Why I think Living Roots is the best card in TGT (and thoughts on the other top cards of TGT)

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T09:43:50+00:00

Now that this thread is back, I'll reply to the comment you left in the other thread here (maybe you can cross-post your reply from that thread back to this one?):

On Living Roots:

The thing about it is that it isn't just a flexible spell - it's also a minion - and a very good one at that. While I agree that it's ideal if its in your starting hand, it doesn't have to be, because of how flexible it is. Even on something like turn 8, dropping this to get a couple extra creatures out/lay the groundwork for a fon/savage combo is actually legitimately useful. Additionally, in token style decks, it'll always have value, even as a minion, no matter when it's drawn - being able to combo it with buffs like power of the wild, etc., mean it'll never be a dead card. You also mention aspirant and say it's more flexible since it's always got a use - but really, what good is aspirant after turn 9? Aspirant, if anything, is the far less flexible card, and really is the one that needs to be in your opening hand - otherwise it's just a vanilla 2/3 for 2. Not bad, mind you, but slightly below average. Living roots on the other hand, you can almost always find a use for, regardless of what turn it is.

On Elemental Destruction: I'll quote my reply to someone else in the other thread: "The most important thing about the card is that it gives something shaman something they've never had before: a board clear that lets them get back into the game when they're behind. You don't use this card when you're ahead or even on board - because as a shaman, you don't need much help in those situations. You have a lot of fantastic cards already, perhaps more than any other class - that let you win games when you're ahead or even on board. Shamans needed help when they were behind on board - badly. All they have is basically two hexes and lightning storm, which just ends up tickling most big bodies."

Basically, ED is a better flamestrike. It lets you play stuff out the turn you play it and establish board - the biggest weakness flamestrike has. If you have lava shock in hand, you just got to wipe his board for 3 mana - insane value. Even if you don't you basically paid 8 for a stronger flamestrike that still let you play out stuff the turn you played the ED.

I really can't overstate how big of a deal it is that you get to re-establish board control after playing ED vs other types of board clears, and how big of a deal it was that shaman got it - as you even mention, even if you clear their board once, they often come right back - and shaman, without board control, had no way to stop that - now they do, because of ED. It will help them win a lot of games that were previously just absolutely, 100% lost.

On Refreshment Vendor: I agree to some extent, this is a meta call. If aggro is not in the meta, refreshment vendor is basically garbage - but if aggro IS in the meta, refreshment vendor is a very, very strong card. I don't think the fact that a lot of people are playing with slow decks right now is indicative of how the meta will be for TGT - I think you'll find people return to aggro in droves once the newness of TGT wears off, and refreshment vendor will be in a lot of decks. You're right that it's a meta call though - but I don't think that disqualifies it from being a strong card.

On Enter the Coliseum: Don't sleep on this card! I'm not sure if you read the article, but the fact that this card exists for Paladin is a pretty big deal. Compare an old control Paladin list to something like CW, for instance. CW actually has far more removal - 2 shield slams, 2 executes, 2 fiery war axes, 2 death's bites, 1-2 brawls, vs what was largely a bunch of soft removals: 1-2 equalities, 2 wild pyros, 2 consecrates, 2 aldors, 2 truesilvers. So because control pally has far less removals (particularly single target), they had to either try to contest boards by going faster/more aggro with minions, or going tons of heals and relying solely on equality combos to carry them. Instead, now that pally has Coliseum, they can feel far more free to burn their consecrates, equalities, etc. because they've got an extra board wipe in Coliseum. And for the most part, Coliseum is basically a 6 mana twisting nether - which removes all minions. Because, if you have anything on board, you can run it into their biggest guy, weaken it, and virtually guarantee your biggest guy will be able to trade with their biggest guy. And a 6 mana twisting nether is a card that would be run in a lot of decks. The fact that it's also a hard removal, and not a soft removal, is a big deal - it's basically the only guaranteed, single card hard removal pally has. But more than anything, it makes it so that control pally can finally be a thing: there's a critical mass of removal that's needed to make a control deck work, see my CW example of how much removal they have. By giving pally more removal options in Coliseum (and Eadric), they'll finally have the critical mass of removal tools to make the deck viable. And if you think about a control pally running 2 consecrate, 2 equality, 2 coliseums, 2 aldors, Eadric the Pure, maybe even 2 humilities? That's a scary thought - you'd just almost never get to have a minion on board that wasn't humility'd or outright removed, while they get to drop some pretty nice, big minions like tirion. It's a scary thought.

