^ Lock or prison decks are a bit different than combo decks, and are historically more despised.
This, exactly.
I'm fine with combo decks. They're frustrating to lose to, but when it's a MalyDruid, you're at least put out of your misery quickly. TurtlePotion, on the other hand, is "I have my combo, but you're not dead, but you can't play, because I have my combo, so you can either quit or suffer an excruciatingly long death unless you have very specific class cards."
That's not fun. That's actively anti-fun. I can't support a deck whose win condition is "Make sure the other player stops having fun. It's not enough for them to lose; they must be miserable and impotent while losing."
Mage: Change Tortollan Pilgrim so that it casts the spell from the deck (removing it from the deck in the process) instead of casting a copy.
Combined with Potion of Illusion and Frost Nova, Tortollan Pilgrim makes the game 100% uninteractable for the opponent. It's not just that it's powerful. It's not just that it's annoying. It's that it makes the game literally unplayable for one of the players, and at that point it ceases to be a game. You can either concede or wait for the inevitable, but either way, you're not going to get a chance to play the game anymore that match. And that just feels lousy.
Pilgrim + Potion is a cool interaction, and sets you up to cheat some more mana. That's fine. But infinite Pilgrim + infinite Potion is bad for the game.
If Tortollan would remove from deck so should all other cards like Druid Guardian Spell with rush remove the minnions from deck.
I don't agree that every interaction should be homogenized. For example, Dimensional Ripper summons copies of Warrior minions, and at 10 mana (with no reliable way for Warrior to cheat it out early), that feels appropriately powerful. Pulling these minions from the deck would be a substantial (and, I would argue, unwarranted) nerf to this card, especially since the only deck it's used in also runs Commencement, and that DOES pull from the deck. I've run into several situations where my Rippers have nothing to copy, because I've already drawn/Commenced all the minions from my deck. Making Dimension Ripper thin the deck would make things much worse.
On the other hand, Tortollan Pilgrim has to be judged in the context of the Mage spells it can pull. Before Potion of Illusion, it wasn't an issue, since it couldn't reliably generate infinite copies of itself (let alone 1-mana copies!). Blizzard recently changed Discover cards to disallow them from discovering themselves, and I would argue that the Pilgrim/Potion interaction is philosophically the same as (or at the least, VERY similar to) "discovering itself," leading to anti-fun "gameplay." I put "gameplay" in quotes, because as I mentioned before, it effectively prevents the other player from playing the game.
The only counters I can think of are Living Dragonbreath (to get around the Freeze portion and allow minion usage) and Flik Skyshiv. The Dragonbreath only works if you have it in hand, and even then it only addresses the Frost Nova aspect. Flik is a class card, which is nice for Rogue, but doesn't help any of the other classes.
Mage: Change Tortollan Pilgrim so that it casts the spell from the deck (removing it from the deck in the process) instead of casting a copy.
Combined with Potion of Illusion and Frost Nova, Tortollan Pilgrim makes the game 100% uninteractable for the opponent. It's not just that it's powerful. It's not just that it's annoying. It's that it makes the game literally unplayable for one of the players, and at that point it ceases to be a game. You can either concede or wait for the inevitable, but either way, you're not going to get a chance to play the game anymore that match. And that just feels lousy.
Pilgrim + Potion is a cool interaction, and sets you up to cheat some more mana. That's fine. But infinite Pilgrim + infinite Potion is bad for the game.
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We did it, folks! Tortollan Pilgrim is getting the exact nerf I was hoping for in 18.4!
And then Guardian Animals goes to 8 as well, which is fine.
This, exactly.
I'm fine with combo decks. They're frustrating to lose to, but when it's a MalyDruid, you're at least put out of your misery quickly. TurtlePotion, on the other hand, is "I have my combo, but you're not dead, but you can't play, because I have my combo, so you can either quit or suffer an excruciatingly long death unless you have very specific class cards."
That's not fun. That's actively anti-fun. I can't support a deck whose win condition is "Make sure the other player stops having fun. It's not enough for them to lose; they must be miserable and impotent while losing."
I don't agree that every interaction should be homogenized. For example, Dimensional Ripper summons copies of Warrior minions, and at 10 mana (with no reliable way for Warrior to cheat it out early), that feels appropriately powerful. Pulling these minions from the deck would be a substantial (and, I would argue, unwarranted) nerf to this card, especially since the only deck it's used in also runs Commencement, and that DOES pull from the deck. I've run into several situations where my Rippers have nothing to copy, because I've already drawn/Commenced all the minions from my deck. Making Dimension Ripper thin the deck would make things much worse.
On the other hand, Tortollan Pilgrim has to be judged in the context of the Mage spells it can pull. Before Potion of Illusion, it wasn't an issue, since it couldn't reliably generate infinite copies of itself (let alone 1-mana copies!). Blizzard recently changed Discover cards to disallow them from discovering themselves, and I would argue that the Pilgrim/Potion interaction is philosophically the same as (or at the least, VERY similar to) "discovering itself," leading to anti-fun "gameplay." I put "gameplay" in quotes, because as I mentioned before, it effectively prevents the other player from playing the game.
The only counters I can think of are Living Dragonbreath (to get around the Freeze portion and allow minion usage) and Flik Skyshiv. The Dragonbreath only works if you have it in hand, and even then it only addresses the Frost Nova aspect. Flik is a class card, which is nice for Rogue, but doesn't help any of the other classes.
Mage: Change Tortollan Pilgrim so that it casts the spell from the deck (removing it from the deck in the process) instead of casting a copy.
Combined with Potion of Illusion and Frost Nova, Tortollan Pilgrim makes the game 100% uninteractable for the opponent. It's not just that it's powerful. It's not just that it's annoying. It's that it makes the game literally unplayable for one of the players, and at that point it ceases to be a game. You can either concede or wait for the inevitable, but either way, you're not going to get a chance to play the game anymore that match. And that just feels lousy.
Pilgrim + Potion is a cool interaction, and sets you up to cheat some more mana. That's fine. But infinite Pilgrim + infinite Potion is bad for the game.