My current guess is you only run this card to lower your thing from below cost. It's only ran in totem shaman currently so I will discuss it that context.
The card almost always results in tempo loss. There are 3 cases where this card is played.
You are behind on board.
You are even on board and 3. You are winning.
1. You are behind on board.
The only totem that will actually further your board state is totem golem but that is a 1/7, which is unreliable. The others do not help you recover from the board. Getting manatide doesn't do much if you're losing.
2. You are even on board. I'll depict this as a scenario where you both have an low cost evenly stated minion on the board and it is your turn.
Playing a tuskar tometic on turn 3 almost always give the tempo to your opponent. You only have a 3/7 chance to get something good. Though, I don't think manatide is a good drop as it gives your opponent an opportunity to take advantage of the fact you only played a 3/2. Flametongue is conditionally good. It depends on the board. 3/7 is a theoretical chance. 2/7 is more close to its actual odds of getting a good totem.
3. Case 4 is similar to case 2 except manatide and flametongue are much better. Healing totem might have a chance at being good. I'll say the odds of a good totem is 3.1/7.
TLDR: Tuskar is bad because it result in losing tempo most of the time.
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My legendary count excluding adventure legendaries, dupes and old murk eye: 40
I think you might have missed a few key points here. Number one, beyond totem shaman, tuskar is also run in evolve shaman, where it is straight up better than any other summon two minions card. It also lowers the cost of thing from below as you mentioned, which is an amazing card in evolve shaman. I think that tuskar is not as big of a tempo loss as you think, and if you get a flametongue, golem, or mana tide it is almost an instant win. So it is like shredder. Sometimes you win, other times it's just ok. But it's never really bad. You're basically betting two stat points on an instant win. Not really such a bad idea
Tuskar totemic gives you a minimum of 7 stats, which is all you can ask for for three mana without clear drawbacks.
The 3/7 change "of getting something good" you are referring to seems i bit spoiled, as you make it sound like vanilla stats spread on two bodies is somehow a bad deal? Which is just wrong especially since the 3/7 is referring to standard, where value is a bit more important these days.
In a vacuum, tuskar is so-so at best. As you said, the odds of a good totem are somewhat low. Even then though in the worst case you're effectively getting "vanilla 2-drop plus a totem from hero power" which isn't awful...there are definitely worse 3-drops in HS.
However, taking into account the fact that shaman likes to have a big board (for Bloodlust, Evolve, etc) and has obvious totem synergies (Thing from Below, Primal Fusion, etc) then this is an excellent card. Don't forget the obvious Brann Bronzebeard synergy as well for potentially ridiculous value.
1)Conflating "You are ahead on board" with "You are winning": Against Control for example, you're almost always ahead on board on turn 3, but that obviously doesn't mean that you already won by then. A lot of decks right now have multiple ways of regaining board control. Tuskar Totemic is great to force your opponent to use removal and board clears earlier, which means it'll be easier to spam the board again afterwards. In general, with Midrange Shaman you're much more often ahead on board early on than not and you don't need to regain tempo, your job is to keep it.
2)Conflating "Tempo" with "Winning the game": I agree that tempo is really important in the current meta. But f.e. drawing enough cards to sustain yourself is really important right now, too. Even when you're behind on board, drawing more cards to have a higher likelihood of having strong removal/lightning storm helps a lot.
Overall though, without the strong early game and all the totem synergy, I wouldn't play Tuskar. But thanks to it, it's extremely strong with a nasty snowballing effect in my experience.
Tuskar totemic gives you a minimum of 7 stats, which is all you can ask for for three mana without clear drawbacks.
The 3/7 change "of getting something good" you are referring to seems i bit spoiled, as you make it sound like vanilla stats spread on two bodies is somehow a bad deal? Which is just wrong especially since the 3/7 is referring to standard, where value is a bit more important these days.
In a vacuum, tuskar is so-so at best. As you said, the odds of a good totem are somewhat low. Even then though in the worst case you're effectively getting "vanilla 2-drop plus a totem from hero power" which isn't awful...there are definitely worse 3-drops in HS.
However, taking into account the fact that shaman likes to have a big board (for Bloodlust, Evolve, etc) and has obvious totem synergies (Thing from Below, Primal Fusion, etc) then this is an excellent card. Don't forget the obvious Brann Bronzebeard synergy as well for potentially ridiculous value.
I kind of had this impression at first. It's the synergy that makes the card good not the card on its own. However, the synergy is difficult to get off in a tempo matchup where your opponent can easily kill your 0 attack minions. Evolving a tuskar totemic and the totem is bad given you get a hero power totem. It's 4 mana get 5 mana worth of stats for 2 cards. The average 4 mana minion is actually valued closer to a 3 mana minion.
1)Conflating "You are ahead on board" with "You are winning": Against Control for example, you're almost always ahead on board on turn 3, but that obviously doesn't mean that you already won by then. A lot of decks right now have multiple ways of regaining board control. Tuskar Totemic is great to force your opponent to use removal and board clears earlier, which means it'll be easier to spam the board again afterwards. In general, with Midrange Shaman you're much more often ahead on board early on than not and you don't need to regain tempo, your job is to keep it.
