No, that's not really how that works, and that doesn't make it better than Shadow Visions. With Shadow Visions, you can search for what you need right now. With Toble's card, if you need card X now, but you drew card Y that you need later, you have to make a choice between benefit now and not throwing out a card you will need later. Plus, you don't even know what your other options are with Toble's card, unlike Shadow Visions. If you end up throwing out card Y in your quest to find card X, you might draw card Z, that you also need later. Then you have to make the same choice, not knowing how many cards it will take to draw card X. You're minimizing the tradeoff here.
Indeed i was simplifying the scenario. Since you seem to be interested, here's a slightly longer version:
Given: You are playing a deck that contains one or more card(s) X, which you must draw at some point in order to win the game (e.g. a quintessential combo piece). You are currently in a situation where you would like to have card A (e.g. some removal, because your opponent played a dangerous threat last turn). You play Selective Harvest. One of the follwing things may happen:
1. You encounter card B, which is not what you were looking for. It is also not required to win the game. You choose to discard it and the cycle continues. This is outcome is good for you, since you reduced the number of unneccessary cards in your deck, thus increasing your odds of drawing the cards you need in future turns.
2. You encounter card A, the card you were looking for. Obviously, you keep it. Needless to say, this outcome is good for you.
3. You encounter X. Now, you have to keep card X (otherwise you can't win). Getting card X is still very useful to you, even though you would have preferred to draw it later.
None of the potential outcomes is 'bad'. You might not get A, but even Shadow Visions does not guarantee getting A (Depending on the deck, the odds may vary). To me it is quite clear, that there is no balancing drawback. Instead you get the upside of thinning your deck of a potentially large number of cards B in the process of getting to whatever card you ultimately keep. This upside might be huge for some specific combo decks.
If I got something wrong in my scenario, or you want to go further into detail, please feel free to tell me.
Consider this situation. You're playing your Malygos combo deck against some random aggro deck. They currently have a fair few minions on board - not lethal yet, but threatening - but if you draw Swipe off of Selective Harvest, you can clear it. Obviously, with the way Selective Harvest works, this is easy to do, so you go for it.
First card is Innervate, toss that, second card is Wild Growth, don't need that anymore, third card... third card is Malygos. Now you're stuck in a conundrum. You need Malygos to win the game later, but you're at risk of dying now if you don't draw Swipe. You think you can probably live if you draw Swipe next turn, but do you chance it? Can you still win the game without Malygos? Here, the outcome of the card hasn't been good at all.
The downside to the card is forcing you to consider whether or not you need a card you're drawing. Hitting a combo piece is all well and good if you're not in any danger, but drawing a Malygos on turn 3 and being unable to clear the board next turn because you didn't dig for Swipe is bad.
I agree the card is not good for "combo decks", but throughout HS history there have always been decks that revolve around a single card, that are insane if you draw that card, and bad otherwise. Examples in my post above. These are not really combo decks. You have one centerpiece, and then a deck full cards that play off it. Those kinds of decks have never been a problem because of how hard it to consistently draw a single card (or even a 1 of two copies). Doubling that chance throws off that balance and makes these decks insanely powerful.
No, that's not really how that works, and that doesn't make it better than Shadow Visions. With Shadow Visions, you can search for what you need right now. With Toble's card, if you need card X now, but you drew card Y that you need later, you have to make a choice between benefit now and not throwing out a card you will need later. Plus, you don't even know what your other options are with Toble's card, unlike Shadow Visions. If you end up throwing out card Y in your quest to find card X, you might draw card Z, that you also need later. Then you have to make the same choice, not knowing how many cards it will take to draw card X. You're minimizing the tradeoff here.
Indeed i was simplifying the scenario. Since you seem to be interested, here's a slightly longer version:
Given: You are playing a deck that contains one or more card(s) X, which you must draw at some point in order to win the game (e.g. a quintessential combo piece). You are currently in a situation where you would like to have card A (e.g. some removal, because your opponent played a dangerous threat last turn). You play Selective Harvest. One of the follwing things may happen:
1. You encounter card B, which is not what you were looking for. It is also not required to win the game. You choose to discard it and the cycle continues. This is outcome is good for you, since you reduced the number of unneccessary cards in your deck, thus increasing your odds of drawing the cards you need in future turns.
