Best cards


 * Work in Progress! Please add any descriptions to the listed cards, and feel free to add more as long as they fit the rules.

In the game of Hearthstone, all cards strive for one goal - constructed viability. Less than a third of cards printed see play in top-tier decks, letting just a prestigious few earn their place in the meta. While many cards are memorable for how far short they fall, many others become infamous for just how hard they hit the mark. This page celebrates the very greatest cards to ever see play, from 4 mana 7/7s to game-warping legendaries to endless value generators.

Rules

 * To qualify for this list, a card must have been included as a key card in at least one tier 1 deck. The card must also have retained some viability in Wild (even if it no longer does) or earn its viability in Wild.
 * Notably powerful arena cards may be honorable mentions.
 * The card has to be released for at least a full year. At the time of this article's writing (October 2020), this would be cards from Saviors of Uldum but not Descent of Dragons. This prevents kneejerk reactions and gives the card time to prove itself in Wild.
 * Nerfed cards that are no longer viable may be honorable mentions, as well as cards with decks that have been nerfed out of viability.

Neutral

 * Leeroy Jenkins
 * Who would have thought a card based on an infamous in-joke would prove to be so effective? A 6-attack Charge is nothing to scoff at due to his sheer game-ending potential, and at his original 4 mana, Leeroy proceeded to work miracles in the hands of Rogues, smacking enemies in the face several times in a turn to drop them from well above half their health. After the nerf, Leeroy still found his way into many an aggro deck looking for a powerful finisher, and the nerf actually worked in his favor with the introduction of Baku the Mooneater and all the aggro decks it enabled. He ended up being shown the door to Hall of Fame even at his raised mana cost of 5... but at least he has chicken.


 * Sylvanas Windrunner
 * One of the inaugural members of the Hall of Fame, and easily one of the most infamous cards in the Classic days. Sylvanas's Deathrattle makes it functionally impossible to take a favorable trade against her, since you'll likely use one card to take her out, get a minion stolen by Sylvanas, and then have to spend more resources getting rid of the card she stole. Players have to take bad trades just to stop her effect from going off. Her stats aren't amazing, but they're just big enough that she poses a credible threat. Even in Wild, Sylvanas still sees fairly widespread play, and not just for making N'Zoth, the Corruptor that much more troublesome to deal with.


 * Loatheb
 * What's better than setting up a powerful board as an aggro player? How about setting up a powerful board that your opponent can't answer? Loatheb's ability single-handedly disables most board clears and cripples cheap removal, making it hard for your opponent to deal with your minions, and also works wonders against combo decks by locking them down for a turn. That's already decent, but he also comes with a decently-sized body, ensuring that Loatheb - and whatever other minions you put down - cannot be ignored, most likely also letting you do a number on the enemy next turn.


 * Emperor Thaurissan


 * N'Zoth, the Corruptor


 * Reno Jackson/Zephrys the Great


 * Patches the Pirate
 * Game-warping doesn't even begin to describe this card. It's to explain why a humble 1 mana 1/1 can be so powerful. He's obviously good with generic Pirate synergies - turning N'Zoth's First Mate into an Umberwing, easily setting up Bloodsail Cultist, blasting people with Ship's Cannon, but why then are Aggro Druids running Bloodsail Corsair and Southsea Captain, just to run Patches? Beginning the game with a 1 mana 1/1 in play is just incredible. It makes your token board that much more sticky, and the stickier you are the harder you can pressure an opponent. Also, his effect basically thinned your deck by 1, letting you play with a more consistent 29 card deck. Even losing Charge, cutting out that instant board control, barely hurt the card in the long run.


 * Fire Fly
 * Not the most exciting card on this list, to be sure, but in the 2 years it spent in Standard, very few decks could say "no" to a 1-mana 1/2 that adds another one to your hand. It's a great 1-drop and 2-drop in both Constructed and Arena, gives Rogue an easy combo activator, gives zoo decks some bodies to throw onto the board (and set off Knife Juggler and the likes), and it's pretty handy for completing a couple of quests as well. Oh, and they have Elemental synergy too for whatever that's worth. Not bad for just 40 Dust.


