Dust, Life, Happiness and Friends
Having a collection that allows you to build competitive Hearthstone decks is hard. Even if you spend money on the game, if your luck is poor, or you haven’t been min-maxing quests, you might find yourself two epics or one legendary short of any given deck. Luckily for you, though, the set rotation is coming with Festival of Legends’ release! Not only does that mean you have three fewer sets to craft for Standard, you also may have some cards in the proverbial attic that you can trade for dust without affecting your future competitive prospects.
Hey, Where’s Tome Tampering?
This guide focuses exclusively on cards from sets that are rotating out of Standard after the Year of the Gryphon comes to a close (Forged in the Barrens, United in Stormwind, and Fractured in Alterac Valley). Cards that are listed as safe to dust have seen virtually no play in the two years they’ve been in Standard, so there should be no need to worry that they’re suddenly going to be meta relevant in Wild. (Note: This isn’t a guarantee, and depends on how much you like to experiment.) Cards that are listed as having seen fringe play are just that; they were in decks that turned out to not be good enough to be meta relevant, or got swapped out for more powerful cards as decks got refined. They may see play again, but unless you’re a huge fan of that specific deck archetype, you can probably part with the card.
If you’re looking for guides for what to dust from older sets, you can find them here:
Year of the Phoenix Dusting Guide
Year of the Dragon Dusting Guide
Year of the Raven Dusting Guide
Year of the Mammoth Dusting Guide
Year of the Kraken Dusting Guide
All that said, there are certainly cards that have not seen play in the more recent sets, but I’m not advocating you dust those yet. Cards go in and out of the meta depending on what’s printed. Had I written a guide for these sets a year ago, Caria Felsoul might have been listed, because it saw little significant play in the year it was released, but was strong enough to be nerfed significantly during Voyage to the Sunken City; had you dusted your copies last year, that deck would have cost you 1600 more dust to build. That doesn’t mean you should never dust any cards that are currently in the Standard rotation, but they’re not as cut and dry as cards that have not seen any play for two years. Duplicate protection does make dusting cards safer, because you won’t open them again until you’ve opened all the other cards in the set, but that comes with a downside: If those cards later see play, you’ll be forced to craft them with dust because you won’t be able to get them from packs. The good news is that there are a lot of cards printed in Year of the Gryphon that weren’t played, so you may be able to build up a pretty good pile of dust without even looking at cards that are staying in Standard.
This guide also only lists epic and legendary cards because that’s where your best return from dusting comes from. You get 5 dust in exchange for a common and 20 dust for a rare, so you need to dust a lot of commons and rares to get a useable amount of dust. Even if you think you’ll never play Wild, you may get nostalgic for some of the decks you’ve played after key cards rotate, and dusting all your Wild cards indiscriminately will lock you out of that. Sets eligible for building starter decks in Duels also rotate in and out, and often include Wild sets. (We’ve also heard that a new way to use your older cards is on the Hearthstone roadmap for 2023.) I’m not your dad, but you’d be better off leaving most of those cards alone, because by the time you’ve dusted enough cards to craft a few new cards, you won’t have many wild commons and rares left.
Enough talk, though; let’s make some cards Tradeable and find you some dust!
Legendary
Safe Dusts
These cards have seen virtually no play since they were introduced. They may find a place in Wild or Duels at some point, but even if they do, they’re likely able to be replaced without hurting the deck’s performance too much.
Forged in the Barrens
Guff Runetotem
This was the Guff that taught us not to be afraid of him, so that when we got the Guff hero card, he took us all by surprise. Spending 3 mana for a minion that doesn’t even affect the board on its own just isn’t good enough for Aggro Druid, especially when you consider cards that were printed later, like Herald of Nature.
Plaguemaw the Rotting
It turns out, if you want to spend 4 mana on something that makes your minions leave more minions behind when they die, you could just play Soul of the Forest, which is much more efficient and less conditional than keeping Plaguemaw on board.
Tavish Stormpike
We never really got the beasts for a Reverse Sequential Beast Hunter, especially considering that you’d need to keep the beasts you wanted to summon in your deck and draw the ones you wanted to attack. The deck that wanted to build around Tavish was too fragile and the payoff just wasn’t worth it.
