Hearthstone Ogres, Ranked

Goblins vs Gnomes introduced a handful of minor themes, including spare parts, piloted mechs and ogres. This whole set has been tremendously fun to play, with randomness woven into the gameplay in ways that are only practical in a digital environment. For instance, I've already shown you how fun Recombobulator is. Today, we're talkin' about ogres.

NERDS!

In the base set, you get two ogres that are beefy, but unexciting. One has top-of-the-line stats for the six mana slot, while the other is slightly magical.

Me Smash!

However in GvG, the Ogre theme is that they are big and strong, but maybe not as bright as they need to be in order to effectively battle. Ogres are generally bigger than average for their stats and abilities, but their drawback is that every time they attack they only have a 50% chance of hitting what you aimed them at. The other 50% is spread among all the other enemy characters, including your opponent's face, minions that are stealthed, and utility minions hiding behind taunts.

If you've cleared out all the minions already, then they always smash face. And if the Villain has one minion on the board it is straight 50-50 whether you hit that or face. In this case, I like to bluff a little bit. Since your opponent can tell whether your ogre hit what you aimed him at or not, I like to choose always point him at their head. It doesn't affect the outcome either way and might just make your opponent think a little about your plays.

The unknown element creates a clear downside but also can sometimes provide an unexpected benefit. If you only have one efficient trade or a free kill on a minion, you only have a a 50% chance of getting what you want. However, in the situation where there is an important but vulnerable minion stealthed or hidden behind taunt, your chance of getting that goes up from 0% to something like 25% or 16%. But in general, the upside is bigger bodies that you pay less mana for.

As far as ogre strategy goes, clear out the things you don't want them to hit, then aim for the thing you want them to hit (unless there are only two options). Use your ogre as early in the turn as possible so you can see where his blow lands. If things don't go according to plan, stop and reconsider the current board state before moving forward. It's possible enough things have changed that your plan should ajust accordingly.

Enough jibber-jabber, onto the rankings. As you might expect, my opinions are primarily for Arena play.

1) Ogre Ninja

Shhhh! Quiet!

I love the stats and the mana cost. Six power is a sweet spot where he kills most things he will smash into at random, but he won't die to Big Game Hunter. I like the stealth aspect of this ogre. He's not going to take an Assassinate or a Hex before he gets at least one swing in and if luck is on your side, takes out at least one card. Lastly, I love the art. You can't target him or have your minions attack him because he is hiding... AS A TREE!

2) Dunemaul Shaman

Ogre Time!

Wind. Fury. Use your spells or other minions to clear the board of minions that might trade with this guy and send him to the face. 5/4 for 4 is a stat combintion we have seen before a couple places, but Windfury officially costs two mana and a card, which we are getting at the low, low price of Overload 1 plus ogre mindlessness. He's fragile, so be careful when you play him, but he can do boatloads of damage.

3) Ogre Brute

Ogres have really terrible short-term chocolate.

This, as the common in the vertical cycle, will be the one you encounter most frequently in the Arena. He has a marginally above-curve body and just the ogre ability. There will  be plenty of board states where there is one thing you would like him to hit and other things that it would be just fine if he hits, which makes for no real downside in that case.

4) Mogor the Ogre

Uh-Oh.

The mother of all ogres is hilarious on a crowded battlefield. On the other hand, it's not super useful. At 7/6 for 6, it isn't above the curve, plus it dies to Big Game Hunter.

I actually drafted Mogor recently and I found that he was best when the Villian had out-tempoed me but I had card advantage. Where this might usually result in defeat as they focus their dwindling army on my face, instead, some of their minions ran into my guys instead.

However, in the opposite case, where I was winning and going for face to seal the victory, I had to hold Mogor back off the board. As with all seemingly symmetrical effects, your advantage comes in knowing Mogor is coming and playing him after your attacks but right before your opponent starts theirs.

If you or your opponent has another ogre in play and someone plays Mogor, zaniness ensues. The game checks the 50% roll for the original target, and if it misses, chooses another at random as usual. But then the second Orge clumsiness trigger kicks in rolling the 50% again. If both miss, you can even end up back on the original intended recipient.

Mogor is a super-fun card, but not that impressive. If you are given the choice of three legendaries in the Arena, you will probably find something better.

5) Getting Hit By a Car

6) Ogre Warmaul

I like all the other ogres previously on this list. They may not work all the time, but they reward players who set up the best situations to succeed, much like most of the cards with random elements emphasized in Goblins vs Gnomes. This weapon, however, give you the player a case of the ogre stupids, which is not what we want in a weapon.

Weapon value comes from the value of being able to kill two minions with only one card, as well as the tempo gained by not having to pay mana for the second activation. The cost for us is the damage we take to our health total. Generally, the only time we want to hit our Villain's face is when we are going to win this turn or next.

In the most typical game state, your opponent has one minion on an otherwise empty board. We want to remove that minion with the first weapon swing, then remove their subsequent minion on the next swing, while playing one of our own and taking charge of or locking down the board. Warmaul only does that half of the time.

In the cases where our ogre minions accidentally hit face, that is not as bad because they are still on the board and they will still have to be dealt with by the opponent. Except in cases of mass removal, this means extra resources used to remove our guys. It will not be on our terms, but we are still getting some smaller amount of value. However, unless that Warmaul damage we did unintentionally wins us the game, then it was just a wasted charge of our weapon.

And the same thing can happen in the opposite case. When the opponent is at low life, we might accidentally use our limited resource on clearing his minions, when going to the face would have sealed the deal.