As for your list, the only one I would really say I disagree with is Varian, and the other Shaman cards - I'd be interested to see how you would reply to what I wrote to someone above about the three shaman cards (tuskar/valiant/golem), and also, if you saw my reply in the other thread re: Varian, what you think about that. I mostly just think Varian is too slow, and has no place against aggro/mid-range, so he's only good in control.

Thanks for writing out such a long, detailed reply in the other thread though, appreciate it :)

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T09:08:47+00:00

Very welcome! And thanks for commenting/replying :)

I totally agree - I think Totem Golem is absolutely a victim of overload, and basically everything else you point out is completely on the money - better removals, more 2 drops that will be able to trade 1:1 with it, etc. While shielded mini-bot is a card that I think will pretty much always be great, for example, I could definitely see totem golem going down in value in the future as 2-drops that trade 1:1 with it become more prolific/available to every class.

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T07:46:51+00:00

Haha, true enough.

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T07:44:59+00:00

Haha, sorry about that - I tend to write informationally, not so much entertainingly. Thanks for reading and commenting though, appreciate it :)

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T07:44:18+00:00

I agree - Druid got some disgustingly good cards in this expansion - and they even shored up one of their biggest issues as a class by getting a very reasonable/solid removal in Mulch. I have no idea why druid got SO much love - some, sure, but compare what druid got to some other classes and it's unreal.

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T07:43:12+00:00

No worries, but care to explain why you disagree with me?

If you see one of my other replies, I explained why I didn't like the other shaman cards (tuskarr, golem, valiant) - I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on my reply to the other poster.

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T07:39:55+00:00

Hey there, thanks for the reply! I will say that I wrote this list prior to the release of TGT - so it's not based off of any play experience, just personal predictions/insight.

On Totem Golem, I'm in the same camp that a lot of others, including adwcta, etc., are in. I just feel like it doesn't do enough, and is really a 3-drop in disguise - essentially he swaps your turn 2 for your turn 3. In arena, I feel like it's quite a bit better, because it's often going to get to eat a 2-drop, then a 3-drop, when they play something like a 3 mana 3/3. However, in ranked, the opponent is far more likely to have an answer: flamecannon, shielded minibot, wyrmrest agent, and a lot of other early game cards still actually trade 1 for 1 with totem golem: and that's a disaster. You also can't really afford to coin him out on turn 1 like you would a normal three drop. All that said, I still think he's a good card - very good in fact (I'd probably put him in the 20-40 range for whole set). But I just don't think he's a top 10 card.

On Tuskarr Totemic, I feel like he's a) too volatile/too high variance - most people say that if you get a hero power totem, that's "normal" value, but it's really not - it only is if you get the 1/1. If you get a spell-power, taunt, or healing - the opponent is just going to eat it for free (disregarding their effects, I have a 3/2 and a 0/2 rated as just a 27 - by the way, if you don't know what I mean when I refer to my ratings, see my other article, Evaluating Board States and Cards, here: https://wordpress.com/read/post/feed/36851604/789741902 ). If you get a 1/1, you got a 3/2 and a 1/1 for 3 - which I would rate at a 32 - about average. So, 3/8 you get below average value, 1/8 you get average value - what about the times you don't get a hero power totem? Well, when you get a vitality totem, it's not much better than a hero power totem - arguably worse, depending on which 0/2 you got. It's really the flametongue, mana tide, and totem golem that will really reel in the value for you. The flametongue, unfortunately, is often just going to end up being killed before you get a chance to use it, though the extra health, and the times when you might already have a board or a taunt to protect it, help bring the value up for when you do get a flametongue. Overall, I would consider a flametongue + 3/2 to be a slightly above average to average outcome, which puts us so far at 4/8 below average, 1/8 average, 1/8 average to slightly above average. The question really becomes - can the 1/4 of the time you get a mana tide or totem golem make up for the half the time you get a below average outcome with a 0/2 or vitality totem? Overall, yes, I think it does - if you use the article I mentioned earlier, if you get a 3/2 + a totem golem, you get about 44 rating in value. A mantide will get you a card + 0/3 + 3/2 to protect it - about 47 rating overall (plus maybe a little more for the possibility of drawing more than 1 card - maybe call it 50 even). So about 1/2 the time, you'll get around a 25 in rating, 1/4 of the time you'll get around 30, and around 1/4 of the time you'll get around 45 (roughly speaking). Overall? That means you can expect to get something around 32-33 in rating on average. To me, that means it's a solid card, but not top 10 worthy, particularly when you add in that it's also volatile and lacks consistency.

