The real question I have is why people think Hellfire is better than Shadowflame. They cost the same, and more or less are in different tiers. Hellfire generally clears your entire board while Shadowflame only sacrifices one of your minions. The only advantage to Hellfire is that it's more damage to the face. Even then, I'd rather keep the rest of my board because chances are they will hit for more than 3 damage.
If you're in a position that you need to Hellfire while playing as Zoo then you probably either have crappy minions on board or have nothing on board to begin with. It also has synergy with nerubian egg and can be used to reach lethal.
I tried hellfire, and that card sucks on zoo. Using that is counter to what zoo is about - having a lot of small minions on the board.
The real question I have is why people think Hellfire is better than Shadowflame. They cost the same, and more or less are in different tiers. Hellfire generally clears your entire board while Shadowflame only sacrifices one of your minions. The only advantage to Hellfire is that it's more damage to the face. Even then, I'd rather keep the rest of my board because chances are they will hit for more than 3 damage.
If you're in a position that you need to Hellfire while playing as Zoo then you probably either have crappy minions on board or have nothing on board to begin with. It also has synergy with nerubian egg and can be used to reach lethal.
that card sucks on zoo.
Great analysis with lots of data to make this substantiated claim. 10/10 would read again.
Great analysis with lots of data to make this substantiated claim. 10/10 would read again.
Um...to be fair the guy actually did talk about why he thinks that....you just snipped it out of the quote. He also said: "Using that is counter to what zoo is about - having a lot of small minions on the board." and his comment isn't edited so YOU chose to edit it out of the quote.
Great analysis with lots of data to make this substantiated claim. 10/10 would read again.
Um...to be fair the guy actually did talk about why he thinks that....you just snipped it out of the quote. He also said: "Using that is counter to what zoo is about - having a lot of small minions on the board." and his comment isn't edited so YOU chose to edit it out of the quote.
Yeah. He said "10/10 would read again" but maybe he should actually read it again.
There is no contradictory in what I wrote. If your gameplan goes well, you have the board control and the opponent usually only plays a minion or two at a given turn. To clear that, you do not need shadowflame.
You said it was about controlling the board efficient trades. No, you don't need shadow flame to do that. Except that it's more efficient clear. Arguably the most efficient clear in the game. I get that this assumes the enemy board is not empty and has multiple minions on it. But against some opponents and certain match ups, this will be the case. You can't guarantee board control with zoo.
Shadoflame is typically inefficient in zoo because it requires at least 2 cards (the minion and shadowflame), and if you clear 2 or less minions with it then that is inefficient by zoo standards. If you clear 3 minions with it then it might be efficient, but if they have 3 minions that you can't clear more efficiently then you might want to think about how you allowed them to do that and try not to let them do it in the future.
It's not a bad card in zoo, and it's probably pretty decent in a slower demon style zoo, but it is very far from an auto include.
Shadoflame is typically inefficient in zoo because it requires at least 2 cards (the minion and shadowflame), and if you clear 2 or less minions with it then that is inefficient by zoo standards. If you clear 3 minions with it then it might be efficient, but if they have 3 minions that you can't clear more efficiently then you might want to think about how you allowed them to do that and try not to let them do it in the future.
It's not a bad card in zoo, and it's probably pretty decent in a slower demon style zoo, but it is very far from an auto include.
It's not just about trades. It can be good for tempo and damage as well. If you have minions on the board and your opponent summons multiple minions in a turn, you could spend your minions attack on favorable trades. Or, 1 shadow flame let's you sacrifice 1 minion to clear their board and keep up the pressure with the other minions. Instead of trading, you go directly for the face and maintain board control while doing it. And if you do it right, you attack with the minion before you sacrifice it.
If you don't want to include an AoE in zoo then I guess you could make the case for not including it. But that just makes you weaker to your unfavorable and mirror match ups.
Great analysis with lots of data to make this substantiated claim. 10/10 would read again.
Um...to be fair the guy actually did talk about why he thinks that....you just snipped it out of the quote. He also said: "Using that is counter to what zoo is about - having a lot of small minions on the board." and his comment isn't edited so YOU chose to edit it out of the quote.
His argument is essentially "I don't like it because it damages your own minions." Obviously you don't play this when you're winning, it's a comeback card. In this situation Shadowflame would be even more useless.
I ran it for a while to counter all of the secret pallys that I was facing, but found thatDemonwrath actually worked better since I did not usually need more than 2 damage and I would have a board of demons anyway. It also nicely pops those eggs if you need it.
Overall though any of the boardclears for Zoo are tech cards. Nothing wrong with packing one in there if it fits and you find it useful.
