loatheb has better stats for the cost and its ability only effects your opponent. It shuts down every spell combo deck in the game and buys you a single turn that can make a huge difference between winning and losing the game.

Number 8

mad-scientist is, like most of the cards on this list, a first expansion all star. It is a staple card in freeze mage and a few hunter decks due to its ability to draw…no, play secret cards. This play or summon part of the effect is HUGE. It is extremely powerful in a freeze mage deck because it helps you get your ice-block without having to dig for it. It is also played in every non aggro hunter deck because hunter has quite a lot of powerful secrets. This card is basically deathrattle: get a free secret from your deck. It is still a staple in every deck that runs secrets with the exception of secret paladin because it has a much better way of putting the secrets from the deck into play. It is a common card which means that it is dirt cheap to craft and I highly recommend crafting a pair of mad-scientists. A well deserved 8th spot 🙂

Number 7

We’ve reached our first Hall of Fame card on this list and that honor goes to sylvanas-windrunner. Wait, ain’t Hall of Fame cards extremely powerful and that is why they are banned from standard? No, not necessarily. Some card are powerful and those are mostly class cards but sylvanas-windrunner was moved because it was limiting the design space. There was no need to put any 6 cost neutral minion instead of her into your deck. This doesn’t mean that the card itself is overpowered, it just means that it is the best neutral choice for a certain spot and making new same cost cards would require those cards to be even more powerful or else there wouldn’t be any reason to use them.

sylvanas-windrunner was often voted as the best neutral legendary minion in the entire game. This is, of course, false. Honestly, the difference between sylvanas-windrunner and the two out of three best legendary minions in the game (fandral-staghelm is one of them) is huge. I know that you might be thinking ”What minions are those?” and I will not reveal them until we get to spots 1 and 2.

sylvanas-windrunner is overall a great card. It has an amazing deathrattle which forces your opponent to play around it unless they want to lose a powerful minion. She is a threat that must be answered as soon as she hits the board because it is not safe to let her stick around. Due to this, she has a huge impact on your opponent’s plans which is always a good thing in a competitive environment. With all of that taken into consideration, I’m going to give sylvanas-windrunner the 7th spot on this list. Why is such a great card getting such a low spot? Well, first of all, it is not a low spot. There are several hundred neutral minions in the game so being the 7th from the top is extremely high. sylvanas-windrunner is a legendary minion that, despite all of its qualities, has a nieche role in a deck and that is all that she is good for. The other cards on this list, especially once we get to the last 5, are the cream of the crop, the best of the best, but number 7 is great as well 🙂

Number 6

And here is the second and the last Hall of Fame card on this list. azure-drake is one of the many cards that were deemed too design restrictive to be in the standard format and was moved to the Hall of Fame. It was also my first rare card ever (and it was a golden one!!!) so it has a special place in my heart.

This dragon sees a ton of play. Let me list a several deck that run it: maly druid, token druid, ramp druid, midrange hunter, dragon paladin, midrange paladin, tempo mage, freeze mage, reno mage, miracle rogue, midrange shaman, totem shaman, tempo shaman, aggro shaman, dragon priest, reno priest, control priest and dragon warrior, just to name a few. This card is obviously one of the most played cards of all time and that is due to amazing stats, a useful tribe and two extremely good effects. Also, all none reno decks on this list run two copies of it. It provides you with additional burst or board clear power, it helps your dragon synergy and it draws you a card when you need one. Is there anything that this card doesn’t do?! :O I think that number 6 is a perfect spot for this card 🙂

Number 5

Ok, let’s be honest for a second. Deciding where to place emperor-thaurissan was a really hard call. It was honestly either the 6th or the 5th spot but I’ve eventually decided to place it on the 5th spot.

emperor-thaurissan came out in Blackrock Mountain, the second adventure, at it is the best legendary in the entire adventure. Luckily for all, it came in the very first wing so getting it was quite easy. Over the years, emperor-thaurissan has played a huge part in almost every combo deck out there. It made miracle rogue smoother, it had helped out freeze mage to get more burst, it even has a spot in my Maly shaman. However, the deck where this card hard reached infamy is the dreaded, the now nerfed, Patron warrior. Oh, boy, this card was a nightmare in that deck because it would reduce the cost of most damage dealing spells to 0 and allow the grim-patron value train to reach full speed. The card has a very unique effect, it has great stats for the cost and, most of all, it is easily obtainable. This is why I award emperor-thaurissan the 5th spot on this list 🙂

Number 4

Ok, now we’ve reach the four very best neutral minions not only in the wild format but also in the entire game. These four minions are absolutely crazy and a staple in many decks. We’re carcking the top four with one of the most powerful and most played minions in the entire wild format, the dreaded piloted-shredder. Just how good is the piloted-shredder? Well, to put it into perspective, piloted-shredder has been seeing play in almost every deck in the game ever since it came out in Goblins vs Gnomes. The only reason why it is no longer seeing play in the standard format is because, well, it isn’t a part of the standard format.

