Spreadsheet: Other
Category: Ambush Champions (B-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier
Spreadsheet: Other
Category: Health Gain (B-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: B-Tier
Tier 6
I stopped doing my reviews in alphabetical order for this card. Initially, I thought it was a pretty strong Dark Draft card but a mediocre constructed card that I could effectively dismiss. A 7/7 airborne, ambush champion that kills small things and gains some health is almost all of the things I want in limited; bundle them together for a gold and you’ve got a happy Tom. However, offer that to me in constructed, and I’ll disgustedly raise my eyebrows at it. The main reasoning behind this dichotomy is the radical difference in deck composition between the two formats.
In limited, the current meta dictates that you flood your deck with 0-cost cards and use your 1-cost cards to draw more/support them. Establishing/Re-establishing 0-cost champions that you can play when both golds are up are particularly strong/popular like Thrasher Demon/Shadow Imp and Javelin Thrower/Forcemage Apprentice. Dark One’s Apprentice is great against those cards. You can reasonably play Dark One’s Apprentice either while your opponent’s gold is up, to immediately remove that threat before it can finish attacking, or when their gold is down to incidentally remove it while gaining some health and putting a sizable evasive threat into play off-turn.
Spending your gold before your opponent is frequently a terrible idea if it can be avoided, but a Dark One’s Apprentice played in the right circumstance is an exception (especially on the first turn going second). At minimum, you guaranteed-remove a small-threat card and gain three health. If your opponent responds with a re-establishing card like Kong, they’re probably down two cards in hand to your one, and you draw a card to replace it on your turn. If they respond with an on-turn, 1-cost, blitzing gold-punisher, you have at minimum a hard-to-remove 1-cost, 7-defense, airborne chump-blocker that can block practically anything if absolutely necessary, or, generally better, a 7/7 airborne champion to attack and race with for next turn (your opponent is also still probably down two cards to your one). Frequently more likely on the first turn, your opponent will just draw 2 cards and can’t apply more 0-cost pressure because your 7/7, immune to Raxxa’s Curse, airborne champion blocks almost any of them. In a format so dominated by 0-cost cards, favorable card-in-hand trades can frequently be more important than gold-for-gold trades.
In constructed, I initially assumed it didn’t do enough since constructed is so streamlined to not allow reasonable Jack of All Trades cards. It doesn’t immediately deal damage/apply pressure or remove particularly relevant targets against Kark, and it’s both too small and provides too little health gain against Wild. I did have a eureka moment though, where I remembered both this and similarly initially-underwhelming Herald of Scara are demons. I thought I might be able to build an airborne demon deck that relies on token chump-blocking (Plentiful Dead) to stall my opponent’s attacks long enough to blow them out with Raxxa’s Displeasure (or to outrace them in the air). Preliminary testing showed promise, and by the time I finished my monthly constructed run I realized Dark One’s Apprentice is actually … fine … to mediocre.
It was an okay off-turn threat, but I was frequently in situations where I wanted an off-turn threat, but I couldn’t get real value out of the tribute. Rift Summoner would have probably been better in most of those situations. The best I could frequently do was play it into an attacking airborne champion to trade and gain 3 health; so, a worse Drain Essence that I could pull from Mist Guide Herald and return from my discard pile with Scarred Cultist. The only spot where it was decent was to clear out potential chump-blocking Mist Guide Heralds when I needed a threat. I did end up cutting the Raxxa’s Displeasure to shove in The Risen and Demonic Rising to have more play against Kark, only to proceed into a tournament with no Karks. Overall, I still view it favorably for draft, and if you include it in your constructed deck I’ll only raise my eyebrows questioningly, so progress.
(I did bump The Risen up to tier 4 from 5 and Herald of Scara up to tier 5 from 7 due to the mentioned Evil deck.)