A Dance of Faerie Dragons

Author: Kisstafer - Twitter | Tumblr | Youtube

Faerie dragon is going to become a very, very popular card in the competitive Hearthstone constructed deck scene. The fact that this card is unable to be targeted by spells guarantees that it will deal it’s 3 damage to a minion if dropped in the early stages of the game before players have the mana to access their area of effect cards. There are a couple of exceptions, most notably Arcane Missiles, but in most cases he’s going to eventually bump into a minion for 3 damage.

This is extremely important for two different deck archetypes:

It’s important for late game control-types because it guarantees that the enemy will have 1 less minion on the board early on. This is vital because late game decks are often susceptible to being overrun by a swarm of early weenie creatures. With the faerie dragon however, players can help negate that possibility by ensuring that their minion is not killed by a spell and goes 1 for 1 with another minion instead. If you’re still not convinced, just imagine how many times you’ve played a minion hoping for it to take out an enemy minion or two before eventually going down itself - only for it to absorb a spell while your opponent casually resumes beating away at your life points.

It’s also important for aggro deck-types because it guarantees that if the enemy does not have an early minion to play, he is going to take free damage on his life points. A large proportion of priest, mage, and hunter decks rely on early spells (smite, frost bolt, arcane shot) to take care of early enemy minions with the goal of simply surviving until later on. The faerie dragon forces them to either change their deck to include early minions (a faerie dragon perhaps!?!?) or be unable to clear the minion until turn 4 or 5 when they’ve already taken 9 points of damage to the face.

Most of the time you don’t want to coin out a two drop in constructed play unless you have a follow up to it either in the form of a removal spell to protect him or another minion to back him up if he gets removed. The faerie dragon seems to be an exception to this rule because even if there is no follow up, the fact that this guy can’t be removed with a spell means the person who plays him gets guaranteed damage on the opposing player. What’s more is that the player on the receiving end of the “faerie dragoning” has to sacrifice a minion to kill it or else it will just stay there bopping away at their health until they are able to finally get rid of it. This of course doesn’t include classes that have early access to weapons such as the warrior’s Fiery War Axe or the Shaman’s Rockbiter Weapon.

We’ve already begun to see Faerie Dragon popping up in tournaments with the past NA Managrind tournament featuring 8 copies of him in the top 8. I think it is a pretty safe bet to predict that the early game of competitive Hearthstone will develop into a brawl of faerie dragons bopping each other over the head one way or another. He’s simply the best 2 drop for safety purposes, and in an aggressive deck he’s right up there with the knife juggler. At the end of the day, the best defense is a good offense and the faerie dragon exemplifies this with perfection.

Interesting tidbit: the faerie dragon’s immunity to spells can be silenced!

Happy hunting!