Hearthpwn

The new card, Ram Wrangler, summons a random beast when it is played. Because of the large amount of beasts in the game, that makes its value hard to decide. Here is a breakdown of the math and statistics for you!

There are 40 collectible beast cards in the game. Any of which can be summoned. I like to put them in 3 categories based on value of wrangling them.

 

Poor Value

These cards make Ram Wrangler give very poor value when played, worse than the comparable card, Silver Hand Knight. Wrangling some of these cards can really ruin the game, in rough order of value:

Captain's Parrot
Angry Chicken
Young Dragonhawk
Timber Wolf
Stonetusk Boar
Hungry Crab
Ironbeak Owl

Webspinner
River Crocolisk
Dire Wolf Alpha
Bloodfen Raptor
King's Elekk
Scavenging Hyena
Haunted Creeper
Silverback Patriarch

There are 15 cards here, or 37.5% of all possible wrangles.

 

Good Value

These cards make Ram Wrangler worth playing. They will all give pretty good value, although are not overpowered. There is a fair amount of variance here, but these are generally what you would hope for. Again, in rough order of wrangle value:

Ironfur Grizzly
Jungle Panther
Dreadscale
Oasis Snapjaw
Emperor Cobra
Starving Buzzard

Armored Warhorse
Core Rager
Mukla's Champion
Stampeding Kodo
King of Beasts
Lost Tallstrider
Tundra Rhino
King Mukla
Savage Combatant
Acidmaw

There are 16 total cards here, 40% of total.

 

Best Value

Then there comes the ideal results. Getting any of these cards will give you a larger amount of value than almost any other turn 5 play in the game. Some of these are practically surrender material:

Stranglethorn Tiger
The Beast
Core Hound
Maexxna
Captured Jormungar
Savannah Highmane

Malorne
Gahz'rilla
King Krush

There are 9 cards here. 22.5% of wrangles.

 

So  while you have a higher chance of pulling trash than a god, the best results can really be game winning by themselves.

Now some more statistics ;)

Average Attack: 3.475
Average Health: 3.7525
Percent With Value Raising Abilities: ~25%
Percent With Value Lowering Abilities: Just THE BEAST and possibly Acidmaw, since it's unexpected arrival will often just kill your own cards.

What it boils down to in the end is actually not very impressive. A 5 mana class card that needs a combo to work usually gives more than what is on average worth about 6 mana. For example, Druid of the Fang, Shado-Pan Rider, Upgraded Repair Bot, or Quartermaster. But it does have WAY more potential value than all but the lattermost of those cards. So in the end, normal value, lots of luck, loads of fun and frustration!

 

Any more stats you would like to see?

True! I wasn't thinking about that angle of Scavenging Hyena.

Cards need to be good on their own. This card is bad on its own and can be bad when it works.

Requires a beast to be effective, on its own it's a 3/3 for 5 and on turn 5 I'd rather be playing a stranglethorn tiger or a loatheb because I know they will be good. There will be those fringe moments where you get something good from it, or your opponent does in constructed or arena, but in my opinion the risk just isn't worth it.

Great post, thanks for the statistics

Quote from Flood jump

Cards need to be good on their own.

Tell that to Grim Patron

He likes jokes.

Patron is an exception simply because the toolkit of warrior allows patron to be abused, and it's mostly frothing doing all the work ;)

It's not amazing, but it can be fun to play. I've had decent enough results using it thus far. I've pulled up Krush twice, in one game I was able to Houndmaster Krush and that was that for the opponent. Turn 9 it has that kind of power. You have a beast in play, you drop Ram, draw whatever beast, and Houndmaster it. You now have a very strong 4-5 minion board with Taunt. 

My wranglers seem to like pulling maexxna... 3x now out of like 8 casts. They CAN be bad, but the extra body on the board seems to always be beneficial vs a single minion no matter what.

Just pulled a turn 5 Savanna Highmane from one and crushed a priest to dust with it at rank 10. So far it seems to be worth it. I'm only running one, however. Standard midrange hunter deck, took out a 1/2 spider for it.

Quote from LunacyHS jump

Patron is an exception simply because the toolkit of warrior allows patron to be abused, and it's mostly frothing doing all the work ;)

funny, it's almost like hunters have a toolkit that abuses beast synergy.