Warcraft Rumble Minis Tier List (PVE + PVP)

With only six slots to choose from, it’s important to know the best Warcraft Rumble Minis to optimize your deck.

This Warcraft Rumble Minis tier list covers our meta rankings, based on their effectiveness for both PVE and PVP combined.

We’re taking this direction because the majority of the playerbase will likely be playing both mode types, and since progression is slow, being efficient is key.

As far as my experience goes, I’ve played in every single beta wipe and have cleared the campaign multiple times. After Rumble’s soft launch in August, I have since cleared all PvE Heroic stages with minimal investment, often 4-5 levels below the recommended levels for Normal and 2 levels for Heroic.

Our tier list is the result of playing many hours of playtesting with trial and error to discover the very best units to help players like you.

Once you understand the ideal minis, make sure to also check out our list of the best Leaders in Warcraft Rumble.

To see the current meta decks for the top leaders of each faction head to our list of the best Warcraft Rumble Deck for Each Faction (Heroic PVE).

Here are our rankings for the best Warcraft Rumble Minis:

Warcraft Rumble Minis Tier List Commentary

The units are split into tiers based on how useful they are across the different modes and decks in the game. As it costs a lot of gold and exp to level up minis, it is best to invest in minis that can be used across both PvE and PvP, and in decks for multiple factions.

The need for a mini’s versatility is because the heroics campaign in PvE will require players to clear each stage with one leader from each faction. Similarly, PvP will also require players to gain honor with decks from 3 different leaders.

S-tier Minis

These units are useful in every deck and can be included in both PvE and PvP scenarios. They are versatile and can be used to answer a wide variety of threats, and due to their low cost, will trade advantageously against enemy units.

Quilboar

Quilboar costs 2 gold and is an unbound tank with resistant, taking 50% less damage from elemental sources. The combination of him being an unbound and a tank unit means he can be placed anywhere on the map to distract key enemy units and bosses and protects your damage dealing units who generally have lower hp.

Being resistant means that it can soak up AoE damage from units such as ogre magi, pyromancer, batrider, plague farmer and distract them from hitting your ranged units, buying them time to clear the enemies.

In PvP, Quilboar can also be played offensively to capture yours or your opponent’s chest, which secures you a gold advantage over your opponent.

Recommended Talents (either works)

• Tunnel Vision
  • Deploy much more quickly.
• Bristleback
  • Deal a small amount of damage to Melee attackers.

Tunnel Vision helps him do some extra damage to help take down the priority enemy unit faster, helping it to survive the trade.

Bristleback allows Quilboar to effectively deal with melee squad units like skeletons, angry chickens, and spiderlings.

Harpies

Harpies are arguably the highest DPS units in the game. They are fast and flying, which makes them the perfect glass cannons in both offensive pushes and defense.

As they are flying, they can naturally counter a lot of mini rosters who are unable to hit air units. For this reason, Molten Giants, Abominations, Core Hounds, and other expensive ground units can killed without taking any damage at all. Their weakness is their low HP, allowing ranged or AoE minis and spells to clear them out quickly. For this reason, always place a tank in front of Harpies when up against single target enemies, and unbound tanks behind AoE enemies to draw attention away from the harpies, buying them time to clean up the enemy mini.

In PvE, Harpies are the key units to clearing stages, especially when the player is under-leveled, by using them for advantageous trades when the AI plays poorly protected melee units. Harpies can also melt down the hp of bosses if you couple them with unbound tanks by facing the bosses away from the harpies.

In PvP, Harpies are more easily countered as an equally leveled and skilled opponent would always bring counters to squad units such as S.A.F.E Pilot and Chain Lightning. They are still equally as devastating after their counters are baited out and left unchecked. The talent that grants them mining can also be very strong in certain PVP maps where they will demand an answer or the opponent will lose their gold mines.

Recommended Talent

• Infectious Swipes
  • Gain Poison.

Due to the high attack speed of the harpies and them coming in a squad of 3, poison quickly stacks up and can melt very high HP units and bosses quickly.

A word of caution against picking the Trinket Collectors as your first talent, which grants the harpies the miner trait but increases their cost by 1. This will lock Harpies to a very niche role as not all PvE maps have gold mines, nor do all PvE maps require Harpies to mine them as some mines will be accessible as you capture towers. It is highly recommended you pick Trinket Collectors as your 2nd talent when your Harpies reach rare quality.

Defias Bandits

Bandits are stealth cycle minis that can stun at the low cost of 1 gold. Stealth helps these squishy bandits connect with the enemy and stuns them for a 2 second time while your other mini murders them. They can be played defensively under your tower after the enemy minis enter the range of your tower.

After clearing the enemies, they will re-enter stealth after a few seconds and go on to generate value by stunning more enemy minis. As they are a cheap 1 cost unit, you can also send them to capture chests, summoning points, and defend gold mines from kobolds.

