The advice isn’t “you should craft golden legendaries”. The advice is “IF you know for sure that you want one or more specific legendaries to be golden, craft them first, otherwise you might open them as non-golden in your packs”. This a) stops you from potentially having to decide whether you want to lose a lot of dust by dusting the normal copy that you unpack to craft a golden, and b) ensures you unpack a different legendary instead of the one you want in golden (because of the no duplicates rule).

Tempo loss, as Vadoff said.

Your scenario doesn’t assess the card fully/properly. You’re saying the value proposition of this card is “pay two mana, get x (number of spells in deck) total mana discount”. In reality, there are all sorts of opportunity costs involved with putting this card in your deck. Whenever you draw this card, then you have drawn it instead of a different card in your deck (for example one of the cards you are trying to discount). You will therefore need to gain 1 card draw from somewhere to make up for having drawn a 0 tempo card when, if this card wasn’t in your deck, you could have instead drawn a card that provided some tempo.

Also, it’s not correct to view this card as discounting every spell in your deck, because you only benefit from the discounts on the spells that you draw before the game ends. If you play this card, draw no spells, and then your opponent kills you next turn, then this spell had exactly the same effect as a spell which read “2 mana: do nothing”, which is obviously terrible. Even if you’re playing a combo deck, let’s say, which relies on drawing every spell in your deck and so for you the spell is actually intended to discount every spell in your deck, this still won’t be an accurate way of analysing this card because in most cases you will have drawn at least one spell before you play this card, so at least one discount will be missed.

If you apply this all to your scenario, then you don’t have a “2 mana: discount 3 spells by 1 each”, you have a “2 mana: do nothing until you draw any spell(s), discount any spell you draw by 1 (if it started in your deck), do nothing to spells already drawn”.

Don’t get me wrong - I think this card is very good and has huge potential. I’m simply playing devil’s advocate to show that it’s possibly not quite as clear-cut as it might initially seem.

I understand perfectly how Galakrond works and I wanted an answer to the same question (I’ll explain why). To everyone reacting with ridicule and implying or stating how stupid and obvious the question is, I think it is you who hasn’t thought enough about the question, not OP.

I’ve come up with a really cool and fun (at least I think it is) priest Shadowform OTK deck which requires Fate Weaver to discount all four of your combo pieces to make them collectively cost 10 mana i.e. playable as an OTK. I therefore need to play at least two invoke cards to be able to activate Fate Weaver’s effect.

I am currently running Galakrond, perhaps obviously, because the battlecry is quite powerful, but I am wanting to refine the list and feel that a) it desperately needs more card draw, and b) Galakrond is actually one of the most “cuttable” cards because it’s not a combo piece, is expensive, it doesn’t draw cards, and it creates some awkwardness because the OTK requires the shadowform hero power, so you can’t play Galakrond (which obviously replaces your hero power) if you have already played shadowform beforehand. On the other hand, it is incredibly cool to play shadowform after playing Galakrond, so that you can OTK as Shadowform Galakrond(!)

My point is that I don’t care about and perhaps would even like not having to run Galakrond; I only run invoke cards to activate Fate Weaver.

All of the answers I’ve read specifically say that you don’t get the benefit of the invoke EFFECT if you’re not running Galakrond. This misses the point slightly: I don’t care about the effect (upgrading Galakrond and getting the result of one Galakrond hero power). I only care about the actual counter of “number of times invoked”, regardless of whether or not an effect was achieved by those invocations.

I think it’s probably the case that the game DOESN’T register you as having invoked once if you play an invoke card with no Galakrond in deck, but I can’t be sure of this (I tried to test it but haven’t had much time and so I haven’t yet got to actually perform the test in a game). It’s not impossible for it to be that the game counts “number of times an invoke card was played” as opposed to “number of times an invoke effect was produced” for the purposes of activating cards like Fate Weaver.

THAT’S why I wanted to ask the same question, and why I still need to test the interaction despite the “correct answer” being “obvious”.

(sorry for the essay)

It is nothing at all like Zephrys. I’m genuinely curious - what aspect of the card makes you want to compare it to Zephrys?

Then why aren't lackey generators found in meta decks in which there are no lackey-synergy cards? I agree that lackeys are just generally good regardless of your class or deck archetype, however I also think PizzaCats is absolutely right. It has been proven by every meta since lackeys were introduced that, in the most meta-competitive decks, it is generally not worth running lackeys without lackey synergy cards.