2. You encounter card A, the card you were looking for. Obviously, you keep it. Needless to say, this outcome is good for you.
3. You encounter X. Now, you have to keep card X (otherwise you can't win). Getting card X is still very useful to you, even though you would have preferred to draw it later.
None of the potential outcomes is 'bad'. You might not get A, but even Shadow Visions does not guarantee getting A (Depending on the deck, the odds may vary). To me it is quite clear, that there is no balancing drawback. Instead you get the upside of thinning your deck of a potentially large number of cards B in the process of getting to whatever card you ultimately keep. This upside might be huge for some specific combo decks.
If I got something wrong in my scenario, or you want to go further into detail, please feel free to tell me.
Consider this situation. You're playing your Malygos combo deck against some random aggro deck. They currently have a fair few minions on board - not lethal yet, but threatening - but if you draw Swipe off of Selective Harvest, you can clear it. Obviously, with the way Selective Harvest works, this is easy to do, so you go for it.
First card is Innervate, toss that, second card is Wild Growth, don't need that anymore, third card... third card is Malygos. Now you're stuck in a conundrum. You need Malygos to win the game later, but you're at risk of dying now if you don't draw Swipe. You think you can probably live if you draw Swipe next turn, but do you chance it? Can you still win the game without Malygos? Here, the outcome of the card hasn't been good at all.
The downside to the card is forcing you to consider whether or not you need a card you're drawing. Hitting a combo piece is all well and good if you're not in any danger, but drawing a Malygos on turn 3 and being unable to clear the board next turn because you didn't dig for Swipe is bad.
I agree the card is not good for "combo decks", but throughout HS history there have always been decks that revolve around a single card, that are insane if you draw that card, and bad otherwise. Examples in my post above. These are not really combo decks. You have one centerpiece, and then a deck full cards that play off it. Those kinds of decks have never been a problem because of how hard it to consistently draw a single card (or even a 1 of two copies). Doubling that chance throws off that balance and makes these decks insanely powerful.
Honestly... What?
Name a single deck that becomes just that powerful with this effect. Astral Communion is at this point not an issue, as the card was only bonkers in conjunktion with Innervate and coins. Skipping your turn 3 and turn 4 + discarding your entire hand, almost nullfies the potential tempo swing that it provides.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I want a new title, but Flux won't let me have one,
I appreciate the discussion my card has generated but I just don't see Selective Harvest actually being overpowered. Yes, it lets you fish for a key card to your strategy. That's the point. But you don't control where that card is going to be in your deck. In an Astral Communion deck, this card will guarantee you Astral Communion but it might cost you your entire deck to get there. (It also might be the next card but you have no way of knowing that in advance) You still aren't going to get to play Astral Communion before turn 4 and, even if you do pull out Astral Communion, you are still left with the general Astral Communion problem of not having a hand (and now you might not have much of a deck either).
This card is really shitty as a deck-thinning tool because you don't control the order of your deck. I am not personally aware of any druid deck in standard or wild where you literally do not care about the other 29 cards in your deck so long as you manage to pull one specific card in your opening hand. Assuming you do care about any of the other cards in your deck, you might have to throw away a number of "good" cards to hit the "great" one and that's the type of difficult choice I would like to see more often in a game that often feels designed to avoid meaningful choices.
Honestly, the biggest place where I think this card could be problematic is in adventures where a single card CAN neuter an encounter. But Blizzard doesn't balance cards around adventures so I didn't feel the need to do so either.
I have to agree with FIIR. You can't ignore wild when designing cards, and this card + Astral Communion is bonkers broken. Astral decks have always been fun, but not viable, because if you didn't draw the card in the first few turns, you have nothing to play. With this card, you double the chance of drawing astral, and in that deck, you don't care if you throw away Ysera, or Lich King or Tyranus in the process, because you have a dozen other just as insane big cards in your deck. Deck thinning is crazy powerful and needs come at a high cost and with less choice (think Hemet, Jungle Hunter).
Edit: The Naga-Giants deck is also pretty scary for the same reason. That deck is annoying but not powerful because it only works if you draw Naga. This card again doubles the chance you'll have Naga on curve.
