Disclaimer: The following might be a no brainer for some of you but after dying a little on the inside seeing people shuffle 12 jade idols into their decks at rank 3 during KFT I've learned that nothing can be too obvious
Specifically I'm talking about Biology Project. In case any of you have been living under a rock, this 1 mana card ramps both players by 2 and is a net 1 mana gain when played, because those mana crystals you gain are full, like nourish, rather than empty, like wild growth. As a druid main who reached legend multiple times with the class on both ladders, I've given this card some thought and want to share what I believe are the correct strategies for playing this card. I'd like to prevent some misery of fellow druid players, but more importantly prevent anyone from doubting druid as the absolute best class in the game because of this card being improperly used. We do not want to do it wrong and embarrass our druid overlords now do we?
With all the memery of turn 1 Biology Project into turn 3 Oakheart, I suspect a lot of people are going to play this card on 1 and hero power, regardless of the hand. I also suspect that this play will usually be incorrect. The 1 mana cost of this card is relatively negligible; the real "cost" of the card is ramping your opponent. For this reason, we probably should not simply be playing this card as soon as we have 1 mana floating. Giving your opponent mana is a huge downside, and when you "tempo out" this card without making full use of the mana, you might find yourself behind when your opponent does
On a basic level, there are probably only be 2 situations where you play this card for ramp :
2 mana of ramp is required for a desired play on the next turn: Turn 1 Biology Project + Hero Power; Turn 2 Oaken Summons
If only 1 mana of ramp is required for a play on the next turn, you should save you Biology Project to be played along with it: Turn 1 pass; Turn 2 Biology Project + Ferocious Howl (Arguably, you shouldn't even cast project for such a low tempo, fit-in-anytime-cycle card like howl but I couldn't find another 3 mana example lol). Playing Project like this robs you of 1 hero power but also denies the opponent of 2 mana on the previous turn, which can be 2 entire flame imps, 2/3 of a flappy bird, or some other fraction of a mountain giant. Obviously, ramping this way does not play for topdecks, but playing for topdecks is usually what you do in dire or high roll situations, which I hope you don't find yourself in this early in the game. The rule of thumb is consistency over highrolls unless you're almost dead
As with all druid early game, make sure to plan out your turns according to the available mana and weigh out the pros and cons of ramping. In the past, the cons was usually leaving up minions that you could have otherwise removed with your mana spent on ramping. In Boomsday, the cons might be the opponent putting something you cannot handle on the board next turn
Keep track of your opponent's mana and mulligan. Once the meta settles, know their decklists, know their gameplans and know their power turns. For example, assuming evenlock survives the expansion and you find one, giving them exactly enough mana to play an early giant becomes more dangerous than typical ramp unless you have a naturalize ready. Opponents who mulligans less cards are more likely to have their power cards, increasing the risk. Think about what the opponent can do on their following turn with and without your extra ramp and your answer to each situation vs what you can do with and without the ramp on this turn and the following. As mentioned earlier, playing ferocious howl on curve is not incredibly impactful; nourish with an arcane tyrant or into UI is, and might be worth risking that mountain giant
That's it from me. I am no pro player so feel free to dispute me or drop your own opinions. Please no posterino about druid or biology project being overrated/OP though. We have the reveal thread for the latter and I'm sure the mods are tired of closing duplicate threads of the former. ALL GLORY TO THE DRUID OVERLORDS!
Disclaimer: The following might be a no brainer for some of you but after dying a little on the inside seeing people shuffle 12 jade idols into their decks at rank 3 during KFT I've learned that nothing can be too obvious
Specifically I'm talking about Biology Project. In case any of you have been living under a rock, this 1 mana card ramps both players by 2 and is a net 1 mana gain when played, because those mana crystals you gain are full, like nourish, rather than empty, like wild growth. As a druid main who reached legend multiple times with the class on both ladders, I've given this card some thought and want to share what I believe are the correct strategies for playing this card. I'd like to prevent some misery of fellow druid players,
but more importantly prevent anyone from doubting druid as the absolute best class in the game because of this card being improperly used. We do not want to do it wrong and embarrass our druid overlords now do we?With all the memery of turn 1 Biology Project into turn 3 Oakheart, I suspect a lot of people are going to play this card on 1 and hero power, regardless of the hand. I also suspect that this play will usually be incorrect. The 1 mana cost of this card is relatively negligible; the real "cost" of the card is ramping your opponent. For this reason, we probably should not simply be playing this card as soon as we have 1 mana floating. Giving your opponent mana is a huge downside, and when you "tempo out" this card without making full use of the mana, you might find yourself behind when your opponent does
On a basic level, there are probably only be 2 situations where you play this card for ramp :
If only 1 mana of ramp is required for a play on the next turn, you should save you Biology Project to be played along with it: Turn 1 pass; Turn 2 Biology Project + Ferocious Howl (Arguably, you shouldn't even cast project for such a low tempo, fit-in-anytime-cycle card like howl but I couldn't find another 3 mana example lol). Playing Project like this robs you of 1 hero power but also denies the opponent of 2 mana on the previous turn, which can be 2 entire flame imps, 2/3 of a flappy bird, or some other fraction of a mountain giant. Obviously, ramping this way does not play for topdecks, but playing for topdecks is usually what you do in dire or high roll situations, which I hope you don't find yourself in this early in the game. The rule of thumb is consistency over highrolls unless you're almost dead
As with all druid early game, make sure to plan out your turns according to the available mana and weigh out the pros and cons of ramping. In the past, the cons was usually leaving up minions that you could have otherwise removed with your mana spent on ramping. In Boomsday, the cons might be the opponent putting something you cannot handle on the board next turn
Keep track of your opponent's mana and mulligan. Once the meta settles, know their decklists, know their gameplans and know their power turns. For example, assuming evenlock survives the expansion and you find one, giving them exactly enough mana to play an early giant becomes more dangerous than typical ramp unless you have a naturalize ready. Opponents who mulligans less cards are more likely to have their power cards, increasing the risk. Think about what the opponent can do on their following turn with and without your extra ramp and your answer to each situation vs what you can do with and without the ramp on this turn and the following. As mentioned earlier, playing ferocious howl on curve is not incredibly impactful; nourish with an arcane tyrant or into UI is, and might be worth risking that mountain giant
That's it from me. I am no pro player so feel free to dispute me or drop your own opinions. Please no posterino about druid or biology project being overrated/OP though. We have the reveal thread for the latter and I'm sure the mods are tired of closing duplicate threads of the former.
ALL GLORY TO THE DRUID OVERLORDS!Legend with : S65 Freeze Mage, S57 Maly Gonk Druid, S57 "Okay" Shaman, S53 Boom-zooka Hunter, S53 Maly Tog Druid, S52 Wild Tog Druid ft.Blingtron, S50 Quest Rogue, S49 Dead Man's Warrior, S41 Wild Clown Fiesta Druid, S41 Hadronox Jade Druid, S40 Wild OTK Dragon Druid, S35 SMOrc Shaman, S33 Jade Druid, S22 Control Priest, S19 Control Priest