Runek Laughs at Turn-One 0-Cost Blitzer, Dark Eyes Laughs Back

Runek, Dark Duelist

Draft: Always Acceptable
Constructed: Tier 8

Bad in constructed because it’s too small to race Wild, it has no evasion against Evil tokens, and it doesn’t provide any additional value (even though it does survive on-turn board clears). It is the only Ambush Ritual of Scarra enabler, but that’s not unfair enough to justify inclusion.

In limited, it’s a reasonable on-turn or off-turn gold-punisher. It breaks almost anything it blocks or is blocked by and survives attacking into anything. And, like all reasonably-sized ambush champions, it can be strong against attacking 0-cost blitz champions (especially since I’ve started to “disrespect” the turn one play and attack with a blitzing 0-cost champion while both players’ golds are up).

Turn-One 0-cost Blitz Champion is Over-Utilized

This tactic’s obvious strength lies in the fact that it allows you, the current player, to apply pressure without spending your gold. In most cases, your opponent, not wanting to spend their gold either, just takes the damage for free. In this most basic scenario it is amazing, but it relies on your opponent both knowing and respecting the danger of spending their gold first (in addition to not having a 0-cost answer).

If your opponent does spend their gold to deal with your 0-cost blitzing champion, for instance by playing Runek, Dark Duelist in an attempt to block, what then? Well, if you hadn’t thought that far ahead, you might just be trading a card to get your opponent’s gold down, while also getting yourself behind on the board. In this case, you both end up at 4 cards in hand, but your opponent has a flipped champion in play. I’ve been catching opponents in this state repeatedly. Further, I’m rarely punished for attempting it.

The real potential of the turn-one 0-cost blitzer is only unlocked when you can actually support it, by punishing your opponent for having the audacity to spend their gold first on your turn.

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Fast Removal

Opponent ambushes in a 1-cost champion to block your 0-cost blitzer? Remove it before it can block. This usually enables your 0-cost champion to go unblocked, deal its damage, and survive until the next turn. The best card for this is Banishment because it also replaces itself, keeping you at 4 cards in hand (dipping down to 3 is a dangerous low).

This support is ineffective against cards like Medusa or Hunting Pack, fast 1-cost removal that leave one or more bodies.

Finishing Blow+

If you can’t remove the 1-cost ambush champion before the block, finishing off the blocker and gaining another strong effect can be just as strong, if not stronger. Buffs such as Smash and Burn or Winds of Change are nice to draw cards and protect your 0-cost champion. Restablishing champions (such as Kong) can avenge your 0-cost champion and retake control of the board. Cards like Blue Dragon are especially powerful here because they can potentially finish off the champion that blocked, leave you a threat in play, and replace themselves in hand. The best version of this type of support is Pelios, Storm Lord.

Pelios, Storm Lord

Draft: Situationally Desirable
Constructed: Tier 7

While bad in constructed because it does nothing incredibly well (no evasion/breakthrough, not enough tribute-damage to break most things by itself, and draw one isn’t enough to make up for the other two issues), in limited if already in Wild it’s actually quite solid because it does a lot of things reasonably well.

As previously alluded to, the best use scenario for this card is to play it after your opponent spent their gold for the turn to finish off a weakened champion. It can also be used as just a straight up establishing champion (effectively a better, Wild-only Mythic Monster), and/or it can pick off a Muse/deal damage to the enemy player directly. Overall, it’s just above average in a lot of different potential roles. One downside though is that if you do use it turn one to finish off an ambush champion that your 0-cost champion ran into, you end up revealing half of your 4 card hand

Aggressive On-Turn Gold Punisher

My favorite support for the turn-one, 0-cost blitzer is undoubtedly the on-turn gold-punisher, but only ones that can draw a card. While 14 damage from a Rampaging Wurm is ridiculous, I’d much rather use a White Knight and lose out on 5 of that damage to maintain a 4+ card handsize. Either way my champion will probably be removed fairly quickly and an extra card is frequently more impactful than 5 health. (The extra card gives you more options and enables you to go longer before needing to play a draw 2.)

On-turn gold-punishers are my favorite type of cards, and we just got arguably the best one in the game, which is also perfect in this situation:

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Dark Eyes

Draft: Always Desirable+
Constructed: Tier 3

This is my favorite card.

It’s an evasive, blitz champion, that can draw cards, and hits the most important stat-breakpoints. Dark Eyes is the epitome of an on-turn gold-punisher: if your opponent has a gold available, almost all removal can deal with it, but if they don’t, playing it advances your board state, reduces your opponent’s health, and draws to replace itself/advance you towards decking out. In other words, it advances you in all aspects of the game.

The fact that it draws a card whenever it hits your opponent is critical for a few reasons. Against control decks, you absolutely need to deal enough damage to kill them. The main difficulty, however, is being able to supply a consistent stream of threats/damage to outpace both their answers and their healing, both of which are usually more efficient than any of your sources of damage. If you try to just force them down with non-replenishing threats and/or burn, you will eventually run out of cards, which forces you to spend time drawing, in turn enabling your control-opponent to stabilize, which almost inevitably leads to them winning. With Dark Eyes against an opponent who spent their gold, it either hits, which is amazing, or it essentially forces them to discard a 0-cost card to negate the attack. Either way, Dark Eyes will still be there to threaten them next turn.

Due to this, there is the possibility that Dark Eyes could draw more than 1 card for 1 gold. This is particularly strong if you are drawing 0-cost effects that help Dark Eyes continue to get damage through, Wither or Rage for example. Think of it this way though, it’s a Flame Strike, that drew a card and threatens to do both again next turn. If 1 card and 1 gold can deal 16 damage and draw 2 cards, you should win. Finally, having the card draw tied to damaging the opponent (and the blitz not tied to loyalty) makes it incredible with Army of the Apocalypse.

The reason this card might actually see constructed play, however, is because WWG gave it an aggressive statline. 7 defense means there is no 0-cost card that can remove this by itself (aside from Hasty Retreat/Vanishing). Further, 7 defense also means that it can’t be incidentally removed by
Smash and Burn the turn after it has its initial effect. Your opponent must spend a gold specifically to remove this. Even further, in combination with its 8 offense, it’s a monster in the air. Since the standard strong airborne statline is 6/8, Dark Eyes is positioned to beat a significant portion of playable airborne champions, and it even takes out Rescue Griffin.

This card has consistently been amazing for me. I used it repeatedly in limited to great effect, and I’ve even had some early success with it in constructed (significantly more testing required though).

Conclusion

Overall, I’ve seen a lot of people playing 0-cost blitz champions with no worthwhile follow up, and I’ve been punishing them for it. If your best follow up to a contested 0-cost champion is an “or draw 2,” it’s probably better to just hold that champion for later. However, this has gotten to the point where you can potentially bluff highly experienced players. If I know, that my opponent knows, that I know that I shouldn’t play a 0-cost blitz champion without support on turn-one, I can do it anyway and they might not risk spending their gold.

Also, Dark Eyes. Oh man, Dark Eyes, oh man.