Rastakhan's Rumble Legendary Cards Worth Your Dust
With Rastakhan's Rumble arriving last week we've had a fair amount of time to see how things would shape up. Here's our initial must crafts for the expansion!
There are notes within Tier 1 that these decks and cards could be short lived as being useful due to the upcoming April 2019 set rotation. This is the case for any card that is doing well right now that belongs to the Year of the Raven sets (Witchwood, Boomsday, Rastakhan's Rumble). Just remember, at its core Hearthstone is about having fun!
Tier 1 - Zul'jin & Oondasta
Without a doubt Zul'jin has been tearing up a storm. Almost half our voters in our initial expansion card preview polls thought he would define the meta and it looks like that was indeed the case, however unfortunate some many find that. Spell Hunter got a huge buff with his arrival and with winrates across the ladder of over 55%, you're not going to be happy encountering him so join team Hunter.
The only real question is will Spell Hunter have a place after Rastakhan's Rumble? Kobolds was a set that defined some of Spell Hunter's value.
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Ability (23)
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Weapon (5)
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Playable Hero (2)
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Oondasta is a slightly different story. He is currently seeing play in both Hunter and Druid decks to great success, though that time could be limited to only the next few months before the yearly rotation. Many cards played alongside Oondasta such as Hadronox, The Lich King, Tyrantus, and Kathrena Winterwisp aren't going to be here for much longer. The raw power of this card give it a top tier spot though!
There's even a cool looking Warrior deck experimenting with the card. If you are crafting it for other reasons (Hunter and Druid) it's worth giving it a shot there too!
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Minion (19)
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Ability (8)
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Tier 2 - Da Undatakah, High Priest Thekal, Shirvallah, the Tiger
Da Undatakah was another one of those cards the community thought was going to be strong and ... ended up being right! Synergy in multiple classes with good success rates makes this one of the better legendaries to own this expansion - thanks value! He also has a cool golden animation so if you're into really spending dust, that's always an option.
Find more decks with Da Undatakah
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High Priest Thekal and Shirvallah, the Tiger go together so well that they also belong in the same tier of greatness. That's not to say they can't be used standalone, but this definitely is a case where a Loa's champion likes to stay by their side at times. Expect to be casting lots of spells, controlling boards, doing plenty of healing, and overall just winning.
Find more decks with High Priest Thekal // FInd more decks with Shirvallah, the Tiger
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Ability (12)
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Tier 2 - Mojomaster Zihi, Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk
Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk has proven to be a very strong card and even if it was harder to getting the effect down, bringing Ragnaros the Firelord back to standard should be worthy enough for inclusion in this tier. You're going to find Jan'alai in Odd Mage thanks to the heroic efforts of Baku the Mooneater but we're also seeing it played in Big Mage.
Find more decks with Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk
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Mojomaster Zihi has been seen some strong play in even themed decks and is played mainly as a tech choice when you find many combo or ramp style decks. Bringing the pace of the game back down in the late game while not harming yourself is the entire goal of the card and damn can it be frustrating to have played against you. Winrates in the decks featured below are above 50%, though it is definitely going to come down to what types of decks you're seeing where you're at on the ladder to know if Mojomaster is right for you.
Find more decks with Mojomaster Zihi
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What About Non-Rastakhan Legendary Cards?
If you're looking for some solid crafts that still prove useful, these are for you!
- [Find Decks] Deathstalker Rexxar
- [Find Decks] Zilliax
- [Find Decks] Baku the Mooneater
- [Find Decks] The Lich King
- [Find Decks] Prince Keleseth
- [Find Decks] Leeroy Jenkins
- [Find Decks] Kingsbane
- [Find Decks] Frost Lich Jaina
And More!
Looking to see how we rate other legendaries in the set? Check out our Legendary Tier List & Crafting Guide over on the forums. We'll be updating it throughout the expansion, you can also find it in our site navigation under the cards category.
Pretty disapointed with RR Legendaries... my dust will be kept away till April 2019...
Man best card from the expansion for me has been High Priestess Jeklik (sorry I don’t know how to link the cards to the comment). She fits into budget zoo decks and has been surprisingly consistent. Even with just two soul fire and two doomguard there is plenty of discard. I crafted her today and went rank 4 to rank 2 in an hour and a half. It was so fun. She showed up in almost every game and she was the reason I won several games. I do run soularium but for F2P players or new players Jeklik in heal zoo is awesome.