Ever since I saw this card I knew that it was absurd. You get two minions for the cost of one and, most important, you get a 2 cost minion out of your 4 cost minion. As we all know, or at least the majority of us, there is some balancing issue regarding the 2 cost minions which results in most of them being completely insane. You can get some really powerful minion from your piloted-shredder but you can also get something that will completely hinder you like doomsayer. I think that piloted-shredder into doomsayer was even a popular meme at some point (it had to be).

In summary, piloted-shredder is a complete beast with a stupid powerful deathrattle. It saw play ever since it was introduced, it was and still is played in almost every deck in the format, and I’m more than pretty sure that this alone makes it worthy of the 4th spot on my list 🙂

Number 3

What is better than a minion that, on deathrattle, summons another minion? Well, a taunt minion that, on deathrattle, summons another taunt minion, which is why sludge-belcher is the best non legendary neutral minion in the entire game. Just like a few other cards on this list, sludge-belcher came out in Curse of Naxxramas adventure. It seems like, back then, the developers had a really hard time balancing the game and the result of that were some of the most powerful minions in the game. sludge-belcher  is your staple taunt minion in every wild deck. There is literally no reason as to why would you ever not run a sludge-belcher in your deck. It is an amazing minion, really one of the best in the game if not the best neutral non legendary minion in the deck, and I can’t think of a batter one for the 3rd spot 🙂 with that out of the way, let’s move into the last two minions which are also the very best minions in the game.

Number 2?

So, what are the two best cards in the game? brann-bronzebeard and nzoth-the-corruptor. Wait, did I just reveal the number 1 spot as well? Isn’t nzoth-the-corruptor a standard card? Yes, it is, though by playability and power, it is more of a wild card. I was originally thinking on putting nzoth-the-corruptor on the first spot but then I’ve remembered that it is a standard card so now I’m winging it 😛

Hm, this isn’t working out…ok, let’s give this a shot.

 

Number 2

reno-jackson is now a wild exclusive card so I can put it on my list. This is the real number 2 card. Why did I choose reno-jackson?

I’ve chosen this card because of the way that it had impacted the deck building ever since it came out in League of Explorers. reno-jackson was the card that made highlander decks, now called reno decks, a possible thing in Hearthstone. As I highlander MtG player, I love that deck archetype and I was very excited to see it come to Hearthstone. reno-jackson had proven itself to be an amazing card that spawned three well known Reno decks: Renolock, Reno mage and Reno priest. It is also the best healing card in the entire game because it can heal you back to full health. Yes, there is a drawback when it comes to this card, the fact that you need to play a no duplicate deck, and because of that the construction of a Reno deck is not the easiest task for most players. The drawback is big but the payoff is huge! A most deserved spot 2 😀

Number 1

The number one spot goes to none other than brann-bronzebeard. This is without a doubt one of the three most powerful minions in the game (next to the flaming druid guy and the kraken old god which had tried to sneak its way in). Here is the reason why:

brann-bronzebeard is an eternal value card which means that it will always only go up in power. Think about it for a second. brann-bronzebeard is great when combined with powerful battlecry effects. This means that whenever a new set comes out, brann-bronzebeard has the potential to become even more powerful. Whenever a new set comes out. This means that brann-bronzebeard is one of those cards that will never ever go down in power. It has the potential to only go up in power and value as more and more cards are introduced to the game. This is why brann-bronzebeard is, in my opinion, the best neutral wild exclusive card in the game 😀

Conclusion

This is it. We’ve reached the end of our latest ”Top 10’s” article 🙂 I hope that you’ve liked it and, by all means, let me know what are your picks for the top 10 wild neutral cards? Do you agree with this list? What cards would you put in the top 5? Let me know in the comments below and be sure to drop by next time when I’ll be covering the new cards 😀  As 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!

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