Does anyone else feel the strength of Priest and the value of Mind Vision / Thougthsteal have an inverse relationship? Or put it differently, the prevalence of those cards is an indication of the poor state priest is in.
It just seems strange to me that you'd rather have a random card from your opponents deck, instead of a card you can choose that synergizes with the rest of your deck. I know both cards have other slight advantages: Mind Vision also informs you of a card your opponent has in hand. And Thougthsteal [/card] is a 2-for-1, but I'd still rate it as a strictly worse version of [card]Arcane Intellect which is all right, but by no means amazing.
It's an RNG thing. It can screw you by grabbing a Blade Flurry, but it can grab you a 2nd legendary. Plus some priests end up in fatigue wars, and those cards give you effectively more cards in your deck. Plus Mind Vision can give you an idea of what to play around.
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Unless explicitly stated, my posts are my opinion and mine only.
I'm not even talking about the off chance you get something truly useless, Deadly Poison being a popular example. I'm talking about the average case, where you get something that is all right, instead of something that synergizes with your deck. Of course it's easy to think of a best case scenario where you copy the perfect card, just as it's easy to think of the worst case scenario where you copy something useless.
My point was: If you are desperate enough to take a gamble, where on average you end up with something less fitting in your deck than what you could have picked yourself. Just for the off chance you get something like a Fireball or a Fire Elemental, which you don't have access to yourself, I think that says a lot about the state priest is in. In my opinion if there were to be a really solid priest deck it wouldn't include those 2 cards, because it seems to make the deck less consistent.
I'm not even talking about the off chance you get something truly useless, Deadly Poison being a popular example. I'm talking about the average case, where you get something that is all right, instead of something that synergizes with your deck. Of course it's easy to think of a best case scenario where you copy the perfect card, just as it's easy to think of the worst case scenario where you copy something useless.
My point was: If you are desperate enough to take a gamble, where on average you end up with something less fitting in your deck than what you could have picked yourself. Just for the off chance you get something like a Fireball or a Fire Elemental, which you don't have access to yourself, I think that says a lot about the state priest is in. In my opinion if there were to be a really solid priest deck it wouldn't include those 2 cards, because it seems to make the deck less consistent.
I tend to agree, and this is why I usually end up removing Thoughtsteal from my decks. A chance at getting a good card is not as good as just plain knowing which good card you want to get and putting it into your deck instead. Super fun to play, and the card advantage is nice, but losing tempo and taking a risk just isn't worth it in my opinion.
I think that you are thinking about it the wrong way. When talking pure value, yes Thoughtsteal is a worse version of arcane intellect because it is inconsistent. But the priest is not about pure value cards. It is about insight. When you gain insight into what the enemy is doing, you gain an advantage. With the limited cardpool a lot of players who are good enough to utilize that info are able to do it without playing Priest and that is why Priest is under represented but the point is that Thoughtsteal is not about the value of getting cards. It is about getting in the opponents head. There are times where you get cards that don't give insight and could be played right away but you hold them back so the opponent has to be worried about what you took. There are times you get great stuff.
The point is, its called Thoughtsteal for a reason.
Some class cards combo really well with priest cards. I got 2 Armorsmiths vs a control warrior deck, and my pyromancer made sure I got over 40 armor, winning the game through fatigue. There are more examples where your opponents cards are really helpful, since a lot of popular decks will have cards in the deck that counter their own deck, in case of a mirror match. Yes, you need a bit of luck to get these cards, but the combo's can really be devastating.
Mind Vision is awesome since it informs you of one of their cards. I have had several games where I changed my gameplan because of the card I got out of it and made sure he couldn't use that card to it's full potential. It's 1-mana cost also allow it to be easily combo'd with wild pyromancer. Also, Thoughtsteal can tell you a something about the cards in their hand too. If you get a card he has already played 1x, it's safe to assume he won't play it next turn.
But yeah, the cards you get can be totally dead in your hand. I once got 2 deadly poisons from a rogue. It happens, Ragnaros can also hit a totem every turn if you cant kill them, some cards involve a bit of luck.