Shamans run lackeys because of Weaponized Wasp and because Lackeys are extremely efficient at completing the shaman quest. Rogues do/did because of Heistbaron Togwaggle and because of Shadowstep and Spirit of the Shark shenanigans. Warlocks do/did because of EVIL Recruiter and I guess Dark Pharaoh Tekahn, and because Magic Carpet Zoo absolutely loves/loved to flood the board with tiny, super-efficient tokens. You might argue that Druid is an exception because unoptimised Token Druid lists sometimes used to run EVIL Cable Rat. It's true that these decks ran lackeys with no cards which synergised explicitly with lackeys, however, similarly to Zoo Warlock, Token Druid is completely reliant on having tokens stick on board, regardless of the size of the minions, so I would say that the synergy here is that lackeys are extremely synergistic with any token-style strategy. Regardless, Token Druid on the whole decided to cut the rat, and then eventually the deck fell out of the meta anyway. Probably the one true exception is tempo/aggro warrior, which runs/ran Livewire Lance simply because early board control + early mini tempo/value swings all wrapped up in one card is simply just good in a tempo/aggro deck.

So apart from tempo/aggro warrior, the general consensus has always been that it's not worth running lackey-generators without significant lackey synergy (either explicitly, e.g. Weaponized Wasp, or implicitly, e.g. Magic Carpet). Therefore it seems objectively obvious that the statistics suggest that this card is more likely not to make the cut than it is to make it into the meta. I know you might argue that warrior is the only class which has run lackeys without any lackey synergy, and this is a warrior card, so it's obvious that this will naturally go in decks which already run Livewire Lance. This is illogical: warriors do not run the lance because they need to generate lackeys to synergise with other cards in their deck. They run the Lance because, as I said earlier, the raw, pure power level and flexibility/versatility of the weapon is simply just generally strong in a tempo deck. Therefore, aggro/tempo warriors would not run this new card just because they already have another lackey generator, because it's not the lackey generation which tempo warriors desire - it's the non-specific, non-synergistic, pure tempo they are after. You therefore have to assess whether this card is similarly high in pure, standalone tempo, regardless of the fact that it would be a second lackey generator, and I believe the card is actually too low in power level/tempo/versatility to be worth running in tempo warrior. The card itself is a significant tempo loss on a crucial early turn - playing this instead of a Frothing Berserker or an active Bloodsworn Mercenary on 3, for example, would feel awful and would seriously potentially be a game-losing loss of tempo for a tempo deck. As others have said, the 3 armour is basically meaningless in any tempo deck (and you would never dream of running this in a control deck), so the question is: "is it worth it in my tempo deck to run a vanilla 2 mana 2/3 with +1 mana for "add a lackey to your hand?"

Well, would you run a River Crocolisk in tempo warrior? God no. Would you run a warrior copy of Sinister Deal except the lackey is random, not discovered? Almost certainly not. So, would you run this new card? Well, I very much understand that combining the utility and cost of two cards into one makes the new card significantly better than either of the old ones (see Frightened Flunky versus Frostwolf Grunt + I Know a Guy), but I think in the context of tempo warrior, this card is far less versatile than the lance and represents an immediate tempo loss (you pay 3 mana for a 2 mana body), as opposed to the lance which gives you the ability to remove the opponents' early minions and therefore usually represents some sort of tempo gain.

Jesus Christ - sorry for the essay.

Wow, thank you - great effort to put all of that together!

Your summary analysis is also very handy and pretty spot-on. I would add that 1-cost spells can be quite uniquely useful just by the fact that they are spells and cost 1, regardless of their actual effect and power level. The obvious first example would be cyclone mage: this card could give you 4 (or more) mage spells to cast and potentially more left over in hand if you're out of cards and topdeck this with a mana cyclone in hand. If you just play it out on curve to allow you to "stock up" on two 1-cost spells before a big Sorcerer's Apprentice + Mana Cyclone or Archmage Antonidas turn, your ability to perform your cyclone combo will be improved actually very significantly.

