Deck Philosophy - Taunt, Charge, and the Shaman Legendary

 

This is an opinion piece by the author. It is not intended to be gospel. It is merely an editorial perspective intended to aid in thinking about your cards.

Part of the thing I love about Hearthstone is how much variation there is in how you can treat your cards. It’s not all about tradeoffs and value, sometimes. In certain decks, it’s about design and intent.

For this article I’m going to use a term that’s thrown around quite a bit: trade off. There’s many different ways to trade off. For instance, King Mukla is a “5/5 for 3″ (meaning for five attack and five health you only spend 3 mana), but in using this card you give your opponent two cards which can buff his characters 1/1 for 1. This is a risk as any one mob can attain two extra health and damage.

There is an innate value in cards with taunt and charge affixes. Even if a card is 4/4 for 4, the fact that it has taunt gives it a valued “feature” which impacts the play. What is important to note, though, is that this “feature” is a value as it rarely negatively impacts the game. For this reason, I find that charge and taunt cards are often more valuable than their plain-clothes counterparts.

While this all may be true, it’s important to recognize that certain decks synergize with certain affixes better. A warrior deck will often focus on charge cards, for instance, while a priest could focus more on taunts… though in the current meta, many do not. So the questions need to be answered: What is the value of a taunt and what is the value of a charge?

For taunts, damage isn’t everything. Survival is.

I will not undermine the value of a Senjin Shieldmasta. It’s a 3/5 for 4, which means that it’s 8 attack + health points for 4 mana, giving you 2.0 value for the price. Now add on the fact that it has taunt and the fact that its health is pretty decent, and you’ll see that it’s actually quite a balanced card. No wonder it’s the go-to mid-range taunt card, right?

What about poor Silverback Patriarch? I’m going to just flat out say it, this card is awful. It’s 1/4 for 3. This means that it has a 5 attack + health points for 3 mana, giving you 1.67 value per mana. Of course I’d never take this card. It’s just poor scaling.

Now what about the Mogushan Warden? It has the same scaling value as the Sen’jin Shieldmasta, yet it is rarely seen and often shunned on boards and forums. Is the Mogu’shan Warden worth it? I say that is not only is worth it for the right deck, but preferred over the Senjin Shieldmasta in many circumstances.

These examples are intended to illustrate an important point. The value of a taunt is to *take damage*. You put the card out there in order to *force* your opponent to attack this card. If you have a Sen’jin Shieldmasta, sure it can deal a little bit of damage, but it is very easy to kill. The Mogu’shan Warden, on the other hand, is a much harder kill. It takes either one very powerful foe minions, two very middling foe minions, or an army of very weak foe minions to take this card down. Why did you put a taunt up? A vast majority of the time its there to protect your valuable assets for a bit longer, right? As far as this is concerned, the Mogu’shan is the preferred option.

The argument counter to this is that the Sen’jin really hurts the person who is attacking it a lot more, making it more valuable. It can kill the thing that attacks it. It also lowers the incentive for Hero Weapon attacks, such as the Truesilver Weapon. While all this may be true, I want to point out, your enemy’s turn is his change to do more damage to you. Delay is important. If the Warrior you’re fighting hits your Mogu’shan Warden with his Arcanite Reaper, that’s one less durability to his weapon and he can’t even one shot it!

For charge, damage is everything, but…

… if it can survive the attack, that’s premium.

The only benefit a charge minion brings to the table is its initial damage. When you play a card with charge, you’re trying to get immediate results. While taunt is more useful in controlling your opponent’s choices, charge is a tempo affix. This means it is intended to keep the flow of damage in your favor. When you play a charge card, you should expect it to accomplish one thing, and if it does that one thing you should be happy.

That said, why is the Argent Commander such a highly used card? Simple! It accomplishes its goal and will (almost) always survive the attack. It has divine shield and this allows it to do its significant damage (4) and have its health (3) remain the same afterwards. This means that it is still something to be reckoned with after the initial charge, and that is a value you cannot sneeze at.

Compare this to the Stormwind Knight. It’s a 2/5 for 4, so a 1.75 value. That’s pretty reasonable to expect from a card with charge on it, but its damage is a mere 2. Take into account the fact that it has 5 health and you realize that if it were to survive the initial attack, it would really be a pitiful remainder of its former self. Not only that, but it’s rare this card will kill something in the later game, meaning if you top draw this card, you’ve often drawn dead. This card is rather weak for a charge affix. Cards like the Kor’kron Elite are always better than this card, because they are in line with the intent of a charge… instant gratification and positive results.

Why the Shaman legendary needs fixing.

As you read before, the affixes of Taunt and Charge have very different goals. Since I’m on the topic of the two, let’s discuss the only card that has both affixes, and why that’s a bad thing. I’m talking about Al’Akir the Windlord.

This card is 3/5 for 8, meaning it has a pathetic 1.0 value. However, it also has windfury, so you can essentially double that value if and only if the card isn’t silenced. It has charge, meaning that it does a weak 3 damage for the cost, but it has divine shield meaning it can take the initial blow (like the Argent Commander), but it’s health means it will be severely damaged by the second blow. What is most unfortunate about this card is that it also has taunt. It will get beat up on the next turn nearly 100% of the time. It already potentially damaged itself on play, and now it *has* to take damage for the enemy to get to you.

This card is engineered to do an average between 6-9 damage for 8 mana. That is quite weak, in my opinion. It’s hardly legendary at all, in fact. Avenging Wrath does a guaranteed 8 damage across multiple enemies and yet it costs 6 mana. This card is so pathetic, I’ve disenchanted it twice. Taunt and charge should never be on the same card. The two are diametrically opposed in purpose.

Conclusion

While taunt is a fantastic, it’s fantastic in context. It’s intended to keep minions away from the minions who intend to deal the most damage. It’s intended to protect your valuable assets. While damage is nice on a taunt card, health is most key. Charge, on the other hand, is intended to escalate the current situation. Its intended to be dropped in and played, and if it survives, good. If not, then oh well, at least it did what it needed to do this turn. The two concepts opposed each other so much that they render a card useless if it appears both on the same card. Throw Shaman a bone and revise their legendary!