ALL for the Shadow Creep is unbalanced! I’m thinking of quitting the game …
Abyssal Juggernaut discussion
No worries. Your MECHAF00 will improve with experience. Just keep putting yourself in compromising positions and you shall surrender your MECHAZ0R maidenhead soon enough.
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Actually I have to admit that kill looks pretty awesome. There are obviously a few cards you have to be on the lookout for with the new creep and Ghost Azalea is definitely a huge burst threat in late game. I don’t actually see that as being radically different than being killed by successive shadow novas though. I suspect people will start to run more early removal to deal with anything generating a lot of creep and maybe we see a little more dispel.
As for the original post I think it is a bit too early to scream for nerfs until the data plays itself out a bit more. The card is highly effective if the board is set for it but it still requires setup and more resources than something like an ironcliffe with DB on it.
If you are super duper hating on it just run Vanar for a little while with all of its removal and I think you’ll feel a little better getting a few games back on creep.
Let’s do a litlte compare and contrast, shall we?
Amu is a 2cc 3/3 Battle Pet.
Ooz is a 2cc 3/3 Battle Pet that creates 1 or 2 Shadow Creep tiles.
True Strike deals 2 damage to minion for 1cc.
Sphere of Darkness deals 1 damage, creates a Shadow Creep on the side, and draws a card for 1cc.
Bonereaper is a 6-cc, 11-stat Provoke with a decent special.
Klaxon is a 6-cc, 12-stat Provoke that summons a HUGE amount of Shadow Creep.
Literally the only Shadow Creep producing card that isn’t arguably superior to another card of the same cost is Shadow Nova. So get it out of your head that Shadow Creep cards are somehow inferior. In most cases, they’re not even a meaningful tempo loss, which is impressive given that they’re not tempo cards – Shadow Creep is a control archetype, so even if they did all cost tempo, that would be the expectation, not something to point out as a flaw.
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Underpowered, because they are tempo losses. Generating shadow creep doesn’t impact the board immediately (except in the case of ooz).
Ooz is, imo, the only one that isn’t a tempo loss. (But don’t compare it to Amu. Amu is a neutral faction card and is inferior to all other faction 2 drop battle pets. It would be much more fair to compare Ooz to Fiz, Gro, etc.,).
Sphere of darkness is a tempo loss. It’s 1 mana, deal one damage. Playing this early game is a pretty weak play, and is almost redundant when you have your BBS up and can curve perfectly without it, so it takes up a card in your hand. It’s a good card, but loses tempo, compared to, say, bloodtear alchemist.
Comparing the stat totals of bonereaper and klaxon is ineffective (in general, this should be done with caution. Magmar’s 6/1 is much worse than a 2/3, for example). They serve significantly different purposes. Bonereaper is a high-health, provoke-stalling, swarm-countering minion. Klaxon is meant to do a lot of damage, with relatively weak health (Yes, 6 health is low for a 6-drop. A 6/6 body is underpowered for 6 mana. Tempo loss.)
I’ll mention Abyssal Crawler, too, since others are complaining about it. I’ll admit it’s strong, but it’s undeniably a tempo loss. When kept in the back, that shadow creep tile does nothing, and its body does nothing. Cass is spending 1 mana to do nothing. Even when she uses the body to trade or to contest a mana tile, it’s still inferior to bloodtear alchemist. Heck, it’s inferior to helm of mechaz0r, too, as a body.
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This tells me instantly that you need a big, long lesson in what Control and Aggro decks are and why they don’t give a flying FIz about tempo. Under/overpowered is irrelevant to tempo. If tempo were the only important factor in over/underpowered no one would play Vetruvian ever, because their entire early game is centerd around cards that are tempo losses when played. In fact, most players would be playing some varation of Golem decks, and we can all see where those are in the meta.
The point is that they aren’t UP because they compare to other similar-costed cards well, and don’t actually sacrifice much in the way of tempo. Losing 1 damage in order to gain a card draw is a big gain in card advantage and a very small loss in tempo. Klaxon is above average for a 6-drop’s stats, because again, comparing everything to Golems is stupid.
And Abyssal Crawler is only a tempo loss if the opponent kills it with a 1-damage ping – in any other circumstance, it’s on-par with any other 1-drop, because as long as it gets it’s 2 damage in, it’s done it’s job as a 1-drop.
I understand that tempo is not the only factor in how overpowered/underpowered a card is. As you said, vetruvian’s obelysks are a good example. I disagree with the point about the golems, though, because they don’t immediately impact the board, in the hypothetical situation that tempo were the only important factor.
