Hearthpwn

Ancient Watcher 

Lets have a brainstorm on how we can use the unique feature of Ancient Watcher

Ancient Watcher is a minion that costs 2 mana crystals and has 4 attack and 5 health with one drawback: it can't attack! So if you have Ancient Watcher on the field he will likely be not attacked unless he's a target for aoe. Because there is no point to attacking it as it is not a threat to the enemy.

These are what I've come up with so far: 

Warlock only

• A Shadowflame target to dmg all targets for 4 (or more if you buff his attack first)

• A possible target for Siphon Soul to heal ourselves. (You're better off using it on an enemy)
• Possible discard option for minions or spells that require card sacrifice (exp: Soulfire or Succubus)
• A cheap and powerful sacrifice for Void Terror
• When you're gonna sacrifice him to Shadowflame or Void Terror it would be best to use Power Overwhelming right before to get the best benefit. Of course you can use this on other minions as well.

Unlike sacrificing other minions you can sacrifice Ancient Watcher without any remorse or doubt in your mind, since he can't attack he has no other uses.

Hunter only

• A possible Misdirection target to escape getting hit (If you have no minions it will always hit enemy, so you're better off using it like that) But against a hunter it might be better to hit this minion with Misdirection than yorself sometimes.
• Possible discard option for Tracking

As a tank

• Giving it taunt via spells like Ancestral Healing, Mark of the Wild and Fade or via minions like Sunfury Protector or Defender of Argus.
• After using taunt on it you can make it target of spells like Soul of the Forest. 

Warrior only 

• With low cost, high health and the probablity of staying in game high (by not being a target) it's a great target for enrage based builds with cards like Frothing Berserker, Battle Rage and Armorsmith. With either aoes to dmg it, using taunt to force some dmg or with Whirlwind. 

All classes

• A useless swap option for enemy Mind Control Tech (it will occupy a minion space for high minion players capping it at 6 for them). Of course noone will ever use it on him intentionally but no will feel the need to attack him so he will probably sit in the battlefield the entire match (unless killed by aoes) which means opponents who have Mind Control Tech will eventually use them with a chance to swap Ancient Watcher.
• Random dmg tanking against minions like Knife Juggler or spells like Avenging Wrath, Arcane Missiles and Deadly Shot.
• All silences can target friendly targets (other than Mass Dispel) so they can be used to free Ancient Watcher from this non attacking state making him a very good 2 mana cost minion (exp: Ironbeak Owl, Earth Shock, Keeper of the Grove, Silence...)
• A card draw, play or summon for minions that do sth when either is done. (as it's very cheap) (eg: Knife Juggler procs, or Illidian ability trigger)
• You can use it as a noob magnet as someone who doesn't know that it's basicly useless might attack it as if it had taunt. Although if a warlock puts it down I would probably attack it too so he can't sacrifice it.
• Without taunt he will likely be in play a long time making it ideal to back up Frostwolf Warlord.

Against Priests

• To laugh your ass off when your opponent uses Mindgames, Mind Vision or Thoughtsteal only to get Ancient Watcher. (Of course a priest might have Silence to make use of it)
• Stoping your opponent from using Mass Dispel or giving us an advantage when he does, as it would also allow Ancient Watcher to attack after that.

Against Secrets

• Checking for and clearing Mirror Entity, Snipe or Repentance.

That's it. These are all I could come up with. Most of it is lame or requires effort to make Ancient Watcher work so tell me if you think if it's worth it to have it in your deck.  If you have other useage ideas please do share.

I don't see what there is to brainstorm. You pretty much covered the cards that can make use of Ancient Watcher. Ideally, I'd say the best use of the card is a plain silence, because that makes the card fully functional and is much less situational than hoping for the card to be the target of a random effect. Second best option would be to get a taunt on it, making it useful as a defender.

Yea brainstorming might not be the correct word for it. I started the post as a call for help as I had no idea what blizzard was thinking when they added a minion that can't attack. I thought there were other hidden uses so I began to search. The silence thing actually hit me much much later and I didn't want all I had found and written to go to waste so I made it into an info post instead.