It's not just about trades. It can be good for tempo and damage as well. If you have minions on the board and your opponent summons multiple minions in a turn, you could spend your minions attack on favorable trades. Or, 1 shadow flame let's you sacrifice 1 minion to clear their board and keep up the pressure with the other minions. Instead of trading, you go directly for the face and maintain board control while doing it. And if you do it right, you attack with the minion before you sacrifice it.
If you don't want to include an AoE in zoo then I guess you could make the case for not including it. But that just makes you weaker to your unfavorable and mirror match ups.
Using 4 mana and a minion to clear a board of small minions just doesn't seem like good value to me when you could use that mana instead to build a bigger and more intimidating board. I've never run AOE in zoo myself and never found a need for it. It's not a bad idea, but I've never felt that I needed it.
It's not just about trades. It can be good for tempo and damage as well. If you have minions on the board and your opponent summons multiple minions in a turn, you could spend your minions attack on favorable trades. Or, 1 shadow flame let's you sacrifice 1 minion to clear their board and keep up the pressure with the other minions. Instead of trading, you go directly for the face and maintain board control while doing it. And if you do it right, you attack with the minion before you sacrifice it.
If you don't want to include an AoE in zoo then I guess you could make the case for not including it. But that just makes you weaker to your unfavorable and mirror match ups.
Using 4 mana and a minion to clear a board of small minions just doesn't seem like good value to me when you could use that mana instead to build a bigger and more intimidating board. I've never run AOE in zoo myself and never found a need for it. It's not a bad idea, but I've never felt that I needed it.
Unless you win 100% of the time, there are definitely times when you need AoE board clears. I like flooding the board myself, but you can control the board by removing a bunch of your opponent's minions too.
His argument is essentially "I don't like it because it damages your own minions." Obviously you don't play this when you're winning, it's a comeback card. In this situation Shadowflame would be even more useless.
I can't tell if you're trolling or not, and your avatar/sig make it even harder as they might be tongue in cheek or you might be dead serious with the Trump stuff, I don't know. In any event, just because you disagree with the guy's argument doesn't mean you pretend it's not there and then try and use the now made up fact that he didn't make any attempt to support his statement to take a jab at him.
Using 4 mana and a minion to clear a board of small minions just doesn't seem like good value to me when you could use that mana instead to build a bigger and more intimidating board. I've never run AOE in zoo myself and never found a need for it. It's not a bad idea, but I've never felt that I needed it.
Unless you win 100% of the time, there are definitely times when you need AoE board clears. I like flooding the board myself, but you can control the board by removing a bunch of your opponent's minions too.
No one wins 100% of the time, and not all decks need board clears. That logic is terribly flawed.
When I lose it is almost never because I didn't have a board clear, it is usually because we get to the late game and the opponent it drawing huge value minions that I can't efficiently remove and I'm drawing low cost minions that are easy for them to remove.
Using 4 mana and a minion to clear a board of small minions just doesn't seem like good value to me when you could use that mana instead to build a bigger and more intimidating board. I've never run AOE in zoo myself and never found a need for it. It's not a bad idea, but I've never felt that I needed it.
Unless you win 100% of the time, there are definitely times when you need AoE board clears. I like flooding the board myself, but you can control the board by removing a bunch of your opponent's minions too.
No one wins 100% of the time, and not all decks need board clears. That logic is terribly flawed.
When I lose it is almost never because I didn't have a board clear, it is usually because we get to the late game and the opponent it drawing huge value minions that I can't efficiently remove and I'm drawing low cost minions that are easy for them to remove.
If you're at a point where you're up against a handlock with 2 taunted giants (while you have an imp gang boss and a Nerubian), I'm pretty sure you'd think "I wish I had shadowflame and a power overwhelming right now." I've had plenty of instances where it won me the game. Yesterday that was exactly what happened.. I burned down the handlock's 2 giants and he didn't have any big minions left.
In another instance, I shadowflamed my voidcaller (to wipe the board) and summoned out Mal'Gannis with 2-3 other of those 1/1 demons on the board.
I often tech shadowflame into my zoo deck. It's not auto-include, because it's meta dependent. Up against lots of swarm decks? Tech it in. Up against mostly midrange and hunter? It loses its value fast.
It's very good against paladin for example. You can even shadow flame an imp to clear a board full of dudes if necessary.
I often tech shadowflame into my zoo deck. It's not auto-include, because it's meta dependent. Up against lots of swarm decks? Tech it in. Up against mostly midrange and hunter? It loses its value fast.
It's very good against paladin for example. You can even shadow flame an imp to clear a board full of dudes if necessary.
Yeah, against any Paladin I will keep shadowflame in hand for the turn 6 MC play. It'll wipe their board clean if I have a power overwhelming. Or better yet, if he plays it on turn 8 and I have a void terror. Or as I mentioned earlier, it's really, really good against a handlock.
No one wins 100% of the time, and not all decks need board clears. That logic is terribly flawed.