 * Genn Greymane/Baku the Mooneater
 * Believe it or not, there once was a time where these two dominators of deckbuilding were scrutinized; after all, how good can an improved basic Hero Power be if it requires you to cut half your collection? Turns out, the answer is "very". Not every class benefits greatly from having one of these two (ironically including two of the classes with actual even/odd support), but for the ones that do, the stronger powers from Baku and cheaper ones from Genn can vastly improve their consistency; heck, Warlock and Paladin don't have any cards that require Even- or Odd-only decks to function, and they were among the best classes to use Genn with. Rogues with big knives, Warlocks drawing tons of cards, Shamans and Paladins throwing out a constant stream of tokens... It's no wonder that cards started being judged by their mana cost alone until these two were introduced to the Hall of Fame, bowing out of Standard a year early and leaving an indelible mark on the metagame.

Honorable Mentions

 * Bloodmage Thalnos
 * While very straightforward and never defined a deck, Thalnos is a very versatile early-game minion. He's a Kobold Geomancer and Loot Hoarder rolled into one, and while his stats are lower than both, it's rarely an issue as both of those minions aren't used for their stats. His low cost and multitude of uses has made him a frequent pick in a variety of decks.


 * Ragnaros the Firelord
 * Big minions need more than big stats to make an impact in Hearthstone; they need to do something big when they come down. And in Ragnaros's case, that "something big" is 8 points of concentrated pain, basically making him a glorified Charge that doesn't take damage when he attacks. When he enters play, your opponent instantly loses either a minion or a chunk of their health, making him an extreme threat that demands an immediate answer in the form of either a valuable removal spell or suiciding minions into the 8/8 behemoth before he can do more damage. And unlike most Legendaries, Silencing Ragnaros does next to nothing since he'll still be doing 8 damage per turn... and now he can choose what to hit. Very few cards back in the day came close to the amount of destruction Ragnaros could dish out. While he's no longer the big minion of Hearthstone due to being banished to Hall of Fame, more competition popping up, and Wild being too fast for him to be an auto-include, Ragnaros was still the original exemplar of what an expensive minion should be.


 * Undertaker
 * Originally the snowball card, Undertaker once gained a full +1/+1 each time a Deathrattle card was played. With a slew of cheap and efficient Deathrattles included in Curse of Naxxramas like Webspinner, Nerubian Egg, and Haunted Creeper, Undertaker swiftly took hold of the meta. Fast removal was rare back then, making it easy to stick Undertaker and let it grow out of control. When Goblins vs Gnomes did nothing to slow Undertaker's rampage (in fact adding fuel with Clockwork Gnome), Blizzard stepped in with a formerly once-in-a-blue-moon balance change and removed the card's health gain.


 * Antique Healbot
 * Arguably the first good healing card in the entire game, Antique Healbot came just in the nick of time to stop Face Hunter's unrelenting assault. A sizable 8 health swing and a 3/3 body for tempo made it an ideal package for that meta. While it has fallen off in recent years as both face decks and control decks have become more powerful, it holds a place in many players fondest memories.


 * Dr. Boom
 * A card so infamous, he made a one-note quest objective from World of Warcraft into the star of an entire expansion. He was famously ignored in set previews in favor of Troggzor the Earthinator due to his similarities to War Golem at first glance, but Dr. 7 proved to be anything but bad. He saw play in tempo decks, control decks, and even the occasional aggro deck. It's very simple - a "9/9" for 7 mana in great value, especially one that's resilient to hard removal and small removal meaning your opponent has to spend several cards to remove your one card. Even if they had a perfect answer, the Boom Bots' random explosions ensured they still weren't getting an even trade. Why is a card this infamous only an honorable mention? Simply put, he sees no play in Wild whatsoever, and likely wouldn't see much Standard play if he were still around. Decks these days have no use for an expensive, generically useful minion with no immediate impact.