That's not really agreeing with FIIR. He never brought up Astral Communion. I hadn't considered that specific combo and I agree that it does help enable Astral Communion's use, but I agree with Tox that it still isn't that powerful because Astral Communion still isn't that powerful.
Consider this situation. You're playing your Malygoscombo deck against some random aggro deck. They currently have a fair few minions on board - not lethal yet, but threatening - but if you draw Swipe off of Selective Harvest, you can clear it. Obviously, with the way Selective Harvest works, this is easy to do, so you go for it.
First card is Innervate, toss that, second card is Wild Growth, don't need that anymore, third card... third card is Malygos. Now you're stuck in a conundrum. You need Malygos to win the game later, but you're at risk of dying now if you don't draw Swipe. You think you can probably live if you draw Swipe next turn, but do you chance it? Can you still win the game without Malygos? Here, the outcome of the card hasn't been good at all.
The downside to the card is forcing you to consider whether or not you need a card you're drawing. Hitting a combo piece is all well and good if you're not in any danger, but drawing a Malygos on turn 3 and being unable to clear the board next turn because you didn't dig for Swipe is bad.
Against aggro, a combo deck generally does not win by comboing them down (especcially not, when that combo requires you to play 9 mana card). Instead, you win by taking control of the board. If you manage to stabilize at a life total above their reach, you basically already won, since they generally have no way of coming back. Combos, like Malygos + a bunch of spells, are used to beat slower decks. If the downside of the card is that you have to make tricky decisions, then that is no downside. Having options is always upside.
Now you're ignoring the previous argument. The point isn't whether or not Selective Harvest gives you options. The debate was over whether or not Selective Harvest was OP compared to Shadow Visions (this was the whole point of the argument that you started). Yes Selective Harvest gives you options, but those options are not strictly better than Shadow Visions. The situation Shadows described is much better served by Shadow Visions than Selective Harvest. And you can't just dismiss it by saying the scenario doesn't count. If you want to concede the argument, just do it. We're too smart to get thrown by these rhetorical smoke bombs.
Removing cards from your deck is not a cost, unless you reach fatigue in that game (statistically, it makes no difference to draw from the top or bottom of the deck). (Un?)fortunately, fatigue can be completely avoided as long as You manage to keep a single copy of Jade Idol around. I might be wrong (after all I have no way of testing it out), but to me this card looks way stronger than Shadow Visions, which is already a very competive card. Considering the general power level of druids this would be a scary card to "print".
Your argument was originally entirely about a comparison between Selective Harvest and Shadow Visions. And yet now you are basically retreating from that to argue that Selective Harvest is basically just a good card. You're also marginalizing the decisions you have to make with Selective Harvest where you dump cards from your deck to get other cards. The situation where you need card A to not lose immediately and discard cards B, C, D, etc. that you need later for a combo was just an extreme situation to illustrate the point. In any situation, you would have to make similar situations where you don't need B, C, D, etc. later to win, but getting rid of them could hurt you. For example, if you're dumping a single target removal in favor of an AOE, and your opponent might play a big threat later after you clear the board. Shadow Visions does not have these tradeoffs, but you can't guarantee getting a specific card. Also, if you concede this point, you are basically conceding your original argument.
Removing cards from your deck is not a cost, unless you reach fatigue in that game (statistically, it makes no difference to draw from the top or bottom of the deck). (Un?)fortunately, fatigue can be completely avoided as long as You manage to keep a single copy of Jade Idol around. I might be wrong (after all I have no way of testing it out), but to me this card looks way stronger than Shadow Visions, which is already a very competive card. Considering the general power level of druids this would be a scary card to "print".
Your argument was originally entirely about a comparison between Selective Harvest and Shadow Visions. And yet now you are basically retreating from that to argue that Selective Harvest is basically just a good card. You're also marginalizing the decisions you have to make with Selective Harvest where you dump cards from your deck to get other cards. The situation where you need card A to not lose immediately and discard cards B, C, D, etc. that you need later for a combo was just an extreme situation to illustrate the point. In any situation, you would have to make similar situations where you don't need B, C, D, etc. later to win, but getting rid of them could hurt you. For example, if you're dumping a single target removal in favor of an AOE, and your opponent might play a big threat later after you clear the board. Shadow Visions does not have these tradeoffs, but you can't guarantee getting a specific card. Also, if you concede this point, you are basically conceding your original argument.