Yeah right. If you're going to lie, at least make it more believable. There is absolutely no way you got over 40 armor. even if you immediately got armorsmith and pyro down you would have to proc him 20 times to get 40 armor. that's 20 spells and then constantly healing the armor smith too. Even if you say minion damage and cut it in half that's 10 spells and constantly healing. AND that would mean the warrior had absolutely no way of dealing with ANY of those 3 monsters for multiple turns.
My point was: If you are desperate enough to take a gamble, where on average you end up with something less fitting in your deck than what you could have picked yourself. Just for the off chance you get something like a Fireball or a Fire Elemental, which you don't have access to yourself, I think that says a lot about the state priest is in. In my opinion if there were to be a really solid priest deck it wouldn't include those 2 cards, because it seems to make the deck less consistent.
As others have mentioned, these cards are very RNG based - if you get lucky they can give you a HUGE advantage (such as when you steal a Ragnaros, allowing you to play it AND your own in the same game), if you get unlucky they can leave you with a wasted turn and dead cards (which often happens against rogues thanks to deadly poison). To me it is a matter of high risk / high reward. Like Tomskiej said, many decks have counters to their deck built into it - if you can nab those cards it can win you the game.
Having said that, I personally have a love / hate relationship with these cards. Priests often feel inconsistent enough (especially if you are playing a combo priest) and something like Thoughtsteal is just 1 more RNG factor to worry about. But at the same time, anyone who has been owned by their own cards would attest to the power of Thoughtsteal as well.
At the end of the day I think Thoughtsteal is a strong card (despite the RNG). It essentially allows for a 32 card deck - and if you get the right cards through the RNG it can be game breaking for your opponent. Plus it fits the "theme" of the priest - using your opponents cards / strengths against them.
But I DO agree with you on your primary point - that priests are in need of a little love from Blizzard. They have been consistently on the bottom rung for months. Maybe their Naxx card will change that?
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"We aren't the BEST Hearthstone players...but we DEFINITELY aren't the worst" - Day9tv
Some class cards combo really well with priest cards. I got 2 Armorsmiths vs a control warrior deck, and my pyromancer made sure I got over 40 armor, winning the game through fatigue. There are more examples where your opponents cards are really helpful, since a lot of popular decks will have cards in the deck that counter their own deck, in case of a mirror match. Yes, you need a bit of luck to get these cards, but the combo's can really be devastating.
Mind Vision is awesome since it informs you of one of their cards. I have had several games where I changed my gameplan because of the card I got out of it and made sure he couldn't use that card to it's full potential. It's 1-mana cost also allow it to be easily combo'd with wild pyromancer. Also, Thoughtsteal can tell you a something about the cards in their hand too. If you get a card he has already played 1x, it's safe to assume he won't play it next turn.
But yeah, the cards you get can be totally dead in your hand. I once got 2 deadly poisons from a rogue. It happens, Ragnaros can also hit a totem every turn if you cant kill them, some cards involve a bit of luck.
Yeah right. If you're going to lie, at least make it more believable. There is absolutely no way you got over 40 armor. even if you immediately got armorsmith and pyro down you would have to proc him 20 times to get 40 armor. that's 20 spells and then constantly healing the armor smith too. Even if you say minion damage and cut it in half that's 10 spells and constantly healing. AND that would mean the warrior had absolutely no way of dealing with ANY of those 3 monsters for multiple turns.
If you have a wild pyromancer and 2 armorsmiths down and you use a spell, 3 minions get damaged which means both armorsmiths proc 3 times each for a total of 6 armor.
