Whether they carried you to Legend or made you quit the game in cross-eyed rage, Hearthstone has seen a lot of overpowered cards. Most of these got the nerf hammer (eventually, maybe, when Blizzard got around to it), but all left their mark on the board and the game at large. In no particular order, read on to learn more about the 15 most meta-defining, panic-inducing cards in Hearthstone history.

15) Deathstalker Rexxar

Combine Snowflipper Penguin and Angry Chicken for a terrifying combo.

• Here’s how it goes: you throw this bad boy down, getting 5 armor and cleaning your opponent’s board. That’s just a nice start.
• For only two mana, make a Zombeast from two other Beasts. Stats are added, and keywords and card text all go into the new minion. Next turn do it again. And again. You see where this is going.
• Zombeasts are tailored to your needs. On the ropes? Add Lifesteal to Taunt or Rush and win that breathing room. Need to push? Slap a Stranglehorn Tiger and a Stonetusk Boar together and swing face for 6 damage and a 6/6 body.
• The fact is, no other card can compete with the Rexxar Death Knight in terms of long-term value. The hero power is so good, so ridiculously unpassable, that it could (and did) be run in aggressive decks in order to transition into a powerful late game and compete with control decks.

14) Undertaker

He’ll take you under  alright.

• The line “Bring out your dead” is liable to send your opponent into a cold sweat from turn one.
• Before the inevitable ban, Undertaker grew +1/+1 for every Deathrattle minion you played. Does your opponent want to deal with your one big minion or with your many little minions? Doesn’t matter, he’s dead either way. 
• Most reliable way of getting a turn 2 Chillwind Yeti. From turn 3 onwards nothing is outside your reach.
• Want to see your opponent Fireballing your 1-cost minion? This is the way to go.
• Nerfed, but not forgotten.

13) Leeroy Jenkins

If that face doesn’t spell ‘meticulous plan to deal 26 damage from hand’ I don’t know what does.

• Nice, reliable burst damage available to all classes, though you would be excused from thinking it’s a Rogue exclusive.
• “Leeerooooooy Jeeeeenkins!” signals the end of the game. Luckily, your opponent will get to hear the line two more times before he’s allowed to lose.
• Interactivity is for players who can’t dish out 26+ damage from hand. 
• The Whelps he makes will never, ever, get to attack.

12) Skull of Gul’dan

Dude, where’s my skull?

• Let’s be serious for a moment: this is a good card. Not exactly infringing on overpowered territory but an eternal auto-include in Demon Hunter. 
• ‘Draw 3 for 6’ is a reasonable use of your turn. ‘Draw 3 for 6 and also discount those cards for a possible total of 9 mana’ seems like doubtful card design.
• Can turn the tide of any battle, and the frequency and quality of the draws will frequently decide Demon Hunter mirror matches. 
• Enables many surprising plays, since your opponent can never be sure of which cards have just been discounted a bunch.

11) Brawl

Just a fun night out with the boys.

• In keeping with the sober, sensible cards, here is the one Warrior crowd control card that doesn’t depend on doing 1 damage a bunch of times in a row. Essentially, kill every minion on the board except for one, randomly chosen.
• To the inexperienced player, it may seem like a mini-game of roulette, but high-level matches show how off-mark that is. Players used to circumvent Brawl all the time, and intelligent plays were enough to offset the possibility of losing your board. 
• RNG being what it is, your 8/7 Taunt will never survive your opponent’s Brawl. If they do, it’s because your opponent has Execute in hand (though they’re sad they have to use it).
• A staple of Control Warrior decks since time immemorial, recently bumped off to the Classic format. The entire Warrior class is sure to lament its loss.

10) Dr. Boom

Yeah, this dude was once the best the game had to offer. Think about that.

• A 7-cost 7/7 that summons a couple of buddies. If you’re a new player, you’re probably looking at this funny War Golem and wondering what’s so special about it. Well…
• In the long, long ago, when Hearthstone was young and Goblins vs. Gnomes had just been announced, many agreed with you. As it turns out, a cost-efficient War Golem with an RNG effect that makes your opponent wary of eliminating the associated minions is very strong tempo wise. 
• Add to that the fact that the card is a Neutral Legendary, and suddenly the meta was thrown on its head on account of a joke character. Every deck had Boom as their 7-slot. People in forums started recommending new players craft him instead of Ragnaros and Sylvannas. He was so ubiquitous that…
• Big Game Hunter became a staple in the meta just on account of that one card. Turn 7 stopped being a game and turned to solitaire, with jaded players throwing Dr. Boom and even more jaded players snap-playing BGH in response. One turn later they would repeat, with the positions switched. 

