There's something I don't understand about this card, isn't it a little overpriced? If you compare the Kidnapper to an Ancient Brewmaster, the cost does't seem a little bit off? The Kidnapper has less health, needs of combo to do its effect, it's an epic and it's a class specific card. I understand that it can be better than the Ancient Brewmaster because it can return cards from both players and not only yours, but, knowing that there's also Sap as an alternative, should't the mana cost be lowered or its stats be higher to add more value to it?
A 5/3 should cost about 4 mana. A Sap costs 2. Given that Kidnapper is combo-dependent and an epic, it should be something more like a 5 mana 5/4. No one plays it as it is; Blizzard really should look into changing something about it.
The toughness stat is too bad, 6 mana means combo is trick if you don't have a 0-cost spell so it usually comes out on turn 8 or later. The aggressive tempo decks that want a card like this are dumping their hands too fast to combo it out, while the OTK decks that need removal need a cheaper option like sap. It's not a terrible tempo play in arena where immediate removal is less likely, but you will struggle getting any sort of value from this card.
The toughness stat is too bad, 6 mana means combo is tricky to activate if you don't have a 0-cost spell so it usually comes out on turn 8 or later. The aggressive tempo decks that want a card like this are dumping their hands too fast to combo it out, while the OTK decks that need removal need a cheaper option like sap. It's not a terrible tempo play in arena where immediate removal is less likely, but you will struggle getting any sort of value from this card.
"I am Richard, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead, and The Mayor of a little village up the coast."
I don't know about worst. It's still a body with an effect that requires work but does affect the board. There are other cards I laugh harder at when I see them, maybe just because it's an epic?
Well sure, it's stronger than a good number of cards, but no other card is imbalanced as this one. That's why I've never seen this card played in constructed, and only two times in arena (one of those was played by me). It needs a buff in the form of lower mana cost or the removal of combo requirement. And even then, with current cards that are in the game, no one would play it.
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"I am Richard, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead, and The Mayor of a little village up the coast."
gah stop throwing around the word strictly. Kidnapper should be a 5 mana 4/4. that'd make it as balanced as auctioneer and convince rogues to run him more often.
It's a bad card. It's not the only bad card, so no suprises there.
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I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
There are lots of *bad cards* outhere and he is just one of them. i mean Far Sight is also a terible card aswell and its also an class specific epic card. Maybe someday they will get some love or became usefull with additions of more cards, we will see.
I really wish people would learn what "strictly worse" actually means.
Agreed.
A good example of one card being strictly worse than another would be the Bloodfen Raptor and the Acidic Swamp Ooze. They both have the same cost, they both have the same stat-line, but one has an ability and the other does not.
Kidnapper has no such direct comparison. No other card has the same ability and no other card has the same stat distribution.
Blizzard clearly priced it as a 4-mana minion + Sap. However, the Sap effect is conditional, and the minion's stat distribution is one of the worst our there for a 4-mana minion. As a result the card is very weak when played out of combo and still somewhat weak when played in combo. This is in stark contrast to other combo cards, which are weak for cost when played first, but strong for cost when played for full effect.
Reducing the cost by 1 would address this imbalance. Reducing the cost and adjusting the stat distribution would risk making the card too strong (and it would reduce stat diversity in the game).
Giving the Kinapper the ability to actually kidnap (steal) the other player's card would be amazing thematically - but that effect alone would probably be worth 7 or 8 mana, and a 10-cost combo card is kind of missing the point.
I really wish people would learn what "strictly worse" actually means.
Agreed.
A good example of one card being strictly worse than another would be the Bloodfen Raptor and the Acidic Swamp Ooze. They both have the same cost, they both have the same stat-line, but one has an ability and the other does not.
Technically, that's still not strictly worse, Bloodfen Raptor has a subtype (beast) and Ooze doesn't. Actually, it's surprising, but I think no single neutral card is strictly better than any other.
An example of a strictly better card would be fireball over mortal strike.
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I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
it's not that it's a bad card, it's an unusable card. 6 mana sap that you need to combo to activate that dies from nearly every cheap single target board clear is stupid. stupidly designed. horribly neglected. people that say "omg a 5 mana 4/4 would be OOOOPEEEEE" really don't understand why other cards are usable while Kidnapper isn't.
TBH, after the enemy's turn 5 if you bounce back his T5 minion its OP, since you make him skip his T5. 4/4 is even more OP than 5/3 since it's a lot harder to remove.
