StoneKeep takes an in-depth look at the newly released card Barnes!

Introduction

In World of Warcraft, Barnes was the opera master. He introduces players to the encounters, similarly to what he did in the adventure itself. In Hearthstone, he keeps his announcer role, but instead “announces” 1/1 copies of random minions from your deck.

In the initial Karazhan reviews, Barnes was considered one of the strongest cards of the expansion. I rated it as probably the best card in the set and – most likely – meta-defining one. But was the hype right? While it’s not a Dr. Boom level of power (luckily), the card turned out to be very useful in many different decks. So I’ll have to say yes – the hype was right.

I wanted to analyze the potential synergies of our favorite stage manager and talk a bit about the decks that he fits into just right.

Overview

Barnes is a 3/4 minion with an incredibly strong Battlecry. It summons a 1/1 copy of a random minion from your deck. We’ve already seen a very similar effect – Priest’s Legendary Herald Volazj also summons 1/1 copies of minions, but rather of those already present on your side of the board.

In the worst case scenario* it’s a 3/4 minion that summons a vanilla 1/1. Summoning any of a minion that has no effect at all or the effect is Battlecry puts a simple 1/1 on the board. Obviously, 3/4 + 1/1 for 4 wouldn’t ever be played, just like Chillwind Yeti isn’t played (arguably 2 bodies might be better in some decks, but it’s still not enough). But you can’t really say that it’s a terrible card, it’s just average (but card that is “just average” doesn’t have place in Constructed).

What makes Barnes amazing, though, is that the minions keep their effects. So if you summon a minion with a powerful ongoing effect or Deathrattle, the 1/1 copy is going to keep it. So if you play minions with keywords like Taunt, Charge, Divine Shield – it’s already a bonus. But the card starts to shine when you throw in cards like Emperor Thaurissan or Cairne Bloodhoof into your deck. And that’s exactly what I’ll focus on.

*Excluding Doomsayer. Doomsayer is, as far as my experience goes, the only card with “negative” effect that’s commonly played and has anti-synergy with Barnes.

Synergies

In this section I’ll list the commonly played cards that have synergy with Barnes’ Battlecry. The minions that you want to summon through his effect. The truth is that Barnes is just weak in certain decks – if you don’t run those minions or they’re just a small fraction of all the minions you run, it won’t be worth to play it. But the more of them you put into your deck, the better Barnes will perform.

First of all, I’ll bundle up all the cards that have pretty small synergy with Barnes, but it’s a synergy nonetheless. I’m talking about cards with additional keywords like Taunt, Charge, Divine Shield, Stealth or Spell Damage. The bonus you get from those minions is minimal, but it sometimes might make a difference. Having a 1/1 Taunt in the late game might stop enemy from getting a good trade or even save your life. Getting a 1/1 Charge might give you lethal or allow to immediately kill a 1 health minion. Divine Shield makes your minion more sturdy – it basically turn him into Argent Squire (and funnily enough, that’s the most common minion with Divine Shield being played). Stealth makes the minion more likely to survive until your turn, so you can dictate the trade. And Spell Damage might make your removal better. Like I’ve said, those abilities are rarely game-changing, but sometimes even the smallest advantage can make a difference. A few examples of common minions with those effect that you can put into your deck (in a random order): Argent Squire, Azure Drake, Kor'kron Elite, Thing from Below, Argent Horserider, Voidwalker, Cult Sorcerer, Stranglethorn Tiger, C'Thun's Chosen etc.

There are also another kind of effect – small, ongoing effects. Those are the upsides that can give you a slight advantage in certain scenarios, but the effect is pretty small and won’t likely have big impact on the game. Those include cards like Dire Wolf Alpha, Knife Juggler, Tunnel Trogg, Mana Wyrm, Frothing Berserker, Wild Pyromancer, Imp Gang Boss, Twilight Elder, Northshire Cleric etc. While yes, those can gain extra value, the effect is rarely gamebreaking and it’s often kept in check by the fact that those cards are at 1 health or require another cards to really synergize with them.

Barnes gets some extra synergy with Silence cards. Those 1/1 minions are actually full copies, but with the stats changed to 1/1. It means that Silencing them will revert the stats to original. Getting a 1/1 Ragnaros the Firelord is surely good, but it’s very easy to kill it. But if you Silence it, while you’ll lose the effect, you’re going to get a 8/8 vanilla minion on the board. So if you run Silence in your deck, most likely Spellbreaker, there is an extra incentive to run Barnes too (or vice versa – if you want to put in Barnes, you can consider putting in the Silence too).

