Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Small Removal (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: S-Tier
Spreadsheet: 0-Cost Cards
Category: Other (A-Tier)
Internal Category Tier: A-Tier
Tier 2
This is another excellent card. It is a zero with arguably 3 distinct, highly specialized and powerful effects. Further, none of them are card draw and yet this card feels complete and is absolutely playable.
First off, starting from the bottom, “Banish target 0-champion,” excellent. It is particularly strong against Dark Knight (unbreakable), Bodyguard (Recall from discard pile), and Ankylosaurus (big butt). Also Warrior Golem to prevent the recycle and plenty of others, but rule of threes.
Secondly, jumping to the top, “Deal 4 damage to target attacking champion,” excellent. This answers all current “unblockable” champions (not for long though) as well as many other champions. Importantly though, unlike Spike Trap/Hands from Below this does target so it can’t hit untargetable champions (Crystal Golem), and it can’t hit all current attacking champions. Both of those situations have come up for me so those distinctions do matter.
Finally, “It gets -8 offense this turn,” which is attached to the deal 4 damage effect, which can be relevant together but frequently isn’t. (It does prevent the -8 from being used on a blocker though.) This is fair Fumble. 0-cost gain 8 health. The primary application for this, in my eyes, is to largely negate the damage from an on-turn gold-punisher played against you when your gold is down. It can also be used as a combat trick to help one of your other champions break an attacking champion and potentially survive.
Overall in limited this is an excellent card because you are almost guaranteed to have a situation where one of these three effects are great. In constructed, you will usually include this because you specifically want one of the three effects, and one of those is significantly more likely than the other two to be the reason. Which one do you think it is?
When I started this rating, I was struggling with whether this should be Tier 2 or Tier 3 for constructed. Then I remembered it answers Muse AND Thought Plucker.