Cannonmaster Smythe
We had a full on Secret Paladin in the beginning of the Barrens meta, before Sword of the Fallen was nerfed, and Smythe wasn’t good enough in that deck. It’s too difficult to keep enough secrets from triggering to get value from Smythe to justify including him in a deck.
Apothecary Helbrim
We had a number of Weapon Rogue decks over the time that Helbrim was in Standard, and it turns out that just putting the poisons that you want in your deck was better than two random ones.
Bru'kan
Bru’kan was one of the showpiece cards to demonstrate how spell schools could open up design space, but ultimately the burn decks that did materialize in Standard used Bioluminescence to get way more than +3 spell damage, and even Guild Trader was printed in the following set that gave spell damage +2 but was more flexible being both neutral and tradeable. In wild, there are more efficient and more flexible sources of spell damage available.
United in Stormwind
Grand Magus Antonidas
Antonidas just asks way too much of you. Playing a fire spell on three consecutive turns is a bigger challenge than it seems, and that line locks you into playing Antonidas on the following turn, whether or not it’s actually what you want to do. if the board state has a lot of small minions, those fireballs are going to be soaked up, and you’ll be left with a 6/6 body for your trouble. You could just run Frozen Touches and direct where the burn goes instead.
Rise to the Occasion
This is the only quest from United in Stormwind that didn’t result in even a fringe meta deck at some point in Standard. The deckbuilding requirement turned out to be too harsh, and the payoff too little to win games consistently.
Lothar
Lothar’s one of those cards that looks great on paper, because if you get it to stick, it’ll just snowball and become unstoppable. The issue is that it isn’t great into wide boards, and by the time you can play it, your opponent will likely have an answer for a single large minion (or they can just ignore it because it doesn’t have taunt).
Auctioneer Jaxon
You have to run so many tradeables in your deck that this card is just never worth a card slot. Even if you do get everything to line up, the payoff is barely worth it.
Cornelius Roame
Cornelius Roame is a perfect example of a “win more” card. If you’re ahead, you can afford to play him, and he gets you a ton of resources that you probably didn’t need to win the game. If you’re behind, it’s a 4/5 that does nothing for you the turn you play it, and the cards he drew you don’t matter if the game is over before you can use them on your next turn.
Goliath, Sneed's Masterpiece
Technically, this does affect the board when you play it. Realistically, though, most of the decks that care about mechs don’t want an 8 drop, and the ones that don’t care about mechs and do care about clearing the board can do so much more efficiently.
Fractured in Alterac Valley
Haleh, Matron Protectorate
You see Haleh more often from Drakefire Amulet than played on its own, because the number of times you can actually get value from the card text is generally pretty low unless you have some way to cheat it out.
Cera'thine Fleetrunner
Even Thief Rogue has its limits for nonsense.
Bearon Gla'shear
We really haven’t had a Shaman deck that goes all in on Frost spells since the very beginning of Alterac Valley. When you can get Gla’shear to go off, it can generate a lot of board presence for you, but often when you get it that late in the game, those 3/4s just don’t do enough.
Fringe Play
These cards have been in meta decks since being printed, but fell out quickly or were otherwise replaced by better options as decks were refined. They’re a bit riskier to dust because they might find the right conditions to be played again in Wild or Duels, but as long as you’re making an informed decision based on the kinds of decks you like to play, you should be fine to dust these cards.
Forged in the Barrens
Kurtrus Ashfallen
Little Kurt has seen some play in midgrangey Demon Hunter lists in 4 set metas, as the effect can be strong in board matchups. It just isn’t good enough if your opponent isn’t playing lots of small minions that it can solo.
Neeru Fireblade
There was a self-mill Warlock deck in Forged in the Barrens, but that eventually went by the wayside when Quest Warlock was a better way to do the same thing in Stormwind. The Warlock quest from Stormwind is currently banned in Wild, but depending on how it’s reworked when it leaves Standard, there’s a very slim chance that Neeru could be relevant in it.
United in Stormwind
Sheldras Moontree
Sheldras Moontree has only seen play in Duels, specifically in Elise Quest Priest, as it would allow you to potentially play the quest reward minion and win the game on the same turn. The cards that are core to that deck have since been banned in Duels, but that could change in the future.