I don't care for Mind Vision. yeah it can tell you what they have in hand which can be a little (but rarely very) valuable, but the best case scenarios really aren't all that good. In one you fish for an early drop because you don't have one yourself (but you could have just included another early drop in your deck), but that's more of an ok-to-get-back-in-a-mulligan sort of situation rather than an oh-let's-keep-this-as-a-turn-1-play-because-that's-really-what-i-want-to-do-on-turn-1 type of situation. not ideal. and you probably get a stronger card if you wait, but at that point, again, you could add your own strong card in. I guess you can see that 1 card he's been holding onto, waiting for the right opportunity. but maybe he's been holding on to it because its junk. /shrug.
thoughtsteal I do like because it effectively gives you 31 cards, occasionally can get you a legendary (even a 2nd copy of one in your deck, as others have said. even though mind vision can technically do the same thing, its got less chance), and as others have said, other class cards sometimes synergize amazingly well with priest cards/hero power (again, technically mind vision can do this too, but you only get one chance rather than 2). however, I generally only play 1 in my decks because it is a tempo loss (like mind vision it can be an ok-to-play-on-turn-3-because-i-have-nothing-else-to-play, but that's not an ideal situation to be in a lot of the time), and there are just too many other cards I want to fit in anyway.
overall, the value of "let's see what's in their hand/deck" I think is a little overstated because of the rigidity of the meta. you usually can tell from the first couple turns anyway what they're playing. I'm not at all saying there's no value, and its certainly interesting, but when you get something surprising it usually means the deck's probably not all that formidable rather than the other way around, so the value of that information is inherently less.
I don't care for Mind Vision. yeah it can tell you what they have in hand which can be a little (but rarely very) valuable, but the best case scenarios really aren't all that good. In one you fish for an early drop because you don't have one yourself (but you could have just included another early drop in your deck), but that's more of an ok-to-get-back-in-a-mulligan sort of situation rather than an oh-let's-keep-this-as-a-turn-1-play-because-that's-really-what-i-want-to-do-on-turn-1 type of situation. not ideal. and you probably get a stronger card if you wait, but at that point, again, you could add your own strong card in. I guess you can see that 1 card he's been holding onto, waiting for the right opportunity. but maybe he's been holding on to it because its junk. /shrug.
thoughtsteal I do like because it effectively gives you 31 cards, occasionally can get you a legendary (even a 2nd copy of one in your deck, as others have said. even though mind vision can technically do the same thing, its got less chance), and as others have said, other class cards sometimes synergize amazingly well with priest cards/hero power (again, technically mind vision can do this too, but you only get one chance rather than 2). however, I generally only play 1 in my decks because it is a tempo loss (like mind vision it can be an ok-to-play-on-turn-3-because-i-have-nothing-else-to-play, but that's not an ideal situation to be in a lot of the time), and there are just too many other cards I want to fit in anyway.
overall, the value of "let's see what's in their hand/deck" I think is a little overstated because of the rigidity of the meta. you usually can tell from the first couple turns anyway what they're playing. I'm not at all saying there's no value, and its certainly interesting, but when you get something surprising it usually means the deck's probably not all that formidable rather than the other way around, so the value of that information is inherently less.
I tend to agree. I'm personally not a fan of mind vision. Not because it's terrible (it has uses) but because I think there are better cards to use in that slot.
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"We aren't the BEST Hearthstone players...but we DEFINITELY aren't the worst" - Day9tv
thoughtsteal I do like because it effectively gives you 31 cards, occasionally can get you a legendary
I think adding more card to your deck would generally be considered a disadvantage. You want less cards in your deck to increase the chance of drawing your best cards. If people had the option of limiting the deck to 25 cards I think almost all the top decks would do so. The only exception I can think of is if you consistently enter in fatigue battles (which i guess priest can be capable of), but most decks i see this card played in don't use that as a win condition. And even so it wouldn't delay the time you enter fatigue, it would just add 1 more card to your hand.