 * Yogg-Saron, Hope's End
 * This was intended to be a simple joke card. You build up spells then watch the fireworks. That's about what happened... but Blizzard didn't anticipate how often those fireworks worked. Most spells are purely beneficial. You can control when you drop him in order to find your outs. Players know that they can play Yogg when they're about to lose, and he might just save the day. As such, he became immensely popular. People were split about the card - the casual side loved the mayhem and unpredictable comebacks Yogg provided. The competitive side hated how he basically turned the game into a coinflip. After being banned from fan tournaments and garnering more and more complaints, Blizzard eventually caved and nerfed him to stop his spell-spree if he died or was otherwise incapacitated. However, fan request saw him unnerfed years later... where he sees no play in the uberfast Wild meta. Still, this card has created more highlight reels than any others, and definitely made a lasting impact on the game's design philosophy.


 * Vicious Fledgling
 * While generally ignored in constructed play, this little minion is an absolute terror in Arena. While in constructed, players will have defensive measures to not give it a chance to attack, that's not as likely in Arena. Once it gets to hit face once, all it needs is to roll Lightning Speed as its Adapt option to start snowballing out of control. If it does get Windfury, it can attack a second time for another Adapt, preferably something defensive, but particularly Shrouding Mist for Stealth so it can repeat the same thing next turn. Even on its first turn alive, it's taken off 20% of the opponent's health, and things are only gonna get worse the longer it stays on the board as it stacks up more stats from Adapting. The fact it gets to decide the outcome of the game by turn 3 eventually resulted in its outright ban from Arena.


 * Giggling Inventor
 * Two Divine Shielded Taunts, three bodies, endless utility. Giggling Inventor had something to offer for nearly every single deck type: two sticky tokens to receive board-wide buffs in Aggro, two sticky Taunts to stop aggro in Control, two Mechs to staple Magnetic buffs onto... name any deck that saw play at the time and it probably ran two of these. And, of course, it shared its Standard year with Baku the Mooneater, meaning Paladins and especially Rogues latched onto it and didn't let go. Giggling Inventor was so good that, not only was it nerfed by two whole mana, Blizzard was too scared to revert the nerf all the way (leaving it at 6, up from its original 5).

Druid

 * Aviana
 * Well, maybe not when she was first released, but a few expansions later, when she became BFFs with Kun the Forgotten King, the duo became an unstoppable force. Aviana alone could only bring out one or two big minions with her, and Kun by himself is just a free 7/7 late game, but with their power combined, they can bring out an entire army of expensive minions. While you can use them to play a bunch of huge minions in one turn, a better use for them are in combo decks. One Malygos and a cheap spell is pretty strong, but how about two? Or four? It's not just Malygos you can make combos with; you can also give them an empty deck they can't take back with King Togwaggle, make the stars align with Star Aligner for massive damage, or Pounce them to death with Gonk, the Raptor. Aviana and Kun made Druid the best combo deck class in the game, and they are still a force to be reckoned with in Wild.


 * Jade Idol
 * The Jade Lotus's most infamous toy, responsible for making control decks scared to show their faces during its heyday. Jade Idol is the perfect anti-control card: not only does it infinitely stave off fatigue, but it also gives an endless supply of increasingly larger beatsticks; your opponent will eventually run out of removal before you run out of Jade Golems, and if even one survives long enough to attack, it will deal massive damage. The Gadgetzan meta quickly shifted gears towards aggro at least in part because slow decks stood no chance against Jade Druid, and it took a tailor-made counter card two sets later to bring the Jade infestation under control. And the deck still refused to die entirely.


 * Spreading Plague
 * Record-holder for fastest-nerfed card all the way up until Descent of Dragons, Spreading Plague remains one of the premier anti-aggro cards for Druid. Two 1/5 Taunts for 6 is tolerable, three is good, four or more is amazing. Against an opponent unfortunate or unwary enough to go wide, this easily gives you a health buffer on par with Reno Jackson, and you can do it twice. And since it creates bulky tokens, even the more aggressive builds can make good use of it, by buffing the beetles and smacking things around with them. Powerful and flexible, Spreading Plague contributed greatly to Druid's dominance in the years of the Mammoth and Raven. While not as prevalent in Wild as it was in Standard, it's still a card worth watching out for.