When I lose it is almost never because I didn't have a board clear, it is usually because we get to the late game and the opponent it drawing huge value minions that I can't efficiently remove and I'm drawing low cost minions that are easy for them to remove.
If you're at a point where you're up against a handlock with 2 taunted giants (while you have an imp gang boss and a Nerubian), I'm pretty sure you'd think "I wish I had shadowflame and a power overwhelming right now." I've had plenty of instances where it won me the game. Yesterday that was exactly what happened.. I burned down the handlock's 2 giants and he didn't have any big minions left.
In another instance, I shadowflamed my voidcaller (to wipe the board) and summoned out Mal'Gannis with 2-3 other of those 1/1 demons on the board.
When I'm up against handlock and they have two haunted giants I would just concede and move on, I wouldn't wish for shadowflame. You're making your deck weaker against a lot of other matchups just for the unlikely event that you will play against handlock and might have a chance to pull out a win from a bad situation, to me that is not good deck building. When building zoo I look for cards that are going to be as consistent as possible, and adding cards like shadowflame that are at best situationally good just don't make the cut. I control the board just fine without any AOE, and I've never once thought about adding any AOE because I just feel that it is not needed in zoo for that reason.
You can present all of the anecdotal evidence you want, but what you have to realize is I could do the same thing for the other side. Just imagine sitting there where you have a strong board and just need to push for lethal and you top into shadowflame instead. For every story you have where it won you the game I bet you could also find just as many stories where it could straight up lose you the game too.
Either was it is obvious that shadowflame is not an auto-include, and there are several reasons why it will likely stay just a personal preference card in zoo (which have already been mentioned so I won't list them again).
You can present all of the anecdotal evidence you want, but what you have to realize is I could do the same thing for the other side. Just imagine sitting there where you have a strong board and just need to push for lethal and you top into shadowflame instead. For every story you have where it won you the game I bet you could also find just as many stories where it could straight up lose you the game too.
What do you mean by push for lethal, though? Because if you have a board, you can take out your opponents board and maintain all but 1 of your board. I don't think people realize that shadow flame can also be used to push tempo because the attacks you would be using to do favorable trades are aimed at the opponents face instead that turn.
You can present all of the anecdotal evidence you want, but what you have to realize is I could do the same thing for the other side. Just imagine sitting there where you have a strong board and just need to push for lethal and you top into shadowflame instead. For every story you have where it won you the game I bet you could also find just as many stories where it could straight up lose you the game too.
What do you mean by push for lethal, though? Because if you have a board, you can take out your opponents board and maintain all but 1 of your board. I don't think people realize that shadow flame can also be used to push tempo because the attacks you would be using to do favorable trades are aimed at the opponents face instead that turn.
Yep, that's the nice thing. You can hit face and then clear the board. As far as I understand it, Zoo is not a face archetype - it's just a playstyle that is aggressive in trying to take control of the board.
You can present all of the anecdotal evidence you want, but what you have to realize is I could do the same thing for the other side. Just imagine sitting there where you have a strong board and just need to push for lethal and you top into shadowflame instead. For every story you have where it won you the game I bet you could also find just as many stories where it could straight up lose you the game too.
What do you mean by push for lethal, though? Because if you have a board, you can take out your opponents board and maintain all but 1 of your board. I don't think people realize that shadow flame can also be used to push tempo because the attacks you would be using to do favorable trades are aimed at the opponents face instead that turn.
Usually by turn 6 (which is about the time when you would be shadowflaming) I'm setting up for lethal in the next couple turns, I don't really care that much about board wipes because they are already low health and I'd rather use 4 mana to add more stuff to the board or to do more damage. I don't need to clear their board if they are going to be dead next turn anyway, just saying. By turn 6 I'm usually past the board control part of the zoo game and I'm into the race part of the zoo game.
I tried hellfire, and that card sucks on zoo. Using that is counter to what zoo is about - having a lot of small minions on the board.
Great analysis with lots of data to make this substantiated claim. 10/10 would read again.
Um...to be fair the guy actually did talk about why he thinks that....you just snipped it out of the quote. He also said: "Using that is counter to what zoo is about - having a lot of small minions on the board." and his comment isn't edited so YOU chose to edit it out of the quote.
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Yeah. He said "10/10 would read again" but maybe he should actually read it again.
Shadoflame is typically inefficient in zoo because it requires at least 2 cards (the minion and shadowflame), and if you clear 2 or less minions with it then that is inefficient by zoo standards. If you clear 3 minions with it then it might be efficient, but if they have 3 minions that you can't clear more efficiently then you might want to think about how you allowed them to do that and try not to let them do it in the future.
It's not a bad card in zoo, and it's probably pretty decent in a slower demon style zoo, but it is very far from an auto include.