On the legendary; I heard this argument multiple times and i heard people say getting a legendary or big creature to be the best case scenario. But it's not like the legendary would be free, you'd still need to use the mana to cast it. There's a reason most decks don't include that many big creatures, they're only good if you make it to the endgame without facing lethal soon. And if you build a deck that can accomplish this, why not just pick the legendary for your deck instead of gambling Thoughtsteal will do so for you. Is having 2x Ragnaros the Firelord that beneficial over say having rag + Ysera?
thoughtsteal I do like because it effectively gives you 31 cards, occasionally can get you a legendary
I think adding more card to your deck would generally be considered a disadvantage. You want less cards in your deck to increase the chance of drawing your best cards. If people had the option of limiting the deck to 25 cards I think almost all the top decks would do so. The only exception I can think of is if you consistently enter in fatigue battles (which i guess priest can be capable of), but most decks i see this card played in don't use that as a win condition. And even so it wouldn't delay the time you enter fatigue, it would just add 1 more card to your hand.
On the legendary; I heard this argument multiple times and i heard people say getting a legendary or big creature to be the best case scenario. But it's not like the legendary would be free, you'd still need to use the mana to cast it. There's a reason most decks don't include that many big creatures, they're only good if you make it to the endgame without facing lethal soon. And if you build a deck that can accomplish this, why not just pick the legendary for your deck instead of gambling Thoughtsteal will do so for you. Is having 2x Ragnaros the Firelord that beneficial over say having rag + Ysera?
Great point about the cost of having to play the legendary you get. There's no doubt that Thoughtsteal is essentially a tempo loss. I think the greatest strength of this card isn't in grabbing legendaries or increasing your card count, but in giving you access to things that you normally wouldn't have - and often these cards are great responses to your opponents play. (ie. Getting a sheep, fireball, hex, Druid of the Claw, Keeper of the Grove, Swipe, Siphon Soul, etc.) In long matches it's sometimes nice to get the extra minions too.
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"We aren't the BEST Hearthstone players...but we DEFINITELY aren't the worst" - Day9tv
It's basically played because Arcane Intellect is good and Thoughtsteal is what Priests get as an analog. It is nice that it doesn't draw cards from your own deck, though, because I often find myself going to fatigue in control mirrors.
thoughtsteal I do like because it effectively gives you 31 cards, occasionally can get you a legendary
I think adding more card to your deck would generally be considered a disadvantage. You want less cards in your deck to increase the chance of drawing your best cards. If people had the option of limiting the deck to 25 cards I think almost all the top decks would do so. The only exception I can think of is if you consistently enter in fatigue battles (which i guess priest can be capable of), but most decks i see this card played in don't use that as a win condition. And even so it wouldn't delay the time you enter fatigue, it would just add 1 more card to your hand.
This is true but the reason behind wanting a smaller deck is to get to your win conditions faster. Thoughtsteal doesnt add cards to your deck, it adds card to your hand which means that it gives you the benefit of having a larger deck (more cards to play) without giving you the negative that comes with having a larger deck (watering it down and making the win conditions harder to get to) all while also giving you hand advantage. Obviously it is a tempo loss and the cards that you get are inconsistent but anything that gives you utility like that needs to have some kind of downside.
IMO Thoughtsteal is very similar to Far Sight and should be thought of in the same way. Its not about what those cards give you in the short term, it is about the utility that those cards give you in the long term. In the current meta, with so much aggro and/or midgame burst, this can mean that situations in which that kind of tempo loss is really bad come up all too often but it doesnt mean that the card is inherently bad. It just means that in the current environment it is hard to justify.
Does anyone else feel the strength of Priest and the value of Mind Vision / Thougthsteal have an inverse relationship? Or put it differently, the prevalence of those cards is an indication of the poor state priest is in.
It just seems strange to me that you'd rather have a random card from your opponents deck, instead of a card you can choose that synergizes with the rest of your deck. I know both cards have other slight advantages: Mind Vision also informs you of a card your opponent has in hand. And Thougthsteal [/card] is a 2-for-1, but I'd still rate it as a strictly worse version of [card]Arcane Intellect which is all right, but by no means amazing.
It's an RNG thing. It can screw you by grabbing a Blade Flurry, but it can grab you a 2nd legendary. Plus some priests end up in fatigue wars, and those cards give you effectively more cards in your deck. Plus Mind Vision can give you an idea of what to play around.
