Flamewreathed Faceless

[KOMO1211]

turn 4 fireguard destroyer
rng says i cant clear it on my turn 4
turn 5 faceless
my turn 5 i now maybe have drawn my sheep or flame lance etc who to kill? either way have probably lost the match. sure when i have both in hand its great.
if you want to argue sure his turn 6 is weak but as others have said the damage is done.

[Raiju]

It's overbudget, plain and simple. Even in the original incarnation of overload this card would be considered overbudget - but now shaman has fast scaling with overloads, a fast minion unlocker and an acceptable spell unlocker.

It's not "his turn 5 is weak" it's "his turn 5 might be weak"

[Sarevokcz]

I'd actually argue that shamans needed the evolve cards that they got and not this card, but to each their own. Midrange shaman has been out of the consistently competitive meta scene longer than the smorc shaman from last season, and the evolve cards would have produced more midrange shaman decks that were used to hit legend if flamewreathed faceless hadn't been introduced to produce the current aggro deck with the best win ratio for quick games.

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Some of your removal examples also assume best case scenarios. For example, the mage could fireball it, but the faceless still has one health left so you need your own minions to ram into it after (essentially 2-1) because you won't be able to FB + ping until turn 6 or later. Ramming minions into it after the fireball also doesn't always work because what if they have a trogg that is at an already dangerously high attack & that needs trading more than the faceless, or if they have been controlling the early game with removal with smorcing you up with troggs, or have their own taunt totem?

Freezing Trap will also never happen because you're almost never going to run into a smorc shaman that needs to drop a faceless onto a an empty board & then have the faceless run into the trap on the next turn. They're simply play around the trap with a smaller minion.

whats your point? if people can come up with perfect curve shamans with ideal cards, why cant other people come up with perfect, COMMON, counters? heres the tip, start teching and mulligan properly against shaman, because unlike some classes like warlock, teching and mulligan against shaman is still way easier..

[ldev]

paladin: can equality it, has 4-5 cards to change it to 1 attack

Which 5 cards?

[Raiju]

Which 5 cards?

Well you got 2 copies of peacekeaper and humility, eadric makes 5 /s

[Deleted]

This card makes Shaman a viable arena class. It's a class common from WOG, which is a big deal for drafting - you'll see plenty of those.

Arena is based primarily on tempo and minion combat, thus an early big dude often wins the game, by knocking out their 4-drop and possibly 5-drop (or smashing face for 7)
Paladins can still Uldaman or Aldor it, mages can still Poly it... but overall, Shamans will have way more Flamewretched's than they have removals or neutralizers.

This card is good on turn 4 and remains good forever. Later in the game it's even better, as you can play this + another big dude, overload doesn't matter at that point.

[Mystile]

Trogg on turn 1, Golem on turn 2, play a flametongue on 3 and the 7/7 on 4 creating a board with very strong minions which are difficult to deal with. Sure, I've won a few times. Especially when I get a SW : P, SW: D and an early taunt (Wyrmrest Agent for example).

The issue is you're playing dragon priest. That deck is just bad in standard.

[Socialhealer]

bitches are too used to how blizzard make shamans in their game, fucking worthless.

now shaman is good, it's like a slap in the face you can lose to such a bad 2nd rate class.

here's to hoping the same happens in wow, please make shamans good again!

[Pantalaimon]

whats your point? if people can come up with perfect curve shamans with ideal cards, why cant other people come up with perfect, COMMON, counters? heres the tip, start teching and mulligan properly against shaman, because unlike some classes like warlock, teching and mulligan against shaman is still way easier..

The point is that those common counters will often force a player to make a bad play against the aggro player by comitting nothing to their board (which is desperately needed to trade against shaman minions) because they have to use that whole crucial 4 or 5 turn just to neutralize the faceless. Whoop de do you took out their 7 drop, but you now may have lost the game because you more or less gave the shaman another free wave of damage from those boosted troggs or flametongue affected minions on the next turn. Counters against faceless only hurts the shaman if you already have a good enough established board to then clear those other glass cannons, but often times the shaman usually wins either way because you take 7+ damage to the face or waste an important turn using all of your mana on one minion when you need to be dropping stuff on the board.

