Top 5 Most Forgotten Bilgewater Cards (Which You've Probably Never Seen!)

Carrying on with the series of articles covering "forgotten cards you've probably never seen", today we'll discuss Bilgewater - a region that has struggled through several identity crises, but is still loved by many players.

If you have never seen one of these articles: I always pick 5 cards from a region which are not necessarily weak, or bad, but have been forgotten by players and don't really make much of a difference in the game. If they ceased to exist, no one would notice they were gone.

If you want to check out the other articles I wrote about this theme (about the other regions), click here to see the last (controversial) list covering the top 5 most forgotten Targon cards.

Please keep in mind this article was centered around the competitive scene, and ranked queues (I don't play Path of Champions, unfortunately). It is also based on my 4-year experience playing and casting LoR professionally

I invite you all to post in our comment section your own list of the top 5 most forgotten Bilgewater cards. Let's go!

For the first time, we included an equipment card in these articles.

The Jagged Cutlass was released to LoR in the "Darkin Saga" expansion as an equipment option for Bilgewater, and has synergy with the Plunder mechanic.

The "Darkin Saga" was an experimental period for Bilgewater; Riot didn't release champions to this region in this expansion, and most of the cards released to LoR at this time focused on the equipment mechanic.

This was the moment when decks with Runeterra champions became popular, and players, in turn, filled their lists with several units from different regions. So, Bilgewater's popularity went down, even though cards from this region were popular in these decks, like Piltovan Castaway and Parts Made Whole.

It was only in the next expansion, "Glory in Navori", that Bilgewater started popping up again as a popular meta region. Even then, we never again found space for Jagged Cutlass in any deck.

This card has always disputed slots with other Plunder cards which were just so much better: I'm talking about all Samira Fizz cards, and units in Sejuani Gangplank lists, such as Black Market Merchant.

Even though it has strong stats, Jagged Cutlass is in one of the most aggressive regions in the entire game, and, incredibly, even if you do activate its effect and discount its cost, it is still too expensive.

Not to mention, we usually don't find good targets for this equipment card in Bilgewater lists, considering units in this region are, mostly, small and fragile.

This card only occupies our 5th slot because it was briefly tested in Jack decks with Mistfall some time ago, after this champion was buffed.

This card goes against everything Plunder wants to do in the game.

Usually, you want to activate Plunder effects before attacking, such as these cards: Elegant Edge, Jagged Butcher, Dame the Despoiler, and Brazen Buccaneer.

You only activate Test of Spirit's Plunder after you kill the unit it gives Vulnerable to, and, to do this, you usually must attack and Challenge that unit. So, you'll spend your attack token in the process.

As Bilgewater doesn't usually remove units easily and efficiently, we'll hardly activate Test of Spirit's effect before we attack, for instance, if we try to kill enemy units with spells.

Just like Jagged Cutlass, Test of Spirit was released in the "Darkin Saga" expansion, which, as we've already mentioned, was an experimental time for Bilgewater. Many cards released back then for this region were either a great success, like Piltovan Castaway, or a complete disaster, like Test of Spirit.

The only reason why you'd use Test of Spirit in your deck would be to abuse its effect and give Vulnerable to a unit for just 1 mana. But, unfortunately, at this time, this type of effect wasn't that famous, considering Challenger units were incredibly popular.

This means you don't need to give an enemy unit Vulnerable, considering you're either already using Challenger units or you're playing a control list full of removals.

At this time, Petricite Broadwing was still at the beginning of its reign as the best card in the entire game. Darkin was an incredibly strong archetype, and literally the only card that was popular and gave Vulnerable to another unit was Merciless Hunter.

Not to mention, Bilgewater itself was a bit forgotten at this time; it would only become relevant again in the next expansion, with Fizz lists - which usually didn't need Test of Spirit because they simply entirely ignored the enemy board.

So, we've never had a real reason to use this card, and it was forgotten by players after some time.

Even though this card was released in the most recent expansion, Fate's Voyage, Honest Croupier is already considered one of the weirdest, and probably one of the worst, cards in its region.

Really, its effect, which gives it stats, is incredibly difficult to play, extremely slow, and dependent on a very specific deckbuilding - which we've never explored.