Laza, I think you may be forgetting the combo part of Kidnapper. Even if it cost 5 mana it still wouldnt be played on turn 5 unless combod with backstab or prep and something else. Now tell me, in what situation would that be efficient? I mean if you have the cards to be able to afford that, do you really need a sap/shadowstep?
The only justification for the cost of Kidnapper is that it can be used on any minion instead of just one person's but even that seems thin to me with what a terrible body it is that comes onto the field. There isnt another 5/3 in the game for a reason and it isnt to make Rogues feel special. It is because nobody wants that garbage. Think about this for a minute. It is an Epic, which IMO should decrease the cost or increase the stats a little. It's a subpar 4-cost body. It has a combo so it needs to be played after something else to be able to copy the ability of a 2 cost spell or half of the ability of a 0 cost spell(shadowstep minus the decrease in cost). Yet it costs 6?
To use the original poster's comparison, Ancient Brewmaster (a common expert card) has 1 more health and 1 less cost. Let's use that as perspective. The value of giving Ancient Brewmaster the option of putting an enemy minion back in hand instead of just a friendly minion is -1 health, +1 mana cost, the requirement that a card be played before him, class-specific lock out, AND 2 levels of rarity. Thats one hell of a steep price to pay. It would most definitely NOT be OP by giving it one less mana cost and a body that might actually stick to the board for a little while.
Obviously, I dont like Kidnapper however, I think far sight is seriously the worst card in the game. I REALLY dont get the logic behind it. If used late game it is completely worthless. Whatever you draw from it could have been played for the exact same stats or less, all it did was shrink your decksize by 1. If used early/mid game it is going to either be the same situation as late game or basically a variant of innervate that gives up tempo for a turn before it gains tempo. It should definitely be reworked. One less mana would be the easy fix to make it playable (all though I still wouldnt like it) but I think it should be 2 mana draw 2 cards, they each cost one less to play and gain overload 1.
I really wish people would learn what "strictly worse" actually means.
Agreed.
A good example of one card being strictly worse than another would be the Bloodfen Raptor and the Acidic Swamp Ooze. They both have the same cost, they both have the same stat-line, but one has an ability and the other does not.
Technically, that's still not strictly worse, Bloodfen Raptor has a subtype (beast) and Ooze doesn't. Actually, it's surprising, but I think no single neutral card is strictly better than any other.
An example of a strictly better card would be fireball over mortal strike.
Honj90 (almost) Gets it !!
people keep on using this concept from game theory when it really doesn't apply very well to card games in general. people should ditch the word "strictly" and simply say "its better/worse than...".
A strictly dominant (i.e "better") strategy is one where a rational play has no incentive --what so ever-- to deviate (assuming your opponent will play the "best response"). FYI, a "weakly dominant strategy" is where it outcome is better than or equal to the next best strategy for all possible actions of the opponent.
And as Honj90 points out, there is a good reason for why a hunter may prefer Bloodfin over Ooze. We even saw such an idea in high level play (e.g In Hunter midrange River Croc was played instead of the "strictly better" [sic] Sunfury Protector).
There are other possible examples as well: a 6/6 can be better than a 7/7 (Big Game Hunter), and 3/2 can be better than 4/2 (Warsong Commander).
Fireball and Mortal Strike are not even examples of strict dominance! since plausibly there are situations were doing 4 damage is preferable to doing 6 (e.g. targeting ones own minions, perhaps). If Mortal Strike said "...choose 4 or 6 damage..." then I would agree that it would be strictly better than Fireball, that is until Blizzard published a card or two that punished the choose mechanic.
The best way to make sense of the term "better" is to refer to cards in the context of decks. We shouldn't compare the cards themselves. For example: {note: In what follows I have assumed that there are no Murloc or Pirate decks or Hungry Crabs in the meta.}
Southsea Deckhand weakly dominates Murloc Raider in a non-Murloc no-weapon deck that has some possible means of getting a weapon ***
For all other decks, Murloc Raider and Southsea Deckhand are about equal.
*** For example, a deck that runs Faceless Manipulator could copy a Tirion. In which case, Southsea Deckhand has the capactity to be better than Raider. A priest may also runThoughtsteal...if you steal weapons then the pirate is better than the Murloc. Thus in these decks the deckhand is at least equal (and sometimes better than) the Raider, hence the term "weakly dominant".
Disclaimer: I'm going to use some examples of Mt:G cards/mechanics because there is a much larger card pool than in Hearthstone. I'm assuming that Dr_Smash has played magic, but if someone doesn't know the cards and still wants to follow my reasoning this is a database where you can look up any magic card.