The only exception are paladins who can summon a 3/3 body & neutralize the faceless. All other classes have to forego board setup for their spell counters.

[Deleted]

whats your point? if people can come up with perfect curve shamans with ideal cards, why cant other people come up with perfect, COMMON, counters?

Indeed the listed counters are so "perfect" that some cannot even be played on the same turn as the faceless. Like is the case with entomb. Some of the listed items are also just downright bad. Like listing taunts, as if they were anything against any aggro deck, ever. The only taunt worth anything is no longer in standard and even it was regularly hexed or silenced.

[Sarevokcz]

The point is that those common counters will often force a player to make a bad play against the aggro player by comitting nothing to their board (which is desperately needed to trade against shaman minions) because they have to use that whole crucial 4 or 5 turn just to neutralize the faceless. Whoop de do you took out their 7 drop, but you now may have lost the game because you more or less gave the shaman another free wave of damage from those boosted troggs or flametongue affected minions on the next turn. Counters against faceless only hurts the shaman if you already have a good enough established board to then clear those other glass cannons, but often times the shaman usually wins either way because you take 7+ damage to the face or waste an important turn using all of your mana on one minion when you need to be dropping stuff on the board.

The only exception are paladins who can summon a 3/3 body & neutralize the faceless. All other classes have to forego board setup for their spell counters.

and what the hell were you doing first three turns? shaman cant play troggs and totem golems, do serious face damage AND remove your minions AND not overload for t4 flamewreathed, literally the only really scary opening is coin double trogg into totem golem and you not having any t1 ad t2 play at all, which is either your mulligan or your deck problem, but those dont really happen that often anyway, about as much as double mechwarper opening in the mechmage glory days. nowadays ideal tempo mage or zoolock openers are far more scary tbh, shaman ideal opener just requires one big removal instead of flexible small ones...

[Jester Joe]

That is a perfect scenario with perfect draw, assuming your opponent has nothing to counter it.

Let's see:
paladin: can equality it, has 4-5 cards to change it to 1 attack

More like 2, no one runs Humility as a single card (For obvious reasons), Aldor and Keeper are really the only answers. You can hardly include Eadric, since he's a legendary, and a 7 drop, so you really shouldn't have to invest that much into killing a common 4 drop.

priest: shadow word death, entomb, ...

Entomb is 6 mana, so yet again, chances are it's lasting another turn past playing it and the damage is done already.

warlock: they have plenty of ways to gain tempo as is

So it's fine to have no answer to a card?

hunter: freezing trap, mark, ...

Freezing trap can be played around.

rogue: sap, 0 cost spells, ...

Sap yes, but 0 cost spells? Backstab isn't really going anywhere on a 7/7. There's not really a 0 cost spell combo that can kill it without investing either too much, or needing additional spell damage.

mage: fireball costs 4 mana ..., and not even going to mention freeze mage.

Fireball, as pointed out, does not kill it. Sucks if they happen to get a healing totem from their hero power next turn that it's still alive.

[Damajin]

I don't mind it for the moment, though it really has made it so I have to get a SW: Death early when playing Priest. Shaman has been shit for awhile now so it's good that it's getting a boost from cards like this. Hopefully there'll be some kind of answer to it coming in the next set whenever that drops because I'm starting to see less Evolve Shaman and more Good Stuff(MtG reference) Shaman where you just load up on all the best cards on curve and blow people up before they've got a chance to do much. Good Stuff Shaman will end up being the next Secret Pally if it's not kept in check by something.

[Deleted]

This card makes Shaman a viable arena class. It's a class common from WOG, which is a big deal for drafting - you'll see plenty of those.

