Rend Blackhand
Card Text
Battlecry: If you're holding a Dragon, destroy a Legendary minion.
Flavor Text
Rend believes he is the True Warchief of the Horde and he keeps editing the wikipedia page for "Warchief of the Horde" to include his picture.
Card Sounds
I've been playing quite a bit of Spiteful Dragon Priest in Wild lately which as you all know, doesn't use removal spells. So if this was a 7 mana 7/7 with the same effect, I might have used this in the deck even considering how situational the effect is. This was the one and only time Rend could have a chance to be played...alas, he's still awful.
4 health for a 7 mana minion is pretty pathetic. I don't know what they were thinking when designing the stats for this card.
I love the overall deck statistics for this card. Exactly 25.00% in each Druid, Mage, Paladin and Hunter. Somewhere out there, a guy is playing Dragon Hunter...with Rend!
Now exactly 25% shaman 25% druid 25% priest and 25% paladin...
75% Ranked deck 25% others...
Wow
Blackhand should have more powerful stats than this he's should be up there with garrosh and Alexandria.
Can be much more better. I'm hoping for a possible buff in the future.
ooh rend blackhand the only time you find a spot in my deck is mainly on my free to play account since i hardly have any legendary/ or good solid removal granted i am playing a dragon deck.
and i am to stingy to disenchant you, his battle cry is way to specific and theres days all i seem to run into is zoo, shamein,control warrior both varieties (does ok-ish on a control match up) and the otk murloc pally thing,(which the only time i found him to be of use was to kill ragnaros the lightlord or tirion but then dies to the ashbringer lol
Ok! Time to review... for the third time today!
I will call this a memorial review because he will soon be no longer obtainable except by crafting thanks to rotation, and he is totally not worth crafting.
So why would I review a card that will soon be forgotten? Because I can never forget my 3rd legendary!
The breakdown
Rend Blackhand is a 7 mana 8/4, these stats are terrible, worse then Core Hound. Luckily this guy gets... an oddly specific ability to back up his terrible stats! If you have a dragon in your hand, you kill your opponent's legendary! Yay for super-oddly-specific abilities that have a requirement and need specific targets! When I was a new player the first expansion I bought was Blackrock Mountain, and I was SOOOO happy to see this guy (because I was tired of loosing to legendaries). However it did not take me long to realize that he was not that good... his ability was just asking for to much to work all the time and if I played him without his ability his 4 HP would just get him killed!
However I still used him for quite some time, then I got a Big Game Hunter and used it instead. But I have good memories of games when he did work, one opponent even conceded when I killed their Ragnaros the Firelord. So I can't be to hard on this guy, especially when he is not TOOOO bad in the current meta game (still terrible). But I think he was blizzards attempt at giving new players a tool to deal with legendaries just by playing in adventure mode, even though I think they could have just given him a WAY cooler ability or removed the requirement to activate his ability. The better ability, would have made him even more useful for a new player.
The best thing about him is he looks bad ass.
He is definitely something that is fun to get off a RNG effect like Elise Starseeker assuming you get a dragon as well. But I don't think he is something that you would waste a spot in your deck for. I have had fun with this guy in some tavern brawls (like the one where all minions have charge and taunt) but I DO NOT recommend him in arena. The odds of your opponent actually getting a legendary is Arena is to low!
When he actually works he is allot of fun, unfortunately his ability having the activation requirement and the limit on what he can kill... makes him worse than most legendaries out there.
Conclusion
Rend Blackhand is a neat idea for a card that kills legendaries but with his poor stats AND an activation requirement he is to oddly specific to be of much use. His HP is so low that anything your opponent played before him has a good chance of killing him.
And he is TERRIBLE in arena because the odds of your opponent having a legendary in that game mode is REALLY low. If he appears, pick one of the guys beside him.
I hope you enjoyed reading this! Found something I missed? Want me to review a card? Let me know!
A list of all reviews I have done is in this DA journal!
This card needs a buff. Requirements are just silly. Rend himself isn't that good either (7 mana 8/4 minion is meh) It should be like this;
1) "Battlecry: Destroy a minion"
or if no:1 is too good;
2) "Battlecry: Destroy a minion, if you're holding a dragon"
or to make the things more interesting;
3) "Battlecry: Destroy a random minion, if you're holding a dragon, additionally destroy another random legendary minion"
so he could be both situational and useful in another cases.
Even just "Battlecry: Destroy a Legendary Minion" would be better then he is now.
I'd definitely go with #2 to keep him as a Dragon tribal card.
It should be enough if he has more consistency as a removal card in the right deck, making him essentially an expensive kill spell that puts a threat on the board that isn't hard to answer, but will trade or face well if not answered.
I'm running a few dragon themed decks at the moment. Mostly a Dragon Warrior, in which I've dropped a Drakonid Crusher for him, a Dragon Priest, where he fits somehow and and in MalyLock inspired by fellow players on this site.
He's crap with MalyLock as there aren't enough activators but has some interesting results against other types. All of these experiences or of course entirely subjective but I thought they may be useful
As a Dragon Warrior, the archetypal deck includes 8 dragons in various slots, more if you include one of the various Dragon legendaries, so you'll have a chance to activate him early. With the Priest varient, you'll not have as many activators but he still sees some use. His greatest use has been against mages, taking down both the Emperor T and Old Mage Tony.
Plus, I like to think that my opponents will appreciate Rend having a hand in thier downfall!
I play dragon paladin too, and personally I like Rend. Since it seems like everyone is running a C'Thun deck in standard, he makes a pretty good removal option for when C'Thun comes out and my other strong removal is used up already. Plus his body has to be dealt with afterwards or he can wreak real havoc.
Yeah, he's not the best, but it's been working for me pretty well so far.
Ok, now, as Old Gods rule over Hearthstone, it's really tempting to dust this guy for Sylvanas Windrunner (I'm currently at 1200 dust)
But is it worth it? I play mainly Control and Dragon Priest (don't include Rend tho) and Midrange Shaman. I am rather seriously thinking about crafting Deathwing, Dragonlord instead or even Hallazeal the Ascended. Could I have a little bit of Internet Wisdom please?
I haven't found much use out of Rend, but I crafted Sylvanas a few weeks after the expansion. I have no regrets.
Sylvanas Windrunner in this meta is pretty good. She is really flexible and can fit into most midrange and control decks. I pulled one a long while back and I still find her good to fill in a slot in any deck I feel like putting together. Just do it.
I don't know...with all the Old God decks I find him to be particularly powerful at this point while everyone is still exploring new decks. My Dragon Priest deck with Rend is absolutely destroying any C'Thu deck I come across.
Not only can BGH kill Rend with his battlecry, he can also trade with him. Hopefully there will be some balanced changes for BGH.
Depending on how hard the Big Game Hunter nerf is, Rend might finally find his place in a Dragon based control deck, especially if we get more dragons in Old Gods.
New Card: Rend Whitehand. 7 mana 4/8. "Battlecry: If you're holding a legendary minion, destroy a dragon".
Aside jokes: I would love to see that legendary.
One of my favorite things to do is to Rend Blackhand a Loatheb. They play Loetheb thinking he survives a turn and then BAM! out comes Rend to destroy the Swamp Thing
kill Majordomo Executus