@What The Hell: that's because Nafarian had no way of dealing 1 damage in his deck. The only damage dealing card at his disposals was Bite - and Shadowflame, but you really didn't want to use Shadowflame just to kill a Rager.
Jo Magma Rager and cards such as that have a point being in the game. For someone new a 5/1 creature might look interesting and would try to play, but would learn the weakness of the 1 health and would learn a good deal of the game.
@Alex Beavuais: And if it could trade repeatedly early game, the return effect on it would be great. But at 3 mana to play and 2 mana for the hero power to return, by the time you manage to attack with it twice it's already turn 6 and the early game is over.
Jo, that card has a lot of HP, imagine how annoying it would be early game to have it trade repeatedly.
I looked at it as an upside, not a downside. But that's just me.
(continued) but even with stealth that sort of gimmick gets hard countered by any sort of aoe effect, and fragile heavy hitters tend to be too expensive to get enough out at once without additional gimmicks.
Maybe if there were ways to give multiple minions stealth besides conceal, you could try a goofy combo deck built around getting out some fragile stealthed heavy hitters like magma rager and then giving them some one-turn attack buffs (power overwhelming, dark iron dwarf, abusive sergeant)...
@Jo Pereira: That's very assumptive. You don't want to cast zombie chow on later turns either, but it's still extremely good, and if you're going up against another control deck the 2/5 might be very good later on. Your type of reasoning generally doesn't work well, as it's all a question of speed.
To people who are saying you can attack a weak enemy and use your hero power to bring it back so you can cast it later at full health... the thing is, you don't want to cast a 3 mana card on later turns because of the minimal impact it would have.
Nope, card is pointless in any constructed deck. 2/5 for 3 is not viable unless in Ramp Druid, and in that case it uses Druid of the Flame - a card that can turn into a decent lategame option too. This card is arena material and nothing more.
Contd. Ben Brode is not a very clever man by any means, but he and his crew do try to listen to some of the lessons the the magic team learned. All of this can be better understood from this article:
@Bartholomew Sponge: The stats are already very good.
Honestly, when you see cards like this, you have to understand they they don't always design cards to be "efficient" or "good". They make them so deck builders can have fun doing something it.
Decent warrior deck card. Using the card that gives charge to all summons with 2 or less attack. So Summon > gains charge > attack > use hero power > returns to hand > replay attack again > repeat.
This card is far from being useless. Its low hp minion killer - attack kill the guy and take its dmg but not die - use hero power and get the card back. Next turn its full hp.