You got a decklist maybe? I've been trying to run discolock but it's just too weak door rank 3
For sure man, I don’t know how to post a deck yet, but I’ll type it out haha.
2x Flame Imp
2x Kobold Librarian
2x Soul Infusion
2x Soulfire
1x Soularium
2x Voidwalker
2x Doubling Imp
1x High Priestess Jeklik
2x Doomguard
1x Despicable Dreadlord
2x Lightwarden
2x Voodoo Doctor
1x Prince Keleseth
2x Fungal Enchanter
2x Happy Ghoul
2x Saronite Chain Gang
2x Fungalmancer
looking at where a potential soul warden would fit but I haven’t found much luck yet. Although 6 mana I think a soul warden could be great. It gives you back multiple copies of Jeklik as well if you’ve discarded her more than once.
Rank 2 and dont know how to deck code? Im kind of impressed.. in the same interface you can name your deck when creating/editing it you can click 'copy' and this will pull all the deck info if u paste it somewhere, list and code
Haha thanks:
### Heal Zoolock
# Class: Warlock
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Raven
#
# 2x (1) Flame Imp
# 2x (1) Kobold Librarian
# 2x (1) Lightwarden
# 2x (1) Soul Infusion
# 2x (1) Soulfire
# 1x (1) The Soularium
# 1x (1) Voidwalker
# 2x (1) Voodoo Doctor
# 1x (2) Prince Keleseth
# 2x (3) Doubling Imp
# 2x (3) Fungal Enchanter
# 2x (3) Happy Ghoul
# 1x (3) Reckless Diretroll
# 1x (4) High Priestess Jeklik
# 2x (4) Saronite Chain Gang
# 2x (5) Doomguard
# 2x (5) Fungalmancer
# 1x (6) Soulwarden
#
AAECAf0GBjCc4gKPggPWhgPwhgOvjQMMhAH3BM4Hwgj3DJvLAp/OAvLQAtHhAofoAvT3AtP4AgA=
#
#
I'd be careful with High Priest Thekal and Shirvallah, the Tiger. I've played tons of control paladin and eagerly included both of them in all my deck variations as soon as the expansion was out. In every case, I wound up dropping both of them though and my decks were stronger for it.
They have potential, but not at all certain that we'll be seeing them in top tier decks once the meta settles. The other 4 are all way safer crafts.
As a F2P Player I got both of these cards in my 33 decks I had saved up for.
I have tried to create a deck where you drop Thekal and then heal yourself up. Which then discounts the Tiger.
It's worked a few times but still lacks a decent finisher.
That has always been a challenge for control paladin. If you have Uther DK, you can go for the OTK deck, though I found that it worked better in the variant without those cards.
If you want an unusual win condition, I was also pretty happy with the performance of this deck:
### Zombie Paladin
# 2x (2) Crystology
# 2x (2) Equality
# 2x (2) Immortal Prelate
# 2x (2) Sound the Bells!
# 1x (2) Vicious Scalehide
# 2x (2) Wild Pyromancer
# 1x (3) Acolyte of Pain
# 2x (3) Stonehill Defender
# 1x (3) Time Out!
# 1x (3) Zola the Gorgon
# 2x (4) Blessing of Kings
# 2x (4) Consecration
# 2x (4) Truesilver Champion
# 1x (5) Mechano-Egg
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 2x (6) Spikeridged Steed
# 1x (6) Sunkeeper Tarim
# 1x (7) Lynessa Sunsorrow
# 1x (8) The Lich King
# 1x (9) Uther of the Ebon Blade
Uther, Lich King, Sunkeeper and Zilliax are added power but not core to the deck. The real finisher is that you have 2 immortal prelates that just keep coming back really strong and prevent you from ever dying to fatigue. I built this with lots of anti-aggro and it can grind out most control decks surprisingly well, but has bad matchups against combo though it can play pretty aggressively.
The key is that you have more silence targets than your opponent can deal with. Ideally you can eat up a silence or two with Lich kind and a generic buffed minion, but 2 Immortal Prelates + Lynessa + Zola for another Lynessa gives you tons of fuel even if they spend their silences pretty wisely.
Sorry, but that tier list looks super biased...
In what way? They are the best performing cards, and some of them are smart crafts for their flexibility.