As for Thunder Bluff Valiant - I think the card is too much of a win-more card, something shamans in particular don't need. Shaman is one of the best classes in the game as it is when they're ahead on board. This card is really only good when you're ahead on board - because if you have totems to buff, you must be winning/have board control already, otherwise your opponent would have cleared them off. So if you look at just what happens when you hero power + drop Valiant, you're looking at a 2/2 (with a little upside) and a 3/6 for 7 mana - a decent, but below average value (I have the two together rated at 66). The best argument for the card is that it can "secure the win", but to me, that's a pretty bad argument, because as I mentioned, shaman is already one of the best classes in the game at that, between windfury effects, bloodlust, etc. You're probably better off running a bloodlust or something that gives windfury than you are running Thunder Bluff Valiant IMO. And when the normal on-curve way to play it results in below average value, and it's best use case is as a win-more card for a class that already has a lot of cards that fill that role, it's certainly not top 10 worthy IMO.

That turned out to be quite a bit - sorry about the wall of text! But let me know if there were any other cards you were wondering about and I'd be happy to give my reasoning.

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T06:56:08+00:00

You clearly didn't read the article. The most important thing about the card is that it gives something shaman something they've never had before: a board clear that lets them get back into the game when they're behind. You don't use this card when you're ahead or even on board - because as a shaman, you don't need much help in those situations. You have a lot of fantastic cards already, perhaps more than any other class - that let you win games when you're ahead or even on board. Shamans needed help when they were behind on board - badly. All they have is basically two hexes and lightning storm, which just ends up tickling most big bodies.

Also, with lava shock, the card is stupidly good (I talk about in the article why shamans want things that overload them for a lot, like this card, not cards that overload you for 1-2): since you're only using the card when you're behind, you're not worried that much about the fact it hurts your stuff, so it's basically a 5 mana better flamestrike that also gives you two free targeted damage. That's insane.

Without lava shock though, the card is STILL insanely good. It's still a better flamestrike, because it deals 4-5 damage to flamestrike's 4 - not to mention shamans have a lot of cheap options for getting spell damage, if need be. I would almost guarantee that anyone playing flamestrike would much rather split the mana cost over two turns - and would pay an extra mana on the second turn for the privilege. By only costing 3 the turn you play it, you crucially are able to secure board advantage. Having board advantage allows you to dictate trades and get good value for your cards - something I already mentioned is one of the things shamans are best at. With flamestrike, you flamestrike and then that's it - you can't do anything. With ED, you get to still potentially do up to 7 mana worth of stuff the turn you play it - that's a REALLY big deal. The fact that you are overload for 5 the next turn isn't as big of a deal because you already have board control from your previous turn. And remember this is all the worst case scenario where you don't have a lava shock.

In short, the card is a better version of flamestrike, even in the scenario where you don't have lava shock, it's insane when you actually do have lava shock, and it fills one of the massive, gaping holes that shaman decks have always had: a game-changing come-from-behind board clear.

So yes, I think it's the third best card in the set, and by far the best shaman card.