Then, we move into a much stronger territory – Deathrattles. I’ll start with the small ones and move up to the big guys. I’ve ignored the Deathrattle cards that aren’t commonly used (e.g. Dreadsteed) or the ones that give you a VERY minor advantage (e.g. Possessed Villager, Fiery Bat), because the list would be just too long.

Bloodmage Thalnos, Loot Hoarder and Undercity Huckster – I’ve put those three together, because their Deathrattles are similar. Drawing a card. Bloodmage gets some extra spell synergy, so it’s obviously stronger in the decks that play him, but we’ll focus on the draw. 3/4 + 1/1 + Deathrattle: Draw a card is suddenly much stronger effect. At 4 mana cost, we have 2 neutral card draws – Gnomish Inventor that’s 2/4 (compared to 4/5 stats of Barnes in total) and Polluted Hoarder, who is 4/2. Barnes is much stronger than either of those. It would be one of the most popular card draw mechanics and probably the most commonly played 4-drop if the effect looked that way. P.S. Huckster is slightly weaker, because drawing a card from your deck is most likely better than drawing a random card from opponent’s class, but it’s still on a similar level.

Infested Tauren and Kindly Grandmother – Again, similar effects – Infested Tauren gets a 1/1 with Taunt, but Kindly Grandmother summons a 3/2 instead of a 2/2. It’s not game-winning yet, but it’s definitely a strong thing to get. After summoning one of the two, Barnes already becomes a stronger version of Piloted Shredder and most of us knows how good the card was.

Tomb Pillager – A nod to the Rogue. It might seem that Tomb Pillager’s Deathrattle is pretty mediocre. It would be in most of the other decks. But Coin has really high value in the Rogue class. It activates the combo cards, it has insane synergy with Gadgetzan Auctioneer (not only it draws a card, but also gives you extra mana to e.g. Conceal him) and it can allow Rogue to make a huge Edwin VanCleef.

Sylvanas Windrunner – The card has probably the highest potential among Deathrattles. Because with a little bit of luck, it might STEAL opponent’s biggest threat, so it’s 2 in 1 – he loses a big minion and you gain it. The effect is very good, maybe even the best one to get in the late game, but I didn’t put it on the top of the list for 2 reasons. First one is that you prefer to drop Barnes on turn 4, when her effect won’t be that amazing yet (it might be easy to play around and you won’t likely steal anything big) and then it often relies on the RNG. Still, it’s one of the cards you want to get most.

Cairne Bloodhoof, Twilight Summoner and Savannah Highmane – Once again, I’ve put those three together, because their effects are similar. Mini-Cairne summons one 4/5 minion, mini-Twilight Summoner summons a 5/5, while mini-Highmane summons two 2/2’s. All of the Deathrattles are very strong. Those definitely CAN win the game – from my experience with Barnes, getting a turn 4 1/1 version of Cairne is often too much value for enemy to handle.

Tirion Fordring – Arguably, this one has the strongest Deathrattle. Not only the initial 1/1 gets both Taunt and Divine Shield (almost an Annoy-o-Tron), so enemy can’t ignore it, but when it dies you get a 5/3 weapon. If not countered by the weapon destruction effect, at this stage of the game pretty much everything is in the range of this weapon, so keeping the board control shouldn’t be a very hard task. Or if you don’t want to “waste” charges on minions, it threatens 15 face damage in total. Meaning that no matter what kind of Paladin you’re playing – a 5/3 weapon in the mid game should come really handy.

And finally, we have the last category – minions with ongoing effects. This category is more tricky. Deathrattles are pretty much guaranteed to get you value. Not only is Silence not very common, but most of them are good even if Silenced (because then you get full stats of the minion). Minions in this category are slightly different, because either the effect gets stronger the longer 1/1 copy stays on the board OR you need to perform some extra actions to get that value.

Acolyte of Pain – Starting small again. It’s very similar to Deathrattle card draws, because – in most of cases – it simply draws you 1 card when it dies. But there is some slight extra synergy you can have with Acolyte. If you have a way to buff his health, e.g. Power Word: Shield or Blessing of Kings, then it’s possible to extract more value out of him. Most of the time, however, it’s going to be “draw a card” kind of effect.

