I don’t understand why orb is hard run.
Isn’t it much better to store it in etc? It would reduce lost games vs aggro where you can’t get skyla combo to hit tsunami. Orb tainting your otherwise good hand will happen quite often. When you need orb it will be in a slower match up, so you have plenty of time to drop etc.
You lose more games making orb hidden behind a 4 Mana play you won’t have time for than you’ll lose because you “ruin” a Skyla.
That’s why hiding orb in regular big spell mage didn’t make the deck better.
This deck is a value deck, it doesn’t really matter much if you lose a turn 5 tsunami if it sets up a free orb after your turn 6 or 7 Tsunami.
And you still have king tide to play any 10 Mana tsunami you draw.
The ETC is just a bad card to compensate for a rare event that often isn’t even game losing.
Ive run into at least a handful of aggro games where I lost because skyla hit the orb instead of a tsunami, especially because watercolor reduces mana cost per turn.
It’s game losing in aggro mu but etc is not in slower mu.
I often don’t even aim for Skyla in aggro matchups. Heat wave and star power carry there until watercolor discounts enough.
It does happen, but I’ve also won an equal number of games because orb isn’t in etc and I can fetch it with a discovered stargazing.
To kind of put it in perspective here…
Let’s say aggro matchups are 50% of your matchups
50% of the time, they are threatening lethal by turn 5
Because you are in the 30% or so games that you don’t draw heat waves, or star powers, and glyphs don’t offer anything good
And the 80% of the time or so that you haven’t also drawn king tide by turn 4
And you’ve drawn a 10 cost tsunami without discounting it by watercolor (lets estimate 33% of the time)
And you’ve drawn Skyla by then (estimate 20%)
And Skyla fails the coin flip 50%
…
(.5 x .5 x .3 x .8 x .33 x .2 x .5) X 100 = .2% off your win rate because of Skyla losing you aggro matchups (because EVERYTHING needs to go wrong in order for her to be that much of an emergency).
And this doesn’t even account for the fact that if you are in that bad of a situation, tsunami often enough just won’t save you from lethal due to bad hits, or not clearing enough.
Comparing that to needing to play ETC in EVERY game in order to have orb.
The ETC does save you some rage moments, but statistically it messes with you more than the occasional Skyla mishaps will, and climbing is more about long term win rates rather than individual games.
If it makes you feel better to hide orb in an ETC, go for it. Just be aware that it’ll probably be costing you more games than winning them for you. It’ll just be less visible than the “of course Skyla messed up!” Moments.
Edit: new peak rank of 83rd legend with this list, but did swap Norg with griftah this morning.
This. If you’re playing against aggro, Skyla might not even be the play. I’m trying to hit Star Power. I just don’t really get to play Skyla all that much.
Let me know if you try my new version out from last night. I’m out for the next 3 days and would like feedback if you play it in casual or something.
Well it looks like you guys do understand how powerful conman replaying cards you play in your deck is even though you tried to downplay its power just the other day xD
This is the same point i was making… conman immediately following up the big spells is what wins games for the deck
Yes, but cards are allowed to be powerful.
Orb on its own does like 22 face damage and builds a board, before Conman I was duplicating it with pupil.
The game warping part us when you get to play a 10 cost card for 9, then conman repeats it. That’s not conman’s fault.
Skyla would be op without Conman. Conman isn’t up without Skyla
Conman is how the deck wins games.
It is not comparable to pupil because pupil requires you to spend the mana on the spell
This is the difference between conman and something like pupil… pupil requires a set up turn in between the big spell and repeating it. Conman does not require this, it does it immediately the next turn. That is a huge difference in power
Conman also leaves you with mana to work with
You even said vs control that it didnt matter if you lost skyla or king tide… you were more concerned with losing conman, because the conman follow-up to a big spell is your win con
Cards can be powerful, but conman should not be as powerful as it is in mage and Pali
Only after something discounts the repeated card to be happening too early. Replaying a second tsunami on turn 11 is basically not even noteworthy much of the time.
Skyla alone is back breaking. Conman just makes it irrecoverable.
If I lost Conman, I just go back to pupils and make the deck slower like I was doing before the mini set.
That is the issue i have with the card. It should not close out 99% of the games when it is played.
When it comes out on turn 5 or 6 and destroys any chance you have of winning, that is too powerful for a 4 drop tempo card
Now that people are using it on orb too, it is a late-game finisher as well which does not sit well with me
Yeah, but breaking the Mana cheat also fixes that problem entirely without destroying the more interesting card.
It’s not interesting. It is just broken the way it functions in Mage right now. It should not function that way.
Cards like pupil require much more set up to benifit off of them and also require an extra set up turn
If you play conman to repeat a big spell early it ends the game. If you repeat an orb late game, it ends the game. That is a frustrating play pattern it is not an interesting one
It should not repeat spells included in your deck. Its just too abusable
I don’t think replaying your last card for 4 Mana is particularly broken.
Tess replays a giant number of cards at 6 and is fine.
If rogue had a way to get to cast a 0 or 5 Mana tsunami regularly on turn 5, Conman would also look broken in rogue.
The issue is the getting the expensive card fast, not the thing that repeats the play.
The broken card too early is terrible design alone, and it is amplified by Conman, but that doesn’t make Conman THE problem.
