Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

It will never actually hit the 'hits like a truck' state though.

The best thing about an undertaker was that it was sticky and could take a little punishment, maybe a limit on how many buffs it could get would have been better like it could only gain +1/+1 twice or something.

Right now I see it as just unplayable, just 2 hp pretty much makes it a worthless weaker Micro Machine that lacks synergy to make it more powerful past the very early game.

edited 27th Jan '15 2:52:30 PM by Memers

It's 1 mana instead of 2, making it still a perfect turn 1 play, especially with the coin. The opponent is forced to have a counter or else deal with a buffed minion. I mean, mages still play Mana Wyrm, don't they?

edited 27th Jan '15 3:20:54 PM by Fighteer

Well, Mana Wyrm has 3 health instead of 2 which lets it survive slightly more abuse. At the very least it can't be just, say, Holy Smite'd.

As for the nerf itself, well, we all saw it coming. Not too sure if this was the right approach to it. My personal thought on the matter was to reverse its initial stats into 2/1 and keep the old text. That way it sacrifices survivability for bigger damage and while it would be able to kill people faster, it would still fall to one-mana removal spell on turn 1.

...It's not like there that's much of a difference. Considering that most 1 mana spell do 3 damage to begin with (Lightning Bolt, Rockbiter Weapon, Soulfire (Not that you'd use it on turn 1)). Really the only card this would make a difference for is holy smite. Basically the change would do nothing.

edited 27th Jan '15 3:40:05 PM by CobraPrime

Mages still play Mana Wyrms because they will likely survive turn 1 vs other 1 drops and will most likely survive to trade with a 2 or a 3 drop.

Undertaker just gets smited, Forked Lightninged, Stormforged Axed, Arcane Shot, Clawed, etc or just a gets hit by a 2/1 or 2/2 like enabling a Mad Scientist.

It is a bad card now, situational at best, few classes will be able to make it survive long enough to do anything and easily answered by any class.

edited 27th Jan '15 3:48:00 PM by Memers

Exactly. Having 3 health on turn 1 meant that you couldn't kill it with any minion you could play on turn one and required some specific removal not every class has.

As a 3/2 Undertaker would retain its snowballing power and would still let you kill himself with an appropriate removal rather than going out of early-game spell's range right off the bat.

Well, it's certainly better for the game than a one-drop that's infinitely better than other one-drops and can win you the game outright if you draw into enough one-mana deathrattles early on (and usually requires way more resources than it should to remove).

edited 27th Jan '15 4:06:14 PM by JimmyTMalice

I expect this to reduce the use of Undertaker but not kill it completely. Aggro decks will at least be forced to run slightly more varied cards.

edited 27th Jan '15 4:07:53 PM by Fighteer

It occurs to me that Undertaker is now a Murloc Tidecaller except it's for deathrattles.

Which isn't exactly all that great.

You don't see people playing Tidecaller because of its strength.

Granted, deathrattle minions are generally way better than murlocs, but I think the point still stands.

Undertaker is just way too fragile now. Rogue in particular get rid of it very easily now, which might make Rogue a bit more viable.

Gaining +1/+1 itself isnt that over powered especially when early and mid deathrattle needed a lot of help. Its the repeated +1/+1s is what made it so OP hence IMO they should have just capped the buffs.

Now that I think about it Scarlet Purifier just kills it outright now...

Scarlet Purifier doesn't kill it because Undertaker doesn't have a deathrattle itself.

Maybe its text should read "Battlecry: Gain +1/+1 if you have a minion with Deathrattle". Of course, that completely flips around the tempo of the card.

edited 27th Jan '15 4:36:01 PM by Fighteer

In that case you might as well play Frostwolf Warlord for less demands.

I still stand by simply switching its stats. Alternatively, it could go like Cogmaster goes: a 1/3 that gains +2 if you have a Deathrattle minion out.

edited 27th Jan '15 4:43:22 PM by FergardStratoavis

A 1-mana Frostwolf Warlord? Be serious. Tinkertown Technician is played with a similar Battlecry and it works great.

Undertaker would become a Zombie Chow without the negative Deathrattle. A 1-mana 2/3? Sign me up.

edited 27th Jan '15 4:53:04 PM by Fighteer

I think thats not as good since then you don't get that factor of "Do I use my deathrattle now or save it for the undertaker im likely to draw"

Oh wait, I misread here. Sorry. ^_^;

So, after sleeping a bit, this is the opinion that I've formed:

Undertaker is a 1-drop. And even without gaining health it will still be a strong 1-drop. Compare it to the second most common neutral 1-drop; Zombie Chow. Zombie Chow is great in the early game, but becomes weaker as the game goes on (it remains relevant in Priest because of Auchenai Soulpriest, but that's it). If Undertaker grows and deals face damage in the early turns before being removed, it still did it's job as a 1-drop. You're not supposed to get that much mileage from a 1-drop.

