Is it just me or is that card a much worse version of Lightning Storm outside of a few edge cases? It overloads for either the same or more most of the time and whiffs as soon as it hits a 4-health minion. Even Chain Lightning is better. To add insult to injury it isn’t even a nature spell so it loses the synergies Blizzard has been trying so hard to push.
I could see its use if it was “Deal 3 damage to an enemy minion. If it dies, recast this on a random enemy minion”. In other words: the first target not being random. But random from the start? Yikes.
Its better than Lightning Storm if you play it on turns 1/2 to clear some early aggro minions. It doesn’t seem amazing to me, but with any spell damage it is very effective as a board clear. And because its cheaper, you can play more spell damage minions with it.
The following turn you can even cast another one, because it is so cheap when you initially play it.
This can be played in conjunction with other things, whereas on turn 3 or 4 Lightning Storm may be the only thing you have mana to play.
You pay for it by getting Overloaded hard in some cases, but it puts initiative back in your hands.
What you wrote is also longer and didn’t include Overload (1) part. Too much text is also a limiting part of card design.
depends.
it’s much better than storm in the sense that you can do more things in the same turn you play this, so you can develop your own threats or soften up a threat to the range before this and etc. With storm you are more limited.
So basically, it’s better in the turn you play it and worse in the next turn.
that said, since it is an actual “recast this spell” as opposed to it being 1 spell, i’m not sure how it will behave vs deathrattles spawning stuff. If this recasts after spawns (like defile as an example which is also a recast) then it’s better vs Sticky boards as well, as it will clear the initial minions and then clear the produced tokens as well, whereas storm will leave the tokens unaffected.
This card looks good: 3 damage is usually high enough to clear an aggro board.
I don’t know if the drawback of having a lot of overload will be huge, but this on turn 1 against a token druid who has a full board of 2/2… can’t wait to see the insta concede!
Maybe they will add more overload synergy (like the elemental that they change it) and this card will become really good.
for now it’s not that bad, nor needed. Shaman didn’t need more control tools (for sure, it needed something else)
Yeah, I meant with the Overload 1 of course (without it’d be broken). Just wrote the edited part to give an idea of how the text could look like.
what is this ‘recast’ havent see this text before , what if I had a Gadgetzan Auctioneer on board . Draw multiple?
recast has been done before: Defile
if i remember correctly, Auctioneer only draws 1 from defile.
but also, deathrattles do trigger in between defile procs (that made it such an excellent clear)
so, going by that, Flame should be also be cleaning up the tokens left from deathrattles it kills.
will it overload for each recast ?
my understanding is that the whole text repeats, and overload is text, so yes.
That was another question I had. Why did this change? Was there some sort of broken combination caused by the old wording?
Auctioneer triggers when you cast a spell. In cases like this it’s the spell casting a spell. So just one draw.
Thanks! I’d missed that interaction.
Just analyzing the numbers…
On a single target, there is an argument to use it over lightning bolt since that means you can save bolt for face burn.
On 2 targets, this is better than lightning storm since you only spend 1 mana while overload is the same. It’s better than the old forked lightning in wild as it does more damage. Go power creep.
On 3 or more targets lightning storm overloads you for less. You would need a specific reason to want to overload yourself more (basically unstable elemental and that’s it in standard)
I would keep an eye on this card over the next two expansions if they add overload support.
Unstable Elemental only gets one buff from Perpetual Flame, no matter how many targets it hits. (Unstable Elemental procs from playing overload cards, and you only play Flame once, no matter how many times it recasts.)
The biggest advantage that Perpetual Flame will likely have over Lightning Storm is flexibility. Flame is potentially good both against small numbers of targets and large numbers, while Lightning Storm only shines against wide boards. So, while Lightning Storm is more efficient against wide boards, it is not as widely usable as Flame may end up being.
Absolutely. This could be busted if they print something that scales with how much you’re overloaded (and is cheap enough to actually play). Something like cram session: 2 mana, draw 1, improves with overload.
You still pay just 1 mana to clear their board, letting you play 2 mana worth of stuff this turn more than Lightning Storm would. You can also play it alongside 8 or 9 mana cards without relying on Lightning Bloom or The Coin.
and, if it works like defile, it also cleans up deathrattle tokens.