Saurian Finality And Why It's Bad For The Game | Card Analysis w/ TheTacticalGmr
Honestly dont even bother. They only nerf things as an “oops, we never saw that once in testing”. Never as “we shouldnt have printed that its way too broken and is killing the game”
Its not really a nerf it video lol moreso showing what the other factions can realistically do when used against them
I mean this is all assuming the receiver is losing anyways; if the Magmar player has successfully removed every threat for the entire game, and leaves you with an empty board by the time you hit 6/7 mana, then they deserve to maintain that pressure.
Saurian Finality gains no momentum by itself, it only secures it. In a game as swingy as Duelyst, it’s fairly mild relative to other things you can accomplish. It’s just more apparent because it’s simpler to pull off than other combos or strats.
One the one hand, it completely gimps Mantra decks
On the other, it all but prevents other factions from playing anything above 7 mana.
The best answers from each faction are to put up a board that Magmar can’t remove. However, since Magamr just got Homeostatic rebuke, this is getting more and more difficult. The only sure-fire counters I can think of are: Ramp + Variax (or gate to the undervault) for Abyssian, Zendo For Songhai, and Cataclysmic fault for Vetruvian.
While it’s nice to have a combo disabler to counter Wall Vanar and Mantra Songhai, Sarurian Finality caught other decks wanting to play larger minions in the crossfire. Personally, here is how I would change it:
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Remove the attack buff and/or stun. Make it a pure stall card, don’t bundle in the fact that it is a finisher
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Change it to 8 mana. While this would fix it a little, this nerf would also hurt it’s use as an anti-combo card.
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Change it to: "at the start of your next turn, both players loose 3 mana crystals. This way, your opponent gets one extra high mana turn to react before the card does its thing.
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Complete rework.
You do know that Mantra directly counters Finality right?
Is it overpowered and meta warping? Absolutely. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Maybe not. Its no more meta warping then flawless/luminous, or mantra/gates. Both of which are still more toxic IMO. This card actually provides decent counterplay to those and helps check and balance them. Then we factor in the fact that every faction got some pretty insane stuff from the Xpac.
Its just to early to say what is and isnt a problem, give it time to settle, magmar may not be as overbearing as it seems at first, as there is good counterplay to it, and other very powerful decks.
Its been awhile since magmar has been at the top, certainly time for them to get some time in the spotlight. If they turn out to be to oppressive even after people tech vs them, which isnt hard to do, then yea they will probably need some small nerfs like a health reduction on lavalasher, and either a cost bump on finality or a small reduction on its numbers may be in order. Even if its the deck to beat, as long as it isnt by a large margin, its not an issue.
Oh and before the question gets asked yet again:
Countering Magmar:
Countering Magmar:
Have the strongest point of your curve below seven mana. Pack dispel for Vaath. Pack ping, and anything to buff your generals attack vs ragnora. Provoke can also go a long way to stoping various combos since all of magmars stuff is board oriented. The 4/5 stat line, which isn’t uncommon, dodges both plasma and Lavalasher. And anything that has more health then attk dodges rebuke, which is also a linear effect, so as always you shouldent be overextending vs the faction with the best AOE. You can also easily play around frenzy with diagonal placement.
Vet specifically:
Aymara and Mirage go a really long way. Aymaras job is to die so removal is irrelivant, and the provoke keeps combos from happening. The thunderhorn/lost in the dessert combo is really powerful and exceptionally rude to Magmar, Thunderhorn has the perfect stat line and hard counters Lavalasher, and lost is scary following up a thunderhorn.
Lightbender, Rashas, thunderhorn/lost (also good vs eggs), and Aymara should do well and is splashable into any deck, and prepares you for a whole host of matchups. Rest of the cards depends on what deck your playing.
First thing I did was play with finality, and since then I have been building decks to beat it and have a decent win rate vs it with my various adjustments. And yes that’s using general purpose tech that still leaves the decks prepared for any matchup.
Still an infinitely more toxic and more problematic card IMO.
Saurian’s isn’t about momentum, it’s about ending the game. You SMOrc face and ignore threats, and right when your opponent is on the verge of coming back, you lock them in place, heal enough that their threats don’t matter, buff your damage and basically guarantee next turn lethal. It has nothing to do with keeping the board clear or being ahead, simply if their health is low enough for Saurian’s to lock the victory.
