I think that Hex and polymorph are almost always better than having silences in a mage or shaman deck; thus I would argue it practically pointless to add two spell breaker to either classes being that hex and polymorph are much better
Hex and Poly are semi-removal spells. Silence is typically a battlecry effect, simply negating the card effects. They are both different, as such you can't really make a legit comparison.
A key difference here, is that the Silence as a battlecry is going to give you board presence, while only removing effects. Another HUGE difference with silence, is strategically it can be used on your own minions to remove negative effects.
I would encourage you to look more at the depth of these two very difference mechanics, and from there you can decide if they have use in your particular deck.
I'm going to disagree with Xdega on that point! I would personally tone down the silences in a deck if I ran two Polymorph or Hex. Their attributes essentially lead to a (higher) degree of control that silences would not have given. At the end of the day, the opponent can only have so many threats, whether you silence that 10/10 Lightspawn or Polymorph it, you probably won't see another. I'm not saying you should completely ditch silences, they have other highly situational uses such as silencing taunts or removing debuffs (Aldor, Corruption, Equality, Blessing of Wisdom). I'm saying that they devalue the silences in your deck because there could be a better minion in place of what may be a dead silence effect.
They're quite comparable. For example, I wouldn't run Hex, Earth Shocks, and Spellbreakers in a Shaman deck. The silences become dead or less in value where I could replace Spellbreakers with Yetis or Earth Shocks with Lightning Bolts. Something has to go to round out the deck.
I'm going to disagree with Xdega on that point! I would personally tone down the silences in a deck if I ran two Polymorph or Hex. Their attributes essentially lead to a (higher) degree of control that silences would not have given. At the end of the day, the opponent can only have so many threats, whether you silence that 10/10 Lightspawn or Polymorph it, you probably won't see another. I'm not saying you should completely ditch silences, they have other highly situational uses such as silencing taunts or removing debuffs (Aldor, Corruption, Equality, Blessing of Wisdom). I'm saying that they devalue the silences in your deck because there could be a better minion in place of what may be a dead silence effect.
They're quite comparable. For example, I wouldn't run Hex, Earth Shocks, and Spellbreakers in a Shaman deck. The silences become dead or less in value where I could replace Spellbreakers with Yetis or Earth Shocks with Lightning Bolts. Something has to go to round out the deck.
This is not at all about running 1 silence vs 2 silence. You don't need to have poly/hex in your deck to run single silence. The issue here, is we are looking at a trade off between two nonidentical mechanics.
Sure you may decide that you do not want to run 2 silence in your deck that contains poly, but this is not because poly is a replacement "per se", it is because you have as much control as you want. The flavor of control that you implement is still very important, and needs to be congruent with your overall meta. You can't just make a blanket statement that poly == silence replacement. Apples to Oranges my friend.
If we play deeper into the analogy, Apples and Oranges are, both fruits, and serve the same purpose to be eaten. I'm not particularly fond of the analogy myself in this respect.
The whole idea is to balance the amount of control or removal in a deck. Two things can be mechanically different and serve the same purpose in a match. Like I said, silencing a Lightspawn or reducing it to a sheep. Silencing Edwin or turning him into a frog. It's similar enough to merit a comparison when balancing a deck. If you overload on silences as well as hard removal, there will simply be problems with a deck.
Naturalize gives your opponent 2 cards, Assassinate costs 5 mana, Hex takes a second action to clear the minion, Polymorph is a combination of Assassinate and Hex (requires an extra action to clear it, but it doesn't have taunt, but it's still a 4 mana cost). So it's a matter of what drawbacks you can accommodate with your particular deck/playstyle.
As for comparing silence and Hex/Poly/etc., I agree that they can't be directly compared, though they can be weighed against each other when determining how one wants to handle removal in their deck.
I'd prefer to have hard removal like Poly/Hex over a silence, but I don't think running just 2 is enough sometimes. Like Aishi said though, if it's a choice of cutting a silence or a Poly/Hex from a deck to make room for cards that make your deck better I'd go for cutting the silence usually, since there's more value (to me) in Poly/Hex since they can take care of minions that won't be stopped with a silence.
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To put things in perspective here. I just now used a Spellbreaker to unfreeze my Lord of the Arena. The result was me being able to dish out a quick 6 dmg, before it was killed the following turn. Such strategies cannot be accomplished with a half-removal like Hex/Poly that have a very specific purpose. Just sayin'
Such strategies cannot be accomplished with a half-removal like Hex/Poly that have a very specific purpose. Just sayin'
Agreed, which is a very situational play as with silencing your own minions can be. This means silences have a use beyond what Hex and Polymorphs can do and can be viable and vice versa. The same holds true for playing against a card like Tirion Fordring, you're silencing him, but at the end of the day he's a 6/6. My main point was reiterated by this delicious brand name cereal:
...though they can be weighed against each other when determining how one wants to handle removal in their deck.
For the purposes of building a deck, you must weigh how many silences and hard removal options to find a good balance of such mechanics. In this regard they're perfectly comparable because their general usage overlap.
