Well we all know and love Flametongue Totem. As an open beta player i've grown fond of this card over the first few months of the game, but as we moved through expansions i feel like this card is more and more a one-time use thing.
When we chose to put FTT in our decks we assume we have board control, and hopefully some crap to juggle into whatever big threat gets played on the board. This still happens?
As the game progressed, people have learned to clear the board, removing totems, tokens and whatnot. Feral Spirit has also been pushed out of the meta from cards like Spider Tank or Grim Patron etc., making FTT more vulnerable.
The scenario i see 90% of the times these days, is that FTT comes down (after being a dead card for several turns), helps you juggle stuff into it to clear that Dr.Boom or Druid of the Claw, then the next turn it dies to another minion, or a spell, or a weapon, or even a Reversing Switch.
So what FTT accomplished was dealing 4 to 8 damage, which is pretty good value, and it absorbed one attack from the enemy (or even better one spell).
It's all good in the hood, but the problem is that now players have become better at the game, and now clear everything you have including 1/1 totems in terror of Quartertotemaster. This makes more difficult to get decent value from FTT, that is again sitting dead in your hand. It doesn't help the cause at all that most decks are running 3 damage aoe cause of Patron Warrior being popular in any stage of the ladder, because of its low-cost high potential rate.
The best (and possibly only way) to utilize FTT is to run a much lighter curve that one would like to (that includes at least two chows, two crepers, possibly a large quantity of 1 mana removals). Of course in this case you will struggle with card draw in the later stages.
The question is; is it worth the trouble? Getting FTT stolen from priests, drawing zombie chow in the midgame, having FTT sit in hand when you don't have board control, giving Patron Warrior 1/1s on whom to multiply their patrons? Or having a 0/3 minion against face hunter?
Perhaps the game has evolved to a point where Flametongue Totem is not worth a slot? What do you guys think?
I only play Shaman for daily quests so obviously I am not an expert and my advice should thus be taken lightly, but even though people keep on clearing cards, it is rare to be able to clear every minion all the time. They way people play now it has a lot less value, but I still want at least one in my deck. Even if top decking it at least can serve as a cheap pseudo taunt.
The problem with that line of thought (and I had it myself) is, what are you gonna substitue for the Flametongue?As it stands, Shaman already lacks good early drops and if we remove Flametongue, the value of Creeper diminishes drastically to the point where it might not be worth playing anymore. Same goes for Harvest Golem and many other cards and at that point we run into the problem of what to play. Sadly, we have no Shileded Minibot or Armorsmith or SI:7 or basically anything and neutral two-drops are still more or less bad or at least not fitting in Shaman (I REALLY wanted to use Wild Pyromancer/ Recombobulator, it just wansn't compareable to Creeper). At the 3-mana point it gets even harder.
Also, and this is the biggest problem, the Totems become useless without activators. A 0/2 with only some slight support capability isn't compareable to other hero powers and will do nothing except for rare circumstances and our hero power just becomes "2 Mana do nothing".
In future expansions, we might talk about this again, but with the current cardpool, I just can't see it happen and wouldn't know what to put in instead.
if we remove Flametongue, the value of Creeper diminishes drastically to the point where it might not be worth playing anymore. Same goes for Harvest Golem and many other cards and at that point we run into the problem of what to play. Sadly, we have no Shileded Minibot or Armorsmith or SI:7 or basically anything and neutral two-drops are still more or less bad or at least not fitting in Shaman (I REALLY wanted to use Wild Pyromancer/ Recombobulator, it just wansn't compareable to Creeper). At the 3-mana point it gets even harder.
I guess it depends on the kind of deck you're running what to replace creeper with; the problem is that flametongue without board control sucks, and creeper without flametongue also sucks. So we're relying on a combo and the opponent to have a slow hand to play our early game? Doesn't sounds that good of a plan. It used to be fine to turn 2 totem, not so much anymore.
I'm currently experimenting a weapon + spells early game moving straight into 3+ drops, so far it's been great but the season just started and i'm still meeting alot of experimental decks in the low end of the ladder.
Only thing I can say for certain is that not having creeper / chow / flametongue / argus is fantastic against priest and patron warrior.
On the totem side of things they rarely feel useless as if you're running larger minions healing totem gains alot more value, with a couple more spells then normal air totem also does more work, and the taunt and the 1/1 are just good in general, but i can totally see your point that when and if you have 4 totems out you would really like that flametongue topdeck!
I'm finding more and more that FTT is becoming useless. It *required* board control which is not something you can guarantee these days.
I pointed this out back in GvG but was shouted down by naysers who felt that it was "too value". The problem is, shaman don't have a durable 2 drop to fill the slot well.
What about Hobgoblin ? Haunted Creeper , Argent Squire , Annoy-o-Tron are cards that work well with FTT but kind of suck late game. If one could drop a few of these minions later in the game with the Hobgoblin (maybe after a board clear) they would get way more value. Powermace + 1 Jeeves could be nice given the mech sinergy with the weapon and with the hobgoblin.
