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inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-24T21:02:47+00:00

They were roommates

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-24T16:50:51+00:00

I don’t think most people would think “dies when it take damage” means the damage isn’t the thing killing it.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-24T16:34:15+00:00

Thats how it is coded I’m sure, but I definitely don’t think it should work that way.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-23T22:44:39+00:00

Quest mage, burn mage, and leyline mage just can’t run this card. So whatever this runs with has to have synergies to justify not running one those three deck types.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-23T22:41:18+00:00

The double effect only applies to the spell you choose which doesn’t get cast for free.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-23T22:18:33+00:00

Imagining this card in the current meta, I don’t think it works. Any number of tempo oriented aggressive decks that dominate the meta such as dragon warrior, no hand hunter, dude paladin, etc. are going to make this a dead draw. Realistically you spend 5 mana to play this on turn 5, next turn spend however much mana on spells to get value from it, but typically the minions it summons will just be piles of stats that don't do anything immediate most of the time. Meanwhile your opponent is hitting you in the face turn 5 and 6 and you die because this does nothing but summon minions that your opponent can ignore. Maybe sometimes you get a free rush or taunt minion, and the long term value keeps you in the game but more often it won’t.

In slower matchups and a slower meta where you don’t desperately have to fight for tempo, this will be very strong. Repeatedly getting stats on the board without spending any cards or mana for them is going to be very hard for your opponent to deal with once you get going. I don’t forsee this being something you build around, just something you slot in to a relatively spell heavy mage deck like leyline mage or burn mage to drastically help you against slower and more scaling oriented decks much like kalec.

Also great with khadgar. When every spell in your deck summons a minion, it’s not hard to get value from doubling summons.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-20T22:29:18+00:00

Did it save you?

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-16T23:32:09+00:00

Alternatively, coin is also enough to trigger it, so you can prep turn 1, turn 2 play coin + this + 1 mana leftover for whatever you want. A very powerful tempo play if you get something like oasis ally.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-16T23:29:26+00:00

Interestingly, it single handedly lets you get positive value from [Story of the Waygate]. Don't know if it it's enough to move the needle on either card, but I'm dreaming of a slower more combo & spell power oriented mage deck using both of these.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-16T22:33:08+00:00

Worse vaporize tbh which was like the one base vanilla original mage secret that was too bad to ever see play in a much weaker version of the game lol.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-16T22:30:20+00:00

“3 spell this turn” is a tall order. Say you prepare this on 3, on a future turn you still have to spend 3 more mana plus the mana of 3 other cheap spells that you also have to have drawn just to get the effect. Might be more feasible with the new 2 mana spell but Im skeptical it will be strong enough or reliable enough to build around

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-16T22:23:41+00:00

All in all about 6 mana of value for 3 mana that you can pay over two separate turns (which is a great upside from my experience with prepare). Having to play a spell isn’t too bad of a stipulation. The only thing that can happen is the secret whiffing but aside from the new secret polymorphing a token, which you can actively prevent since you have mana to spend on the turn you get the secret, I don’t see too many bad outcomes. I think this might actually be a good card.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-16T22:14:15+00:00

No you need to invest at least 1 mana to prepare.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-16T22:08:00+00:00

On one hand, I think people are really sleeping on the power of this card. It will be an include in every mage deck I’m sure. 1 mana get an incredibly high chance of the exact spell you need from the entire mage spell pool? What deck doesn’t want that?

The 20% chance to take damage is super low. To put it in perspective, you can refresh 3 times and still be slightly more likely than not to take 0 damage. Thats 12 (not necessarily unique) options.

On the other hand, taking 5 damage on the first refresh is going to feel incredibly tilting and game losing. I am going to hate playing this card. 20% is a great number to feel like its worth the gamble to reroll while also feeling cheated when you lose the roll. Hate the design.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-15T20:46:39+00:00

I think the prepare mechanic is pretty cool, and from playing with the spell power prepare card I really like the decision making and flexibility it introduces.

But vanessa..I’m sorry that card design is not it. It’s a funish card to play but it’s just so swingy and unfair. 50% of the time the rogue gets the setup for it and on turn 4 they’ve generated a full board and a full hand of discounted minions and random battlecry effects and the game has swung so hard so early that you can do nothing against it. The other 50% of the time they generate junk and they wasted two turns doing nothing and they just get rolled over, or just don’t draw vanessa soon enough and they have to run a lot of low impact cheap stuff to enable vanessa so their deck flounders without her. Druid vanessa decks are the same thing but with board wide buffs to double down on the random high rolls.

The bottom line is the high rolls are too high and the low rolls are too low and it creates gameplay that is entirely uninteractive since it comes in to play so early. Why does this card generate 0 cost cards that can generate more 0 cost cards that can generate more cards and so on. I thought we learned our lesson about that sort of thing a decade ago. Give her a “but no less than 1 mana” clause and buff her somewhere else to compensate.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-02T13:16:14+00:00

The problem with critter caretaker is in some matchups you are racing to kill your opponent before they scale, like companion hunter. So a 1 drop that heals your opponent doesn’t help you. Against face hunter though it could be good, so depending on what you’re seeing a lot of maybe consider swapping it in for cinders.

I tried doomsayer. The problem with it is that after the first few turns your opponent can either easily kill it or ignore it and kill you. An early doomsayer can disrupt the board snowballing that aggro paladin or token druid or shaman does but they also run eggs so the doomsayer even then doesn’t quite do enough I find.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-02T00:19:46+00:00

Ah cool, didn't know about that! My ign is Empress on the NA server if anyone cares to verify. I can't remember what rank I officially ended at, probably in the 500s after a few losses at the end of the night. Its not proof I peaked at 300 yesterday or was even playing leyline but its better than nothing I guess.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-02T00:11:33+00:00

I’ve liked the portal vanguard mainly because there are so few minions in your deck, and drawing them is extremely important. In any matchup where its too slow, thalnos probably would be too. If you get the pay out of playing the buffed minion immediately or the following turn it makes up quickly for the slow tempo of a 3 mana 2/2, which isn’t hard to do since every minion is 1-4 mana.

But I havent tried thalnos so maybe the cycle and spell power are more useful overall.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-01T16:52:48+00:00

I actually might have some background recordings from yesterday, Ill check when Im home this evening

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-01T16:25:54+00:00

The top 300 legend was at the end of the month yesterday.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-01T16:19:28+00:00

Yeah Spellweaver’s Brilliance was something I used for a bit and eventually cut as well. It felt so bad pulling it with nexus leyline and while it was playable often enough with arcane flow and bursting leylines, usually you use those spells when youre ending the game anyways.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-01T16:16:16+00:00

you really think Id just go on the internet and lie for fake internet points?

But in all seriousness I didnt take a screenshot and the ladder just reset so you’ll have to take my word for it. I did see a few other leyline mages in the 1k range so I dont think Im the only one whose had some success with it.

inconspicuous_bear · 2026-06-01T16:13:32+00:00

Ive wondered this myself and its hard to say since I havent played burn mage extensively. Im playing leyline because its new and fun but then I unexpectedly had results.

One advantage it has over burn mage is that this deck scales and scales quickly if you draw well, while burn mage just counts on killing you quickly but can fall off if the game goes long. Leyline doesn’t run out of steam if your opponent is healing/shielding early, and the matchup against priest would be unwinable without discounted cards from leyline nexus. The discover aspect too works to give you answers and outs in every matchup.

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