It's not just about trades. It can be good for tempo and damage as well. If you have minions on the board and your opponent summons multiple minions in a turn, you could spend your minions attack on favorable trades. Or, 1 shadow flame let's you sacrifice 1 minion to clear their board and keep up the pressure with the other minions. Instead of trading, you go directly for the face and maintain board control while doing it. And if you do it right, you attack with the minion before you sacrifice it.
If you don't want to include an AoE in zoo then I guess you could make the case for not including it. But that just makes you weaker to your unfavorable and mirror match ups.
His argument is essentially "I don't like it because it damages your own minions." Obviously you don't play this when you're winning, it's a comeback card. In this situation Shadowflame would be even more useless.
I ran it for a while to counter all of the secret pallys that I was facing, but found thatDemonwrath actually worked better since I did not usually need more than 2 damage and I would have a board of demons anyway. It also nicely pops those eggs if you need it.
Overall though any of the boardclears for Zoo are tech cards. Nothing wrong with packing one in there if it fits and you find it useful.
Using 4 mana and a minion to clear a board of small minions just doesn't seem like good value to me when you could use that mana instead to build a bigger and more intimidating board. I've never run AOE in zoo myself and never found a need for it. It's not a bad idea, but I've never felt that I needed it.
Unless you win 100% of the time, there are definitely times when you need AoE board clears. I like flooding the board myself, but you can control the board by removing a bunch of your opponent's minions too.
I can't tell if you're trolling or not, and your avatar/sig make it even harder as they might be tongue in cheek or you might be dead serious with the Trump stuff, I don't know. In any event, just because you disagree with the guy's argument doesn't mean you pretend it's not there and then try and use the now made up fact that he didn't make any attempt to support his statement to take a jab at him.
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
No one wins 100% of the time, and not all decks need board clears. That logic is terribly flawed.
When I lose it is almost never because I didn't have a board clear, it is usually because we get to the late game and the opponent it drawing huge value minions that I can't efficiently remove and I'm drawing low cost minions that are easy for them to remove.
If you're at a point where you're up against a handlock with 2 taunted giants (while you have an imp gang boss and a Nerubian), I'm pretty sure you'd think "I wish I had shadowflame and a power overwhelming right now." I've had plenty of instances where it won me the game. Yesterday that was exactly what happened.. I burned down the handlock's 2 giants and he didn't have any big minions left.
In another instance, I shadowflamed my voidcaller (to wipe the board) and summoned out Mal'Gannis with 2-3 other of those 1/1 demons on the board.
I often tech shadowflame into my zoo deck. It's not auto-include, because it's meta dependent. Up against lots of swarm decks? Tech it in. Up against mostly midrange and hunter? It loses its value fast.
It's very good against paladin for example. You can even shadow flame an imp to clear a board full of dudes if necessary.
Ibn Fahd.
Yeah, against any Paladin I will keep shadowflame in hand for the turn 6 MC play. It'll wipe their board clean if I have a power overwhelming. Or better yet, if he plays it on turn 8 and I have a void terror. Or as I mentioned earlier, it's really, really good against a handlock.
When I'm up against handlock and they have two haunted giants I would just concede and move on, I wouldn't wish for shadowflame. You're making your deck weaker against a lot of other matchups just for the unlikely event that you will play against handlock and might have a chance to pull out a win from a bad situation, to me that is not good deck building. When building zoo I look for cards that are going to be as consistent as possible, and adding cards like shadowflame that are at best situationally good just don't make the cut. I control the board just fine without any AOE, and I've never once thought about adding any AOE because I just feel that it is not needed in zoo for that reason.
You can present all of the anecdotal evidence you want, but what you have to realize is I could do the same thing for the other side. Just imagine sitting there where you have a strong board and just need to push for lethal and you top into shadowflame instead. For every story you have where it won you the game I bet you could also find just as many stories where it could straight up lose you the game too.
Either was it is obvious that shadowflame is not an auto-include, and there are several reasons why it will likely stay just a personal preference card in zoo (which have already been mentioned so I won't list them again).
What do you mean by push for lethal, though? Because if you have a board, you can take out your opponents board and maintain all but 1 of your board. I don't think people realize that shadow flame can also be used to push tempo because the attacks you would be using to do favorable trades are aimed at the opponents face instead that turn.
Yep, that's the nice thing. You can hit face and then clear the board. As far as I understand it, Zoo is not a face archetype - it's just a playstyle that is aggressive in trying to take control of the board.
Usually by turn 6 (which is about the time when you would be shadowflaming) I'm setting up for lethal in the next couple turns, I don't really care that much about board wipes because they are already low health and I'd rather use 4 mana to add more stuff to the board or to do more damage. I don't need to clear their board if they are going to be dead next turn anyway, just saying. By turn 6 I'm usually past the board control part of the zoo game and I'm into the race part of the zoo game.