Hearthpwn

Quote from BatuKMan »

Will this one win the worst card in the expansion prize?

No, because this is actually a pretty good card if you're running literally anything but shaman zoo. 

Wow, I never thought that blizzard were capable of such terrible card design :O 

Quote from Joziaac »

Quote from BlindSeer »

YES! This card effect is extremely potent when you construct your deck around it and Alarm-o-Bot already exists to make the deck more consistent by a lot (just like the MtG equivalent requires both Show and Tell + Sneak Attack in the deck).

Sneak & Show, I mean Alarm & Call here I come. :D

EDIT: Far Sight also slots perfectly into the plan, that's six(6) cards to enable your massive 8+ mana drops. Definitely warrants some serious testing. Naysayers lack vision.

Thing is, even if it DOES give you a very cheap huge minion (generally not all that likely, unless you hold onto it as a dead card until you set up the perfect conditions), it's still not that great for value unless it pulls trash or nothing for the opponent. If it's very good in the extremely favourable of circumstances, relatively weak in the average circumstances and outright bad in poor circumstances, it's in no way a good card.

Ancestor's Call gives you a cheap huge minion more than 9 times out of 10, you take care of that in the deck construction phase (i.e. you don't play any midrange garbage minions that might still be stuck in your hand when you're ready to cast AC). As for the card the opponent gets, yes it can (and some percentage of time will) backfire but it's not even close the expected result because their deck is not optimized for AC drops.

Furthermore you don't have to yolo AC on turn 3 with coin (though you can), and can instead wait to  say 7 mana before you cast it. Then you have your Ysera or something and can still hex their minion if it was something noteworthy.

I don't know how viable it is (I personally think the mana cost is too high for it to be viable.), but I love cards with unique effects. It's cards like this that has potential to create new decks and not just improve already existing ones. Hopefully cool combos can come from it. Someone pointed out the Malygos Combo, and a legitimate combo deck (like Miracle Rogue or Freeze Mage) is about the only way I see this card being viable. I don't think straight up value will work.

High mana minions can't be played early on, so Aggro decks are more likely to have Highmane or Doomguard in hand since weak minions are all played. The problem gets even worse for Control Decks. The card might be worse than Deathlord in its negative effect, and Deathlord's negative effect is horrible. For the benefit side, as Innervate gives two more mana and this cost four mana, the minion you get HAS to be at least 7 mana to be better than innervate in that regard, which is a really high ceiling to climb over.

I just can't envision any sort of meta where this thing actually sees play. If it gets played at all it will be in Arena.

I figure if you're going to include this card in a deck, you might as well go all out.

Quote from Jaraxle87 »

Quote from Sawovsky »

Quote from Sparhawk1523 »

Wow, were to start...

This card seems very niche, but it has interesting implications. Turn 9 Ancestor's Call into Malygos + Lightning Bolt  Lightning Bolt  Lava Burst  is 26 damage, and would play very similar to Maly-Miracle Rogue.  

This is the best idea in this thread,deck around this as a win condiditon seems quite good and reasonable.

The only problem is that Shaman doesn't have reliable draw mechanics or survival ability (especially in this aggro heavy meta) to last long enough to pull this off.  If Auctioneer doesn't get nerfed, maybe a shaman miracle deck could utilize a combo like this....but without Preparations it's still a stretch.  Don't get me wrong I do see some potential with this card but the same could be said about reincarnate and look how used that card is......this card just requires too perfect a situation......

Realz think similarly about Malygos and this card, c/p from Realz reddit post

" My experiences with Ancestor's Call along with Malygos (and... other things...) have given me some healthy respect for it. It's more of a "think outside the box" type of card, but that's why I voted for it =)

Or maybe I voted for it because I wanted to thwart Ben Brode's efforts in getting that doozy of a Druid card revealed - mwahahaha!"