Unless explicitly stated, my posts are my opinion and mine only.
I'm not even talking about the off chance you get something truly useless, Deadly Poison being a popular example. I'm talking about the average case, where you get something that is all right, instead of something that synergizes with your deck. Of course it's easy to think of a best case scenario where you copy the perfect card, just as it's easy to think of the worst case scenario where you copy something useless.
My point was: If you are desperate enough to take a gamble, where on average you end up with something less fitting in your deck than what you could have picked yourself. Just for the off chance you get something like a Fireball or a Fire Elemental, which you don't have access to yourself, I think that says a lot about the state priest is in. In my opinion if there were to be a really solid priest deck it wouldn't include those 2 cards, because it seems to make the deck less consistent.
I tend to agree, and this is why I usually end up removing Thoughtsteal from my decks. A chance at getting a good card is not as good as just plain knowing which good card you want to get and putting it into your deck instead. Super fun to play, and the card advantage is nice, but losing tempo and taking a risk just isn't worth it in my opinion.
I think that you are thinking about it the wrong way. When talking pure value, yes Thoughtsteal is a worse version of arcane intellect because it is inconsistent. But the priest is not about pure value cards. It is about insight. When you gain insight into what the enemy is doing, you gain an advantage. With the limited cardpool a lot of players who are good enough to utilize that info are able to do it without playing Priest and that is why Priest is under represented but the point is that Thoughtsteal is not about the value of getting cards. It is about getting in the opponents head. There are times where you get cards that don't give insight and could be played right away but you hold them back so the opponent has to be worried about what you took. There are times you get great stuff.
The point is, its called Thoughtsteal for a reason.
Yeah right. If you're going to lie, at least make it more believable. There is absolutely no way you got over 40 armor. even if you immediately got armorsmith and pyro down you would have to proc him 20 times to get 40 armor. that's 20 spells and then constantly healing the armor smith too. Even if you say minion damage and cut it in half that's 10 spells and constantly healing. AND that would mean the warrior had absolutely no way of dealing with ANY of those 3 monsters for multiple turns.
As others have mentioned, these cards are very RNG based - if you get lucky they can give you a HUGE advantage (such as when you steal a Ragnaros, allowing you to play it AND your own in the same game), if you get unlucky they can leave you with a wasted turn and dead cards (which often happens against rogues thanks to deadly poison). To me it is a matter of high risk / high reward. Like Tomskiej said, many decks have counters to their deck built into it - if you can nab those cards it can win you the game.
Having said that, I personally have a love / hate relationship with these cards. Priests often feel inconsistent enough (especially if you are playing a combo priest) and something like Thoughtsteal is just 1 more RNG factor to worry about. But at the same time, anyone who has been owned by their own cards would attest to the power of Thoughtsteal as well.
At the end of the day I think Thoughtsteal is a strong card (despite the RNG). It essentially allows for a 32 card deck - and if you get the right cards through the RNG it can be game breaking for your opponent. Plus it fits the "theme" of the priest - using your opponents cards / strengths against them.
But I DO agree with you on your primary point - that priests are in need of a little love from Blizzard. They have been consistently on the bottom rung for months. Maybe their Naxx card will change that?
"We aren't the BEST Hearthstone players...but we DEFINITELY aren't the worst" - Day9tv
If you have a wild pyromancer and 2 armorsmiths down and you use a spell, 3 minions get damaged which means both armorsmiths proc 3 times each for a total of 6 armor.