When I said it was “Underpowered, because of tempo loss”, I was supporting the earlier poster who said “Abyssal juggernaut requires a big investment in terms of underpowered shadow creep card”. Yes, you’re right: they generate good value, so they’re not underpowered. But they are underpowered in the sense that they’re tempo losses. That’s the investment. You can’t have both “juggernaut requires little investment” and “shadow creep cards are strong because they provide value for juggernaut”. No: the moment the shadow creep cards are played, while they do provide value for later cards, they represent tempo losses that the enemy can capitalize on and control the board. By the point Cass plays the 4 mana juggernaut, the enemy already has board advantage and can dispel juggernaut for an even larger advantage, if he has it.
You’re comparing to Amu, True Strike, and Bonereaper, all of which rarely see play. Hardly a fair comparison.
Klaxon may be a strong minion for its effect, but a 6 mana 6/6 provoke isn’t a strong body. I say it’s roughly as strong as Fireblazer, which costs one less and has -1/-1. Fireblazer doesn’t see play.
I was mostly addressing the situation that others were describing, where people put their crawlers in the back to build up a lot of shadow creep. In general, though, 1 drops are pretty bad, if all they do is 2 damage. Bloodtear is much better because it impacts the board immediately when it’s played.
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You call the creep cards underpowered for their bad tempo???
Creeps are an investment that pay off in the form of juggernaut, ghost azalea, and obliterate, with the added bonus of dealing damage if your opponent steps on them. The main problem I see people complaining about is how much of a return on investment juggernaut is.
Right, they’re not underpowered. I was ambiguous in my earlier statement. I only meant that they were tempo losses, which imo justifies Juggernaut’s power. I don’t think it’s a huge return on investment. The usual situation I see is getting 3-4 creeps by the time Cass gets to play Juggernaut, by playing Abyssal Crawler and Ooz, with the potential to grow after it’s summoned. At that point, it’s a 6/6 or 7/7 that will do a lot of damage, if not immediately dealt with. The thing is, dispel or any sort of removal takes care of it pretty easily, and Cass will still have little board presence by the time 5 mana hits.
Abyssian could always cheat out a huge minion really early, either with darkfire sacrifice or un7 shenanigans, but the answer always was, and it still is, removal.
Ok let’s compare cards that are staple in a tier deck with utter garbage that no one has ever played ever in competitive duelyst, that’s fair.
Would you play any of those shadow creep generator if they were no shadow creep pay off?
Of course not, this is what I mean by underpowered (exception for sphere of darkness). There is no need for a wall of text it is as simple as this , juggernaut is a card that cost more than 4 , it cost all the tempo and the card quality you lost for playing shadow creep generator ,this is why dispelling it is so efficient, if you cannot consider this in your evaluation I guess we can stop that discussion.
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I’ll also point out that this card is very similar to Deepfire Devourer, which uses minions as its buildup. Both sacrifice earlier board presence in order to develop a huge minion (and Deepfire Devourer only needs one wraithling to be a 6/6 Frenzy. Abyssal Juggernaut needs three creep to be 6/6). Yet, Deepfire Devourer was rarely played, even before blistering skorn was introduced. Why? Because any good deck runs dispel or removal, and doing so instantly punishes the Abyssian player for sacrificing her earlier board presence. The exact same is true for Juggernaut. You lose tempo your earlier turns, play this Juggernaut, and then get punished by dispel and fall even further behind (Deepfire Devourer is a 4/4 when dispelled. Juggernaut is only a 3/3).
Razorback is a 4/3 and only provides extra value for a turn.
Grimrock is a 3/4 if dispelled
Wind Shrike is a 4/3 if dispelled
etc.
The point being that a 3/3 body for 4 after dispel isn’t the worst thing, and considering it’s one of the few minions that can realistically come in as a 6/6+ for 4 it’s pretty great. Someone just screen capped two 30/30 Juggs. It’s not their base stats that make them strong, it’s the fact that they require removal or they’ll grow out of control.
Minions are harder to get than creep at this point, and you don’t lose your creep from juggernaut, so I think there is a big difference there.
@tx549 A 3/3 body for 4 after dispel isn’t the worst thing, but Juggernaut requires creep investment to get to that point. Wind shrike and Grimrock can be dropped on curve with their stats and effect, regardless of what Vet does in earlier turns. My point about Deepfire Devourer still stands. It “requires removal or it’ll grow out of control”, but still was considered weak, since it sacrifices earlier board presence, like Juggernaut does. Also, 30/30 Juggs should only rarely ever happen. If Cass does manage to get that much creep out, then she deserves to win.