I'm glad my topic has generate such a debate personally on the topic I feel silence compared to hex/poly is close but say in example a sunwalker (one of the scarier late game taunts) silence only removes the divine and taunt while hex/poly reduces it to to 0/1 or 1/1 for me when I'm playing shaman I usually rock a 2 hexs over say a pair of spell breakers
but on another topic I'm amazed by our community; everyone is so polite, respectful to each other and offers rational arguments.
The issue with Polymorph is that it is specific to Mage. The problem with Hex is that after you use it, you have to commit some other action to clearing it (due to the taunt). A Spellbreaker or Ironbeak Owl clears the divine shield and the taunt so you can walk past the Sunwalker if needed. Each one has different drawbacks (Polymorph being the best out of these 4 if using the Mage, imo), so you can't say that Poly = Spellbreaker = Hex. Instead, you have to choose what drawback your deck can easily and efficiently handle and choose the card that fits the best. Which is why you can compare them, but more in regards to their drawbacks than their actual removal ability (since they are all a form of removal).
Opposing views crafted into a thought out paragraph always lead to healthy discussion, sometimes playing Devil's Advocate can have eye-opening results! There's always some intensely conflicting views, like that Loot Hoarder vs Novice Engineer topic in Theorycrafting or the Healing Touch talk on Druid forums. I enjoy it all, even if I'm a bit more stubborn on my stances. It adds a good dynamic to browsing the forums.
The thing is, silence has very niche uses, that you wouldn't want to hex/polymorph, and some cards you dont want to/cant silence that you would want to remove. For example, hex/poly/assassinate/etc. are best saved for cards that are big threats that take up the whole turn. ex: ironbark protector, ragnaros, ysera, etc. Silence is better used on earlier threats that don't warrant a full removal card. For example, on a novice engineer that has been buffed, or on a lightspawn, or one of your own debuffed minions. Remember, you can remove freeze, hunters mark, humility/aldor peacekeeper, etc. I would suggest running atleast 2 silences with bodies (most decks only have spellbreaker as that option, since owl isnt a strong body), as well as any removal/transform card.
I don't think anyone's going to not run 2x Hex or 2x Polymorph, but if I had access to them, I would probably cut down on the amount of silences or soft removal I have. They're different things, but they still balance each other out in a deck - you'll much more likely find classes with better options for hard removal run less silences.
Say "in theory" every class at some point down the line of expansions had a turn a minion into relatively harmless 1/1 or some alternative; would silence loose most real use across all classes?
Say "in theory" every class at some point down the line of expansions had a turn a minion into relatively harmless 1/1 or some alternative; would silence loose most real use across all classes?
in theory yes, ceteris paribus (loleconomics) only in the rare cases where you can silence your own minions it would be played which are only for freeze and some other effects like 1 attack, 1 health, corruption which are pretty situational tbh
now, this may not happen because silences can affect friendly creatures, what if in the future you get more effects like corruption or new control effects like fear? you can silence those, maybe silence will see more play
but yeah, at the moment you wont many shamans or mages playing with silences because of their transforms
I think that Hex and polymorph are almost always better than having silences in a mage or shaman deck; thus I would argue it practically pointless to add two spell breaker to either classes being that hex and polymorph are much better
thoughts
Hex and Poly are semi-removal spells. Silence is typically a battlecry effect, simply negating the card effects.
They are both different, as such you can't really make a legit comparison.
A key difference here, is that the Silence as a battlecry is going to give you board presence, while only removing effects.
Another HUGE difference with silence, is strategically it can be used on your own minions to remove negative effects.
I would encourage you to look more at the depth of these two very difference mechanics,
and from there you can decide if they have use in your particular deck.
I'm going to disagree with Xdega on that point! I would personally tone down the silences in a deck if I ran two Polymorph or Hex. Their attributes essentially lead to a (higher) degree of control that silences would not have given. At the end of the day, the opponent can only have so many threats, whether you silence that 10/10 Lightspawn or Polymorph it, you probably won't see another. I'm not saying you should completely ditch silences, they have other highly situational uses such as silencing taunts or removing debuffs (Aldor, Corruption, Equality, Blessing of Wisdom). I'm saying that they devalue the silences in your deck because there could be a better minion in place of what may be a dead silence effect.
They're quite comparable. For example, I wouldn't run Hex, Earth Shocks, and Spellbreakers in a Shaman deck. The silences become dead or less in value where I could replace Spellbreakers with Yetis or Earth Shocks with Lightning Bolts. Something has to go to round out the deck.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
This is not at all about running 1 silence vs 2 silence. You don't need to have poly/hex in your deck to run single silence.
The issue here, is we are looking at a trade off between two nonidentical mechanics.
Sure you may decide that you do not want to run 2 silence in your deck that contains poly, but this is not because poly is a replacement "per se", it is because you have as much control as you want. The flavor of control that you implement is still very important, and needs to be congruent with your overall meta. You can't just make a blanket statement that poly == silence replacement. Apples to Oranges my friend.
If we play deeper into the analogy, Apples and Oranges are, both fruits, and serve the same purpose to be eaten. I'm not particularly fond of the analogy myself in this respect.