The other obvious use for 1-cost spells is with Gadgetzan Auctioneer. Any deck running auctioneer would naturally love to run a 1-cost spell generator. The question is whether a 5 mana 3/5 is too slow to be feasible, and whether there is enough room in the deck to run it over combo pieces and/or over cards which more directly progress your game plan. I would say that in my experience, combo decks typically have basically no midrange capability, so being able to play something not truly awfully-statted on curve for 5 mana might be surprisingly good in a combo deck. I especially like the idea of curving this on 5 into auctioneer on 6, although I suppose this would only be a viable combo in Druid because obviously if you play auctioneer on 6 you need to play Innervate and/or Biology Project to make it worth having played the auctioneer on 6.

Sorry - I got a bit carried away there lol. Thanks again for such a thorough look at the options for this card.

You’re thinking of Dragon Soul.

It’s very hard to say. No one can say with certainty how good it is until we can test it against everything else in the meta (obviously).

Dragon Soul was virtually unplayable, but that was a weapon (not a minion) in a very different meta with completely different cards to support it and in a different class, so it would be foolish to assume this card will be bad just because Dragon Soul didn’t work.

Whether or not this card will be deemed as good relies entirely on how good cyclone mage and/or other “small spell” mage decks turn out to be (imo). I’m not sure but if in the new expansion cyclone mage would not be good enough without this card, I don’t think this card will be enough to single-handedly make cyclone mage viable. However if cyclone mage would be pretty good regardless of this card, then I think this card would be a very strong addition to it.

Just the body. Cards always lose any buffs/debuffs/other applied effects when they go between fields e.g. from board to hand or from graveyard to board, unless the wording of the card specifically counters this e.g. Immortal Prelate.

There are some exceptions to this rule, e.g. handbuffs remaining when the buffed minion is played from the hand to the board (obviously - otherwise handbuffing could not exist as a mechanic).

Because warlock have the best hero power in the game by a large margin. Blizzard have always had to be very careful about the power level of all warlock class cards because by default warlock's hero power puts them at an immediate advantage over any other opponent from another class.

Another potential reason is that healing is unusually good in warlock because so many of their cards (and also their relatively very powerful hero power) are balanced against HP loss. Many pros and streamers have said that whenever warlock gets strong healing tools, they dominate the meta (or some have said in the past that if warlock gets strong healing in future, they will almost certainly be a top meta contender). We can see this has been arguably proven correct with the reign of cubelock while Kobolds and Catacombs was in standard: Blizzard eventually nerfed Dark Pact from 8 healing to 4 healing.

It's not. For the last two or so expansions any time Blizzard have printed a thief rogue card they've used the wording "from another class" instead of "from your opponent's class", specifically to allow the archetype to work in the mirror match.

See Hench-Clan Burglar, Pilfer, Stolen Steel and even Vendetta.

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this is the most stupid shit ever... like only 1 player done it by him self each1 just fallow a guide how is this any good taktic for a event like this...

the ''Craft any golden Legendaries'' now applies to all cards right ? not just legendariers :D hmm im definitely not spending any dust on golden legendary card but some epic with nice animation would be worth right ? any tips ? :D (i wasnt checking golden versions..)

NOBODY EXPECTS THE OUTLAND INQUISITION!

I think its really funny that this card isn't a legendary. I get that having 2 copies makes the draw more consistent but playing one kills the other so its like a Sudo-Legendary. 

This also creates the possibility to make your early game neutrals.... Then play this to increase the over all average value of your deck on mid to late game.... 

No problem - I was largely curious myself as I thought "hey, Togwaggle's Scheme might not be too bad to get" and wanted to know just how the rabbit hole panned out.

You're absolutely correct in that the 1 cost spells can be more useful than just their effect, and when combined with other abilities and effects it may not matter what they are (I feel like Spare Parts being used with Auctioneer may have been a thing in GvG, but that was so long ago I don't know if I'm misremembering or not). In particular, there's that new mage card that spawns a 5/5 whenever you cast 3 spells, and that also happens to be the class with Sorceror's Apprentice - so this card would give you 2+ of the fuel you need (the + because you might hit Ray Of Frost for 3/3 right there). There's also Mana Cyclone - so you can pump cheap spells into the Cyclone to hopefully give you more cheap spells, and possibly a rebirth of big hand mage.

I believe Doom in the Tomb will probably rotate with the new expac, but in wild you're going to have more spells, and more applications - stuff like Arcane Giant, Flamewaker, Yogg and whatnot will just appreciate cheap spells being cast.