The Story Behind Patches the Pirate
Ben Brode explained on reddit this afternoon the story behind Patches the Pirate.
Quote from Ben BrodeStory time!Once upon a time this card was 'Dragon Whelp' in Blackrock Mountain. Same cool trigger, but it didn't have Charge, and wasn't Legendary. It meant that the first dragon you played always came with two 1/1 Whelps. The fact that Faerie Dragon is a Dragon (in Hearthstone) made this a little weird for us. We also wanted Dragons to (in general) be high-cost cards (because of the "if you're holding a dragon" trigger, and because we wanted Priest to have the only 1-Cost Dragon), so we booted the card to the next set and made a note to try it as a Legendary minion (so you'd only get a single 1/1.)
I think we briefly considered making it a Murloc, because it fit well with their swarm-like gameplay, but for some reason it felt the most fun as a Pirate. Once we made it Legendary, we tried it as a 2/1 minion, and then eventually it became a 1/1 with Charge.
We had a ton of fun playtesting the card in TGT, but at the last second we decided that in combination with One-Eyed Cheat, the resulting gameplay was not as fun as we would have liked (an un-attackable 4 damage every turn). We made the call to rip it out, but the art on the card was part of the cinematic for The Grand Tournament (Pirates riding paaaarrots!!), so we swapped the art on Skycap'n Kragg with another pirate in the set (the 4/6 Charrrrge Pirate) and cut the offending card.
We still loved the design, though, and it came back in Whispers of the Old Gods as N'Zoth's First Mate. You'll notice it's still a 1-mana 1/1 Flying Pirate, but themed for that expansion. Once again, the design was cut, but I don't remember why this time. We tried it as a warrior-only card during this timeframe as well.
Finally, the card reappeared in the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan as 'Patches the Pirate' with more eyepatches than most pirates have eyes. Again, a flying pirate, exactly the same card text it had before he disappeared from TGT.
I can't wait to experiment with some crazy pirate decks come December!
Funny story. Weird how they move the design around so much yet still stick with it.
I felt from the first moment that there is something wrong with Skycap'n Kragg even the Chaaaaarg world did not impress me, I loved the card art from the deep of my heart but I did not like its job I had even unfortunately dust it when I got it from a pack and now I think what is Patches the Pirate doing fits Skycap'n Kragg's art perfectly. I wish u did not swap this art and kept it for Patches the Pirate this card would be perfect :(
I really wish this was a murloc instead, they benefit more from the swarm factor. Hopefully not a wasted design space because of the choice of not giving it to the murloc tribe.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/175533-new-legendary-card-patches-the-pirate?page=5
Comment #96
I think this guy is the same kind of Demon that Floating Watcher is. Why isn't it tagged as Demon+Pirate?
Because double minion type won't exist I think.
Wish they would give all cards some tribes... add a layer of gameplay to the rng >.>
Patches should've been a Pirate/Demon hybrid, to really push forward his uniqueness and usability.
And it fits with his design. He's a demon!
Please tell me we're getting a shit load of Pirate cards in this expansion.
wait.. that mean if you play a pirate and patches will jump from the deck (like he is not in the deck anymore) and without gang up.. than The patches is good only if you going play 2 captain on the same turn.. :D and you cant play other pirates before because it will be just a 1/1 with charge.. so gang up or other pirate card to make this work or this is just a really useless card :D .. well looks like +400 dust for me..
What part of "Free 1/1 with charge" don't you understand ?
I mean the ONLY downside is actually drawing it, and if you actually play a pirate deck, provided you don't mulligan too aggressively, you'd be barely 4-5 draws in before you can pull it out of your deck.
I love story time! I need my hot coco and a blanket. Tell me a story Mr. Brode!
1 mana 1/1 with that much story behind.
Imagine how long would take to tell Tinyfin's story?
Yeah because One Eyed Cheat was such a devastatingly powerful card used by everyone. It's stories like these that really expose how little they know about their own game, that they can't even predict what cards are good and will be used.
did you even read? He said One-Eyed Cheat was powerful IN COMBINATION with this card. Had this card been released maybe every rogue would've played One-Eyed Cheat
Which makes it sound like "Oh, if we left this card in pirates might have been viable so we pulled it out."
And surprise surprise! Pirates were still not viable!
2x southsea and alex works too
ok now this is starting to make sense why it may be good.
I don't understand why One eyed cheat would be OP with this card? You'd get a stealthed 4/1 , how is that op? dies to every aoe and rng effects like knife juggler or flame juggler.
And then they print Tunnel trogg and totem golem that are way more resistant?