Once March of the Lich King fully launched on December 6th, all eager Demon Hunter players were finally able to get their hands on one of the most unique Legendary cards from the set: Souleater's Scythe. Unfortunately, some of that initial excitement had been somewhat dampened by a rather unfortunate bug, resulting in the weapon and its special effect of Bound Soul not functioning correctly if mulliganed away. Seeing as the Start of Game condition triggers even before the mulligan phase, it's probably something not everyone was fully aware of. Luckily, with the recent hotfix patch in effect we should be able to start seeing the full potential of Scythe unlocked in the days and weeks to follow. At least when it comes to Constructed Hearthstone, for we hear some other modes might not have been as fortunate.
Quote From Blizzard
- Fixed a bug where Souleater’s Scythe would fail to add Bound Souls to the deck if the Scythe was in your initial hand and mulligan’d away.
This also means now would be the perfect time to go back and list all of the developer insights and clarifications we got on the subject of this special card and its interactions. Pretty much all of it came from Hearthstone Features Lead Chadd "Celestalon" Nervig - who prior to assuming this current role was the set lead for the entirety of March of the Lich King expansion - around the time and shortly after the Legendary weapon was first revealed by Roffle.
If you're still wondering whether to craft Souleater's Scythe in the near future, or unsure about anything else with regards to its functionality, perhaps the following can help dispel any doubts!
The First Legendary Weapon for Demon Hunter - Only Some Minions Allowed
Curiously, Demon Hunter has never been given a Legendary weapon before as a collectible card - rather odd for one of the few signature weapon classes, next to Warrior, Paladin, and Rogue (Hunter, Shaman, and now Death Knight to a lesser extent). There were plenty of Epic quality choices since the class made its debut in Ashes of Outland, sure. Just it took close to 3 years for the ultimate rarity to be delivered: very fittingly for something this special.
As part of his ongoing "Behind the Cards" series for March of the Lich King, Celestalon had this to say:
Quote From Celestalon This card came about through the crossover of two interesting design ideas that we were separately dabbling with: a card that allowed for a limited sideboard type effect, and an archetype that required no minions in your deck. #BehindTheCards
With this latest addition, every single class in Hearthstone (including even the Neutral category in Sphere of Sapience and new Death Knight class' repurposed Frostmourne) can equip something appropriately sharp and Legendary - most of them actually made it into the game with Kobolds and Catacombs back in 2017, years before Demon Hunter became a reality. So we are due for another expansion with Legendary weapons for everyone anytime soon, right?
There are very few Scythes in Hearthstone currently, by and large. With the other known example being that of Warrior's Reaper's Scythe. Other than that, we only saw them appear as non-collectible cards in some of the old adventure solo content from Witchwood or Kobolds: see Soulreaper's Scythe or just Scythe.
Binding Souls with Scythe - Collected Developer Insights
As for the newest Legendary weapon's functionality and card interactions, here are the most relevant pieces of information you should be aware of:
- Scythe's Start of Game condition triggers after C'Thun, the Shattered breaks into pieces.
- Therefore, C'thun won't count towards the three "consumed" minions.
- This is the one exception, as far as we are aware. Other Start of Game conditions might trigger in random order alongside Scythe, thus preventing full consistency (such as Prince Renathal or Prince Malchezaar i.e. not the most recommended of pairings).
Quote From Celestalon Is there a specific reason for the mulligan interaction?So that you do get all of the minions converted to Bound Souls that you intend.
- Once you Discover one of the three minions from a Bound Soul, it will be removed from the pool and you won't be able to find it again.
- Your opponent does witness the Start of Game animation, but can't see which minions the Scythe has consumed.
- All they get to admire are the chosen card back copies, number three.
- If your opponent, who isn't running Souleater's Scythe, steals or copies a Bound Soul, they won't get anything out of it.
- Scythe consumes 3 different (unique) minions.
- For example, if you're running two Wisps and one Battlefiend as your only minions, Scythe's Start of Game effect will always leave you with a single Wisp.
Quote From Celestalon Some details on Souleater's Scythe (SeS):
- Its effect happens after C'Thun the Shattered splits.
- Neither the minions chosen by SeS, nor the Bound Souls, will ever be in your starting hand/mulligan.
- Discovering a minion from Bound Soul removes it from your pool.
- Your opponent sees that you SeS'd some minions, but not what they were.
- If your opponent steals/copies a Bound Soul, it would be empty for them (unless they are also running SeS).
So, just to be clear
. If I have 2 copies of minion A and a copy of minion B, and then I choose minion B in my first discover, will the next two bound souls just discover minion A?
