Where's the "This is original and we have no clue how to play with it!" button?
Um, actually ...
Mike Donais openly admitted that he lifted the idea directly from an old Magic: the Gathering card.
And since he also pointed out that there's no way to abuse it (at least not the ways people were hoping), we do know how to play it -- as straightforwardly as it seems, which isn't all that powerful and carries significant risk against certain classes.
Maybe use it in the same deck as Force of Nature and Violet Teacher for a constant stream of tokens that might be difficult to deal with, as a new Token Druid? There's that Evolving Spores thing if tokens survive and you have the mana for it. I dunno.
One important note is that you only lose as many mana crystals as there are open spots on the board. If you only have room to summon 3 treants, you only lose 3 mana crystals, not your entire supply.
At the very least, I'm glad Pilfered Power exists as a safety net in case your opponent has a hard punish. It's at the perfect mana cost on turn 10 as well, so no cost reduction or ramping shenanigans necessary.
Also, I'm glad Pilfered Power became useful so as to break the streak of awful Druid epics (though Living Mana technically does too).
With the disclaimer that this is my opinion and I understand Astral Druid is a thing, I do not like Astral Communion. In order to make a successful deck with it, you need cards more expensive and rare than this card or else it's awful. Mulch is the premier Druid hard removal by default because Naturalize is the Hydra of removals and Druids don't have anything else.
Wisps of the Old Gods is too big to be used in tangent with anything else without proper set-up, and often requires exactly Fandral + Innervate to not be a waste of a turn. And does anyone even remember Forbidden Ancient?
Pilfered Power, Living Mana, and to an extent, Lunar Visions, look like they finally break that trend.
I think i read or heard on a podcast that this card doesn't count temporary mana crystals created by a spell. So innervated crystals won't turn into living mana. I think that's the case at least.
Now we know it doesn't count innervate or the coin it's somehow even worse than it already was. The only situation in which this doesn't suck is if you can combo it with a double deathrattle. It's just...terrible. They always do this with Druid though, most expansions give us some weird mana gimmick card.
Rest of our set (ish) is by and large pretty strong so I'm not salty about it but god damn this is a terrible terrible card.
A very interesting card. Can be used to top out the curve in Egg Druid to recreate the board for one final push - and if you can spare 4 mana after playing this, you can drop a Soul of the Forest on the Treants - or can find a spot in Token Druid to create endless boards together with some Violet Teachers.
Mass Dispel and Devolve are the obvious punish cards, but that's only two matchups, with only Shaman looking like it will be common.
I also reviewed these more aggressive Druid options in more detail in a video:
Couldnt you use the Umbra card with this and double your mana?
With innervate it works.but you need anyway 9 mana or Umbra already on board (which will never happen). But it's a good combo against a possible devolve or silence. Question is how many deathrattles you have in your deck, because putting umbra in your deck solely for this combo is too inconsistent. He's a weak 4 drop without something to combo.
Couldnt you use the Umbra card with this and double your mana?
No, because umbra says "when you summon" while living mana just transforms your mana, thus the spell is summoning them, not you
Hearthstone does not distinguish between you and someone else when it comes to summoning ( for other stuff like spellcasting it does). Look at Knife Juggler for instance. As soon as something is summoned, he triggers. Even when an enemy summons something for you, e.g. with leeroy.
not really, innervate doesn't give you mana crystals, only mana, that's why when you use the mana it disappears, which you will when you cast this.
If this isn't clear is look when you cast innervate and then use it, the mana disappear, they don't go grey.
To be fair, the wording on Innervate is actually very dubious since it does state that you get 2 mana crystals. The visual effect does however indicitate otherwise.
Yet another wording inconsistency from Blizzard, there is no reason this shouldn't combo with innervate based on the text.[card] Innervate[/card] does give you mana crystals, so it should work. I guess the devs thought that would be too strong, but as it is, I doubt this card will be playable with no innervate combo.
not really, innervate doesn't give you mana crystals, only mana, that's why when you use the mana it disappears, which you will when you cast this.
If this isn't clear is look when you cast innervate and then use it, the mana disappear, they don't go grey.
That's not true based on the card textInnervate. It says clearly that it does give you mana crystals.
It also clearly says "this turn only".
So what? The text of living mana says "transform your Mana Crystals" not "transform your permanently available mana crystals"
The developers made a mistake if they didn't want this combo to work, and if they don't want it to work that way they should change the text accordingly.
not really, innervate doesn't give you mana crystals, only mana, that's why when you use the mana it disappears, which you will when you cast this.
If this isn't clear is look when you cast innervate and then use it, the mana disappear, they don't go grey.
That's not true based on the card textInnervate. It says clearly that it does give you mana crystals.
It also clearly says "this turn only".
So what? The text of living mana says "transform your Mana Crystals" not "transform your permanently available mana crystals"
The developers made a mistake if they didn't want this combo to work, and they should change the text accordingly.
Except any experience with the card will teach you that the crystals disappear upon paying a mana cost, i.e when the card effect resolves, the temporary mana crystals no longer exist already.