Fractured in Alterac Valley
Korrak the Bloodrager
Korrak has been tried from time to time in various deathrattle decks, but putting multiple 3/5s into the dead pool instead of the more powerful deathrattles that are often also in the deck can get in the way, especially when playing effects that resummon the deathrattle minions instead of just triggering their deathrattles.
Nerfed into the Ground
These cards were nerfed out of existence sometime between when they were printed and today. Most cards that get nerfed for Standard balance reasons sometimes get reverted, so it may be worth holding on to these cards for playing in Wild or Duels to see if they’re useful in their pre-nerf forms.
Forged in the Barrens
Kargal Battlescar
Kargal Battlescar is the rare legendary that gave dust refunds because all the supporting cards were too good. He was barely played before the nerf to Far Watch Post and friends, and hasn’t been seen since.
United in Stormwind
The Demon Seed
The Demon Seed was nerfed several times in Standard, but it’s such a problem in Wild that it was banned there before rotation, and as it rotated, Team 5 burned the card to the ground and salted the earth so nothing could ever grow there again. If you haven’t already gotten your full dust from The Demon Seed, now is the time.
Fractured in Alterac Valley
Caria Felsoul
Caria was borderline broken at 6 mana at one point, because you could use her to cheat a Xhilag out of the deck early. Once she had the same mana cost as Xhilag, she never saw play again. It’s possible that she could get reverted back to a 6 mana 6/6, but that use case is likely not good enough in wild as compared to how powerful it was in a 4 set Standard meta. (Note: Caria Felsoul’s nerf has been reverted in Patch 26.0.)
Epic
Safe Dusts
Forged in the Barrens
Vengeful Spirit
Deathrattle Demon Hunter saw a fair amount of play in 4 set Standard metas, but Vengeful Spirit was often cut almost immediately. You already have plenty of draw in the deck, and expensive outcast cards tend to be liabilities because you can’t always play them when drawn, so they often get stuck in the middle of the hand.
Druid of the Plains
Druid has much better big minions to choose from.
Arcane Luminary
Casino Mage (thankfully) never took off in Standard while Arcane Luminary was an option. Once it rotates to Wild, there are better choices to discount your casino winnings than this.
Veteran Warmedic
Even with Holy Maki Roll producing the potential of infinite Medics, this card has never seemed to show any signs of life.
Priest of An'she
Priest of An’she looked borderline broken at reveal, but the reality is that it’s actually a 7 mana 8/8 taunt, since you usually need to use your hero power to trigger the battlecry. Priest has no end of expensive taunts that usually have a useful deathrattle or some other ability (like Blackwater Behemoth, which yes, isn’t strictly a taunt, but it may as well be).
Spirit Healer
Both Boon Priest and Naga Priest were meta decks while this card was in Standard; both played a bunch of Holy spells, and yet Spirit Healer never was even a consideration for either.
United in Stormwind
Rats of Extraordinary Size
You have to really want a bunch of token beasts to play Rats. Even with Infuse cards, we never did.
Clumsy Courier
The problem with Clumsy Courier is that the deck that it wants to be in also runs Grey Sage Parrot, but if you cast the spell with Courier, then it’s not in Parrot’s pool to recast.
Remote-Controlled Golem
Remote-Controlled Golem is a cool card that no one ever figured out how to use. There wasn’t any real use case in Warrior for summoning 2/1s sporadically, especially since the “after this takes damage” text implies that it belongs in an enrage deck, but all the Whirlwind-like effects just kill the 2/1 tokens outright.
Stockades Prisoner
Standard has seen a whole lot of decks that often play multiple cards early enough to theoretically provide Stockades Prisoner value, and yet it was never good enough to find a slot in any of them.
Nobleman
Sir, I know Zola the Gorgon. You are no Zola. (Great hat, though.)
Cheesemonger
A few brave souls tried this card to see if they could cheese out a win with muenster value. The results were not gouda. Not only was it hard to Kraft a deck that feta this card in, but the opponent could abuse the effect to fill up your hand, which meant you could queso your next draw goodbye.
Maddest Bomber
They left out “on your opponent's side of the board” from the text box.