Whoops, sorry, I misunderstood. Scythe eats *different* minions. So if you have Wisp, Wisp, Jace, you'll end up with a Wisp and 2 Bound Souls in your deck, and the Bound Souls will start with just Wisp+Jace in them.
If the opponent is running SeS, would their 4th Bound Soul played be a dud?
Yes.
I love this design! Scary though; any concern about its combo potential; it makes it 3 times as likely to draw certain minions and protects them from disruption effects at the same time
That's a big part of the benefit you get for running the no-minions package!
Decks, Gimme Scythe Decks
Now, if you need any further inspiration for Scythe-inspired Demon Hunter lists, it's worth noting we've already featured several different takes on the site as part of our ongoing coverage for March of the Lich King Launch Decks. With the initial bug now fixed, chances are there will be even more to come very soon!
Here is another example of how a recent Relic Spell DH list might look like, based on HSReplay data of nearly 2k games at Diamond through Legend ranks over the past few days (with an approximate winrate of 57.5%):
That's No More Bugs in Constructed, but as for the Rest...
Since the aforementioned hotfix patch that took place on Thursday, December 8, there weren't any other reports indicating that anything else might've been off with Souleater's Scythe - and that's across a multitude of games being played in Hearthstone's Standard, Wild, or Casual modes. However, some other formats have not fared nearly as well, and there might be more lingering bugs whose souls will have to be bound in the near future. Here is a couple known issues we've already taken notice of:
Quote From DeckTech its looks like the Scythe is still bugged (or multiple scythes are bugged?)Duels might have a different version or something going on with special rules interactions. I’ll pass it along, thanks.
Quote From DeckTech the demon Hunter's weapon is not working period. This is now the second game that the weapon didn't do anything. Both games I didn't Mulligan the weapon as it wasn't in my hand and both games same outcome. I'm playing the brawl by the wayBrawl has different versions of the cards than live (you can see that with Denathrius, for instance). Sorry for the bad time, but dev time during the very busy launch week was focusing on the live mode issues.
At least Arena should be safe for now... or is it. For what it's worth, the above should only apply to the current version of Tavern Brawl with the Lich King deck recipes, and hopefully not anything else that might appear there in the near future.
Words Difficult, Me Go Face
On a side note, Celestalon also clarified that while Souleater's Scythe and Flesh Behemoth have different wordings in their text box, they both refer to "unique, not a second copy of" minions in their respective effect descriptions, although the latter uses the "another" form. Basically, this is more of an insight into how Hearthstone cards are formatted rather than how they functionally work.
Quote From Celestalon Hey @MyntyPhresh and @Celestalon I have questions about these cards - one says "different" and one says "another". my understanding of both of them is that they need to hit different names, right? so scythe can't hit 2-ofs and flesh behemoth can't draw another flesh behemoth?
Correct. “Another” just feels more natural English, when it means “different from itself”.
Have you managed to bind any souls with your own Scythe yet? Still waiting to give Demon Hunter a chance this expansion, be it with spells or minions? Share your experiences with us!
Comments
Jace Darkweaver, Lady S'theno, and Artificer Xy'mox in my Chaotic Souls deck in Wild Ranked and it's still bugged.
Had Artificer Xy'mox in my opening hand and no Scythe.
It's interesting to learn that the Tavern Brawl is using different cards.
I would not have guessed that.
I really like the design of SeS. Unlike spell only Hunter from the Rumble days, Scythe incentives selectively choosing 3 high power level minions (usually legendary minions) to work with the rest of the deck. Jace and Xy'mox are the most obvious inclusions in the current meta due to the current DH synergies but I'm keen to see if this weapon can keep up after Standard rotation once Jace takes a hike to wild.
Right now I currently run Jace Darkweaver, Lady S'theno and Silvermoon Arcanist.
Love build around me cards so I crafted this. Since I have Jace but don't have Artificer Xy'mox, I had to find other things to put in. I choose the new +2 spell damage but can't go face card and which is fantastic with Unleash Fel. The second I choose was Azshara. Great for duplicating spells for Jace or pulling out a surprise colossal.
It's a fun puzzle and a unique take on a "no minions" deck.
You can go face with the +2 spell damage minion if you have certain boards. For example, if you use Unleash Fel to clear the opponent's board, then the Fel card hit the lowest health enemy twice for two damage instead would do 8 face damage in that situation.
Yes. Sorry was typing on the phone before so I didn't fully write it out. While you can't target face with Silvermoon Arcanist, untargetable things like Unleash Fel and Fel Barrage can make quite a swing.