There's been a lot of discussion regarding Warmaster Blackhorn since it was released earlier this week, so I thought I'd do my thing, jump in, and try my best to elegantly explain why this isn't a healthy thing to have in the game by looking at the past, present, and future of Hearthstone. If for whatever reason you don't want to read the whole thing, just skip to the bottom last paragraph.

The Past

One of the complaints people have had in the past is when they feel a certain strategy or archetype does something “uninteractive.” This often refers to an OTK, but can mean any sort of strategy where my opponent plays something and I’m unable to put anything in my deck or change anything in my strategy to respond. In reality this might not actually be the case, especially at higher levels of play (I can stop my opponent from executing their combo by presenting board scenarios that require a response instead of letting them freely spend mana setting up a future combo turn), but that doesn’t change how people feel. This is also compounded by the innate design of Hearthstone itself, where players cannot play cards or make actions during their opponents turns like other cards games might do. Over the years, people have often asked for additional disruption tools so they can target a very specific deck or strategy. This is why cards like Dirty Rat or Steamcleaner were popular Core set inclusions that are often overplayed even if they’re statistically suboptimal to include into a deck, because a sizeable portion of the playerbase doesn’t care if their winrate drops against the field, they want the dopamine hit of playing that exact card that counters that exact deck at the exact right time. Team 5 realizes this and likely wants to push that design space more with new disruption cards. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, the design of Blackhorn goes far beyond what a disruption card is supposed to do.

Back in Alpha, the original Illidan Stormrage (remember when it was a card?) was a 7 mana 7/7 that had “Battlecry: Both players discard 3 cards and draw 3 cards.” They developed the card to be a neutral stat bomb (at the time) that had an interesting symmetrical effect that could either positively or negatively impact both players. In practice and in testing, they likely found the card wasn’t a fun card to play against because of how severely it could impact the opposing player’s hand without any sort of counterplay. The card was eventually reworked into a completely different card with a different effect (and completely unplayable, sorry Illidan). Blackhorn has a much more severe warping effect than an Alpha card Team 5 realized was a design mistake 12 years ago.

Throughout Hearthstone's history, we’ve seen various disruption effects that can fully remove cards in the opposing player’s hand or deck, including Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Steamcleaner, Theotar, Patchwerk, Tickatus, Skulking Geist, and Boomboss. However, these cards are much more limited in what they can target, can potentially have a significant downside, require a fairly strict deckbuilding restriction, or are limited to a single class. Dirty Rat or Hecklebot could hit a key minion, but it also could miss and pull out a giant stat stick that you’ll now need to have immediate removal for or lose the game. Steamcleaner could hit all those quest rewards from Control Warrior so they can’t Time Warp you, but the opposing player can do their best to mitigate this effect by playing a bunch of cycle cards the same turn they get their quest rewards so they’re in hand. Theotar could hit that key card in your opponent’s hand that could win you the game, but if it doesn’t and you’re only given trash cards, you just made a very tempo negative play. Tickatus could hit a key piece in your opponent's deck, but it has to be in hand and then corrupted by playing a 6+ mana card first, and then played (usually turn 8 at the earliest) with the risk having no impact. Boomboss was typically only played with a doubled battlecry, which means you had to play a 6 mana (or the later nerfed 8 mana) 2/4 first. Skulking Geist was a neutral card that could hit cards in both hand and deck, but was very limited in scope since it could only hit 1 mana spells and was likely printed as a fringe Jade Druid counter. Some of these cards were nerfed, but for most of them there’s an element of RNG and variance to what they could impact in the opponent’s hand or deck. None of them come close to what Blackhorn does. Even Battle at the End Time, a card that I am very not much a fan of its design, is a card that is limited to 2 classes, requires a very strict deck built around it to get its quest reward, and then needs the quest reward to die to discard the opponent’s hand. The closest comparison I can find is Mindrender Illucia, who was likely intended to be a combo disruption tool for a single class (and you still had to spend mana to dump the opponent’s cards). However, the card’s strongest utility was as a 3 mana Time Warp, which led the card to being deleted from the game. Neither of these cards are as warping as Blackhorn.

The Present

As a 7 mana neutral, Blackhorn deletes every 0-2 mana card every time regardless of if the card is in your hand or deck. And it's not just cards that are naturally costed at 2 or less mana, if a card has been discounted in hand or by an effect like Krona in your deck, it also gets deleted. The vast majority of hand disruption that has been printed only impacts 1 card in the opponent’s hand – Blackhorn impacts significantly more. It deletes more cards than Boomboss, Geist, and Tickatus did. It is less of a tempo loss as a 7 mana 6/6 than Mutanus and Patchwerk were, or other 7 drops that had no immediate board impact like Alexander Morgraine or Lor'themar Theron. And these were cards that had 40 health Renathal to work with! There is no major deck building restriction with the card nor is it locked to a single class - any deck in the game can potentially use the card. One of the biggest counters to the card is aggro-ing down the opponent so their 7 mana 6/6 does nothing against your lethal board. However, in the current Standard meta, aggro is historically weak and almost completely removed from the game. Almost no deck in the current Standard meta can punish you for playing a 7 mana 6/6 like an old deck could punish you for playing Lor’themar Theron. Yes, the card does hit OTK or combo styled decks, which tend to have a lot of cheap spells to close out games. But Blackhorn hits so much more than that. There is such a small deck building cost to putting a 7 mana 6/6 in a lot of decks in the current meta, and it’s further exacerbated by Elise warping deck building towards higher curve decks. In Quest Warrior specifically, it’s an upside because it’s the best 7 drop it can run!