I don't care for Mind Vision. yeah it can tell you what they have in hand which can be a little (but rarely very) valuable, but the best case scenarios really aren't all that good. In one you fish for an early drop because you don't have one yourself (but you could have just included another early drop in your deck), but that's more of an ok-to-get-back-in-a-mulligan sort of situation rather than an oh-let's-keep-this-as-a-turn-1-play-because-that's-really-what-i-want-to-do-on-turn-1 type of situation. not ideal. and you probably get a stronger card if you wait, but at that point, again, you could add your own strong card in. I guess you can see that 1 card he's been holding onto, waiting for the right opportunity. but maybe he's been holding on to it because its junk. /shrug.
thoughtsteal I do like because it effectively gives you 31 cards, occasionally can get you a legendary (even a 2nd copy of one in your deck, as others have said. even though mind vision can technically do the same thing, its got less chance), and as others have said, other class cards sometimes synergize amazingly well with priest cards/hero power (again, technically mind vision can do this too, but you only get one chance rather than 2). however, I generally only play 1 in my decks because it is a tempo loss (like mind vision it can be an ok-to-play-on-turn-3-because-i-have-nothing-else-to-play, but that's not an ideal situation to be in a lot of the time), and there are just too many other cards I want to fit in anyway.
overall, the value of "let's see what's in their hand/deck" I think is a little overstated because of the rigidity of the meta. you usually can tell from the first couple turns anyway what they're playing. I'm not at all saying there's no value, and its certainly interesting, but when you get something surprising it usually means the deck's probably not all that formidable rather than the other way around, so the value of that information is inherently less.
"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear turns into a cat and eats you." - Anonymous Druid
I tend to agree. I'm personally not a fan of mind vision. Not because it's terrible (it has uses) but because I think there are better cards to use in that slot.
"We aren't the BEST Hearthstone players...but we DEFINITELY aren't the worst" - Day9tv
I think adding more card to your deck would generally be considered a disadvantage. You want less cards in your deck to increase the chance of drawing your best cards. If people had the option of limiting the deck to 25 cards I think almost all the top decks would do so. The only exception I can think of is if you consistently enter in fatigue battles (which i guess priest can be capable of), but most decks i see this card played in don't use that as a win condition. And even so it wouldn't delay the time you enter fatigue, it would just add 1 more card to your hand.
On the legendary; I heard this argument multiple times and i heard people say getting a legendary or big creature to be the best case scenario. But it's not like the legendary would be free, you'd still need to use the mana to cast it. There's a reason most decks don't include that many big creatures, they're only good if you make it to the endgame without facing lethal soon. And if you build a deck that can accomplish this, why not just pick the legendary for your deck instead of gambling Thoughtsteal will do so for you. Is having 2x Ragnaros the Firelord that beneficial over say having rag + Ysera?
Great point about the cost of having to play the legendary you get. There's no doubt that Thoughtsteal is essentially a tempo loss. I think the greatest strength of this card isn't in grabbing legendaries or increasing your card count, but in giving you access to things that you normally wouldn't have - and often these cards are great responses to your opponents play. (ie. Getting a sheep, fireball, hex, Druid of the Claw, Keeper of the Grove, Swipe, Siphon Soul, etc.) In long matches it's sometimes nice to get the extra minions too.
"We aren't the BEST Hearthstone players...but we DEFINITELY aren't the worst" - Day9tv
It's basically played because Arcane Intellect is good and Thoughtsteal is what Priests get as an analog. It is nice that it doesn't draw cards from your own deck, though, because I often find myself going to fatigue in control mirrors.
This is true but the reason behind wanting a smaller deck is to get to your win conditions faster. Thoughtsteal doesnt add cards to your deck, it adds card to your hand which means that it gives you the benefit of having a larger deck (more cards to play) without giving you the negative that comes with having a larger deck (watering it down and making the win conditions harder to get to) all while also giving you hand advantage. Obviously it is a tempo loss and the cards that you get are inconsistent but anything that gives you utility like that needs to have some kind of downside.
IMO Thoughtsteal is very similar to Far Sight and should be thought of in the same way. Its not about what those cards give you in the short term, it is about the utility that those cards give you in the long term. In the current meta, with so much aggro and/or midgame burst, this can mean that situations in which that kind of tempo loss is really bad come up all too often but it doesnt mean that the card is inherently bad. It just means that in the current environment it is hard to justify.