Undertaker has a simple job: hit the face, and if possible hit the face hard. That won't change. If Undertaker trades with a 0-mana, 1-mana or 2-mana removal, that's still tempo you've gained over your opponent (which is a huge deal for aggro). Only Rogue with the 0-mana Backstab has a shot at gaining tempo while removing Undertaker, but at the cost of card advantage.

Compare Undertaker to similar 1-drops that are used: Mana Wyrm, Cogmaster and Murloc Tidecaller. Cogmaster is used in mech decks, despite the fact that it's a 3/2 at most. Mana Wyrm grows a lot slower and casting spells doesn't develop a board, which is why the 3 health is justified. Back when Murloc decks were common, Murloc Tidecaller was a definitely a staple, and possibly one of the best Murlocs in that deck (besides Warleader). Even Micro Machine, a 2-drop, sees play because it's surprisingly good at punishing opponents that do not have a way to deal with it right away.

The thing about deathrattle aggro decks is that sticky deathrattle minions are still hard to remove efficiently. Undertaker also being hard to remove on top of that pushed the archetype into unfair territory, but unnecessarily so.

I can still see some decks like Zoo dropping Undertaker, but I do not see deathrattle aggro with Undertaker going anywhere. The nerf does mean that those dirty wins where Undertaker carried the entire game are no longer possible, but all those other wins where it's just a cog in a machine stay the same. Aggro decks still have plenty of ways to punish their opponents. And if Undertaker does prove to be unplayable, and deathrattle aggro doesn't prove to work without Undertaker, there's still other ways the aggro archetype can punish players. If the previous nerfs to the Hunter class (all meant to diminish the power of aggro builds) have learned me anything is that aggro will find a way. We might even see the return of face decks with the Bluegill Warrior/Wolfrider/Arcane Golem(/Leeroy Jenkins) core...

Of course, whenever I say deathrattle aggro, I could've also said aggro Hunter because the other viable aggro deck, Mech Mage, doesn't need Undertaker to be viable. There's Mech Mage build with Undertaker, there's loads without Undertaker. So this nerf doesn't exactly mean that the entire aggro archetype becomes unplayable. And of course, pre-Naxxramas Zoo wasn't exactly weak, either...

—-

Speaking of dirty wins, does this count? He got his revenge when I queued into him again 2 games later, so all is good.

—-

Dammit, my luck with Unbalanced Portal does not correlate with my wins. I got Antonidas, The Beast (opponent Hunter had BGH, otherwise the sheer power of the card would've let me win), Mogor the Ogre against Zoo, Tirion Fordring against Zoo and then Al'akir against Druid. It's nice seeing all those golden legendaries, but going on a big losing streak is definitely not nice. :( At least I got to rank 9 after that Antonidas win, not bad for playing so little this month, I guess.

edited 28th Jan '15 3:09:41 AM by iTeruri

I've seen Undertaker running in all sorts of agro decks besides hunter; Warlock, Shaman, Druid...just saying.

Your analysis of Undertaker is spot on. And I laughed at twin Antonidas.

I have learned to trust in the sniper Rag. I was playing Priest and my Rogue opponent had two minions on the board and was at 7 health, so I put down Ragnaros in hope for a quick win. He went for the weakest one instead of the hero, then immediately got Sapped. The Rogue put down another minion and, lacking other options, I played Rag again and healed up. Once again he missed the hero, but this time the Rogue couldn't remove Rag so she simply went for my face (at this point I would be dead within another turn) and played another minion.

Both the minions had 4 attack so I couldn't remove them. One of them was damaged, so I decided to put down a Cleric and heal it with Circle of Healing, which drew me a Sludge Belcher (the perfect card to deal with those minions and block the Rogue's weapon). I was stabilised on the board thanks to that lucky card draw, so I hit "End Turn" and RN Gesus guided Ragnaros to the face for victory.

I'd say that Rag failed you twice in a row, but your faith in him paid off in the long run. Hey, even if he misses the ideal target, it's still essentially a free kill on one minion per turn.

@ITeruri

Exactly my thoughts. Only you said it more eloquently and with less dick jokes.

IF Priest vs Instructor Razuvious: Turn 6 win by using DS/IF on the mind controlled students. :D

I beat Naxx with that deck. It's hilariously good against Razuvius, also against the Four Horsemen.

Oh yeah, that reminds me I still need to beat Heroic Kel'Thuzad to unlock that card back. Some guides recommend a deck like that for that one too, but I never managed to win (not even post-Gv G with some of the new additions). :(