While I agree that the term "strictly better" is often misused to exaggerate and make a point, I think it's a mistake to equate it to "strictly dominating" from game theory. It is obvious that no card can strictly dominate another similar card since the outcome of both cards will be the same on some occasions.
Weakly dominating comes much closer to describing what most TCG players mean when they use the term "strictly better". Even in your example, you described Southsea Deckhand as strictly better than a Murloc Raiderin a (non-Murloc) Rogue deck, even though in truth it's only weakly dominating, as you can play it without having a weapon out. In truth, no card can weakly dominate any other card as long as cards like thoughtsteal and mind control exist.
However, "strictly better" is used quite often, both by pros and the R&D department. Lightning Bolt is widely considered to be strictly better than Shock, Counterspell is considered strictly better than Cancel, etc.
You can always come up with scenarios where Shock would be better in a given game than Lightning Bolt: Killing a Boros Reckoner with a -1/-1 counter on it, or your opponent having Mindslaver, or Meddling Mage/Booby Trap/Slaughter Games/etc. on Lightning Bolt. That doesn't change the fact that most players would say that Lightning Bolt is strictly better than Shock. It is important to understand what these people mean when they describe something as strictly better.
I think you are right that you should compare the cards at the stage of deckbuilding
In my opinion, that is the definition most players use, consciously or subconsciously, when describing a card as strictly better: If a rational deckbuilder who had access to two cards that fulfil a similar role would always include one of those cards over the other in all of his decks no matter what his opponents are playing, then it is a convention to consider that card strictly better than the other. That solves the problem by automatically excluding corner cases such as Meddling Mage, Mind Control, Mindlaver, Thoughtsteal, Clone etc.
Note that, even if the term "strictly better" is not appropriate to describe this relationship, this convention already exists among most Magic/TCG players, I just gave my opinion on what the definition should be.
PS. I thought a lot before describing Fireball as strictly better than Mortal strike. Even without using the definition I gave above, it is extremely hard to come up with a scenario where Mortal Strike is better than Fireball with the current cardpool with a rational opponent (e.g. a Paladin using Equality and Blessing of Kings on a Grommash Hellscream you need to enrage). It could maybe come up if the opponent has Molten Giant and Alexstraza and for some reason you want to force him to Alexstraza but even that scenario is extremely convoluted (seriously, if anyone can come up with it I would be very interested)
I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
The only problem I have with Kidnapper is the number 3. There is certainly enough ways for a Rogue to cast a 0 cost card on turn 5 and resetting a player back a turn and getting a minion out of it is as win win as Cabal Shadow Priest can be for Priest. But with 3 health, it has no chance of living the turn against the trash played by an opponent on previous turns.
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Nozdormu wins you every game where you opponent has to go to the bathroom on turn 9.
Sap work only on enemy minions, this is a improved sap eff. Without the combo part, this whould seems more play for sure, its a good tempo card and can re-use battle cry eff. Sadly, the combo part is too much conditional on a 6 mana card.
Much of the conclusions of Game Theory have been proven to be observer biased conclusions. As such, I pretty much ignore it in my decision making in general.
To the original topic, Kidnapper's stats are horrendous for it's mana cost and it's utility is HIGHLY situational making it's total cost too high for play (I mean slot cost, not just mana cost). I DEed 3 of them and, along with DEing a Patient Assassin, grabbed a second Blood Knight.
I would suggest, however, that Far Sight should warrant consideration in Shaman decks. It has real utility. That utility may not make sense in your deck's objectives, but it at least can have utility.
There's something I don't understand about this card, isn't it a little overpriced?
If you compare the Kidnapper to an Ancient Brewmaster, the cost does't seem a little bit off? The Kidnapper has less health, needs of combo to do its effect, it's an epic and it's a class specific card.
I understand that it can be better than the Ancient Brewmaster because it can return cards from both players and not only yours, but, knowing that there's also Sap as an alternative, should't the mana cost be lowered or its stats be higher to add more value to it?
A 5/3 should cost about 4 mana. A Sap costs 2. Given that Kidnapper is combo-dependent and an epic, it should be something more like a 5 mana 5/4. No one plays it as it is; Blizzard really should look into changing something about it.
The toughness stat is too bad, 6 mana means combo is trick if you don't have a 0-cost spell so it usually comes out on turn 8 or later. The aggressive tempo decks that want a card like this are dumping their hands too fast to combo it out, while the OTK decks that need removal need a cheaper option like sap. It's not a terrible tempo play in arena where immediate removal is less likely, but you will struggle getting any sort of value from this card.