Brann Bronzebeard – Leader of the League of Explorers has very good synergy with Battlecries. Them proccing twice means that you can get that sweet value out of heavy Battlecry deck. This is low on this list, because even though this effect is pretty strong, not only it requires you to immediately follow-up with a Battlecry to get the value, but then you also don’t want to put a lot of Battlecry minions into your Barnes deck, because they come out as a vanilla 1/1’s. Getting Brann from Barnes won me the game once in the N’Zoth RenoLock deck, but it’s generally better to get him in the late game when you can immediately follow him up with Battlecry minions.

Cloaked Huntress – A new Hunter card also get some extra synergy with Barnes. It doesn’t matter that it’s 1/1, it still makes your Traps free. The dream is usually a turn 3 Cloaked Huntress buying you some sweet tempo. But I’d say that the REAL dream is turn 3 Eaglehorn Bow followed by turn 4 Barnes into Cloaked Huntress + playing a bunch of Secrets.

Violet Teacher – A vanilla 1/1 if you don’t do anything else. But it can flood the whole board in 1/1’s if you have a bunch of spells you can play on the same turn. It seems especially useful in Rogue, when you can immediately play Backstab or Preparation followed by another spell even if you’re at 0 mana.

Fandral Staghelm – I have to say that Druid might not be the best class to play Barnes in, but getting Fandral might get you some serious value. It’s an auto-include into nearly every Druid deck because of how much value it can get you, while not really putting you behind on the tempo (if anything, it boosts your tempo too most of the time). And as a Druid, you might also be able to immediately get some value with the help of Innervate. Getting Fandral into Innervate into Power of the Wild or Wrath is a very sweet move.

Emperor Thaurissan – One of the most common Legendaries. Outside of the combo decks, the effect isn’t really going to immediately win you the game, but it’s very powerful nonetheless. It builds up the tempo of future turns. You’d think that turn 6 Thaurissan is strong, but turn 4 one is even better. Even with just a few cards in your hand, you’re going into the mid game with a nice tempo advantage and you might even be able to translate it into a rather quick victory. If it somehow stays on the board for more than one turn, your advantage grows considerably.

Ragnaros the Firelord and Ragnaros, Lightlord – The Rag Bros. Both have strong effects and both – just like Emperor – get increased value the longer they stay on the board. 3/4 + 1/1 that deals 8 damage to a random enemy or heals random friendly character for 8 are both very strong. They’re usually good on turn 4, but they can actually save the whole game later in the game. Sure, 1/1 Rag is easy to deal with, but if it already killed opponent’s minion or healed you for 8, the job is done.

Gadgetzan Auctioneer – You know what is stronger than a 6 mana Auctioneer? A 4 mana Auctioneer. You don’t necessarily want to get it on turn 4, but just like with a Violet Teacher, a Rogue can already extract some value. The dream is, though, to get him a few turns later when you have prepared a bunch of Coins, Preps and cheap spells. You get extra 2 mana, compared to the regular auctioneer, to do all the miracles. Sure, concealing a 1/1 version is not the greatest idea, because it’s much easier to kill compared to a 4/4 version, but you still can get enough immediate value.

Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound – One of the strongest effects in the game, I might say. For 4 mana you get a 3/4 + 1/1 + a random minion from your deck. The value is insane. I didn’t put it on the top of the list, however, because it’s slightly inconsistent. The effect has insane potential, but you first need to roll Y’Shaarj (which you most likely play in a minion-heavy deck) and then you need to roll again for a meaningful minion. Don’t get me wrong, even getting out a 4/5 or something similar will put it on a Cairne Bloodhoof level with even more potential if it somehow stays up for another turn. If you play a deck that you can fit Y’Shaarj into, you might want to play the Barnes too. Sometimes you straight up win the game on turn 4, especially if a 1/1 Y’Shaarj pulls out a 10/10 version of Y’Shaarj.

Archmage Antonidas – If you ask yourself a question – “which effect would be strongest on a 4 mana minion”, Archmage Antonidas comes to mind. It’s balanced by the fact that it costs 7 mana, so it’s hard to immediately combo him with stuff. But if you manage to get a 4 mana Antonidas with 10 mana available and a bunch of spells, you’re going to end up with A LOT of Fireballs. Luckily, the effect can’t really be abused, because not only Archmage would need to be the only minion in your deck (besides Barnes) to guarantee getting it, but you’d also need to draw Barnes before Antonidas.