2)Conflating "Tempo" with "Winning the game": I agree that tempo is really important in the current meta. But f.e. drawing enough cards to sustain yourself is really important right now, too. Even when you're behind on board, drawing more cards to have a higher likelihood of having strong removal/lightning storm helps a lot.
Overall though, without the strong early game and all the totem synergy, I wouldn't play Tuskar. But thanks to it, it's extremely strong with a nasty snowballing effect in my experience.
You have convinced me in one aspect. Tuskar totemic is a good card against control. However, I am still set in stone that it is a bad card against tempo. I guess you play Tuskar depending on what the meta is.
Aggro runs no storm. Midrange runs 1. Drawing 1 card won't find you your storm most of the time. The problem with midrange shaman is that once you lose the board, you generally lose the game. I am looking at this deck atm https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/decks/midrange-shaman-standard-meta-snapshot-may-18-2016 and there are so many board dependent cards (flametongue, bloodlust, primal fusion and manatide) and not many ways to come back.
It is like a 6/6 for 3 mana or a 7/6 for 3 mana if you get the attack totem. I mean mostly my opponents get these 2 totems (don't understand why). They even bm me and don't look at the placement when they do this.
It is pretty good (with the totem taunt card even better)
So Tuskarr Totemic has a 2 mana body. 2/7ths of the time you get a 3 drop - Totem Golem, Mana Tide Totem - from it for free. Everyone can agree that, generally, playing a 2 mana body and then a 3 drop from your hand has a value of 5 mana, but playing a 2 mana body that draws and plays a 3 drop has a value of at least 6 mana. So lets ignore the value of your normal totems and the value from Flametongue Totem and just do the maths with this:
So Tuskarr Totemic has a 2 mana body. 2/7ths of the time you get a 3 drop - Totem Golem, Mana Tide Totem - from it for free. Everyone can agree that, generally, playing a 2 mana body and then a 3 drop from your hand has a value of 5 mana, but playing a 2 mana body that draws and plays a 3 drop has a value of at least 6 mana. So lets ignore the value of your normal totems and the value from Flametongue Totem and just do the maths with this:
2/7*6+5/7*2=3.1429
That's more than 3.
What are you calculating and trying to prove? I can't tell by reading your post.
Also, getting a manatide from your tuskar is worth 5 mana not 6. To more clearly explain it, playing manatide on its own without tuskar will always draw you a card, so mana tide is a 0/3 draw 1 card, which is the same effect as if you were to summon it from tuskar.
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My legendary count excluding adventure legendaries, dupes and old murk eye: 40
Tuskar is a really good three drop for a totem deck. The utility is insane and any way to flood the board will be a good thing. I think it's at a pretty good spot in the meta, I use that same exact deck you linked except i subbed the flamewreath for another lightning storm, haven't lost a single time in like six or seven matches. It works a lot better when you're going up against an aggressive deck, and while flamewreath is pretty good, i just don't think it works in this deck (unless you're going up against a lot of control, then it can replace the lightning storms because at that point you don't want aoes you want big bodies that can do a lot of damage against your enemy before they can respond in time.)
So Tuskarr Totemic has a 2 mana body. 2/7ths of the time you get a 3 drop - Totem Golem, Mana Tide Totem - from it for free. Everyone can agree that, generally, playing a 2 mana body and then a 3 drop from your hand has a value of 5 mana, but playing a 2 mana body that draws and plays a 3 drop has a value of at least 6 mana. So lets ignore the value of your normal totems and the value from Flametongue Totem and just do the maths with this:
2/7*6+5/7*2=3.1429
That's more than 3.
What are you calculating and trying to prove? I can't tell by reading your post.
Also, getting a manatide from your tuskar is worth 5 mana not 6. To more clearly explain it, playing manatide on its own without tuskar will always draw you a card, so mana tide is a 0/3 draw 1 card, which is the same effect as if you were to summon it from tuskar.
Summoning a Mana Tide Totem from Tuskarr Totemic is like playing a card (Tuskarr Totemic) that draws a Mana Tide Totem then playing it (for free) and then drawing another card from Mana Tide Totem's effect. I was trying to demonstrate how combing two cards into one means the resulting card has greater value than the two played separately as it only costs one card.
My current guess is you only run this card to lower your thing from below cost. It's only ran in totem shaman currently so I will discuss it that context.
The card almost always results in tempo loss. There are 3 cases where this card is played.
1. You are behind on board.
The only totem that will actually further your board state is totem golem but that is a 1/7, which is unreliable. The others do not help you recover from the board. Getting manatide doesn't do much if you're losing.
2. You are even on board. I'll depict this as a scenario where you both have an low cost evenly stated minion on the board and it is your turn.
Playing a tuskar tometic on turn 3 almost always give the tempo to your opponent. You only have a 3/7 chance to get something good. Though, I don't think manatide is a good drop as it gives your opponent an opportunity to take advantage of the fact you only played a 3/2. Flametongue is conditionally good. It depends on the board. 3/7 is a theoretical chance. 2/7 is more close to its actual odds of getting a good totem.