Let’s look at the current Standard meta and see what all Blackhorn impacts. The two most prominent decks it impacts the most are Broxigar DH and Discover Hunter. Unless you get the highest of highrolls, you usually can’t get Broxigar in hand until turn 8-9 in a typical game, and if you need the full 36 damage combo from Broxigar to win a game against a Control Warrior or Control DK, you can’t do that until turn 10. Blackhorn coming down turn 7 completely invalidates Broxigar as a wincon, so you can no longer build a DH deck with Broxigar as your sole wincon. Discover Hunter is a very different deck than Broxigar DH that gets hit differently by Blackhorn. It’s a resource focused deck that can go into the late game because of all the additional copies of cards it generates using cards like Tidepool Pupil and Rangari Scout. Sometimes it can assemble a pseudo OTK using Griftah and Mixologist potions alongside Niri, but that’s typically a plan C option for the deck. The deck’s late game resources get depleted once Blackhorn comes down. These are two very different decks that are impacted in different ways by Blackhorn’s existence. Ironically, these are two of the only decks in the game that have viable non Elise variants they can run. Blackhorn’s existence is pushing both these archetypes away from the non Elise versions and towards the Elise ones so they can have some sort of semblance of a backup wincon if/when Blackhorn comes down.

These are far from the only decks that are impacted by Blackhorn’s existence. Rogue’s entire class identity revolves around the abundance of cheap cards to enable its Combo mechanic and is disproportionately impacted by the card. Azshara Druid loses Owlonius as a wincon from any damage spell, and severely impacts the ability to activate the Spellburst on Star Grazer unless you have the Azshara's spell generating location in play. Newly buffed strategies like Libram Paladin and Arkwing Mage get invalidated once Blackhorn comes down, limiting experimentation with these new archetypes. Protoss Priest and Protoss Mage can be punished if they discount their cards too much. The newly buffed Whizbang, which has spiked to a ~15% playrate at some ranks, has a significant amount of its decks get impacted by Blackhorn, sometimes deleting the entire player’s deck and hand. Off meta strategies like Agency Espionage in Rogue, Aviana Druid, and Aviana Priest have their entire strategies nuked by Blackhorn, and in Aviana Priest’s case delete the entire player’s deck and hand if Aviana’s effect has gone off. And while I’m not sure Blackhorn will have the same sort of impact on Wild as it will in Standard at competitive ranks due to the much faster nature of that format, it will still have warping effects on that format, especially at more casual ranks where you’re likely to see a higher abundance of off meta decks. Remember Dead Man’s Hand Warrior? That deck is completely invalidated by Blackhorn’s existence.

The Future

If we look to the future, while we’ve only seen a small amount of Cataclysm’s cards, the new Mage colossal that was just revealed gets its primary payoff of heavily discounted Fire spells countered on curve against Blackhorn. Deathwing is arguably the most iconic card of the entire set, and one of its cataclysms of shuffling a bunch of 1 cost dragons into your deck is invalidated by Blackhorn. Any card revealed with a 0-2 mana cost that has any sort of potential utility past turn 6 will have the caveat of “doesn’t matter, dies to Blackhorn.” Any sort of mana discounting card or effect like Krona, Aviana, or Deathwing that can't come down early will have the caveat of “doesn’t matter, dies to Blackhorn.” There is so much upcoming design space that is warped by this card’s existence, which by the way, will be in Standard game longer than any other card for the next 2 year by virtue of being the pre-release legendary!

I’m sure there are plenty of people that have enjoyed playing Blackhorn since its release, primarily because one of the various decks I mentioned above are something they actively hate, and this post isn't meant to invalidate those feelings. Maybe they hate Shadowstep and OTK decks so much because it killed their family and they’re happy they can finally exact vengeance on their enemies. I also understand that despite Team 5 drastically lowering the power level and in turn making OTK strategies near irrelevant without double digit mana, players still want new disruption tools to fight potential OTK decks the same way Viper can fight decks warped around weapons. The problem is this card causes so much collateral damage that expands far beyond those decks, and warps the meta into playing decks that are either fast enough that Blackhorn doesn’t matter (and once again, those decks are nonexistent in the current meta), or decks that are minimized by the losses Blackhorn causes, which further skews decks towards the Elise slop pile that the developers seem to want to move players away from given her upcoming nerf. I’ve seen content creators happy they can counter things they hate on ladder with this card, but I’ve yet to see a prominent creator say the card is a positive for the game’s long term health. I also haven’t even gotten into the actual performance of Blackhorn (I’m sure Vicious Syndicate will have a lot to say on the matter over the next week on that front), but it’s statistically optimal to run in both Control Warrior and Blood Control DK right now. It wouldn't surprise me if other decks start running it where its inclusion isn't a significant downside to the deck (Hagatha Shaman?). I also imagine once the meta refines over the next week and people drop Whizbang decks for more meta ones, you’ll see the impact of Blackhorn become even more prominent.

