Shaman

[Chapuz]

People were saying that Shaman deserves a nerf for being OP/having too few counters with Mitosis.

I like Shaman as a stall, it's good enough to be viable. If it had a nerf to make it less overwhelming, then the only I would choose would be setting it to 2 HP so it has mass CC as an extra weakness.

Thoughts?

[serprex]

[17:54] serprex: I'm up for having a discussion on Shaman, but it'd be better to discuss it on http://etg.dek.im/forum/index.php?board=5.0 & bring deck codes, also define whether we're talking PvE op (bring stats showing >3 ouei) or PvP (this'll involve showing how Shaman makes the meta "counter Shaman or play Shaman or lose" where worst case the best "counter Shaman" deck involves playing Shaman)

[17:55] serprex: Going forward we need to come up with a process to determine patchsets, we stopped making patchsets but that's what we need to get back into. Until then no card changes will be made: oetg's meta is so unexplored we'd be taking shots in the dark

D2D thinks -3 attack. eaglgenes101 hinted at removing double strike

I'm withholding opinion, it was already nerfed in earlier testing by making the ability not be passive

I'd like card design to be owned more by the community, but first we need to have a community, & one that is willing to argue with data & deck codes, not prose

While I won't be doing anything with Shaman in the immediate future, getting thoughts written down here may be useful for future decision making

Just because a card impacts the meta doesn't make it op

[serprex]

So I'll try do some legwork on this debate

Let's assume Shaman is okay in a vacuum. Let's focus on Shaman/Mitosis. These two synergize well because Mitosis wants to slow down the game so it can gain card advantage & Shaman's the creature that slows down the game more than any other

In that case, we're talking about a 6 health Shaman. This is immune to most damage CC outside of Rage Elixir. So an argument would need to be made that Shaman puts too much pressure on the opponent to have a 2-for-2 response. An argument for a 4|3 Shaman is an argument that mitoshaman pushes Lightning out of the meta & leaves only damageless CC as viable options

[eaglgenes101]

Single-target CC can take out the key shaman generators, but the problem still remains of the multitudes of shamans still healing.

I think this sounds like an upkeep cost would be an appropriate nerf.

[serprex]

Or maybe grabbows need to learn that 2 copies of Lightning is to edge out rush mirrors, not disrupt combos. Bring back Mind Flayer. Mind Flayer shuts down the mitoshaman & can move on to the rest afterwards

[serprex]

So it turns out I thought Mitosis still gave 0|2 buff, but it's only 0|1, so an unupped mitoshaman dies to Lightning