 * Ultimate Infestation
 * Ultimate Infestation is, as far a a singular card goes, the granddaddy of value. It deals 5 damage, gives 5 Armor, summons a 5/5 Ghoul, and most importantly, draw 5 cards. Even if you need to spend your entire turn just to cast it, what puts this card over the top is not just how many card it draws, but also the additional effects on top of it. Other big card draw like Sprint and Nourish are expensive and only draw cards, which generates a significant tempo loss. Ultimate Infestation gives you a 5-mana minion, a decent removal, plus a bit of health to your hero to what would normally be valued as a 9-mana card, which means you get all these extras for just 1 mana. Giving Druids huge card draw effect on top of their already good card draw is what helped push Combo decks to the top. And that's not even mentioning what degenerate combos you can pull with Kael'thas Sunstrider.

Honorable Mentions

 * Wild Growth/Nourish
 * Both of these cards were okay in the olden days at 2 mana and 5 mana respectively, where Druids actually had to sacrifice tempo in order to ramp up. But with the Kraken and Mammoth sets giving Druids almost nothing but good cards, they could just as easily gain a bunch of mana and then turn around and flood the board and/or combo the opponent to death, while the opponent was stuck with 3 mana less trying to fend them off. The ramp cards were thus nerfed for the greater good to curb the rampant power creep of Druid cards.


 * Force of Nature
 * Prior to this card's rework, it was a 6 mana spell, but the Treants had Charge and died at the end of the turn. It was probably intended for board control, and could be used like that in dire situations, but let's face it - if it has charge, we all know the place. Pre-nerf, this was Druid's sole gameplan. Get your opponent to 14, then Force of Nature + Savage Roar for the kill. While it's still an okay card today, it's hardly the, erm, force it used to be.

Hunter

 * Hunter's Mark


 * Deathstalker Rexxar
 * Hero cards have mostly been very powerful, and Deathstalker Rexxar has been on top of that list. They sacrifice the ability to go face to create a Zombeast, two Beast minions stitched together into one package. The resulting minion is usually costly, but the make up for it with the added bulk from both minions, and their real power comes in combining effects together. For example, combine Dispatch Kodo and Bloodworm for 6 damage with healing, or Vicious Fledgling and Stonetusk Boar for instant Adapt. Zombeasts only got better as more Beast minions were added and get even crazier with Wild minions on the table. Cave Hydra and Vilebrood Skitterer? Vicious Scalehide and Knuckles? Dreadscale and anything Poisonous? There are hundreds of possibilities. Even without crazy Zombeast combos, the amount of value the Hero Power generates lets Hunters keep up with even heavy control decks. It's even got a pretty good Battlecry to boot, all for 6 mana.


 * Dinotamer Brann

Honorable Mentions

 * Animal Companion


 * Savannah Highmane
 * Back in the day, Savannah Highmane was the Hunter's "Ol' Reliable". For just 2 Health less than a Boulderfist Ogre, it gets a Deathrattle that summons 2 2/2 Hyenas, making the Highmane a pretty stubborn minion to remove. It should be noted that back then having a Beast tag actually mattered (River Crocolisk was actually used for its Beast tag long ago), so the fact it packs in a lot of value in stats and being a Beast that summoned more Beasts made Savannah Highmane top of the class, and even today it's used occasionally. This simple Rare card from the Classic set was long considered better than most Hunter Legendaries, which have had a long history of being niche at best, and at worst too impractical, too underpowered, too expensive, or downright horrible to use in most decks.