To activate its effect, you need to play a card that costs the same as its attack power, which means you need to play a card that costs 1 mana, then 2, then 3, and so on and so forth.

Let's just admit that doing this in a ranked match is extremely rare, even more so if we're playing Bilgewater decks, which usually play 2 or 3 actions per turn, and also play multiple cards that cost 2 or 1.

Honest Croupier was popular only during the first day of Fate's Voyage, and then it was never once again seen anywhere.

It is a shame this card is the most recent card we've ever added to this series of articles covering forgotten cards.

Unfortunately, it was released in an expansion that focused too much on Bilgewater as an elemental region, and as a region that draws many cards due to Nilah's cards. Honest Croupier literally doesn't have any synergy with any Bilgewater card released on Fate's Voyage, and, if we're being honest, it doesn't have any synergy with any other card ever released for this region. For these reasons, it occupies our 3rd place, and is one of the most forgotten Bilgewater cards.

Today, we'll do something different. Usually, for our first place, I look for a card in my collection which I particularly don't remember what it does, or remember when it was released.

But, today, that card will occupy our 2nd place because the card we added to our 1st spot is special and deserves to break the rules of this article.

Loaded Vessel is also one of the forgotten cards released in the Darkin Saga expansion, a cursed time for Bilgewater (what a surprise!).

The true reason why this spell is in our article is that it has the same theme as another spell in the game, Boomship: it is a powder-loaded boat.

Many players (me included) thought that these two cards were the same, even though they have completely different artworks and effects.

The idea with Loaded Vessel is to use it with Powder Kegs to boost the damage you'll deal to a unit, and then also increase the number of cards you'll draw next turn.

It is quite obvious why this card failed, right? It not only doesn't deal damage to the enemy Nexus, but it is also quite expensive, and doesn't draw you cards immediately.

There are other cards in Bilgewater that draw you cards next turn, but they're all cheap and useful. Loaded Vessel forces you to use Powder Kegs as the main mechanic in your deck. But, as we all know, there aren't, currently, and for a long time now, Bilgewater decks that do that: Kegs are always a secondary mechanic, and usually come from either Gangplank or Dreadway Deckhand.

Nowadays, Bilgewater doesn't need expensive cards that draw cards for you, considering the Updraft mechanic is incredibly popular and draws us cards more efficiently than this card.

And, lastly, any and every damage spell that doesn't deal damage to the Nexus will hardly be popular in Bilgewater lists. Heavy Metal is an exception because it can also destroy equipment, and nothing else.

This card was released in the Rising Tides expansion with Bilgewater itself, at a time Riot's entire philosophy regarding region identity was profoundly different from today.

At the time, Bilgewater was considered an aggressive region with RNG elements that allowed it to use cards from other regions. Nowadays, this is Bandle City's main region identity, but, at the time, only Bilgewater could steal, copy, and create cards from other regions.

Mystifying Magician has never been popular in any deck of any archetype because, even though the 5-cost unit pool has always been, historically, the best unit pool to tap into at random, the Magician itself is incredibly weak in terms of stats, and it is very expensive for its effect.

To this day, it is the only card that Transforms units in Bilgewater, and we've never had any support for its effect throughout the years.

This card strayed away from this region's identity ever since it was released, and it also broke the rules of this article. It occupies our first place as the most forgotten Bilgewater card simply because it is too old and unlike everything Bilgewater has always tried to do.

At the time Concurrent Timelines was popular, this card might even be interesting, but, unfortunately, Bilgewater has never been a support region for Timelines decks.

The main idea with Mystifying Magician has always been to Transform a cheap unit on your board into a bigger card with better stats. This, on one side, might even seem interesting, if you stop to think about it. But, in practice, it has never worked properly, and it isn't worth it to use a slot in your list on a 4-mana 2/2 cost that Transforms your allies into a random unit.

I remember I commented with my friends 4 years ago that this type of card is always a big question mark, considering we'll never know what the future of the game looks like. Maybe the game's 5-cost cards are incredibly, or terrible - we have no way to know. At the end of the day, we still don't know, considering we still don't use this card. And many don't even know it exists.

If you read this far, thank you! I hope you had fun.

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