Arena is based primarily on tempo and minion combat, thus an early big dude often wins the game, by knocking out their 4-drop and possibly 5-drop (or smashing face for 7)
Paladins can still Uldaman or Aldor it, mages can still Poly it... but overall, Shamans will have way more Flamewretched's than they have removals or neutralizers.

This card is good on turn 4 and remains good forever. Later in the game it's even better, as you can play this + another big dude, overload doesn't matter at that point.

The problem here is that there are other classes except Paladin/Mage/Rogue in the Arena, and they struggle hard against a 2 mana 3/4 and a 4 mana 7/7.

[Deleted]

The problem here is that there are other classes except Paladin/Mage/Rogue in the Arena, and they struggle hard against a 2 mana 3/4 and a 4 mana 7/7.

Ye I know. But since TGT those three classes are dominant in arena. I play a lot of arena games and 80% of my opponents play mage, paladin or rogue. Above 5 wins this becomes nearly 100%, with occasional other class. If you see a priest, hunter or druid above 5-7 wins, be prepared to face a crazy good deck.

WOG made shaman just a little bit better. It almost competes with the top trio. I'd still pick one of those three classes over shaman tho. More consistency.

[zenga]

More like 2, no one runs Humility as a single card (For obvious reasons), Aldor and Keeper are really the only answers. You can hardly include Eadric, since he's a legendary, and a 7 drop, so you really shouldn't have to invest that much into killing a common 4 drop.

'No one runs x' is a silly argument when you talk about balance (btw: humility has been played in tournaments and among legend players in e.g. n'zoth paladin).

So it's fine to have no answer to a card?

Yes it's absolutely fine to not have a direct answer in a 1/1 scenario. Or do you think that every class in the game should have a direct answer to every other card in the game? There are plenty of ways for a warlock to stall/gain tempo on the turn the opponent plays a 7/7.

Entomb is 6 mana, so yet again, chances are it's lasting another turn past playing it and the damage is done already.
Freezing trap can be played around.
Sap yes, but 0 cost spells? Backstab isn't really going anywhere on a 7/7. There's not really a 0 cost spell combo that can kill it without investing either too much, or needing additional spell damage.
Fireball, as pointed out, does not kill it. Sucks if they happen to get a healing totem from their hero power next turn that it's still alive.

It's the way hearthstone works, you don't have to have the final answer on the same turn your opponent plays a threat. Do I really need to explain that backstab is an enabler for eviscerate and that you have a weapon charge to kill it off, it's not like there are no turns before turn 4 and that the board state shouldn't be factored in? Arguing that entomb isn't a direct counter to a FF is silly as well, since Priest has shadow word death and that definitely plays a role into when a shaman plays FF (even if the priest doesn't gave swd in hands, coin+entomb works 1 turn later, and 7 dmg to face isn't the end of the world for a priest).

I'm not sure why you are singling out certain cards if you know that a turn is far more complex than just comparing cards 1 to 1.

[Deleted]

'No one runs x' is a silly argument when you talk about balance (btw: humility has been played in tournaments and among legend players in e.g. n'zoth paladin).

Actually no, it is not silly at all. It's no different from people crying about priests, first in vanilla for mind control, and later because of entomb. Yeah, priests have a lot of removal but the simple fact is no deck is competitively viable running all those cards at the same time.

I'm not sure why you are singling out certain cards...

Because you are listing cards as counters to a card that they could not conceivably counter on T4. Seriously... entomb counters a Flamewreathed Faceless? Sure, on T6 maybe. Yay... What about fireball? Nope, still falling short.

I can tell ideas are running short when you get to listing freeze mage as a counter to one card

[Mormolyce]

The card presents a problem for decks with low board presence and lack of removal. I presume that's its actual intention in fact.