Mage

 * Open the Waygate
 * The Standard rotation doesn't exist just to make you pay for more packs keep the meta from going stale, it's also there to allow new cards and archetypes to exist without breaking old cards with broken, unpredictable synergies. This card is a great example of that. Getting an extra turn is extremely powerful, but setting up the perfect follow-up wasn't always easy, and neither was completing the quest. It was mainly used in Exodia Mage decks for setting up infinite Antonidas Fireballs, which take a while to assemble, and even getting 0-mana Giants up before you play Time Warp needed time to setup. As soon as it rotated out of Standard though, the Year of the Dragon expansions added several cards that completely broke it. Not only did Mana Cyclone, Magic Trick, and Twinspell cards made completing the quest super fast, Archmage Vargoth lets you take two extra turns. Eventually the deck had no need for slow OTK combos and settled for 0-mana Arcane Giant and Mana Giant bashing in the opponent's face. Quest Mage continues to terrorize the Wild meta on a far higher level than it ever did in its Standard years.


 * Ice Block
 * Mages in Hearthstone have always been feared for their access to incredible Burst damage, threatening lethal from hand from numerous different sources; all they need to do is put the pieces together before they die. For just 3 mana, Ice Block guarantees that you get an extra turn to assemble those pieces; you can spend the turn after that spending 3 mana for another Block and 7 mana hurled at the opponent. From a gameplay perspective, Ice Block was often criticized for removing any agency or technical skill from the opponent, but this only got out of hand when Blizzard decided that Mages could generate extra copies, often stalling the game for 4 consecutive turns before delivering yet another randomly-generated Pyroblast to the face.

Honorable Mentions

 * Ice Lance
 * In theory, a flexible control tool, being able to either freeze an enemy or hit it for a chunk of damage if following up another freeze effect. In practice, the fact that it's a 1-mana spell that can hit anything for 4 damage made it a near-permanent member of the "Face is the Place" club to follow up a Frostbolt or two. Even discarding a card is considered an acceptable tradeoff for dealing this much burst damage at this low a cost, and given Mage's options for reducing mana costs, that cost might as well not be there at all. Naturally, Ice Lance wound up being an essential part of every Freeze Mage's arsenal until it got booted into Hall of Fame.

Paladin

 * Mysterious Challenger
 * Who is he? It's none of our business - all we know is that he's pretty good. A single Paladin Secret isn't amazing and can often be easily played around, but when you're drawing and playing 5 of them at the same time for free after dumping a 6/6 onto the board, suddenly your opponent is hard-pressed to fight back because trying to kill the Challenger will probably only make things worse, not to mention that the Paladin just got a bunch of dead draws out of the way. Attack into him? Now he's a 9/8 and didn't take a scratch. Hit him with a spell? He's back with 1 health. Play a minion to hopefully contest him next turn? He's now a 7/7 and your minion is now at 1 health. There's a reason why Eater of Secrets had to swoop in and save the day.


 * Sunkeeper Tarim
 * The statline might not look like much, but Tarim's ability more than compensates by essentially being a combination of Shrink Ray and Savage Roar. Being able to make Silver Hand Recruits trade against The Lich King is already good, but it's also a great way to instantly put up to 12 extra damage on your board for surprise lethals. Even at the very worst, he neuters at least one big minion and forces it to crash into Tarim or at least mitigates a lot of potential damage. And because he came in the same set as Stonehill Defender, it's a good bet that the Paladin has more than one.

Honorable Mentions

 * Righteous Protector
 * Argent Squire is already a good 1-drop; slap Taunt onto it, and it becomes amazing. Righteous Protector serves as both a solid tempo play when drawn early and a disposable Taunt to protect yourself and other minions when drawn late. It doesn't do anything special, but it doesn't really have to; a cheap Taunt with Divine Shield is already good enough that the only Paladin decks that didn't use it ran Genn Greymane.


 * Muster for Battle


 * Tirion Fordring
 * Paladin's original show-stopper and a solid addition to Paladin decks even today. While a big, beefy, sticky Taunt that gives you a weapon to either kill three minions or take half the enemy hero's health isn't as impressive as it used to be (largely due to Paladin getting a lot of other good cards), he's still a very real threat and sneaks his way into many decks with a spare slot for a late-game minion, and the relative scarcity of Silences has only made life better for our righteous friend.