The whole idea is to balance the amount of control or removal in a deck. Two things can be mechanically different and serve the same purpose in a match. Like I said, silencing a Lightspawn or reducing it to a sheep. Silencing Edwin or turning him into a frog. It's similar enough to merit a comparison when balancing a deck. If you overload on silences as well as hard removal, there will simply be problems with a deck.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
Most removal cards have some drawback:
Naturalize gives your opponent 2 cards, Assassinate costs 5 mana, Hex takes a second action to clear the minion, Polymorph is a combination of Assassinate and Hex (requires an extra action to clear it, but it doesn't have taunt, but it's still a 4 mana cost). So it's a matter of what drawbacks you can accommodate with your particular deck/playstyle.
As for comparing silence and Hex/Poly/etc., I agree that they can't be directly compared, though they can be weighed against each other when determining how one wants to handle removal in their deck.
I'd prefer to have hard removal like Poly/Hex over a silence, but I don't think running just 2 is enough sometimes. Like Aishi said though, if it's a choice of cutting a silence or a Poly/Hex from a deck to make room for cards that make your deck better I'd go for cutting the silence usually, since there's more value (to me) in Poly/Hex since they can take care of minions that won't be stopped with a silence.
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To put things in perspective here. I just now used a Spellbreaker to unfreeze my Lord of the Arena. The result was me being able to dish out a quick 6 dmg, before it was killed the following turn. Such strategies cannot be accomplished with a half-removal like Hex/Poly that have a very specific purpose. Just sayin'
Agreed, which is a very situational play as with silencing your own minions can be. This means silences have a use beyond what Hex and Polymorphs can do and can be viable and vice versa. The same holds true for playing against a card like Tirion Fordring, you're silencing him, but at the end of the day he's a 6/6. My main point was reiterated by this delicious brand name cereal:
For the purposes of building a deck, you must weigh how many silences and hard removal options to find a good balance of such mechanics. In this regard they're perfectly comparable because their general usage overlap.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
I'm glad my topic has generate such a debate personally on the topic I feel silence compared to hex/poly is close but say in example a sunwalker (one of the scarier late game taunts) silence only removes the divine and taunt while hex/poly reduces it to to 0/1 or 1/1 for me when I'm playing shaman I usually rock a 2 hexs over say a pair of spell breakers
but on another topic I'm amazed by our community; everyone is so polite, respectful to each other and offers rational arguments.
*hugs for all*
:D
The issue with Polymorph is that it is specific to Mage. The problem with Hex is that after you use it, you have to commit some other action to clearing it (due to the taunt). A Spellbreaker or Ironbeak Owl clears the divine shield and the taunt so you can walk past the Sunwalker if needed. Each one has different drawbacks (Polymorph being the best out of these 4 if using the Mage, imo), so you can't say that Poly = Spellbreaker = Hex. Instead, you have to choose what drawback your deck can easily and efficiently handle and choose the card that fits the best. Which is why you can compare them, but more in regards to their drawbacks than their actual removal ability (since they are all a form of removal).
Opposing views crafted into a thought out paragraph always lead to healthy discussion, sometimes playing Devil's Advocate can have eye-opening results! There's always some intensely conflicting views, like that Loot Hoarder vs Novice Engineer topic in Theorycrafting or the Healing Touch talk on Druid forums. I enjoy it all, even if I'm a bit more stubborn on my stances. It adds a good dynamic to browsing the forums.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
If you want to compare the same classes cards, you just compare Earth Shock to Hex. I run both in my deck and don't run silence minions.
I often consider dropping earth shock in favor of Spellbreaker
The thing is, silence has very niche uses, that you wouldn't want to hex/polymorph, and some cards you dont want to/cant silence that you would want to remove. For example, hex/poly/assassinate/etc. are best saved for cards that are big threats that take up the whole turn. ex: ironbark protector, ragnaros, ysera, etc. Silence is better used on earlier threats that don't warrant a full removal card. For example, on a novice engineer that has been buffed, or on a lightspawn, or one of your own debuffed minions. Remember, you can remove freeze, hunters mark, humility/aldor peacekeeper, etc. I would suggest running atleast 2 silences with bodies (most decks only have spellbreaker as that option, since owl isnt a strong body), as well as any removal/transform card.
Nope, silences are fine.
Yours truly,
Ragnaros The Firelord
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I don't think anyone's going to not run 2x Hex or 2x Polymorph, but if I had access to them, I would probably cut down on the amount of silences or soft removal I have. They're different things, but they still balance each other out in a deck - you'll much more likely find classes with better options for hard removal run less silences.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
Say "in theory" every class at some point down the line of expansions had a turn a minion into relatively harmless 1/1 or some alternative; would silence loose most real use across all classes?
in theory yes, ceteris paribus (loleconomics) only in the rare cases where you can silence your own minions it would be played which are only for freeze and some other effects like 1 attack, 1 health, corruption which are pretty situational tbh
now, this may not happen because silences can affect friendly creatures, what if in the future you get more effects like corruption or new control effects like fear? you can silence those, maybe silence will see more play
but yeah, at the moment you wont many shamans or mages playing with silences because of their transforms