Ben

and that's the thing about recruit - when it's a mana saver or at least comes as part of a useful package deal, it's somewhere between good to really good. when it's not, it's rarely worth playing over any other minion. it's only good if it's OP

but i was thinking about it a lot and the term "deckbuilding challenge" has come up a few times. let's review when that happened recently: recruit spiteful summoner keleseth barnes raza/kazakus/reno um, what does that list look like to you

because to me it is FLASHING FUCKING ALARM BELLS OF MISTAKES "deckbuilding challenge", going forward, should likely be deciphered as Extremely Dangerous Thing

almost every time we have to distort our deck to a point but yet still win when we get the payoff, games get less fun over time. they're only fun the first time we see it.

That is to me why Genn and Baku Deckbulding challenges are really interesting though. The Recruit mistakes made one version of Paladin super strong, but I believe it won't happen with the other (too much competition at the slot).

i suppose genn and baku kind of apply as "deckbuilding challenges" but the payoff is much smaller (it feels like) than it is for some of these other historical ones

The cards you listed above created a flashy big swing turn where Baku and genn try to have a consistent game plan throughout the whole game. I think they have similar power levels but one is a giant spike while the other is a gradual increase

i'd be pretty hard pressed to compare the power levels of hero power upgrades to these other cards. maybe keleseth?