It's overbudget, plain and simple. Even in the original incarnation of overload this card would be considered overbudget - but now shaman has fast scaling with overloads, a fast minion unlocker and an acceptable spell unlocker.

It's not "his turn 5 is weak" it's "his turn 5 might be weak"

If it was Overload(3) it'd be an overloaded War Golem. But really, being Overload(2) vs Overload(3) isn't going to make much difference. So... eh.

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So it's fine to have no answer to a card?

Surely Warlocks have the least trouble. You're either Zoo in which case you just remove it with your board (plus abusives, PO etc) or taunt up and deal with it later, or you're Hand (if anyone still plays that) in which case you have hard removal out the ass.

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priest: shadow word death, entomb, ...

You'd have to be pretty fucking desperate to entomb that thing :P

[Raiju]

If it was Overload(3) it'd be an overloaded War Golem. But really, being Overload(2) vs Overload(3) isn't going to make much difference.

Overload 3 would completely negate turn 3+ coin play into sentinel/lava shock next turn, and yes overloads used to be generally as badly priced as war golem - see Earth Elemental, see Lava burst, see forked lightning.

So while it wouldn't be a gamechanger, it'd near completely stop a shaman for a turn if they coin it out early - or force them to play it a turn later. That being said I'd prefer it's health being lower, so as a turn 4 drop it's more manageable.

There's also little else to entomb in an aggro shaman, so it's generally the go-to target. Midrange you have more options, but then its still not terrible.

[Jester Joe]

'No one runs x' is a silly argument when you talk about balance (btw: humility has been played in tournaments and among legend players in e.g. n'zoth paladin).

It isn't if you claim that paladins have 5 answers to something if they're only running one in a deck and have no reason to run anymore.
Unless you're telling me this paladin deck runs Humility, Aldor, Keeper, and Eadric all in one deck?

Yes it's absolutely fine to not have a direct answer in a 1/1 scenario. Or do you think that every class in the game should have a direct answer to every other card in the game? There are plenty of ways for a warlock to stall/gain tempo on the turn the opponent plays a 7/7.

I didn't say direct answer, I said no answer. And you're also ignoring the part of shamans having more than enough ways to clear the board or to keep tempo themselves.

It's the way hearthstone works, you don't have to have the final answer on the same turn your opponent plays a threat. Do I really need to explain that backstab is an enabler for eviscerate and that you have a weapon charge to kill it off, it's not like there are no turns before turn 4 and that the board state shouldn't be factored in?

Maybe I'm playing the wrong game, but yeah, you kinda do usually need the answer right away in Hearthstone under a lot of situations. It's a fast (which I ironically accidentally typed Face) paced game, and a win is often down to whether or not you can kill something that turn or not.

Backstab+eviscerate+weapon isn't a zero mana spell, that's 3 things and 7 damage to face to answer one card that cost 4 mana.

Arguing that entomb isn't a direct counter to a FF is silly as well, since Priest has shadow word death and that definitely plays a role into when a shaman plays FF (even if the priest doesn't gave swd in hands, coin+entomb works 1 turn later, and 7 dmg to face isn't the end of the world for a priest).

Entomb isn't a direct counter in this case, you're trying to justify Entomb as a counter because priest also have SW: D? And no, 7 damage to face isn't the end of the world for priest. It's also not nearly the only thing Flamewreathed can do.

I'm not sure why you are singling out certain cards if you know that a turn is far more complex than just comparing cards 1 to 1.

Because like said, you gave 1 to 1 card comparisons as answers.

Surely Warlocks have the least trouble. You're either Zoo in which case you just remove it with your board (plus abusives, PO etc) or taunt up and deal with it later, or you're Hand (if anyone still plays that) in which case you have hard removal out the ass.

Handlock would be fine, yes.

Zoo though? Pretty sure trading your board you set up to that point is kinda bad for them, especially against a shaman who's just gonna be able to hold control from there (Not mention play probably another 7/7 shortly after).