Priest

 * Psychic Scream
 * Psychic Scream is an important AoE card in most priest decks. It is equally good against both control and aggro decks. It doesn't matter that you delay your opponent's fatigue - you're not going to kill your opponent with a mill anyway, right? (except for the King Togwaggle + Murozond the Infinite combo) Depending on the game situation, Psychic Scream is able to do several tasks simultaneously: prevents the deathrattles' activation, prevents a filling of graveyard unlike most other AoEs, and spoils the enemy's draw.


 * Shadowreaper Anduin
 * Without Raza the Chained or with Raza The Nerfed Shadowreaper Anduin would be a quite balanced death knight with a strong battlecry and not very tempo hero power. However, when is costs 0 mana, it turns into a machine gun (with the support of Spawn of Shadows), whose countless shots are often fatal even for Odd Warrior. Approximately 80% of the modern Reno Priests decks consist of cards for 1-3 mana, which allows you to deal huge damage with the hero power, and a quick finding of Shadowreaper Anduin is provided by Lorekeeper Polkelt.

Honorable Mentions

 * Radiant Elemental


 * Mass Hysteria
 * Do you want to make the enemy minions suicide? Or see a real Brawl? Mass Hysteria gives this opportunity rarely leaving anybody alive, since minions with a small attack and high HP are quite rare in most of games. Randomness and dependence on the opponent's board make Mass Hysteria not quite a stable board clear, but this is more than compensated for by its good manacost and much more difficult for the opponent to play around it, unlike most other damaging AoE.

Rogue

 * Edwin VanCleef


 * EVIL Miscreant

Honorable Mentions

 * Kingsbane


 * The Caverns Below
 * Originally predicted to be an underpowered or meme card, the Rogue's Quest turned out to be a lot more stronger than imagined. Draw your Shadowstep, Gadgetzan Ferryman, and whatnot, play one of your cheap minions and call it back right away, then play a Crystal Core. Filling you board with 1-mana 5/5s is one thing, but having 1-mana 5/5s with Charge that you can bounce back to hit face again was something else. Its only real weakness was against aggro that could kill it before the deck could complete the quest, but against everything else the army of 5/5s can eventually overwhelm most decks. Even if it wasn't the best deck in the game, the results were polarizing enough that the card received not one, but two nerfs in its lifetime in Standard, yet even that didn't completely kill its usage in Standard or even Wild in its earliest days there.


 * Tinker's Sharpsword Oil

Shaman

 * Devolve
 * What if you took Hex, made it hit the entire enemy board, and reduced its cost by half? You'd basically get this. Devolve was the Shaman answer to boards of small minions, often transforming them into useless vanillas with 1 or 2 health and attack while brushing away enchantments and Deathrattles, free to be cleaned up at your leisure. Even against larger minions, which had a lower tendency to be completely neutralized, it still functions as a Mass Dispel that more often than not reduced stats, and against decks that like to resurrect things, it also dilutes their resurrect pool. Shamans in both its two years of Standard, and nowadays in Wild, rarely leave home without two of these for cleaning up problematic boards and minions.


 * Flamewreathed Faceless
 * Also known as "the 4 mana 7/7" because the statline says it all. A Flamewreathed Faceless played on curve is almost guaranteed to burn a hard removal or trade two-for-one, possibly also racking up a chunk of face damage along the way. Its only real downside is 2 mana worth of Overload, but that's hardly a problem most of the time, and some cards (like the equally infamous Tunnel Trogg) actually appreciate it. While it was eventually brought down to size by the Mammoth rotation, and is far more scarce in Wild with the reduced need of a generic pile of stats, the infamously overstatted monstrosity still lingers in Hearthstone's public consciousness.


 * Shudderwock
 * It's got jaws that bite, claws that catch, and a Battlecry that wins the match. Playing against Shaman in the days of The Witchwood was a race against time: if they played all their key Battlecries, then all they needed to do was drop Shudderwock. Over, and over, and over, blowing up your minions with impunity and shredding your health. This made Shudderwock Shaman easily one of the most formidable combo decks in history: not only does it have tons of board control and survivability, but it also doesn't need to play all its combo pieces at once, making it much harder to disrupt. When the deck was chosen for a nerf, it was Saronite Chain Gang that took the fall, while Shudderwock continued biting and clawing its way through the rest of its tenure in Standard with all of Shaman's other Battlecry-related toys.

