As the thread title states, I think it’s time we introduce a new type of taunt minion that specifically taunts spells. Other minions and hero direct attacks wouldn’t be forced to attack these, but all spells would get directed to them before being able to be directed elsewhere.
There needs to be a better way to counter OTK spell damage decks or just decks that run nothing but discover spell and all spell decks other than “get lucky with your draws and outrun them” because more than half the time that doesn’t work anyway.
Random targeted spells wouldn’t get affected by my idea, only spells that we choose the target so these new taunt minions wouldn’t gimp every single spell out there. Also in my idea they would only work for damaging spells, although I could see where it would be an interesting strategy to use a spell taunt minion to absorb or “steal” a healing spell or one that did something like gave a player armor, but again right now I feel like that would make them far too overpowered so I would leave it as simply damaging spells that they blocked.
I’m certain players with more experience and skill than myself could tweak this idea into something viable. What do you think?
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So a taunt minion that taunts or absorbs spells? Hmmm, I’m listening,…… the devs seem to be out of ideas. You’re hired!
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Grounding Totem wants to know your location.
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That’s basically what do the cards that grant minions/players “can’t be targeted by spell or hero powers”
If one minion protects the others from spells, it basically becomes a spell taunt
We’ve even had a more straightforward minions that is basically a spellbender
To name a few :
Robes of Protection
Spellward Jeweler
Kobold Monk
Red Herring
Sanctum Spellbender
I think the point is to protect your face, not your minions, though.
2 of the above protect your face, and there are a few more examples
I edited to add examples, maybe while you were replying
Either way it’s a tech card and we are already have cards like that to disrupt spells. The problem is when to play those cards in a deck? There’s not enough spell damage to face going on in standard right now to justify running anything to disrupt it.
Well, that’s not a reason not to have the tech card exist. The meta can flip in a single patch you know.
My point was that cards already exist to combat such an issue. Should design time be wasted on more of the same types of cards when they are already available?
I spit my drink out. Yes, let’s make comments on design time when referring to company that spends their work hours stealing breast milk out of the company fridge.
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Don’t we already have one? I think it was called…Bolf Ramshield or something. So it’s certainly “in the game” already, and has been for a long time. I guess for whatever reason or another they didn’t like such an effect.
The card was actually quite bad
More like a 6 mana 0/9 not even with taunt as you could hit the other minions with whatever you’d want. If you had enough damage you could just go face to kill it without having to trade, unlike the other options that existed before and after
A Shame I forgot Malganis
It was quite bad. However, it was also a card which prevented 9+ of any damage against the hero. The cards you are talking about are less what OP is asking/looking for.
I actually don’t mind the idea of a “Spell Taunt” where all spell damage will be directed to that taunt minion.
Not sure how powerful it would be though as cheap spells are pretty common and I don’t like the idea of being able to get a divine shield on one at all.
Bit worried that this wouldn’t be used by control to counter OTK, rather that it would be used by aggro to protect minions that they want to buff or have some massive value, which is slightly worrying.
Disruption is sort of a double edged sword. I mean everyone knows how to counter odin warrior/sif mage… the problem is rat/theotar usually miss
I mean they could add a ‘the next damage attack from the enemy hero reflects back’ as well to counter something like Odyn. But then if you add too many disruptive cards you run the risk of no one being able to play anything because everything is too easily disrupted or everyone just running disruptive cards regardless of the deck (see 4 mana theotar)
A better answer would be they stop printing so many one dimensional decks/cards so disruption becomes a fringe stall tactic rather than a win condition in itself.
Unless it got removed by a stronger effect, just like any 3/9 would suffer its shadow word pain at the time
The cards I’m talking about are exactly what OP is talking about ._.
The only thing is that we never got a card that protected both your hero and your minions at the same time. And even that is debatable as my list wasn’t exhaustive and I have other cards in mind
Half the cards I mentionned directly protect your hero from spells. For one of them you have to skip a turn, for the other 2 you have to kill a minion before
The other half protects all your other minions from spells, you have to kill a specific minion before dealing with the rest with spells
Regarding what OP was talking about I pointed out that we’ve already had such cards in the game in various ways, and we already have a glimps of what their power level is
Better, we can have trap minions on hand activated when the opponent target you for a spell, the card is revealed to him, discarded and the spell hit him instead.
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There’s already a spell taunt minion, Sanctum Spellbender and its in Standard right now
I don’t own that card which is probably why I overlooked it lol
That said, that card is close* to what I’m asking for, but not quite as it protects specifically minions whereas I’m asking for a couple cards that would also protect heroes or only protect heroes even from face damage. I do see where it could become too much of a disruption though and make the game worse before it made it better.
It was just an idea, albeit a bit of a flawed one I suppose. A legendary minion with the text of say, “counters all enemy spellcasts not directed at this minion” would be a neat tech card though. Similar to the above card (Sanctum Spellbender), but one that protected not just minions, but also heroes and would also negate buffing spells as well.
I had another really stupid idea earlier after losing a game to a guy who discovered about 10 straight perfect answers to everything I did was to create a card, in a similar vein to the old Alexstraza (I think it was, I originally quit playing this game just before the Gadget xpac before coming back a little over a month ago) that either healed or reduced health by 15. I was thinking a card that reduced your health to 15, but didn’t allow anymore cards to be discovered that game. I would have that card be mid cost (4 to 6) attached to a not very threatening body so that it wouldn’t be likely to also stick to the board for a couple turns. Also feel like playing in early/mid game gives the player a little bit of time to recover from losing half their health.
That is probably too techy of a card though and maybe even too strong as the few decks that rely on discover would just be instantly gimped. Perhaps a stickier bodied minion that acted a bit as a “discover counter” with text that read something like “cards cannot be discovered while this minion is alive” would be better. Then it would affect both players and could also be dealt with by silencing or killing it.
There’s also already a minion that makes your hero un-targetable by spells in Wild it’s called Kobold Monk. It never saw play, neither does Sanctum Spellbender. There’s actually a lot of cards that do basically that same thing like redirecting damage your hero takes to the minion, or cards like Loatheb that make enemy spell cost 5 more next turn.