All right, time to put forth a defence of my beloved Whizz.
First of all, I’ve noticed a tendency—of which I, too, have been guilty—to compare Kim and Whizzard’s abilities by saying that Kim’s ability is the operation equivalent of Whizzard’s. Not so! Whereas Kim’s ability is entirely disruptive, and allows you to do something that without the support of other cards you otherwise could not, Whizzard’s ability is of a purely economical nature. In fact, with the possible forthcoming exception of Valencia, Whizzard’s is the only economy ability in the faction.
I think it would be at least a little bit false to say that operations are more important to the decks of the current meta than are assets (and upgrades, let’s not forget). I present as evidence Worlds 2014, where we saw NEH with its Pads, Market Accounts and SanSans; RP with its Sundews, Health Clinics and Ashes; PE, where money is not as important, but which nonetheless has its Ronins and Psychic Fields; Timmy’s Blue Sun with Adonis, Private Contracts and Ash; HBFA with its Adonises, Eves and SanSans; and Jackson Howard in all of these archetypes. In fact, the only match-up in the top 16 where Whizzard’s ability would be a non-factor is Tennin FA, which might soon be forced to adapt to Clot, anyway.
As an aside, I find that a common experience when building and playing a non-Whizzard, “vanilla” Anarch deck—meaning Reina or Quetzal (Noise being a different beast altogether)—is that of enjoying a smooth and mostly functional economy up until you come across an asset which you had really better trash, such as, say, a SanSan. Then, unless you happen to have an Imp on hand or a Scrubber in play, everything grinds to a halt and you’re poorer than a pauper. This problem might go away with a more solid and consistent post-O&C economy, but until then Whizzard smooths it out beautifully.
Now, as for the matter of Imp & Scrubber, it is true that Imp takes up 1 MU and Scrubber does not. But, a question: which of the two cards is more played, and is generally held to be the better one? I predict that you yourself have been running the answer to that question more often than not this past year.
Never mind the fact that Imp is more flexible than Scrubber (or, do mind it) in that it allows not just trashing of operations and agendas, but also (functioning as an economy card) assets and upgrades; never mind all that, but Imp also allows for instant profit by trashing anything from a Pad Campaign to a SanSan, whereas Scrubber can at beast only break even on the turn you install it.
Whizzard will have a place going forward, and I for one am excited to try out Harbinger with him. As for Edward, we shall see in testing, of course, but I think there’s a reason they gave him that 1 link.