Malygos – And I think we have a winner here. Asking the same question as before, I thought that Malygos would be THE strongest minion on 4 mana. Just think about it – having +5 Spell Damage on a 4 mana body means that you have potentially up to 6 mana to play the spells. You don’t even need any Emperor Thaurissan procs to follow up with let’s say the Frostbolt + Ice Lance OTK combo. You can think of similar combos in other classes too – Shaman, Rogue, Druid. That’s why I can definitely see Barnes going into the Malygos decks. Probably luckily for us, though, the Malygos decks aren’t popular and the Barnes combo wouldn’t be very consistent. Not only you’d need to get Malygos and not something else (most of those decks play more minions), but then you’d need to have all the spells ready and prepared. But even discarding the idea of Barnes/Malygos OTK, the combo can still be very strong. Imagine getting Malygos and following up with any AoE for a full board clear. Or just a small single target removal (like Backstab or Living Roots) to kill some late game minion. I think that Malygos has the highest potential out of all the cards you can get from Barnes.

One card that I haven’t mentioned yet is Evolve. I’m not sure if Evolve decks will ever be competitive (because let’s be honest, they’re pretty inconsistent), but they’re definitely fun to play. Let’s say you get a Fire Elemental from Barnes. In normal scenario it would be pretty bad, vanilla 1/1. But in an Evolve deck, since the 1/1 copies keep their original mana cost, if you Evolve those two you end up with a random 5-drop and a random 7-drop. Basically it’s nearly always a huge upgrade in power.

Decks

While there is still a lot left to figure out, some deck lists seem to have exceptional synergy with Barnes. I’ll list a few decks that Barnes has already found his place in. I suspect that Barnes will be one of the most common Legendaries we’ll see for the next year and a half of Standard. The reason is that it’s a low risk, high reward card and it fits into quite a lot of decks. Here are those decks:

Midrange Hunter

So far, this is probably the archetype that has played Barnes most commonly. For the same reason why some people have played N'Zoth, The Corruptor in Hunter after WoG. Hunter is probably the most Deathrattle-heavy class in the whole game. Most of the minions they play have Deathrattles, even if only small. Like I’ve mentioned before, getting a Fiery Bat isn’t really thrilling, but it’s still an advantage. But the decks also run cards like Kindly Grandmother, Infested Wolf or Savannah Highmane and every one of them has great synergy with Barnes. Some lists also run Cloaked Huntress and a bunch of Secrets, which also gets extra synergy with Barnes. You have another chance to get that Cloaked Huntress and utilize the Secrets that are stuck in your hand (you don’t really want to play them for full mana cost in such a deck). A strong, on-curve 4-drop is also very good in the deck, because before it only had one – Infested Wolf (Houndmaster is situational). Barnes feels really natural in this deck, like it was made exactly to be put in there.

Deck Lists

N’Zoth Decks

Even though N’Zoth decks are different in each class, they share a very common similarity. They are all Deathrattle heavy. And as you already know, Deathrattles are amazing with N’Zoth. Most of the N’Zoth decks play cards like Sylvanas Windrunner and Cairne Bloodhoof as a core, plus they fill rest of Deathrattle slots with stuff that fit the deck or possibly class cards. So in the end Paladin will play Tirion Fordring, Rogue will play Tomb Pillager, Priest will play Shifting Shade etc. But in the end, all of those give Barnes extra value.

Deck Lists

Malygos Decks

Decks that run Malygos as their finisher/win condition will also run the Barnes. It gives them a chance to straightforward win the game by getting a Malygos from Barnes while having the burn in the hand ready. Sure, the chance is not big, but even if it’s just a few % it’s worth taking. Then, those decks usually are cycle heavy so play a lot of card draw, not to mention the Emperor Thaurissan that also gets synergy with Barnes. Probably the most popular Malygos deck right now is Malygos Miracle Rogue, because of all the insane cycling it can do with Gadgetzan Auctioneer (which is another reason to play Barnes). But it’s not the only possible Malygos deck – Malygos has a lot of potential in Druid, Shaman or Mage too. I suspect virtually every deck running that Dragon will be using Barnes too.