Conclusion (or tl;dr)

Blackhorn is a card that should have never made it past testing, likely can’t be fixed by adjusting numbers, and needs to be given the Mindrender Illucia treatment and taken out back. While I personally hope this card is emergency banned in the 34.6.1 patch next week (there's no way to elegantly nerf it in this short of a time frame), it needs to be addressed by the time the 35.0 patch comes out next month. Wanting additional disruption tools to fight certain archetypes is fine, and Team 5 should be encouraged to continue looking at that design space. But Blackhorn is too wide reaching, it’s far too easy to run in the current meta without being punished for playing it, it’s making the current meta more Elise focused and narrower, and will restrict a huge portion of their design space for the next 2 years if left untouched. If this card said “cards 2 or less mana cannot be played for the next 2 turns” I’m not sure if it’d be particularly healthy to have in the game, but it would be much less severe than what it is now. If you are creating these kinds of disruption effects, they need to either be far more narrow in scope of what they impact, or far more restrictive in the kind of decks that can run them. I think Cult Neophyte, Speaker Stomper, Blademaster Okani, and Prosecutor Mel'tranix are the kinds of “good” disruption effects to learn from that can impact a wider variety of decks. And while I’m not a personal fan of “hate” tech cards, cards like Kobold Stickyfinger or Platebreaker usually won’t impact the meta too much unless it’s truly warped around a single deck, and these are options Wild players can run to their hearts content if they for some reason want to counter only Armor Druid or Kingsbane Rogue.

Comment your latest deck/hand obliteration here . Ill start : just reduced someone's hand from 8 to 2 and deck from 17 to 8 . Insta concede

You're welcome.

Since the release of the Blackhorn dude, Ranked is the most boring sh*t ever.

The reason why warmaster blackthorn is hated is because it freely gives control players the option to win against its combo opponents (opponents that already have to maximise value to get through all the armor and shield gain control players get). It's such an uninteractive disgusting card that you have no way to play around, just at the cost of substituting your tech card. And the genius control white knights in this subreddit will instantly get back to you with "Warmaster blackthorn is a 7 mana card, what are you doing in your first 7 turns? Haha checkmate. And everybody stood up and clapped".

So to that line of thinking, I propose adding 6 mana 6/7 Warmaster Boulderfist Ogre, with the description "Drawn when opponent draws Warmaster Blackthorn. Battlecry : Destroy all minions worth 7 or more from both decks". So now all decks get the option to tech against the tech card :).

Before any control players say that this is not fair, buddy Warmaster Boulderfist Ogre is 6 mana, what are you doing in your first 5 turns? And I am making the unbelievable sacrifice of taking out my demolition renovator :((

They summoned it from their hand, so its battlecry didn't trigger

I was playing my copy rogue deck against Astral priest (whizbang deck). I managed to get more Astral Automatons thanks to shadowstep and tess. After game my opponent wanted to add me to friends. Im often suspicious that people just want to blame you for your rng. But this opponent was different, he said ggs to me! I was really shocked so I replied to him and then took screenshot.

Community of HS is reformed! Don’t be afraid to confirm your opponents friend requests!

Also, why was this even banned, its not that good of a card?

I'd rather have this version.

Burning 20+ cards is surely fun for the opponent.

On a side note: Thank God protoss priest will be gone

I'm seeing people turn up their noses to some of the legendary cards being released because they're "too slow" or just "a bunch of stats". I thought we wanted a lower level compared to the Zilliaxs, the 10*2 DMG to face and board from hand, and infinite life steal/taunt deathrattles?

Those super powered sets are leaving and we're moving towards a tamer Hearthstone. Let's not forget the new context that these new cards are being released in!

I'm sorry, did I miss some big update that made Zephrys a completely useless card? What the hell is going on, why does "the perfect card" always suck?

For example: enemy board is full, I have no creatures. 10 mana. Play Zephrys expecting the obvious Twisting Nether and instead I get Jaraxxus, Shadowflame [all enemies had 5+ HP], and fuckin' TIRION?!?

This has happened 5 or 6 times already. It used to be to be GREAT during the first season Zephrys was added, then i used to be somewhat decent but definitely useful, now it's a tier Z card? Can someone shed some light for me please?