Because the listed legendaries are mostly for slow Hunter and OTK Paladin with an honorable mention for Odd Mage, the last 2 of which are low Tier 2 at most, if even that.
Zul'jin, even if decent now (is it actually supported with data?), has a huge chance to be worthless in 4 months because the entire Spell Hunter package rotates next spring, so it may not be worth the dust, especially if you don't have other legendaries that are mandatory for the archetype. Also, Cube Hunter seems to be better than Spell and Secret Hunters, and that deck doesn't have a use for Zul'jin.
Da Undatakah makes Taunt Druid worse and less consistent because you have to exclude the second Cube, so I don't think it's fair to push people with little dust into crafting it.
Mojomaster Zihi and Oondasta probably deserve their place and the dust though. But that's just my two cents.
I am going to comment specifically to help new players trying to navigate the use of a limited supply of dust and legendaries
Zul'jin is a craft I'd tend to avoid. He is class specific and the required legends to be used in his decks (Rexxar and Rhok) are going to be leaving standard the next expansion. I wouldn't advice crafting him for players who dont already own those two required legends.
Oondasta is good, and will continue to be good, but he is used in a bunch of really expensive decks that require a decent bit of the legendaries to be viable. Some of those legends are either rotating out soon or have no general use outside of oondasta decks (Tyrantus)
If you insist on crafting paladin legendary, I'd go for Tiger and wouldnt recommend Thekal. Every deck with Thekal will use Tiger but not vice-versa. Tiger also shows up in some more budget friendly decks, and could probably be a tech choice in any random budget paladin somewhat successfully.
Zihi is probably alright but not really non replaceable for players on a budget, I'd say to avoid.
Jan'alai seems to be both in wealthy decks and heavily dependent on the use of Jaina which is rotating out soon. I wouldnt craft unless you already own Jaina.
Baku and Zilliax are cards I'd actually recommend because they are neutral and will not be rotating out early next year, Zilliax can go in most decks you make harmlessly and Baku opens up some budget deck building options
Leeroy can go in most Baku/budget aggro decks in general and turns up in nearly every expansion as viable. It also is a classic card and never will be not playable. Highly recommended craft.
Thanks!
For Zul'jin I have to say I think it is pretty likely he will still see play after the rotation. Subject 9 and most secrets are going nowhere, and he could very well fit as a last push in a midrange deck. Lategame value will also change a lot when all the Deathknights rotate, so the heropower might not even be that bad.
I dont necessarily think that Zul'jin wont be playable after he rotates out. I just think that you have to craft three legends for his deck, two of which wont be playable in the near future. While they may print cards that revitalize Zul'jin, those are more cards that may be expensive to craft. I would rather not recommend someone craft a card which may give them too much dust burden.
In general I try to give recommendations of cards that are generally useful (neutral) and cards that arent reliant on overly niche-legends (or non determined cards).
Another reason I am weary of Zul'jin is that Hunter has been strong for two expansions now, and they may kinda purposely try to avoid giving hunter support for that reason. It is like with druid, who got almost no direct support because they have been too powerful.
Every card on this list is well supported by data. Rotations is a concern, but it os mentioned very clearly how they work at the top of the OP of the crafting thread. I have no issues with recommending the Tier 1 legendaries, I made both myself, and have no regrets! They are fun and strong with good potential for the future as well.
The only way to make a list like that is to focus on the present and trying to keep as updated as possible (ty for the help, btw!) Going back in time, predicting which cards could get support and work out in strong decks and which would not would be downright impossible.
I’m pretty confident that Zul’Jin will received further support, and I’m not saying that because I have him (Actually I don’t) but because it would be strange
The only way he will generate minions is through animal companion and boom cannon. No to my side or spellstone. The deck gets so much weaker without it. Its going to need to be way more minion centric.
The thing is, even if they print more spells, no more Rhok’delar and DK Rexxar (value cards) and it will be so easy to outvalue Spell Hunter. It’s easy enough to outvalue them now but without those 2 cards, honestly it doesn’t matter what spells they’ll print in the future.
Zul'jin is good even in Wild. So it's definetely a save craft in this expansion, even if it will only be good in Standard for another 4 months.
Odd Mage on the other hand relies on DK Jaina a lot of the time. So I'm not sure if this will be a thing in Standard after the rotation either.
Also: Spell Hunter will be pretty much dead in the new Standard anyway. To My Side! is rotating, too. But a hybrid Hunter could still be possible.