Nightmare Amalgam: More than a meme?

Nightmare Amalgam is extremely silly. As its name suggests, it’s an unholy combination of every tribe in Hearthstone; Beast, Murloc, Dragon, Demon, Elemental, Totem, and of course Pirate. But aside from being funny, the card might actually be competitive. At a 3/4 statline, it passes the vanilla test.

But this alone isn’t enough to merit a serious inclusion in Constructed decks; after all, Auctionmaster Beardo is only seeing play for its effect rather than its competitive neutral body. With that said, its unique blend of tribes might be worth consideration in a number of decks.

The tribal of last resort

A tribal panacea?

A lot of decks rely on having a minimum quantity of tribal minions. Midrange Beast Hunter, Dragon Priests and Murloc decks have all run sub-par minions in order to maintain a minimum level of synergistic cards. Beast Hunter has run meh minions like Infested Wolf and Carrion Grub, Dragon Priests have found room for Faerie Dragons, and Murloc decks often contain borderline Murlocs like Grimscale Chum, Bluegill Warrior and Coldlight Seer.

Compared to these minions, a 3 mana 3/4 doesn’t look that bad, especially when considering the rotation of 3 sets. The smaller card pool may just lead Nightmare Amalgam to becoming a temporary boon, at least until more powerful tribal minions are added. When considering the power of cards like Duskbreaker that almost necessitate a tribal deck to be built around them, the Amalgam might be a serious consideration.

Shaman synergy?

Powerful elemental synergies combined with Murloc early game power is inconsistent: for now

In terms of classes, Nightmare Amalgam might become surprisingly powerful in Shaman. Shaman has a number of potent synergies with Totems, Murlocs, and Elementals. Though some of these synergies rotate out, there is great potential here. A Murloc that also powers the Elemental train could work in some sort of abomination mix of Elemental and Murloc Shaman, or maybe simply combining Elemental and Totem synergies could be enough.

All this depends on two things; firstly, it would require Shaman to get more tribal support for its Totems and Murlocs to replace the tools like Thing from Below and Call in the Finishers that rotate out. Secondly, it would require Shaman to be a competitive midrange minion-based deck, which may be unlikely depending on how much help the class gets each expansion. Regardless, it may be worth playing around with, if only for those Ice Fishings off Hagatha.

Wild synergies

In Wild, Patches and the Curator might work; but card competition is stiff

Nightmare Amalgam might find a home in some Wild decks. As well as summoning Patches, it has a number of other secondary synergies. The Curator is a prime example, filling in the slot of any given missing tribal. It could also work well with the other Menagerie minions like Zoobot in tribal decks, while still benefiting from the deck’s main synergistic focus. Alternatively, just having a Patches-summoning beast could be worth running in some Wild Hunters.

However, this might be overly optimistic. Since the Patches nerf, the benefit of being a Pirate is naturally weakened, and Wild decks don’t suffer for powerful options. With all that said, the sheer array of powerful potentialities means that it’s probably worth a bet that Nightmare Amalgam sees constructed play at some point. Just try and dodge those crabs.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via Hearthstone.gamepedia.com.

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