Many predicted it would work that way simply based upon the card text, before the developpers said so.
not really, innervate doesn't give you mana crystals, only mana, that's why when you use the mana it disappears, which you will when you cast this.
If this isn't clear is look when you cast innervate and then use it, the mana disappear, they don't go grey.
That's not true based on the card textInnervate. It says clearly that it does give you mana crystals.
It also clearly says "this turn only".
So what? The text of living mana says "transform your Mana Crystals" not "transform your permanently available mana crystals"
The developers made a mistake if they didn't want this combo to work, and they should change the text accordingly.
It's obviously a balance decision so turn 1-3 living mana won't break the game. There is no need to change anything. If you change Innervate text to fit Living Mana mechanic, then it will be inconsistent with Wild Growth text, and you will cry again "blah blah it doesn't say mana crystal blizzard sucks".
"Blahblah I don't care about logical consistency i am just making nonsensical points it would be way too hard for poor Blizzard to change two lines of text blah blah"- ok then... have fun with that.
not really, innervate doesn't give you mana crystals, only mana, that's why when you use the mana it disappears, which you will when you cast this.
If this isn't clear is look when you cast innervate and then use it, the mana disappear, they don't go grey.
That's not true based on the card textInnervate. It says clearly that it does give you mana crystals.
It also clearly says "this turn only".
So what? The text of living mana says "transform your Mana Crystals" not "transform your permanently available mana crystals"
The developers made a mistake if they didn't want this combo to work, and they should change the text accordingly.
Except any experience with the card will teach you that the crystals disappear upon paying a mana cost, i.e when the card effect resolves, the temporary mana crystals no longer exist already.
Many predicted it would work that way simply based upon the card text, before the developpers said so.
That's no excuse to have inaccurate, inconsistent, or misleading card text. That's just laziness.
The problem with the mana crystals from innervate is simply that they disappear as soon as you play the card. They will not grey out and will always be used at first. So they will not be there any more, when the effect of Living Mana takes place which means the mana crystals of innervate can't be used for the effect.
And as already mentioned and linked by someone in the earlier discussion, it has officially be stated that innervate crystals will not give you Mana Treants
Couldnt you use the Umbra card with this and double your mana?
No, because umbra says "when you summon" while living mana just transforms your mana, thus the spell is summoning them, not you
Hearthstone does not distinguish between you and someone else when it comes to summoning ( for other stuff like spellcasting it does). Look at Knife Juggler for instance. As soon as something is summoned, he triggers. Even when an enemy summons something for you, e.g. with leeroy.
Yes, however though, it says transform, does evolving a minion trigger knife juggler? No, thus such a combo won't work.
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Just thinking of using devolve or mass dispel against it makes me think this will be a bad card...
Doesn't work on temporary mana.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
At the very least, I'm glad Pilfered Power exists as a safety net in case your opponent has a hard punish. It's at the perfect mana cost on turn 10 as well, so no cost reduction or ramping shenanigans necessary.
Also, I'm glad Pilfered Power became useful so as to break the streak of awful Druid epics (though Living Mana technically does too).
With the disclaimer that this is my opinion and I understand Astral Druid is a thing, I do not like Astral Communion. In order to make a successful deck with it, you need cards more expensive and rare than this card or else it's awful. Mulch is the premier Druid hard removal by default because Naturalize is the Hydra of removals and Druids don't have anything else.
Wisps of the Old Gods is too big to be used in tangent with anything else without proper set-up, and often requires exactly Fandral + Innervate to not be a waste of a turn. And does anyone even remember Forbidden Ancient?
Pilfered Power, Living Mana, and to an extent, Lunar Visions, look like they finally break that trend.
I think i read or heard on a podcast that this card doesn't count temporary mana crystals created by a spell. So innervated crystals won't turn into living mana. I think that's the case at least.
Now we know it doesn't count innervate or the coin it's somehow even worse than it already was. The only situation in which this doesn't suck is if you can combo it with a double deathrattle. It's just...terrible. They always do this with Druid though, most expansions give us some weird mana gimmick card.
Rest of our set (ish) is by and large pretty strong so I'm not salty about it but god damn this is a terrible terrible card.
A very interesting card. Can be used to top out the curve in Egg Druid to recreate the board for one final push - and if you can spare 4 mana after playing this, you can drop a Soul of the Forest on the Treants - or can find a spot in Token Druid to create endless boards together with some Violet Teachers.
Mass Dispel and Devolve are the obvious punish cards, but that's only two matchups, with only Shaman looking like it will be common.
I also reviewed these more aggressive Druid options in more detail in a video:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Old_GuardianHS
Blog: http://www.kilkku.com/oldguardian/
Couldnt you use the Umbra card with this and double your mana?
"Speculation is foolish when the tools of certainty are available." —Cinna, Vedalken Consul
The problem with the mana crystals from innervate is simply that they disappear as soon as you play the card. They will not grey out and will always be used at first. So they will not be there any more, when the effect of Living Mana takes place which means the mana crystals of innervate can't be used for the effect.
And as already mentioned and linked by someone in the earlier discussion, it has officially be stated that innervate crystals will not give you Mana Treants