Fractured in Alterac Valley
Ur'zul Giant
Token Demon Hunter never really took off, and even when it was tried, it took long enough to get down on the board that a vanilla 8/8 wasn’t really what you wanted anymore.
The Lobotomizer
There are about a gazillion Rogue cards that allow you to acquire cards from non-Rogue classes, and very few of them require you to work as card as this one does.
Snowball Fight!
Snowball Fight would probably have been more popular if it wasn’t released in the same set as Snowfall Guardian and Windchill. Shaman was lacking for freeze effects before Alterac Valley, but it doesn’t really need a card that sometimes freezes the board when it has one card that freezes exactly the minion you want, and another that just freezes the whole board and (when it was printed) creates a giant threat at the same time.
Sacrificial Summoner
Turns out you can make a recruit effect that’s bad.
Felfire in the Hole!
We waited for two years to get enough support for Fel Warlock. That support never came.
Grimtotem Bounty Hunter
This is the kind of narrow tech card that people say they want but rarely actually play.
Popsicooler
Unless you have a way to trigger the deathrattle immediately, Popsicooler is pretty easily ignored or played around with a wide board.
Whelp Bonker
This was effectively intended to be a replacement for Acolyte of Pain in Standard. Then Acolyte of Pain was added back to Core. (And Acolyte of Pain has been in Wild this whole time.)
Frozen Mammoth
Maybe in a Silence Priest this could be playable, but that hasn’t happened yet, even in Wild.
Fringe Play
Forged in the Barrens
Sigil of Flame
Sigil of Flame served as a reasonable mechanic to keep the board clear against specifically aggressive go-wide decks, but those are usually not prevalent enough in any given meta to actually play this card unless one swarm deck effectively dominates the meta.
Mor'shan Elite
Mor’shan Elite has seen some play in weapon heavy control warrior decks, but generally so much has to go right for it to have value (playable on the turn when you have a weapon, you want to swing, and ideally you’ve buffed the stats on this to get two oversized minions) that it ended up getting cut for less conditional cards as decks got refined.
Barrens Blacksmith
In a four set meta, especially last year when Augmerchants were still in Standard, buffing a wide board was enough for a win condition. Since then, most classes with go-wide strategies have much more efficient ways to buff their boards.
United in Stormwind
Lightbringer's Hammer
It’s tempting to look at this and think Aldrachi Warblades for Paladin, but Paladin doesn’t have many attack buffs, and even if it did, there’s no option to push face damage with this, which is often how Demon Hunter gets massive heals. Paladin just has more flexible removal options outside of decks that rely on drawing specific spells (like with High Abbess Alura, for instance).
Enthusiastic Banker
Smothering Starfish has been playable in too many metas to risk turning your slow card draw tool into a slow self-mill tool.
Fractured in Alterac Valley
Sigil of Reckoning
If you’re a Big Demon Hunter enjoyer, feel free to keep this card. And, uh, good luck to you.
Brasswing
Dragon Paladin comes and goes from time to time; this is usually too expensive to stay in the deck for too long, but it can be playable in specifically that kind of deck.
Cheaty Snobold
Cheaty Snobold was run early in Alterac Valley in all-in Freeze Shaman lists. As that shifted to a more diverse approach, especially once Bearon Glashear dropped out of the list, Snobold stopped seeing play.
Snowed In
There are occasionally use cases for Execute plus Frost Nova, but they’re not particularly common.
Nerfed into the Ground
Forged in the Barrens
Kolkar Pack Runner
Kolkar Pack Runner was pretty strong in a four set Standard meta at 2 mana and basically became unplayable at 3 mana. Even with the nerf reverted, it’s hard to see this card being impactful in a Wild environment that has cards like Unleash the Hounds and Alley Cat available to make cheap beast tokens. (Note: Kolkar Pack Runner’s nerf has been reverted in Patch 26.0.)
United in Stormwind
Garrote
It seems so long ago now that Garrote was the terror of Standard. That said, armor is so plentiful in Wild that even if it were to go back to shuffling three Bleeds, that likely wouldn’t be enough damage to be a viable win condition there. (Note: Garrote’s nerf has been reverted in Patch 26.0.)
Thanks for reading!
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