How did the most powerful card in the new Kobolds & Catacombs expansion sneak up on us?
Hearthstone is currently being terrorized by a giant pink worm, otherwise known as the Corridor Creeper. It looks like something right out of the Upside Down in Stranger Things and is severely understatted for an average 7-mana minion. So how is it taking over Hearthstone? Well, it usually ends up costing zero mana (yes, ZERO mana) to play and is in nearly every single top deck in the game.
Let's quickly explain how good this card is right now. Corridor Creeper had its breakout in the ESL Trinity Series finals that was played the day after the release of the new expansion. Team LUL surprised everybody with the inclusion of the card as they dominated their way to a championship and a $250,000 prize. With the most popular decks in the event all being decks that fight for the board, we never saw Team LUL play a Creeper for more than 3 mana. Moving over to ladder play, it proved just as powerful as again, the most played decks all feature small minions that die early and easily (Zoo, Aggro Druid, Tempo Rogue, and Murloc Paladin). A 0-mana, 5/5 minion on turn 3 is more common you think, and much more common than it ever should be.
The craziest part of it all, nobody saw this coming. How did the entire Hearthstone scene fail to identify the most powerful card in the set prior to the launch of the expansion? Well, there are three big reasons why.
1. We all basically ignored the card prior to release
Three days prior to the release of the expansion, Blizzard did a "Facebook dump" of the remaining ~30 cards that were not yet revealed. Little did we know, that "dump" contained the strongest card of the set. Due to its timing, those cards couldn't be as scrutinized as cards released earlier. So when people conducted the fast-paced and cutthroat process that is deeming new cards playable or not, they seemingly saw a 7 mana 5/5 and moved right along.
2. The Creeper was doomed by the ghosts of bad cards past
Everybody wants to make comparisons of past vs. current cards when reviewing new cards. This doomed in Corridor Creeper is multiple ways as it is a card that needs to be in the hand to gain value and it is a potentially free minion, both types of card burning players in the past.
- We have seen expensive cards that need to be in your hand early to gain value, and we have seen them fail. The most comparable failures being Nerubian Prophet, Blubber Baron, Bolvar Fordragon.
- Zero cost minions always sound great, but just never make the transition to competitive play. We have seen cards like Happy Ghoul, Nerubian Prophet and multiple 'free' giants get hyped up and then ending up just getting cut out of lists.
3. We forgot about Patches...
No matter what, Corridor Creeper's success will only come as a result of the meta being one that favors minions fighting on board. And currently, this meta consists of most decks having a 1/1 minion literally shoot out of a cannon and go on a suicide mission in the early game. It is surprisingly common to see at least 5 minions die within the first 3 turns, already justifying Corridor Creeper as a powerful card.
Good news though, only one month left of Patches! Bad news, two whole years left of Corridor Creeper...