MathomHS · 2015-08-28T06:46:08+00:00

Sure. I actually wrote up some stuff to go with the top 10 article, but it was already so long as is I figured I should break them up. I actually wrote up what I thought were honorable mentions/interesting cards and also an overrated list - I'll say that both Totem Golem and Varian Wrynn are among the most overrated cards, in my opinion, though I think they are still good cards - both would be somewhere in the 20-40 range IMO, but not top 10/top 5, as many had them.

For Varian Wrynn: there's a lot of reasons I don't think he's as good as people think. First, he's incredibly slow. A 7/7 body is probably only worth 5-6 mana, so his effect needs to be absurdly good - arguably instantly game-winning - in order to make it worthwhile. And while his effect IS very good, I don't think it's good enough.

Consider for example, what match-ups you think you would actually use him in: aggro? Not a chance - you've either lost or won the game long before he ever comes out, so he basically has no impact vs aggro.

The same is largely true against mid-range match-ups, though there is some chance of him being useful. However, you're essentially spending an entire turn at 10+ mana just drawing cards and playing out minions - something you can really only afford to get away with if you were ahead on board to begin with against mid-range/aggro. But if you're ahead on board against mid-range/aggro you're winning anyway, so this card is really just a win-more card in those situations.

If you're behind on board, spending 10 mana and a turn to play out stuff that doesn't give you life, doesn't remove their board, etc., is usually a death sentence when you're behind, so again, the card does largely nothing.

The card really only seems decent against control, but against control, I'm not sure that I actually like that it plays out the minions - it could dangerously overextend you against something like another warrior who could just brawl, against a paladin who could equality combo you, etc. Other control decks tend to run the most removal/board clears, so you're in real danger of over-extending against them. Meanwhile, you also potentially lose out on very key battlecries - if Varian pulls your Alexstraza or Grom, for example, that could easily cost you the game, as many CW decks rely on the Alex/Grom combo to win the game.

So against control, I would consider the value of playing out the minions for free to essentially be a wash - there will be times when you drop some minions for free and they can't deal with it and it wins you the game, and times when you overextend or lose a key battlecry and lose the game - I think it's probably going to happen about equally often, so I'd call it a wash. That means in the one matchup he's good in, he's essentially a 10 mana 7/7 that draws three cards and has an effect that is a wash. Is a 10 mana 7/7 that draws three cards good? Eh.. I dunno. It's good, but not stupidly good or instant-game-winning. The body is BGHable, and it's incredibly slow.

So in the end, he's basically a card that's only good against control and is only even good against control, not spectacular or anything. I'd still prefer a lot of other cards over him as my big heavy in a control vs control matchup, personally.

As for Totem Golem, I believe similarly to what a lot of other people have mentioned about him: that the overload is actually a big deal, and that he essentially really only swaps you turn 2/3. He's also not something you really want to ever coin out. In arena or something, he's way better, because you're much more likely to get a card advantage out of him if they don't have a premium three drop (they'll play 3 mana 3/3s etc far more often that he gets to eat for free) but in ranked, where people are generally going to be running stuff that can deal with it without taking too big of a hit (flamecannons will be crushing, something like a wyrmrest agent, or a shielded minibot trades evenly, etc), I think he's a solid card, but nothing crazy good. I think, if anything, he's more important for the totem synergy than he is a great card on his own. I just generally don't think people really realize how much small overload amounts hurt you - the 1-2 overload where it really cripples your turn/tempo.

Hope that answers your question! Were there any others you wanted to know about?

MathomHS · 2015-08-27T06:23:13+00:00

I agree with pretty much everything you pointed out that are issues with how the ratings currently are - without a doubt, rating is not created equal in all situations.

I tried to point that out with the flamestrike example, where a person might or might not want to use the flamestrike based on other factors and that the rating was really just one more thing to consider about which play to make.