9) Sylvanas Windrunner 

‘Random’ meaning ‘not the one you want’.

• Speaking of old-timey Neutral Legendaries, here’s Sylvanas. With a 5/5 for 6, it’s a nice body to have on the board, but a far cry from the plain 6/7 Boulderfist Ogre you can have for the same cost. But then you look at the card text and you start to think…
• The joy in plopping her down on a board has all to do with the associated mind tricks. Go ahead, kill my minion, you say. Because then your minion becomes my minion. And if you take too long I’ll kill it myself, and you’ll like that even less.
• It became a staple of control decks. Remember Brawl? Imagine playing Brawl with her on your board. There’s literally no way you can lose that roll of the dice, and the worst thing that can happen is you getting your opponent’s surviving 1/1. Shaman’s ‘kill and revive’ cards really enjoyed having Sylv on their side, and Priest and Hunter warmed up to her later on.
• Guaranteed to get your opponent’s Ragnaros each time, every time (results may vary).

8) Emperor Thaurissan

Super chill, just like everyone who has ‘Emperor’ as their job description.

• You know when you’re planning a super cool new combo, positively giddy about figuring out a way to smash your opponent’s face for 36 damage from hand, then realizing it would cost you a total of 13 mana to do so? That’s when Thaurissan comes in, ready to save the day. At the end of your turn, this Neutral Legendary would reduce the cost of every card in your hand by one. 
• Inspired quotes about Ragnaros aside, Thaurissan is a pretty chill guy. He won’t win you the game on the spot, but he’ll definitely set up a killer combo for later. He doesn’t even have to survive! Just set him and forget him. And if your opponent lets him live a whole turn, then they just aren’t very invested in winning the game.
• Now that your Malygos costs 8 mana and your spells are free, the hardest part of your job is correctly aiming at your opponent’s face. You’ll have to do it a few times, so steady your nerves and blast off those spells. 
• Combos aside, Thaurissan is great in any deck that keeps a large hand full of high-cost minions, which explains why Warlocks love him. Often, being able to deploy two big minions on the same turn instead of one is enough to win you the game on the spot.

7) The Caverns Below

The Caverns Bellow is a completely different place, where you can barely hear yourself thinking.

• Fast forward a couple of expansions and we had this. After you play the same minion 4 times, every minion in your deck becomes a 5/5. Compared to Mage’s ‘skip your opponent’s turn’ quest reward, Rogue’s ranged from ignored to laughing stock during pre-release armchair analysis. How wrong we all were. Oh, how wrong. 
• Turns out that in a class that’s uniquely qualified to play the same minion over and over again, this is a pretty powerful card. You know Novice Engineer, the 2-cost 1/1 that draws you a card? Cute, right? Well, now she’s 5/5, still costs 2, still draws a card, and is itching to rush face. Stonetusk Boar, the 1/1 with Charge? Southsea Deckhand? You see where I’m going with this.
• Alongside this card, Sonya Shadowmancer became a powerhouse. As soon as turn 5 (with The Coin) it became possible to throw her down, summon Stonetusk Boar, and suicide it against an opponen’ts minion 3 times. The 4th will pack a bigger punch, guaranteed. 
• The amount of cards that suddenly became terrifying didn’t stop growing. Glacial Shard, Wax Elemental, Vicious Scalehide. The already annoying Giggling Inventor became game-ending. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the onslaught of supersized mini-minions. The only one left laughing was the Rogue.

6) Loatheb

‘Presto! Your watch has turned into creepy mushrooms.’

• Do you know what usually grinds players’ gears? Cheap aggro decks. Because even if you squeeze out a win, more are sure to come, drawn by the promise of quick games and a quick ladder climb. Wary, you add another Blizzard to your deck and even a Flamestrike. Let those zoo decks come.
• Right. You meant well. But who could predict that, right after the zoo player overextended, right after he filled his board with cheap, removable minions, that he’d play a… what’s that? Loatheb?
• The 5-cost 5/5 body is a little annoying. Just out of Flamestrike damage. Guess you’ll have to waste a minion. But wait… Your eyes open wide. It’s your turn, but your Flamestrike costs 12 now. 12? That’s not even a real number! And Blizzard costs 11! What! 
• Aggrieved, you do the best you can: Mirror Image for (sigh) 6 mana. Then concede, gather yourself, queue for another game. And oh, look. It’s Warlock. Something in your chest tightens. You know what’s coming. You know what’s waiting in that deck. And it terrifies you.

5) Patches the Pirate

Seen here post-retirement, not so much charging as just chilling.