Deck Lists

Ramp/Astral Druid

Barnes doesn’t really fit into a lot of Druid decks. Druid lists are usually minion-heavy, but quite a bit of those minions will come out as a vanilla 1/1. For example, stuff like Druid of the Claw or Ancient of War, even though they usually come with additional effect (Taunt/Charge), are just vanilla 1/1’s when Barnes summons them, because the effect is Choose One, it’s not printed on the card itself. But if you alter your deck a bit and play more minions with Deathrattles or ongoing effects, it can definitely work. Barnes works quite well in a slow Ramp Druid or even Astral Communion Druid, because those can afford to play slow, big minions with strong effects. Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is most likely the best example and one of the best minions you can get with Barnes. Getting an early Barnes into Y’Shaarj often means you just win the game, because you’ve gained insane amounts of tempo. Druid can drop Barnes as soon as turn 1/2 thanks to the Innervate and I already had one turn 2 victory with such a deck. Innervate into Barnes into Y’Shaarj into Ragnaros the Firelord. Enemy just instantly conceded on turn 2, because he had no way to deal with that (and most likely no way to deal with 1/1 Y’Shaarj too). Even though those decks might be slightly inconsistent, they’re definitely fun to play and strong.

Deck Lists

Tempo Mage

Tempo Mage is a heavily synergistic deck. Pretty much every minion synergizes with spells in some way – makes them cheaper, gives you random pings, or just gives you Spell Damage. The good part is that even if they’re 1/1 copies, they still get those spell synergies. It means that Barnes in a deck similar to Tempo Mage can’t choose the wrong target. Most of the minions have some kind of positive effects. They’re mostly small and they don’t have huge impact on the game, but it’s a deck in which Barnes is very consistent. Since the deck is very spell-heavy, there is a huge chance that you will be able to immediately take advantage of whatever you get. Most of the lists also run some sort of card draw like Loot Hoarder or Acolyte of Pain that also gets extra synergy. Barnes might not become a staple in Tempo Mage, but it fits some lists very nicely.

Deck Lists

Evolve Shaman

While Evolve might be a wonky card, there are certainly ways to make it work. And Barnes is definitely one of those ways. Like I’ve mentioned before, a 1/1 minion summoned by Barnes keeps the original cost. So it becomes a really, really juicy Evolve target – it summons 2 bodies and both bodies will (very likely) get upgraded after Evolving. The truth is that Evolve Shaman won’t likely run a lot of cards that synergize with Barnes OUTSIDE of the Evolve part. Maybe Totems like Flametongue Totem or Mana Tide Totem can get some value. Bloodmage Thalnos too. Well, even Tunnel Trogg (you can possibly buff its attack if it survives) and Thing from Below (1/1 Taunt) to some extent. But that’s most likely it. But I’ve seen people playing Pantry Spider in their Evolve Shaman, even though the card itself sucks, just because it summoned two 3 mana bodies, making it a good Evolve target. Barnes is way better and it’s okay-ish even as a vanilla 4-drop if you really need one.

Deck Lists

And more!

Honestly, Barnes is a card that can make cut into A LOT of the decks. I didn’t post more examples, because a lot of them aren’t tested well enough yet. Or I didn’t find a good deck list to share and I don’t like sharing my lists before I get a decent sample size. Here are just a few examples of another decks Barnes might possibly fit into: Zoo Warlock, Midrange Paladin, Control/Resurrect Priest, Control Shaman, Freeze Mage (with Antonidas/Malygos) and possibly even more.

I suspect Barnes being tested in a lot of different lists over the course of next month or so. And I’m fairly certain that he will become staple in certain lists until he rotates out of Standard.

Closing

Barnes is a very interesting card. As you can see, you’re not limited to a deck or two. You can play Barnes in a huge variety of decks, the card is awesome tool for clever deck builders. While you can just throw Barnes into just about any deck, you won’t get the best results this way. You need to plan carefully and think which effects you want to copy in certain deck. You need to analyze the pros and cons of having him in the deck. Is he consistent enough? Will you get a strong effect enough times to negate the disadvantage that playing a vanilla 3/4 + 1/1 (because that’s what it will often be) creates?

Since there are SO MANY potential synergies with Barnes, I might have missed some. Or maybe you know a good deck that Barnes fits into that I haven’t mentioned yet? In any case, feel free to leave any questions or comments in the section below.