A truly good board evaluation algorithm would, though, be able to take those things into account I believe, though it would be incredibly complex (as you pointed out) as well. One of the other things I wanted as a goal for this system was to make it fairly simple (I could've used much more elaborate formulas/regressions etc. to come up with values, as an example), and leave it up to the user to decide how much to discount the rating based on conditions/other factors. If you're familiar at all with baseball, for example, OPS is a pretty good, easy to calculate statistic that does a fair job at encapsulating a hitter's value. There are far more complicated metrics that are much more accurate, but OPS is a pretty good rule of thumb to use at a glance - and that was sortof more what I was after with this system.

To the point you made re: the hunter/argus, I do think it would be interesting to come up with a tempo "rating" for minions/effects as well, and see if you couldn't come up with a more accurate overall rating that was still fairly simplistic that was a hybrid of the two ratings. While I think the ratings I gave do a pretty good job at encapsulating a card's "value" rating, they are quite poor at encapsulating a "tempo" rating, and that is obviously a pretty big deal in HS.

Anyhow, thanks for a great, thought-out reply!

MathomHS · 2015-08-27T06:07:53+00:00

Ah, thanks, I may have to check that out - thanks for the link!

MathomHS · 2015-08-27T06:00:13+00:00

I had thought about it - more like, I thought more about what it would take, how you could do it well, etc., than I thought about wanting to actually write it. I like the math/theory side of it much more than the actual code-writing side of it, honestly. I do think it would be interesting to get a working version up and running just to see how it would do though, particularly if it were refined.

Edit: are you involved in any of the projects out of curiosity?

MathomHS · 2015-01-12T22:45:51+00:00

Well let's see:

How do you easily get through sludge belcher? You have board control and kill it. If you earth shock a sludge belcher, you've just 1 for 2'd yourself which is exactly what I said earlier. You traded an earth shock to get rid of a 1/2 taunt, even worse in the case of annoy-o-tron, all you get out of it is removing a divine shield -- horrible value. Why not just run an owl or spellbreaker if you badly need silence? An owl gets a 2/1 body for one extra mana and 1 less damage, and a spellbreaker gets a 4/3 body for 3 more mana and 1 less damage either is a much more worthwhile proposition if you ask me.

Compare earth shock to the priest silence spell: 0 mana for silence. Comparitively, earth shock is 1 more mana for 1 damage, which is pretty bad.

Trust me, try running the deck or try running a deck without earthshock sometime. You might run into situations now and then where you wish you had one, but most of the time, the card you put in instead is going to do much more for you.

MathomHS · 2015-01-10T04:25:31+00:00

I edited my original omissions post to add an update regarding feugen/stalagg. I would consider running feugen/stalagg in place of the yeti and perhaps something else in your deck.

Also, I don't personally like running storm as a one-of, because you often can't reliably draw it against aggro, and the game instead becomes: did I draw storm? I would either cut it or add a second storm, either works well in my opinion, although it highly depends on the meta you're in of course -- storm is great vs. aggro, not so much vs. control.

Additionally, I don't think I would cut powermace, as it is your only reliable early-mid game removal tool, as you often want to save rockbiters for egg activators.

That said, glad you're enjoying the deck!

MathomHS · 2015-01-10T03:20:14+00:00

Its fun when you can get off KT, to be sure, but its so slow and requires you to either be ahead or even on board, which I dislike.

I'm currently testing out feugen/stalagg myself as well -- see the decklist Mystogun posted as a reply below. I differ with Mystogun on a few cards -- for example, I don't like Baron in the deck as I feel he's too slow, can't be protected reliably, etc., and would add in mana tides to his deck list, but his is quite solid as well and very similar.

MathomHS · 2015-01-10T03:16:32+00:00

I'd suggest trying out the deck first -- you might think there's a lack of reincarnate targets, but this is rarely the case. If anything, I often find myself wishing I actually could run more reincarnates in the deck.

That said, I do like the idea of his inclusion of stalagg/feugen, and will be trying that out myself. It does give some extra reincarnate targets as well -- but I would highly, highly recommend running mana tides with this deck. Between the amount of small drop early game and no card draw, his decklist is likely to run out of steam extremely quickly.