@atd09 While it is true that minions are harder to get than creep, Deepfire Devourer gets +2/+2 for every minion as opposed to Juggernaut, and also has frenzy. You make a fair point about not losing creep, though.
Yes, to emphasize, I want to point out that a removal on devourer is like killing multiple minions and a huge tempo swing. Removal on juggernaut is only killing a 4 drop.
But there’s more:
I’d agree juggernaut isn’t op if it weren’t for the fact that it’s 4 mana. In fact, I think the comparison to grimrock is a good one: 4 mana, can grow out of control, similar base stats (grimrock is actually better).
But here’s the thing: when you play it, grimrock is always at 4 hp, and can be killed without too much difficulty. Juggernaut can start at 5,6, or even 7 health when you play him early game, which is not as easy.
Then, in the late game, grimrock is pretty bad while juggernaut only gets better and better. With new crawler and ooz, setup required is minimal. And because of the limited ways to remove creep, it’s hard to stop it. (Which is why jugg op and grimrock isn’t played)
In conclusion, juggernaut costs too little for its ability/stats. I think if it were 5 mana, you would be able to play it t2 easily, and it wouldn’t be so bad to use removal on it.
As far as deepfire goes I disagree. It won’t grow, it’ll just stay at what it entered at. Jugg can come in higher than other 4 drops and grow bigger than any 9 drop. If you remove the juggernaut it doesn’t effect the creep, where as if you remove a devourer you’re essentially killing off anything sacrificed to it like @atd09 said.
The whole ‘creep is a tempo killing investment’ mindset, at least to me, sounds like the only way to generate creep is 1 or 2 squares at a time without being able to cast any spells on your turn. That would be an investment and tempo loss, not minions with equivalent stats to other factions but with creep in place of keywords and abilities.
I don’t understand this ‘sacrifice earlier board presence’ that everyone keeps using as a defense for creep. That might have been the case pre-shimzar but all the things that help creep are pretty solid in addition to creating/using creep. Abyssal Crawler as a 2/1 for 1 that generates a creep each turn is great, potentially better than Bloodtear because it’s a constant effect. Ooz is a 2 for 3/3 that puts creep under enemies, potentially getting things across the board or at least bringing minions down to trade with worse things. Ghost Azalea turns your general into a juggernaut, and two of them is going to most likely kill outright.
I feel like this has been covered in a few threads now, but the summary is that creep doesn’t give up board presence in the same way while still maintaining the lethality of out of hand creep.
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But that was pre shimzar, where it was MUCH harder to get creeps and to get enough took way way too long.
No one is implying that creep cards are so good tempo wise that the generators themselves are powerful. Iceblade Druid is a powerful card, and no one is playing her in non-vespyr decks. Instead, I think that the main implication here is that Shadow creep, while requiring sub-optimal units to be run, pays off in too big a way.
I’ll use Abyssal crawler and Abyssal Juggernaut as an example, abit, an oversimplified one. Say, player one sacrifices tempo on turn one to drop crawler in the back row. On turn two, player one is facing off against about 3 mana worth of stuff with, essentially, 1 mana worth of stats. Player 1 can use turn 2 to develop about 3.5 mana worth of stuff, which, if Cass is willing to take some damage, trades pretty well with the opponent’s last turn. On turn 2, player 2 will play about 4.5 mana worth of stuff. If cass drops Juggernaut on this turn, its stats will be around 7/7 and threaten most 4 or 5 drops or many early game minions played by the opponent last turn and most 6 mana plays the opponent may do. At this point, the Juggernaut will threaten almost all earlygame played by the opponent while you were behind on tempo and grow out of control with the addition of new creep, making low tempo creep generators far more appealing.
I Know that this example is very simplistic, but the point is, the tempo lost by playing Creep generators is more than made up for by the tempo generated by the Juggernaut. The main point is that the amount of tempo lost be playing inefficient creep generators does not justify the large tempo swing created by Juggernaut.
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If the pay off cards stay alive yes, if it is dealt with then you loose not only the minion itself but also the tempo loss you have invested earlier, until you play an other pay off card. Currently a regular deck play an average of 6 answers to jugger, if you keep you answer for jugger/klaxon , you should be Ok.
The thing I will concede is that the shadow creep deck is powerful enough that it require you to build your deck around it.
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