Honorable Mentions

 * Tunnel Trogg
 * Flamewreathed Faceless's partner in crime, and the one card you did not want to see a Shaman drop on turn 1. If left unchecked, Tunnel Trogg can easily feed off the Shaman's Overload cards and punch your face in... but mulligans that dealt with the Trogg often lacked an answer to the impending 4-mana 7/7. Runaway Troggs resulted in many a Year of the Kraken game being ended by Shamans around turn 4.


 * Maelstrom Portal
 * For the longest time, Shamans were pretty bad against Zoo since they were severely lacking in cheap area-of-effect spells (at least, ones that didn't come with hideous amounts of Overload). Enter Maelstrom Portal: the Arcane Explosion effect alone was pretty decent at slowing early aggression, and a free token on top of that was just icing, giving the Shaman something to trade with next turn. Needless to say, this card greatly helped solidify Shaman's position in the Karazhan meta.


 * Spirit Claws
 * Once upon a time, this weapon cost a mere 1-mana... for a card that could easily do 9 damage across three swings. All it took was a tap of the hero power, and the Shaman suddenly had a weapon that could easily take out the enemy's first three minions (or tear a chunk out of the opponent's face). Sure, you need to get lucky if you're not playing Bloodmage Thalnos... but 25% of the time, it worked every time, and that was enough for it to be intimidating, not to mention the threat of big damage later on when paired with Azure Drake. While the nerf to 2 mana rendered it a shadow of what it once was, this was all too necessary to keep it in check.

Warlock

 * Defile
 * The thinking man's Twisting Nether. As long as you can do quick mental math, this card clears many troublesome boards for a mere 2 mana, even sweeping away tokens summoned by Deathrattles in the process, and is excellent at cleaning up token floods for half the price of Hellfire. One of the most powerful and efficient board clears since its release, Defile is still a must-have for aspiring Control builds.


 * Voidcaller


 * Doomguard
 * Charge minions with a decent mana cost and Attack power are pretty good. Doomguard is one of the best; discarding 2 cards means little if he's being used as a finisher, and might even be good for some Warlock decks as long as you don't throw away anything important. But then, Warlock got lots of cards that cheat out your Demons without triggering Battlecries, removing Doomguard's downside and allowing this terrifying minion to wreak havoc for free. Its removal from Standard opened the gates for more Demon-cheating cards to be printed without having to worry about them being converted to free face damage, and quite necessarily so because even in Wild, a couple of these being thrown out by Bloodreaver Gul'dan is never pretty.


 * Voidlord


 * Bloodreaver Gul'dan

Honorable Mentions

 * Gnomeferatu
 * It's got a decently-statted body for a 2-drop, but what really makes this card stand out is its ability to simply destroy the opponent's key cards and combo pieces before they can even draw them. While the effect isn't consistent enough to make her truly amazing, the chance of making opponents concede on the spot when they see their N'zoth, Shudderwock, or hero card burned away means she tends to generate quite a few highlights, not to mention the havoc she wrought on the Spellbook Duel Brawl.


 * Lord Godfrey

Warrior

 * N'Zoth's First Mate


 * Death's Bite

Honorable Mentions

 * Dead Man's Hand


 * Warsong Commander
 * She's not much to look at nowadays (and indeed, it would be difficult to find a player that wouldn't dust this if they could), but back in the day, Warsong Commander stood as a testament to just how badly Blizzard underrated the Charge keyword. While her initial incarnation was quickly brought down to size and only give Charge to minions with 3 or less Attack (believe it or not, a minion that gave Charge to everything you played actually saw the light of day in the beta), that quickly proved to be enough to enable the infamous Patron Warrior, whose key cards both had 3 or less Attack. Suddenly, Warriors were indiscriminately killing enemies from 30 health from an empty board after a single tick of Emperor Thaurissan. Finally driving home just how powerful Charge can be on the wrong minions, Warsong Commander was subsequently obliterated by the nerfbat.


 * Supercollider