So you’re saying it’s what doom wishes it was?
I just watched the melee. I didn’t realize finality would synergize with magesworn. The combo was so disgusting I almost lost my lunch xD
Great video as always.
Really like your point on how there are decks which can beat saurian mag, but doing so really cuts down of what you can actually run on ladder. I’d also add that certain factions are just locked out of competitive play because they don’t have a build which has a favored matchup against magmar (lyonar and abyss most notably), which is not great either.
Curious if anyone has archetypes favored against saurian midrange builds?
In my testing, I’ve only found the following:
- concealing shroud faie ft. bloodbound mentor (mu ~65/35)
-artifact songhai (mu ~85/15, much lower if they run emp)
-artifact sajj (55/45, though this could be much higher, as vet is one of my weaker factions)
Almost all the players I’ve talked to, including myself, would agree with you if Magmar didn’t also have a ton of busted cards to make sure you will never have a board. Natural Selection is one of the best single target removal spells in the game. Rebuke now handles anything Plasma Storm did not. Plasma Storm is still a silver bullet to many archetypes in the game. Lavaslasher completely shuts down any possibility of gaining tempo against Magmar. And Makantor is still Makantor.
Not to mention the other plain good cards they have to fill up the rest of their deck. Ragebinder, Armada, Decimus, Drogon, Young Silithar, etc. Assuming you’re up against Vaath, you also have to deal with his BBS clearing any low-HP minion automatically. They quite literally have the tools to dominate every stage of the game. Having a board against Magmar is the exception, not the rule. There are very, very, very few board states that can play against all of the removal spells currently in our Magmar-meta.
Finality just comes in for the final swing to make sure that there’s no way you can feasibly come back. It also conveniently shuts down aggro decks and (most) combo decks because it heals and reduces mana. Assuming the Magmar player even draws semi-decently, there is virtually nothing you can do to stop them. The only decks that seem to have a positive matchup are artifact decks, which are few and far between.
Really? I don’t know what magical Christmas land you have been living in, but Mantra definitely does not counter Finality. Unless the Mantra player gets quite lucky and pulls off an OTK before 6 mana, getting set back 3 mana and 10 health is pretty bad for Mantra decks.
Thanks! It’s still early on and over time we will adjust better to it, obviously. Biggest issue I think is that Duelyst tries to sell the faction loyalty card, but there are some things some factions just straight up can’t do, and depending on what the meta is that is very bad. Some people only have the time/gold to invest into one and ultimately that’s the people they need to cater to because them caring about faction pride is HUGE for the game, those are the people most likely to invest in merchandise/orbs imo. Its literally what keeps games like Pokemon GO still relatively active. #teaminstinct LOL
didn’t even think about that lol dear god. Reminds me of magesworn evolutionary apex combo as well …
This video was an excellent analysis, and if I weren’t so partial to your Surgeforger one I’d call it your best so far! The production quality is wonderful and you’ve chosen a great format that combines information and humor so very well.
I think your argument is very strong as well: Magmar puts you in a no-win catch-22 situation where no matter what you do you’re getting punished. We all complained about “No” Vanar and it led to at least some nerfs to that play style, but now we have “No” Magmar and it manages to somehow be even more depressing.
How do you propose maintaining a board against Magmar? I keep hearing this rejoinder but I don’t see any reliable way of actually doing it. People talk about how 4/5 statlines survive most control cards but then forget that Generals can attack. If you want your Minion to survive a Slasher or Makantor it doesn’t need 5 Health, it needs 7 (or 8 against Vaath). And if you position it away from the action you give up your pressure for a turn, allowing the Magmar player to play a second Rebuke or whatever else the next turn. “Deserve to maintain that pressure” implies that the Magmar ability to clear the board was down to a relevant amount of skill, but I’m not seeing it.
Does it? How?
Well obviously all you need to do is develop and keep two minions at any time, one with at least 8 Health and more than 3 Attack and the other with less Attack than your beater (which you also need to keep healthy if you want it to survive. Then hope the Magmar player doesn’t have a Natural Selection in hand alongside their other removal card. Brightmoss Golem meta? Or you just, you know, play Magmar and run the infinitely better Lavaslasher yourself. If only ArtiSajj were good enough against anything…
so ppl seeing the light now but when i called it everyone and their mother was against me… cool cool lol
Got to say bro - you were right all along