If these units make it to the bosses, they can even stun the bosses. Lastly, they also help cycle to the other cards in your deck as they are cheap and help you summon your next tank or DPS unit faster.

Recommended Talents (either works)

• Deadly Poison
  • Gain Poison.
• Pick Lock
  • Earn an extra +2 Gold when opening chests.

Deadly Poison is a general-purpose increase in damage, which can help them deal the damage needed to finish off some minis solo before the stun effect wears off.

Pick Lock, while only working on stages that have chests, is so strong that we would recommend it even if there are some stages you can’t use it on. Further, there are PvP maps where chests are located near to your bases, and possessing this talent allows you to constantly generate more gold than your opponent.

Whelp Eggs

Whelp eggs are elemental unbound flying squad minions. As they have many traits, they can easily fit into a leader’s trait slot. They also have a unique hatching mechanic which only activates them after they are attacked.

They have a similar role to S.A.F.E. Pilot where they can be placed in the middle of enemy troops, where they will hatch can deal AoE fire damage to all units around. As they are flying, they have an advantage over S.A.F.E. Pilot in that they can freely attack enemies who cannot hit flying units.

However, their weaknesses are that they are unable to capture treasure chests or defend mines because kobolds do not target their eggs.

Recommended Talent

• Flame Burst
  • Damage nearby enemies when hatching.

Flame Burst increases the damage they deal overall by dealing AoE damage whilst hatching. Like S.A.F.E. Pilot, having a 2 part AoE can sometimes mean that merely activating them will kill the target, allowing them to push with full HP. One common interaction is dropping eggs on ranged units such as Pyromancer. The damage from the AoE shot will trigger a flame burst and kill her, even without the Whelps needing to attack.

S.A.F.E. Pilot

SAFE Pilot is an unbound ranged mini that is almost always played with the stealth talent. She is the strongest ‘assassin’ type unit which you can use to snipe off key targets before they can even do any damage.

Not only does her crash cause AoE damage anywhere on the map which easily wipes out any squad unit in the game, she then remains on the board and attacks land and air minis in an AoE. As she is unbound, she can be used to reinforce your push wherever they are and kill the enemy mini before they ever fire a single shot.

In PvP, S.A.F.E. Pilot can be awarded the most overpowered character that appears in all top-end decks because she counters many strong popular units like Harpies, Gryphon Rider, Blackrock Pyromancer, Darkspear Troll, and of course, S.A.F.E. Pilot counters the enemy S.A.F.E. Pilot. Lastly, they snatch chests and defend gold mines and from anywhere on the map.

Recommended Talent

• Gnomish Cloaking Device
  • Deploy from the explosion with Stealth and Ambush.

This talent makes the unit overpowered. Without it, she is very vulnerable after her initial crash as you would usually place her to hit as many units at once and she would be in the middle of the enemy lines. Stealth and ambush usually ensure she gets a further shot off which does 2x the damage in an AoE, which is likely to wipe out most units apart from tanks.

A-tier Minis

These units perform well for their respective roles and will often be good to include in most of your decks. However, some of them may have certain downsides, such as being weaker in either PvP or PvE, having a higher cost, or being hard to fit in decks due to their traits.

Earth Elemental

Earth elemental fulfills the same role as Quilboar being an unbound tank, but has armored instead of resistant and cost 3. He is generally tankier than Quilboar even accounting for his increased cost, and can tank bosses and towers for much longer.

However, he also has the siege trait, which causes him to ignore enemy units and only attack towers and bosses, meaning he cannot take chests or defend mines even though he is an unbound unit.

In PvE, he is usually included with Quilboar in a deck because of how strong this combination of unbound tanks is. With a single DPS unit like Harpies, Huntress or Pyromancer, Earth Elemental and Quilboar can be played in succession to distract any units as your dps unit moves down the lane clearing any enemy units in its path. Both of them can also be used to tank the bosses for an extended period of time.

In PvP, the siege trait means that he often not picked over Quilboar as he is unable to capture chests or defend mines, therefore lowering his overall rating. It is also not recommended to run both Quilboar and Earth elemental in PvP, because human opponents are much smarter than AI and will have prepared counters to snipe your dps units like SAFE pilot and Whelp Eggs, which makes it impossible to protect them even with 2 unbound tanks.

Recommended Talent

• Obsidian Shard
  • On death, split into two smaller Earth Elementals.
    • An unexciting talent which increases the total amount of time that your Earth Elemental can survive and buy time for your other units.

Blackrock Pyromancer

Blackrock Pyromancer is a ranged dps and the cheapest AoE unit that hits both land and air, she packs a lot of punch for her 3 mana cost. She is a jack of all trades and can deal with any unit as long as you place a tank in front of her. Apart from that, she is not very unique,  is in essence a vanilla ranged unit that has no downsides.

Recommended Talent (either works)

• Conflagrate
  • Splash area is doubled.
• Pyroblast
  • Deal triple damage on the first attack.