It would actually work very well in a deck I had designed a couple weeks ago.

This deck has a bunch of ways to give it taunt. Then, with an Armorsmith out, it helps increase your hero's armor which can then be transferred to damage with Death Wish. Also Battle Rage for once he's damaged along with some other minions. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I may actually replace the Sen'jin Shieldmasta with this!

That really looks like a good warrior deck might I suggest Whirlwind in the deck. That would help all your other skills since it damages your minions giving them enrage effects as well as making use of Battle Rage, Frothing Berserker and Armorsmith. 

I see now that a deck like this is very good for Ancient Watcher. Its low mana cost makes it great but in a deck like this is will never be able to attack unless silenced by the enemy. Although Master Swordsmith effect might be wasted on him sometimes. Yet having him on play for a very long time (due to being not the target for a long time) will also make it great with Frostwolf Warlord. 

So thank you Raleik for several synergy ideas you've shared

I like the possibilities of the card in the forge. But in a constructed deck, does he provide a greater value in a deck than another card? I think 99/100 times the answer is no.

In the forge, you could potentially use him as a hidden bomb against an unsuspecting opponent in say a warlock deck or give him taunt in a druid deck. People will figure that was the best of the three cards at your disposal and dismiss him. If I see that card played in a constructed deck, I would think something is up. 

In a constructed deck, a card must have inherent value without relying on synergy and combos because you can't always have what you want in  your hand. Having zero value unless another card is played is not a strong card. That's why i don't like Angry Chicken. Yeah it's a 1/1 so it has some value, but it takes way too much to make it amazing. And there are tons of other brilliant combos and synergies that are less risky.

That said, I like your ideas and I think would be helpful for people when making forge decks and very niche constructed decks like that wall deck above.

Right now in hearthstone there is very little card filtering(the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Tracking) and you only have 2 of each card in your deck, so planning combos like this will probably just cause you to have some dead cards in hand. 

Also you have it listed a way to check for Vaporize, but that card won't trigger unless the minion attacks, which this can't.

Yeah when I wrote this vaporize and mirror entitty had swaped conditions. Mirror entity was when you attacked and vaporize when you played a minion.

The uses of Ancient Watcher in this post are not meant to be efficient or relyed on. It's all writen because when someone first sees a card that "can't attack" they usually space out and can't figure out the point. This thread is to help players find a use for Ancient Watcher in their deck.

Silencing is a popular choice but I have seen lots of warlocks sacrifice it for Void Terror or Shadowflame. And a handful of priests that use Fade on it. Apart from these it's not a very good card but it can very well be used as a discard option or something as lame if you wanted to do something but it isn't the time or place for it or just can't use him.

Last edited june 2nd :D Yeah I should probably update it.

Its the arena card of choice if you have picked alot of silence before hand.
Warlocks can use it as well.

If you could get it taunt reliably it could but useful, but I'm not sure its worth it

The best use is warlock void terror.

If you going second you can have 11/13 minion on your third turn (1 turn - use coin put watcher, 2 turn - put second watcher, 3-rd turn put Void Terror. And I don't know... can he be silenced??

I feel like it's very useful with Silence

To be honest I would only ever pick him in the arena, and only if the other choices were lousy. You point out a great amount of cards that potentially make it a useful option, but so many times it'll be dead in your hand for ages. I'd rather play a slightly more expensive card with versatility than a situationally decent card.

Minions/spells that add taunt are really the only way.  Everything else is such a small boost that both cards can be replaced with another two for an equal if not greater effect.

Maybe if it were a bit more interesting than a 4/5, taking another card to make it useful would be acceptable, but not as it stands.  Even in Arena, where a 4/5 body is decent, it takes one of your all-too-important Silences, which would be better served hitting one of your opponent's bombs.

However, this isn't to say there won't be an option in a future expansion that might turn out to work quite well with it.

You can silence him to remove the attack restriction, and you can give him taunt for a cheap body your opponent needs to go through (or silence) which still helps you.