3. Case 4 is similar to case 2 except manatide and flametongue are much better. Healing totem might have a chance at being good. I'll say the odds of a good totem is 3.1/7.
TLDR: Tuskar is bad because it result in losing tempo most of the time.
My legendary count excluding adventure legendaries, dupes and old murk eye: 40
$$$ spent on this game: 0
Check out my card collection: http://www.hearthpwn.com/members/MCFUser175154/collection
Unlike most 3 mana cards that win you the game instantly.
Just having more things on the board is very good for that deck.
I think you might have missed a few key points here. Number one, beyond totem shaman, tuskar is also run in evolve shaman, where it is straight up better than any other summon two minions card. It also lowers the cost of thing from below as you mentioned, which is an amazing card in evolve shaman. I think that tuskar is not as big of a tempo loss as you think, and if you get a flametongue, golem, or mana tide it is almost an instant win. So it is like shredder. Sometimes you win, other times it's just ok. But it's never really bad. You're basically betting two stat points on an instant win. Not really such a bad idea
It can be good and it can be awful, part of the RNG gaming. but, mostly it is a good card
Tuskar totemic gives you a minimum of 7 stats, which is all you can ask for for three mana without clear drawbacks.
The 3/7 change "of getting something good" you are referring to seems i bit spoiled, as you make it sound like vanilla stats spread on two bodies is somehow a bad deal? Which is just wrong especially since the 3/7 is referring to standard, where value is a bit more important these days.
Shaman likes totems and they like multiple bodies on the board for cards like Flametongue Totem, Bloodlust and elvolve.
In a vacuum, tuskar is so-so at best. As you said, the odds of a good totem are somewhat low. Even then though in the worst case you're effectively getting "vanilla 2-drop plus a totem from hero power" which isn't awful...there are definitely worse 3-drops in HS.
However, taking into account the fact that shaman likes to have a big board (for Bloodlust, Evolve, etc) and has obvious totem synergies (Thing from Below, Primal Fusion, etc) then this is an excellent card. Don't forget the obvious Brann Bronzebeard synergy as well for potentially ridiculous value.
(>'o')>
(^'0'^)
<('o'<)
Tuskarr is amazing. The end.
Your main mistake is
1)Conflating "You are ahead on board" with "You are winning": Against Control for example, you're almost always ahead on board on turn 3, but that obviously doesn't mean that you already won by then. A lot of decks right now have multiple ways of regaining board control. Tuskar Totemic is great to force your opponent to use removal and board clears earlier, which means it'll be easier to spam the board again afterwards. In general, with Midrange Shaman you're much more often ahead on board early on than not and you don't need to regain tempo, your job is to keep it.
2)Conflating "Tempo" with "Winning the game": I agree that tempo is really important in the current meta. But f.e. drawing enough cards to sustain yourself is really important right now, too. Even when you're behind on board, drawing more cards to have a higher likelihood of having strong removal/lightning storm helps a lot.
Overall though, without the strong early game and all the totem synergy, I wouldn't play Tuskar. But thanks to it, it's extremely strong with a nasty snowballing effect in my experience.
My legendary count excluding adventure legendaries, dupes and old murk eye: 40
$$$ spent on this game: 0
Check out my card collection: http://www.hearthpwn.com/members/MCFUser175154/collection
It is like a 6/6 for 3 mana or a 7/6 for 3 mana if you get the attack totem. I mean mostly my opponents get these 2 totems (don't understand why). They even bm me and don't look at the placement when they do this.
It is pretty good (with the totem taunt card even better)
Just remember the good times!
It is a good card if RNGesus smiles at you, it is a bad card when RNGesus ignores you.
So Tuskarr Totemic has a 2 mana body. 2/7ths of the time you get a 3 drop - Totem Golem, Mana Tide Totem - from it for free. Everyone can agree that, generally, playing a 2 mana body and then a 3 drop from your hand has a value of 5 mana, but playing a 2 mana body that draws and plays a 3 drop has a value of at least 6 mana. So lets ignore the value of your normal totems and the value from Flametongue Totem and just do the maths with this:
2/7*6+5/7*2=3.1429
That's more than 3.
My legendary count excluding adventure legendaries, dupes and old murk eye: 40
$$$ spent on this game: 0
Check out my card collection: http://www.hearthpwn.com/members/MCFUser175154/collection
Tuskar is a really good three drop for a totem deck. The utility is insane and any way to flood the board will be a good thing. I think it's at a pretty good spot in the meta, I use that same exact deck you linked except i subbed the flamewreath for another lightning storm, haven't lost a single time in like six or seven matches. It works a lot better when you're going up against an aggressive deck, and while flamewreath is pretty good, i just don't think it works in this deck (unless you're going up against a lot of control, then it can replace the lightning storms because at that point you don't want aoes you want big bodies that can do a lot of damage against your enemy before they can respond in time.)
Victory or Death!
It's crucial for any Totem deck.
It's a good card slightly less than half the time.
The rest of the time its impressively mediocre.
I don't play shaman but the card is good when running that 5/5 taunt because it helped reduce it's cost.
You know, the more threads this guy makes, the more I'm convinced he's just some elaborate troll.