Conflagrate is a good general-purpose talent that can help hit targets that would otherwise be too far to hit, such as shots on towers hitting units defending them.

Pyroblast is a good PvP talent, and requires more attention to placement and timing, but can be very strong in getting rid of a threat quickly by a strong first hit.

Huntress

Huntress is the best-ranged unit in the game for PvE. Her glaives attacks being able to bounce means she technically has the largest AoE attack in the roster and can sometimes chain bounce from the frontline to a backline mini way out of range, getting a kill before they can even reach your units.

She also has the fast trait, and can reinforce your front line fast. Do note that she will often outpace your slower tanks so be sure you protect her with your unbound tanks like Quilboar and Earth Elemental.

In PvE, when she reaches a tower or the boss and is well protected, usually any minis they summon near their tower or boss will be killed by her bouncing attacks, making her a very strong unit to push with.

When played by the opponent, she is a priority target which can wipe your entire push. She can be countered by facing her away with an unbound tank, or by the use of stonehoof tauren to reach her.

In PvP, her high cost holds her back from being an auto include. It is also more common to see armored tanks like Tirion, Baron, and Rend that can keep her busy for a long time and eventually reach and kill her.

Recommended Talent

• Elven Might
  • Deal 50% additional damage to the initial target.

The additional 50% damage on first hit to help her tear through the frontline and boss faster.

Stonehoof Tauren

Stonehoof Tauren is a tank character. He is difficult to fit in decks because he can only fit the horde and tank trait roles, and is one of the more expensive tanks at 4 costs, compared to Quilboar and Earth Elemental.

However, he does what no other tanks can do, which is to reach the enemy backline minis such as theirPpyromancer or Huntress with the double charge talent, deal good damage enough to 1-shot them, and if not, draw their fire away from your backline.

He is weak to squads as he will be charged and be swarmed by the squad units. Be sure to bring other AoEs to clear out units that you do not want him to charge to like Chickens, Skeletons, or Spiders.

Recommended Talent

• Momentum
  • After connecting a charge, immediately charge a second time if possible.

His charge is not one use only, and he will charge again after it comes off cooldown. Even if he is hitting a tower or boss, when an enemy summons a backup reinforcements, he can still charge to another unit and get an easy kill.

Blizzard

Blizzard provides an answer to large groups of enemies. It not only does very high damage but also slows and when talented, roots the enemies in place and stuns them for the duration of the Blizzard. When used offensively, it can clear entire waves of low HP minis on its own, and if used alongside an ongoing push, can result in a full clear of even high HP minis without your units losing any HP.

The downside to Blizzard and spells in general however is that they are mainly reactive in nature – they are cast instantly and you cannot place them on the field like minis and build up a push. This means you are often going to be holding the spell in your hand waiting for a good high-value opportunity to play them.

If the enemy summons their minis in a trickle or across different lanes, you may be holding on to the spell in your hand for a while, clogging up your hand. Nevertheless, Blizzard bring too much value in its damage and stun and is the only spell that makes it to the top tiers in the tier list.

Recommended Talent

• Blizzard
  • Cold Snap
    • Freeze enemy troops in place.

Gryphon Rider

Costing 2 gold and when equipped with the talent that gives him +3 range, he can safely engage enemies further from the frontlines and is less likely to die due to the splash damage from AoE attacks. He also has slightly more health than harpies, which means that he will not die to an equally leveled Chain Lightning.

In PvP, he is used as an alternative to harpies, where harpies are often quickly focused down by spells or splash. Since he cost 2 gold instead of the Harpies’ 3 gold, it is less gold efficient for the opponent to chain lighting or SAFE pilot him down.

Recommended Talent

Mighty Throw – Gain +3 Range.

Bat Rider

A flying cycle unit that can be used to get through several difficult heroic stages. At a cheap 2 cost, it basically functions as a budget Drake that doesn’t hit air units but deals a lot of AoE damage safely.

She is one of the best counters to a very condensed mini push, and can single-handedly win stages with minis spam mechanics like Raptors, Worgen, Quilboars, and Molten Giants which are otherwise a nightmare to defeat.

B-tier Minis

These mini are situational as they may not be useful in all decks. The units can be a core part of a certain leader’s deck, or may be good in certain PvP maps, but may not be as effective in other decks or maps. It is therefore not resource-efficient to level too many of cards from this category as you will spread your gold and exp too thin, and may end up excelling with one specific deck at the cost of other decks.

C-tier Minis

This tier contains minis that are usable while you’re building up your collection but are likely overshadowed by other units that perform a similar role in the upper tiers. Compared to other tiers, they’re harder to build around and are more likely used as filler until you can replace them.

D-tier Minis

Even in “ideal” situations for the unit, they can struggle to perform or are too expensive for what they offer. They are sorely in need of buffs to be viable, try to avoid using them if you can.

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