• Does he look like much? Obviously no. Even before the nerf, when the card had Charge, it’s nice, sure, to think that your novelty Pirate deck can get a single point of damage in as early as turn 1, but game-breaking? Stopping joking around, you joker.
• Well, you can get Batman on the line, because I’m not done. This 1/1 specimen was once responsible for putting Pirate Warrior on the radar. Because Patches is not just a single point of damage. He’s a body with synergy, he’s two minions for the price of one, and, more importantly, he thins your deck without impacting your hand at all. And that’s huge.
• It’s surprisingly easy to communicate how absolutely ridiculous this card once was: Reno Warlock used to run it. Yeah, you read that right. In order to thin their choices, control decks were slotting Patches and a single pirate into their decks. 
• I debated a lot of cards for this list. OPness has nipped at Hearthstone’s meta since the early days, and many, many cards coud have been in many of these positions. But putting a 1-cost 1/1 gives me a perverse sort of joy, so here you go.

4) Ragnaros the Firelord

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

• The OG must-craft, and you can’t go wrong with the classics. Being the sort of completely self-explanatory, drop-it-and-leave-it card, makes Rag the perfect Legendary for a beginner. 
• 8-cost 8/8 ‘do 8 damage no matter what’ is a pretty great effect. Being RNG embodied also ensured the card starred in >90% ‘Hearthstone Funny Moments’ videos.
• Polymorph/Hex magnet, giving  you a cool sheep/frog buddy.
• “DIE, INSECT!” is one of the most iconic lines in Hearthstone. Insects dutifully keel over when Rag blasts them out of existence.

3) Jade Idol

That Choose One line still makes me giggle nervously from time to time.

• We’re done with great, powerful cards and back to nightmare-fuel. Jade Idol is the sort of card they let interns design thinking ‘oh, what’s the harm’. Let me tell you what the harm is.
• A 1-cost spell that fills your deck with copies of itself and later spans fun, interactive 11/11s without ever letting you run out of deck obviously sounds balanced.  Obviously it rewards careful, attentive play instead of mindlessly spamming the same card over and over again. But what if there was a way to abuse this clearly balanced card?
• What if, along with Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Fandral Staghelm the card could fill your deck, make minions, and also draw more of itself to keep doing the earlier two steps? Of course, this would be a lategame threat, something that quick aggro decks would be able to deal with quite easily, no? Let Face Hunter keep Jade Idol in check!
• But what if this card belonged to a class that had ways of ramping while building up armor and drawing at the same what if -- you get the point. Jade Idol was busted, matching against a Druid was cause for insta-concede, and the world became a better place after the card left Standard.

2) Shudderwock

He attacc, he protecc, but most important he can finish games with a culmination of the strategies you’ve employed this far. 

• We can argue back and forth if what made this card so powerful was its game-closing potential or the onslaught of Battlecry minions Shaman was able to dish out on the turns before he dropped. We cannot, however, argue the fact that Shudderwock was the morsel that made the deck so appealing. 
• With a host of Battlecries like ‘summon X copies of this minion’, Lifedrinker’s ‘deal 3 damage, restore 3 damage, some draw, and some crowd control, there was little Sudderwock wouldn’t do when he was finally summoned.
• The greediest decks would also run Prince Keleseth, which definitely would have earned a spot on this list if the effect wasn’t a little too pat.
• “My jaws that bite, my claws that catch!” is wayy too good a line, and the fact it was followed my a torrent of Battlecries that would end the game immediately only made it better.

1) Flamewreathed Faceless

Fun if you’re the one playing it. And if you’re not, you can always start looking forward to the next game (spoiler: it’s against Aggro Shaman again)

• Keeping with the class that was home to one of the most powerful aggro decks in the history of the game, here’s Mr. Balanced himself, the 4-cost 7/7 (NOT Eerie Statue, interestingly) who’s here to give a TedTalk on game design and meta equilibrium. On the question of how to balance your cards, Flamewreathed Faceless’ philosophy is simple: don’t.
• Partnering up with Tunnel Trogg, Totem Golem, and a host of other offenders, this card was the pièce de résistance of an Overload-centric deck which aimed to put fun, balanced threats on the board and promote a back-and-forth between players. Only, their minions were overstatted, their removal top-notch, and Tunnel Trogg grew with every card they played. Your minions don’t do that? Woopsie!
• Origin of the 4 mana 7/7 meme, which referred to well-designed minions in general, and ones with good cost for their stats in particular.
• Its card text might as well have been ‘give a Tunnel Trog ally +2 Attack’, for all the impact it had on the game.

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