Unless it’s armor. In which case yes you are losing health. I don’t think the cad is necessary in the deck regardless.
The conman follow up punishes people who play well against the deck
Say you play well into their initial spell cheat. You should be rewarded by mage having to take a relatively slow turn allowing you to regain initiative. If they have conman in hand to follow it up you are punished regardless of what you did and it is very unlikely you will ever gain initiative again that game
If you withstand an orb play and are able to clean up the board and set up your own 2 turn lethal… oh wait they have conman the game is over no matter what you do
Conman is anti-agency the way it functions in mage. You understand how powerful it is by the statements i quoted you saying before you felt you had to defend the card against me
Also tess is 7 mana and requires a lot more mama investment to discover cards to play with it from other classes not cards you already play in your deck (without spending even more mana to get and play a hero card)
How did I miss this thread until just now?
I have not played Smeet’s list, but my own list has a lot in common with his. I am sure his list very good, and I am not saying my list is better, but I do not find myself facing a lot of aggro between Bronze and Legend, so I don’t see the need to heavily stack against aggro. That’s what I like about BSM, it’s so adjustable to deal with one mostly encounters on the Ladder.
/agreed
My list runs nine 2-drops, making it likely that I will get a coin from playing Greedy Partner in the early game.
I run 2x Audio Splitter in my deck, because they enable Greedy Partner, and I often get great value from getting a copy of high cost spell or even Star Power. Between cards like Audio Spitter, Conniving Conman, and Orb, I have had matches where Star Power, Tsunami or Orbs have been cast like 5 times.
I have experimented with soooo many different cards in BSM, including cards like GorgonZormu and Observer of Mysteries, but I have yet to try Skeet or Griftah in BSM.
I currently run one Reverberations to deal with Titans or some of the big health taunts that some classes use, but I do not run Norgannan, because it feels like a “win more” card to me. I prefer to run Puzzlemaster Khadgar instead, because if my deck is struggling to set up its combos, I need a card to help buy me some time. I imagine Skeet can be of similar use.
Ya, I have to constantly remind myself that if I coin Kalecgos out then I won’t get to play a zero cost spell. Although some classes do not have an easy way of dealing with an early Kalecgos (from either coins or Sea Shill), which sets one up for a powerful next turn or two.
I started with DJ in my deck, and I ended up cutting it for this reason. Also, the version that I was running at the time had too many other 9-drops, like Yogg-Saron and Zilliax.
I think I prefer a deck list without Sea Shill, but I have waffled on this. I am playing a BSM deck on a second server right now and I do not want to craft another card, so I am filling in a hole with Sea Shill and it’s fine for now.
Ya, it happens, but I believe the inclusion of Orb causes more wins than losses. I am truly shocked though about how many games where I have three orbs, because of Audio Splitter, without having played a big spell yet, that I end up winning anyways. I guess that scenario died not always result in an automatic loss for the deck.
I agree, I find putting Orb into ETC to be an awkward solution, because it tends make for a weak turn, which results in a loss of momentum or pressure, and losing access to Dirty Rat vs. a control deck can be devastating.
From what I’ve seen, norgannon is played as a better version of neophyte on turn 4-5 to prevent turn 5 play (you use "enemy spells cost 1 more next turn)
From then on, it’s a ticking time bomb, which needs to somehow get focused down ASAP or it will deal 15 dmg face potentially
it’s a great highroll card in mirror matchups
Definitely not used to close out games - it’s used to bring you tempo advantage
Griftah appears to be a slight mistake, but Skeet is one of the MVP-s for stalling
I don’t see lists with reverb. Now, here is where my lack of experience of actually playing the deck might show, but I think the point of the deck is to play your “I win” cards first, so they have to defend, rather than the other way around
And if push DOES come to shove, Star Power can clear Amitus and others easily
As for the rest, without offense, but your ideas are cope xD
Audio Splitter is too slow, and too unneccesary, your deck doesn’t lack value, it lacks tempo
Greedy partner is a less consistent way of gaining coins - weapon does that better, which is why lists without it can exist
And yeah, when it comes to Orb vs no Orb, it boils down to: tempo vs control/value archetype
BSM and Smeet’s deck aren’t the same deck. They’re like aggro vs tempo Shopper DH, or like Tempo vs Concierge Druid - they both use the same core package but their playstyles and win cons differ a lot; both have advantages and disadvantages, but in overall, the slower deck shoud prevail in the long run, as it has more value.
Now, I might be off-base, this is just what I got from specting Smeet in top 100.
But I think it’s not.
I kill more people with Norgannon than I do Orb. Probably by twice the amount.
An early Norgannon is devastating, and if you can Conman it or reverb it with a discover it’s game over.
In my last 30 games, I’ve been able to kill 2 opponents with a 20 damage Norgannon and I’ve killed 5 total with him via other methods.
You guys clearly know how often conman ends games but love to downplay its importance to the deck if anyone points out that its an outlier in power level when played in Mage
Its even anti agency for mage players. There is objectively no better play after playing a big spell than conman. The only instance this isnt the case is if you can play another big spell and then conman the next turn xD
Thst makes the games pretty repetitive and lowers the impact of your decision making even as a pilot of the deck
So many times in this thread you guys have the awareness to see conman ending games when its played, but when i bring it up you try to downplay its effectiveness to do so