With the release of the adventure Tomb of Terror, players might see something that happened around the release of the Dalaran Heist: card buffs. Last set, players received buffs soon after the release. Each class received two cards that got a reduction in mana cost or an increase in health or attack. Granted, some of these were reversed after certain decks became extremely powerful. So perhaps players will see buffs for the Rastakhan’s Rumble set as well. But the big question is: what are the cards that could be buffed and how would they be changed?
Jan’alai, the Dragonhawk
Ever since Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater were sent to the Hall of Fame, Jan’alai has been incredibly useless aside from getting her as a random legendary from Arch-Villain Rafaam. She is never used beyond that. And that is simply because the Mage does not have a consistent way to get her online. Dealing eight damage with the Hero Power throughout the game without any boost available.
The best way to improve this card is to simply lower the requirement to summon Ragnaros. Perhaps cutting it to four instead of eight. This would make summoning him a lot easier and a little more reliable. Most decks now have some way of dealing with large minions like Ragnaros. Yes, the combo with Jan’alai and Kadgar is extremely powerful, but now it is easy to fix it with Brawl and the Plague cards that are now out. So, this would add a nice finisher to the Mage deck without it being an instant win.
Another part that was so big in the Ragnaros department before the Hall of Fame was Frost Lich Jaina. Since Ragnaros is an elemental, he would not only do massive damage, he would also give massive healing. This would make the games incredibly frustrating for the enemy when facing down the enemy. But now, all it is is a ton of damage if the combo goes off.
Princess Talanji
This card has potential. A ton of potential. But getting minions from outside of your deck into your hand. Then another challenge is to summon her with all those minions in your hand. This made her ability incredibly weak in almost every circumstance. The only exception is, again, Arch-Villain Rafaam, since every minion in your deck didn’t start there.
The best way to improve this ability is to change the text a bit. Changing the word “Hand” to “Deck” could make it so much more powerful. This would be a great combo for Surrender to Madness and Spirit of the Dead. With this change, there would be no need to change her health, attack or mana cost.
Hir’eek, the Bat
The worst possible eight mana cost minion in the game. This card has seen little to no play at all. Even when it is generated, it isn’t a good card. This card has the same impact as Rafaam’s Scheme, except it has a major downside. When Evolving your minions, there is a possibility to land on this, while with Rafaam’s Scheme, it is impossible to land on an Imp after the first transformation.
The best way to improve this card is to either increase its attack and health and/or reducing the mana cost to something more reasonable. Perhaps to as low as five mana. This way, when players are Evolving their minions, it is less likely to hit something as bad at higher mana areas. With the higher stats, it makes the ability that much more impactful and sets it apart from anything else. There are so few hand buff cards for Warlock that it won’t cause that much of a problem.
A lower mana cost would also help it synergize with Plague of Flames. This could allow for a cheap full-board clear. It would also work with Grim Rally since you’d be able to play both on the same turn. Just because it would make a powerful board state doesn’t mean that it would be unbeatable. A simple 2/2 would be enough of a boost where it would be significant in a game. And board clears would still exist for it, since there would be cards like Blizzard, Flame Strike, Plague of Death, War Path and a few others that are easy to use.
Other Cards
It isn’t easy to find two cards from each class that could use a buff. However, the cards that got buffed from Boomsday Project weren’t incredibly useful or significant. So perhaps something similar will happen. Or maybe Blizzard will buff cards from Wichwood and save Rastakhan’s Rumble for the next set.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
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