Quote from Jaraxle87 »

The only problem is that Shaman doesn't have reliable draw mechanics or survival ability (especially in this aggro heavy meta) to last long enough to pull this off.  If Auctioneer doesn't get nerfed, maybe a shaman miracle deck could utilize a combo like this....but without Preparations it's still a stretch.  Don't get me wrong I do see some potential with this card but the same could be said about reincarnate and look how used that card is......this card just requires too perfect a situation......

Well said. Without prep, you have to keep the auctioneer alive longer than a rogue does to get similar value. Your only current tools for this are taunts (good value from Ancestral Healing here), Ancestral Spirit, and Reincarnate to remove silence. It would be tricky; not sure if it's viable.

BTW, what's the order of operations with auctioneer? If you Reincarnate a silenced auctioneer, do you get the draw?

Quote from Sawovsky »

Or maybe I voted for it because I wanted to thwart Ben Brode's efforts in getting that doozy of a Druid card revealed - mwahahaha!"

Good job proving that he was actually right. Hope you're satisfied.

This is unlikely to be a competitive card. But a different type of deck will arise from it. A kind that won't be running bead and butter cards like flametongue or fire elemental. Be it competitive or not, having more variety decks will be great. I have 2 far sights and alarm-o-bots and am looking forward to playing a new deck that in theory, should mesh nicely to create a playable deck.

Ya'll need to put your faith in the light!

Now I am getting confused. Should I do my alarm-o-bot with freeze mage or shaman + this card?

Double edged battlecry killer?

Huh. People have mentioned the use of this card to devastate control opponents by pulling a minion like Alexstrasza out of their hand, getting rid of important Battlecry effects. But they haven't mentioned this use against a certain card.

What's Shaman's very least card to play against in the entire game right now? I would submit that it is Cabal Shadow Priest.

On turn 5 when you're pretty sure your Priest opponent is about to play their CSP they've been saving up (which they ALWAYS, ALWAYS draw for some reason), play this and pull it out of their hand. (Hopefully the same RNG that makes them always draw it will also make Ancestor's Call select it.) Now their precious Cabal Shadow Priest is just a Yeti, and your crucial totem or Harvest Golem or whatever isn't getting stolen.

Quote from dwl_ »

Would suck vs Zoo if it brings out Doomguard -_-

not if it also brings Ragnaros that kills the doomguard before it attacks

Quote from Jaylaw330 »

Quote from dwl_ »

Would suck vs Zoo if it brings out Doomguard -_-

not if it also brings Ragnaros that kills the doomguard before it attacks

Right. Because the chances of all that happening are high...

Quote from ShadowOfFate »

Quote from Jaylaw330 »

Quote from dwl_ »

Would suck vs Zoo if it brings out Doomguard -_-

not if it also brings Ragnaros that kills the doomguard before it attacks

Right. Because the chances of all that happening are high...

An intelligent player would use it when rag is the only minion in their hand, making the chance 100%, aka "high"

Quote from CaptainKaulu »

Huh. People have mentioned the use of this card to devastate control opponents by pulling a minion like Alexstrasza out of their hand, getting rid of important Battlecry effects. But they haven't mentioned this use against a certain card.

What's Shaman's very least card to play against in the entire game right now? I would submit that it is Cabal Shadow Priest.

On turn 5 when you're pretty sure your Priest opponent is about to play their CSP they've been saving up (which they ALWAYS, ALWAYS draw for some reason), play this and pull it out of their hand. (Hopefully the same RNG that makes them always draw it will also make Ancestor's Call select it.) Now their precious Cabal Shadow Priest is just a Yeti, and your crucial totem or Harvest Golem or whatever isn't getting stolen.

Salty. As. **** :'D

I really dislike this card, it's essentially a Show&Tell from Magic: The Gathering with an additional RNG component, and it provides little to no utility unless you build an arche type around it. There are so many other cards that Blizzard could have printed for Shaman, a draw spell, a heal spell, a weapon, a minion etc. to give the class a control, aggro or combo archetype, this is kind of discouraging.

Oh well, this set is going to be wonderful to stockpile Dust with its only half a dozen remotely playable cards so far. Because from a design perspective, this card is either unplayable or totally broken and nothing in between.