The toughness stat is too bad, 6 mana means combo is tricky to activate if you don't have a 0-cost spell so it usually comes out on turn 8 or later. The aggressive tempo decks that want a card like this are dumping their hands too fast to combo it out, while the OTK decks that need removal need a cheaper option like sap. It's not a terrible tempo play in arena where immediate removal is less likely, but you will struggle getting any sort of value from this card.
It is quite simply one of the worst, if not the worst card in the game... And by that I mean it's dreadfully unbalanced.
"I am Richard, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead, and The Mayor of a little village up the coast."
I don't know about worst. It's still a body with an effect that requires work but does affect the board. There are other cards I laugh harder at when I see them, maybe just because it's an epic?
Well sure, it's stronger than a good number of cards, but no other card is imbalanced as this one. That's why I've never seen this card played in constructed, and only two times in arena (one of those was played by me). It needs a buff in the form of lower mana cost or the removal of combo requirement. And even then, with current cards that are in the game, no one would play it.
"I am Richard, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead, and The Mayor of a little village up the coast."
Hmmm, is it really the most overcosted card? Nozdormu is almost strictly worse than several other equivalent cards.
gah stop throwing around the word strictly. Kidnapper should be a 5 mana 4/4. that'd make it as balanced as auctioneer and convince rogues to run him more often.
It's a bad card. It's not the only bad card, so no suprises there.
I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
De'd it long ago, it's a terrible card tbh
There are lots of *bad cards* outhere and he is just one of them. i mean Far Sight is also a terible card aswell and its also an class specific epic card. Maybe someday they will get some love or became usefull with additions of more cards, we will see.
Agreed.
A good example of one card being strictly worse than another would be the Bloodfen Raptor and the Acidic Swamp Ooze. They both have the same cost, they both have the same stat-line, but one has an ability and the other does not.
Kidnapper has no such direct comparison. No other card has the same ability and no other card has the same stat distribution.
Blizzard clearly priced it as a 4-mana minion + Sap. However, the Sap effect is conditional, and the minion's stat distribution is one of the worst our there for a 4-mana minion. As a result the card is very weak when played out of combo and still somewhat weak when played in combo. This is in stark contrast to other combo cards, which are weak for cost when played first, but strong for cost when played for full effect.
Reducing the cost by 1 would address this imbalance. Reducing the cost and adjusting the stat distribution would risk making the card too strong (and it would reduce stat diversity in the game).
Giving the Kinapper the ability to actually kidnap (steal) the other player's card would be amazing thematically - but that effect alone would probably be worth 7 or 8 mana, and a 10-cost combo card is kind of missing the point.
Technically, that's still not strictly worse, Bloodfen Raptor has a subtype (beast) and Ooze doesn't. Actually, it's surprising, but I think no single neutral card is strictly better than any other.
An example of a strictly better card would be fireball over mortal strike.
I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
it's not that it's a bad card, it's an unusable card. 6 mana sap that you need to combo to activate that dies from nearly every cheap single target board clear is stupid. stupidly designed. horribly neglected. people that say "omg a 5 mana 4/4 would be OOOOPEEEEE" really don't understand why other cards are usable while Kidnapper isn't.
Laza, I think you may be forgetting the combo part of Kidnapper. Even if it cost 5 mana it still wouldnt be played on turn 5 unless combod with backstab or prep and something else. Now tell me, in what situation would that be efficient? I mean if you have the cards to be able to afford that, do you really need a sap/shadowstep?
The only justification for the cost of Kidnapper is that it can be used on any minion instead of just one person's but even that seems thin to me with what a terrible body it is that comes onto the field. There isnt another 5/3 in the game for a reason and it isnt to make Rogues feel special. It is because nobody wants that garbage. Think about this for a minute. It is an Epic, which IMO should decrease the cost or increase the stats a little. It's a subpar 4-cost body. It has a combo so it needs to be played after something else to be able to copy the ability of a 2 cost spell or half of the ability of a 0 cost spell(shadowstep minus the decrease in cost). Yet it costs 6?
To use the original poster's comparison, Ancient Brewmaster (a common expert card) has 1 more health and 1 less cost. Let's use that as perspective. The value of giving Ancient Brewmaster the option of putting an enemy minion back in hand instead of just a friendly minion is -1 health, +1 mana cost, the requirement that a card be played before him, class-specific lock out, AND 2 levels of rarity. Thats one hell of a steep price to pay. It would most definitely NOT be OP by giving it one less mana cost and a body that might actually stick to the board for a little while.