It would also make the safer against patrons and priests in the later stages. I wouldn't consider more then 1 though.
Well we all know and love Flametongue Totem. As an open beta player i've grown fond of this card over the first few months of the game, but as we moved through expansions i feel like this card is more and more a one-time use thing.
When we chose to put FTT in our decks we assume we have board control, and hopefully some crap to juggle into whatever big threat gets played on the board. This still happens?
As the game progressed, people have learned to clear the board, removing totems, tokens and whatnot. Feral Spirit has also been pushed out of the meta from cards like Spider Tank or Grim Patron etc., making FTT more vulnerable.
The scenario i see 90% of the times these days, is that FTT comes down (after being a dead card for several turns), helps you juggle stuff into it to clear that Dr.Boom or Druid of the Claw, then the next turn it dies to another minion, or a spell, or a weapon, or even a Reversing Switch.
So what FTT accomplished was dealing 4 to 8 damage, which is pretty good value, and it absorbed one attack from the enemy (or even better one spell).
It's all good in the hood, but the problem is that now players have become better at the game, and now clear everything you have including 1/1 totems in terror of Quartertotemaster. This makes more difficult to get decent value from FTT, that is again sitting dead in your hand. It doesn't help the cause at all that most decks are running 3 damage aoe cause of Patron Warrior being popular in any stage of the ladder, because of its low-cost high potential rate.
The best (and possibly only way) to utilize FTT is to run a much lighter curve that one would like to (that includes at least two chows, two crepers, possibly a large quantity of 1 mana removals). Of course in this case you will struggle with card draw in the later stages.
The question is; is it worth the trouble? Getting FTT stolen from priests, drawing zombie chow in the midgame, having FTT sit in hand when you don't have board control, giving Patron Warrior 1/1s on whom to multiply their patrons? Or having a 0/3 minion against face hunter?
Perhaps the game has evolved to a point where Flametongue Totem is not worth a slot? What do you guys think?
My comments refer mostly to the wild format.
I only play Shaman for daily quests so obviously I am not an expert and my advice should thus be taken lightly, but even though people keep on clearing cards, it is rare to be able to clear every minion all the time. They way people play now it has a lot less value, but I still want at least one in my deck. Even if top decking it at least can serve as a cheap pseudo taunt.
The problem with that line of thought (and I had it myself) is, what are you gonna substitue for the Flametongue?As it stands, Shaman already lacks good early drops and if we remove Flametongue, the value of Creeper diminishes drastically to the point where it might not be worth playing anymore. Same goes for Harvest Golem and many other cards and at that point we run into the problem of what to play. Sadly, we have no Shileded Minibot or Armorsmith or SI:7 or basically anything and neutral two-drops are still more or less bad or at least not fitting in Shaman (I REALLY wanted to use Wild Pyromancer/ Recombobulator, it just wansn't compareable to Creeper). At the 3-mana point it gets even harder.
Also, and this is the biggest problem, the Totems become useless without activators. A 0/2 with only some slight support capability isn't compareable to other hero powers and will do nothing except for rare circumstances and our hero power just becomes "2 Mana do nothing".
In future expansions, we might talk about this again, but with the current cardpool, I just can't see it happen and wouldn't know what to put in instead.
I guess it depends on the kind of deck you're running what to replace creeper with; the problem is that flametongue without board control sucks, and creeper without flametongue also sucks. So we're relying on a combo and the opponent to have a slow hand to play our early game? Doesn't sounds that good of a plan. It used to be fine to turn 2 totem, not so much anymore.
My comments refer mostly to the wild format.
I'm currently experimenting a weapon + spells early game moving straight into 3+ drops, so far it's been great but the season just started and i'm still meeting alot of experimental decks in the low end of the ladder.
Only thing I can say for certain is that not having creeper / chow / flametongue / argus is fantastic against priest and patron warrior.
On the totem side of things they rarely feel useless as if you're running larger minions healing totem gains alot more value, with a couple more spells then normal air totem also does more work, and the taunt and the 1/1 are just good in general, but i can totally see your point that when and if you have 4 totems out you would really like that flametongue topdeck!
My comments refer mostly to the wild format.
I'm finding more and more that FTT is becoming useless. It *required* board control which is not something you can guarantee these days.
I pointed this out back in GvG but was shouted down by naysers who felt that it was "too value". The problem is, shaman don't have a durable 2 drop to fill the slot well.
What about Hobgoblin ? Haunted Creeper , Argent Squire , Annoy-o-Tron are cards that work well with FTT but kind of suck late game. If one could drop a few of these minions later in the game with the Hobgoblin (maybe after a board clear) they would get way more value. Powermace + 1 Jeeves could be nice given the mech sinergy with the weapon and with the hobgoblin.
It would also make the safer against patrons and priests in the later stages. I wouldn't consider more then 1 though.
My comments refer mostly to the wild format.