One of my arguments was, that Selective Harvest is a better card than Shadow Visions (overall). I was not retreating from that point. I was just clearifying what my argument was not: I was not trying to say that Selective Harvest is strictly better (i.e. better in every situation).
So lets get to your situation:
Given: You need an aoe. You play Selective Harvest to get it. You did not discard any quintessential combo piece during the process. Next turn your oppenent plays some big dude, so you now need single target removal.
Any of the cards you discarded for Selective Harvest has the same propability of being that single target removal as any other card in your deck (since the order of cards in your deck is random). Thus, removing them from your deck does not statistically affect your odds of getting that removal piece next turn (unless you removed your entire deck, which is usually unlikely).
That's not good statistics. You can't ignore the data from discarding the cards, since you know exactly what was discarded. If the card you needed was discarded, there is a 0% chance of drawing it. You're interested in P(Drawing X|What was discarded).
Also, you can't say that "one" of your arguments is that Selective Harvest is better than Shadow Visions. That is the entire argument. Stop trying to retreat when you know you're losing. Also, you said it was "way stronger", indicating that, if Selective Harvest isn't strictly better, it almost nearly is. Are you conceding that Selective Harvest is not "way stronger" than Shadow Visions and is just overall a bit better?
Now you're ignoring the previous argument. The point isn't whether or not Selective Harvest gives you options. The debate was over whether or not Selective Harvest was OP compared to Shadow Visions (this was the whole point of the argument that you started). Yes Selective Harvest gives you options, but those options are not strictly better than Shadow Visions. The situation Shadows described is much better served by Shadow Visions than Selective Harvest. And you can't just dismiss it by saying the scenario doesn't count. If you want to concede the argument, just do it. We're too smart to get thrown by these rhetorical smoke bombs.
When evaluating the power of a card, you have to look at the common scenarios that occur in the game. Yes, you can come up with scenarios where Shadow Visions outperforms Selective Harvest. Now I could come up with some other scenario, where the opposite is the case. This alone does not tell us which card is generally better. We have to consider how often those scenarios occur in the game. If a scenario is highly unlikely, then it does not say much about the power of the cards involved.
We aren't coming up with fringe scenarios here. Scenarios similar to these will happen relatively often. And you coming up with opposite scenarios proves nothing. You're ignoring our entire argument that there is a tradeoff between Selective Harvest and Shadow Visions. Our entire point is that each card is better under certain situations. You have failed to show that those situations are negligible for Shadow Visions.
I want a new title, but Flux won't let me have one,
I appreciate the discussion my card has generated but I just don't see Selective Harvest actually being overpowered. Yes, it lets you fish for a key card to your strategy. That's the point. But you don't control where that card is going to be in your deck. In an Astral Communion deck, this card will guarantee you Astral Communion but it might cost you your entire deck to get there. (It also might be the next card but you have no way of knowing that in advance) You still aren't going to get to play Astral Communion before turn 4 and, even if you do pull out Astral Communion, you are still left with the general Astral Communion problem of not having a hand (and now you might not have much of a deck either).
This card is really shitty as a deck-thinning tool because you don't control the order of your deck. I am not personally aware of any druid deck in standard or wild where you literally do not care about the other 29 cards in your deck so long as you manage to pull one specific card in your opening hand. Assuming you do care about any of the other cards in your deck, you might have to throw away a number of "good" cards to hit the "great" one and that's the type of difficult choice I would like to see more often in a game that often feels designed to avoid meaningful choices.
Honestly, the biggest place where I think this card could be problematic is in adventures where a single card CAN neuter an encounter. But Blizzard doesn't balance cards around adventures so I didn't feel the need to do so either.
Come Play Make the Keyword!!!
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Let's just look back at what you originally said:
Come Play Make the Keyword!!!
Check out my Worgen Class in the Class Competition
edit: wrong thread.
Come Play Make the Keyword!!!
Check out my Worgen Class in the Class Competition