Obviously, I dont like Kidnapper however, I think far sight is seriously the worst card in the game. I REALLY dont get the logic behind it. If used late game it is completely worthless. Whatever you draw from it could have been played for the exact same stats or less, all it did was shrink your decksize by 1. If used early/mid game it is going to either be the same situation as late game or basically a variant of innervate that gives up tempo for a turn before it gains tempo. It should definitely be reworked. One less mana would be the easy fix to make it playable (all though I still wouldnt like it) but I think it should be 2 mana draw 2 cards, they each cost one less to play and gain overload 1.
Disclaimer: I'm going to use some examples of Mt:G cards/mechanics because there is a much larger card pool than in Hearthstone. I'm assuming that Dr_Smash has played magic, but if someone doesn't know the cards and still wants to follow my reasoning this is a database where you can look up any magic card.
While I agree that the term "strictly better" is often misused to exaggerate and make a point, I think it's a mistake to equate it to "strictly dominating" from game theory. It is obvious that no card can strictly dominate another similar card since the outcome of both cards will be the same on some occasions.
Weakly dominating comes much closer to describing what most TCG players mean when they use the term "strictly better". Even in your example, you described Southsea Deckhand as strictly better than a Murloc Raider in a (non-Murloc) Rogue deck, even though in truth it's only weakly dominating, as you can play it without having a weapon out. In truth, no card can weakly dominate any other card as long as cards like thoughtsteal and mind control exist.
However, "strictly better" is used quite often, both by pros and the R&D department. Lightning Bolt is widely considered to be strictly better than Shock, Counterspell is considered strictly better than Cancel, etc.
You can always come up with scenarios where Shock would be better in a given game than Lightning Bolt: Killing a Boros Reckoner with a -1/-1 counter on it, or your opponent having Mindslaver, or Meddling Mage/Booby Trap/Slaughter Games/etc. on Lightning Bolt. That doesn't change the fact that most players would say that Lightning Bolt is strictly better than Shock. It is important to understand what these people mean when they describe something as strictly better.
I think you are right that you should compare the cards at the stage of deckbuilding
In my opinion, that is the definition most players use, consciously or subconsciously, when describing a card as strictly better: If a rational deckbuilder who had access to two cards that fulfil a similar role would always include one of those cards over the other in all of his decks no matter what his opponents are playing, then it is a convention to consider that card strictly better than the other. That solves the problem by automatically excluding corner cases such as Meddling Mage, Mind Control, Mindlaver, Thoughtsteal, Clone etc.
Note that, even if the term "strictly better" is not appropriate to describe this relationship, this convention already exists among most Magic/TCG players, I just gave my opinion on what the definition should be.
PS. I thought a lot before describing Fireball as strictly better than Mortal strike. Even without using the definition I gave above, it is extremely hard to come up with a scenario where Mortal Strike is better than Fireball with the current cardpool with a rational opponent (e.g. a Paladin using Equality and Blessing of Kings on a Grommash Hellscream you need to enrage). It could maybe come up if the opponent has Molten Giant and Alexstraza and for some reason you want to force him to Alexstraza but even that scenario is extremely convoluted (seriously, if anyone can come up with it I would be very interested)
I'm so glad there is prejudice against playing hunter/zoo/[insert FotM deck here]. People like that make the life so much easier for those of us who play to win.
The only problem I have with Kidnapper is the number 3.
There is certainly enough ways for a Rogue to cast a 0 cost card on turn 5 and resetting a player back a turn and getting a minion out of it is as win win as Cabal Shadow Priest can be for Priest.
But with 3 health, it has no chance of living the turn against the trash played by an opponent on previous turns.
Nozdormu wins you every game where you opponent has to go to the bathroom on turn 9.
Sap work only on enemy minions, this is a improved sap eff. Without the combo part, this whould seems more play for sure, its a good tempo card and can re-use battle cry eff. Sadly, the combo part is too much conditional on a 6 mana card.
Much of the conclusions of Game Theory have been proven to be observer biased conclusions. As such, I pretty much ignore it in my decision making in general.
To the original topic, Kidnapper's stats are horrendous for it's mana cost and it's utility is HIGHLY situational making it's total cost too high for play (I mean slot cost, not just mana cost). I DEed 3 of them and, along with DEing a Patient Assassin, grabbed a second Blood Knight.
I would suggest, however, that Far Sight should warrant consideration in Shaman decks. It has real utility. That utility may not make sense in your deck's objectives, but it at least can have utility.