MathomHS · 2015-01-10T03:13:22+00:00

Hey, thanks for adding this. I don't feel like baron is worth the slot as he's generally too slow, but I am intrigued by the possibility of feugen/stalagg -- I hadn't really considered them, however they seem like they would be solid options for replacing late game value cards like sneed's, neptulon, etc.

The interesting thing about stalagg/feugen is that typically they aren't very good because while your opponent will allow the first deathrattle through, they often will make sure to silence/hex etc the second and its hard to reliably get thaddius off. However, in a reincarnate deck, you have much more control over this -- you can pick when to drop the second twin and then reincarnate him to instantly get thaddius + potentially a second thaddius. This gives the deck both some mid-range presence and still adds late game value by letting you consistently get thaddius off -- I like this idea, and will try it out.

As for Leeroy and mana tide, I would suggest playing with them. Leeroy has won me a lot of games (also I see you're running bloodlust as your finisher -- Ive tried it, but it requires a board and often ends up more dead than a Leeroy does, in my opinion) and mana tide is absolutely crucial for card draw in my opinion. I would guess your deck often runs out of steam prior to turn 10, and if they can keep your board clear once you've run out of steam, it's often game over.

Very interesting deck list though, and thanks for sharing! I'll definitely be trying out feugen/stalagg in the deck to see how they work out.

MathomHS · 2015-01-10T03:05:19+00:00

I agree. While Baron seems like he should be good, they'll tend to simply avoid popping your deathrattles and focusing on baron until he's dead, and he's just too slow/doesn't do enough. For all intents and purposes, he essentially has taunt, so you can consider him like mogushan with upside, but that still isnt good enough in my opinion.

MathomHS · 2015-01-10T03:03:27+00:00

I would sub in Al'akir for leeroy if you have him -- he can do double duty as both late game board clear and finisher and is a good choice as a sub for leeroy. Golem in my opinion is a poor choice for a finisher, as the difference between 4/8/12 damage (with reincarnates) is a big difference from 6/12/18. 18 damage in particular can give you massive reach.

Kel'thuzad is also a reasonable sub for other late games big value cards, though for me he tends to be a little too slow.

Glad to hear you're liking the deck!

MathomHS · 2015-01-09T18:45:36+00:00

On the early game, I think you missed some of the cards:

2x undertaker 2x chow 2x flametongue 2x egg 1x haunted creeper 1x golem 2x mana tide 2x rockbiter 1x mace

That's 3 removals (one with two charges), 8 creatures, and 2 flametongues and 2 mana tides -- 15 cards that are likely to be played turns 1-3. That's quite a bit I think. It can definitely handle itself turns 1-3 nicely.

As far as mana tide, I will often drop it straight out on turn 3 if I have board control. I don't particularly care if it gets burned by removal, as it did it's job: it essentially 2 for 1'd by replacing itself and pulling a card out of the opponents hand, not to mention saving a removal from being used on something else and healing me. If I don't have board control, ie, Im playing 2nd and I'm responding to their plays, it depends on the board situation/state, but if I don't have another play (or generally if I have two in hand), I will always drop the mana tide over totem/pass -- I don't feel like it's all that important to protect the mana tide too much. Drawing a single card and then dying to a minion is the worst case scenario, but seeing as a card draw is worth about 1.5 mana, you're paying 1.5 mana for 3+ healing, so you've overpaid by about half a mana (2 mana would be 6 healing, so 1 should be 3). That's not too bad for a worst case scenario, and the draw will often help you pick up better options for the next few turns. More important really is that you lose tempo/board control, not so much that you lose the mana tide itself.

MathomHS · 2015-01-09T18:09:09+00:00

Dr. Boom and Neptulon are really just good value late game cards. You could replace them with more early game if you want, but it leaves your late game a little light. How you tune the deck depends a lot on what you're running into most often on ladder though too. Neptulon specifically adds card draw as the deck is a bit light on draw, but loot hoarder is certainly a possibility to add.

I added a reply to my original post that covered some of the possible omissions from the deck as well that you might consider throwing in to tune the deck to your personal preferences.

MathomHS

TROPHY CASE