Are frost giants going to be auto include in every deck?

[Simulacrum]

The brawl is not representative of a realistic scenario. The hunter deck is extremely weak and slow, which allows you to get away with doing low-tempo crap like spamming your hero power.

Against a real deck, you're going to be playing an opponent that likely spends all their mana every turn (and not on stupid crap like lock and load followed by half a dozen traps or pinning shot), against whom you can't use your hero power or you will simply lose unless you're lucky enough to draw the perfect answer to their minions by turn 4. Even as a midrange or control paladin, an extremely strong board-control deck that already massively benefits from spamming its hero power, you almost never want to use your hero power until turns 7+. Thing is, using your hero power is a massive tempo loss relative to spending 2 mana on a card, and if you've used your hero power 4-6 times while your opponent spent that 8-12 mana on playing actual cards instead, you've probably already lost the game even if you get that discount giant, that's been sitting in your hand all game leading up to that point, being a dead card instead of something you could actually play to win the board back before it was too late.

Problem with frost giants, as with all giants, is that they're conditional, and when their conditions aren't met they're dead cards in your hand; they may as well have a card text that says "when drawn, discard this card" on them. What makes frost giants extra bad is that you actively have to set up the condition that makes them playable, giving up tempo to spam your hero power. Y'know, you don't give up tempo to play sea giant, nor do you have to pay mana to lose health to be able to play moltens, and you don't run mountain giants unless you're playing a deck that already relies on holding tons of answers to make them cheap enough to play.

But who wants to spam their hero power? Maybe you want to spam it in the mid-lategame when you have some inspire card out and maybe have played your justicar, but that's way too late to start enabling your frost giant that's been sitting in your hand all game as a dead card costing 10 mana because you haven't had the time to use your hero power so far since you've needed to play actual cards to keep yourself from dying to the enemy's board.

Very valuable in topdeck wars in Arena so it'll be strong there most likely.

Uh, if all you have to play is one card anyway then it doesn't matter what it costs? I mean, unless it costs 9+, which this wouldn't in the arena during a topdeck war anyway.

[Mormolyce]

In the current meta, not really IMO.

Handlock doesn't actually tap a lot. You tap turn 2, usually turn 3 unless you have the coin, then you start playing stuff, and finally start tapping a little more during the late game when looking for answers, at which point you usually need insanely strong cards (like 0 mana 8/8s, BGHs, or board clears) to keep up, not like 5-6 mana 8/8s that you can only play one of if you want to taunt it up.

Sometimes they can't even afford to tap at all, having to dump their hand as fast as possible to keep up on tempo, or to avoid losing instantly to divine favour. Even mountain gaints are dead in unlucky face matchups. They also already run molten and mountain; hard to fit in more giants even if you wanted them.

I guess maybe some new inspire decks might run them, but for current archetypes I only see echo mage as very likely.

Taps more than any other lock deck though *shrug*

The nature of the deck might change - if frost giants are a viable substitute for mountain golems you might actually be able to design a deck without Twilight Drake and not have to deal with the problem of trying not to play your cards for the first few rounds. Guess we'll see.

[Wyattbw09]

Handlock doesn't actually tap a lot.

I'm no pro by any means, but this idea that everything always plays on curve like you have control over how your cards are dealt is never seems to make sense. I often tap more then I would like to in any given game.

If I somehow ended up with a late game play that allowed me to dump up to two Molten Giants, two Frost Giants, and two shields or some combo of that I am not sure I would be all that disappointed.

if frost giants are a viable substitute for mountain golems

I doubt they would ever replace Mountain Giants, Mountain Giants are there to get your board stable in the early game which is not a role Frost Giants would play. Molten Giants are there to win you the game late, which is where Frost Giants would fit in, but doubtfully at the expense of Molten Giants.

[Deleted]

Handlock will still use mountain and molten tbh. They usually tap once or twice at the start, then they just play the cards + occasional taps at the really late game period. A mountain giant with full hand costs 3 mana and is droppable on turn 3/4, unlike frost giant which would reach that kind of cost after 7 turns of spamming life tap. That's like using half of your turn 1-7 mana on hero powers.

In short this card is craptastic and unlikely to be playable in any format. Arena maybe because there are plenty of garbage epics to pick from and this is at least a big dude. I'd still pick BGH or Blood Knight over this though.

[Simulacrum]

Taps more than any other lock deck though *shrug*

The nature of the deck might change - if frost giants are a viable substitute for mountain golems you might actually be able to design a deck without Twilight Drake and not have to deal with the problem of trying not to play your cards for the first few rounds. Guess we'll see.

Uh, no they don't. Zoo easily taps the most. It's why everybody plays warlock zoo instead of some other zoo.

And you'd have to be insane to take out twilight drakes in place of another super-lategame card.

I'm no pro by any means, but this idea that everything always plays on curve like you have control over how your cards are dealt is never seems to make sense. I often tap more then I would like to in any given game.

Everything always plays on curve? Dude, we're talking turn 4. If you have nothing to play by then and are still tapping then you've probably already lost... nevermind the part where you're now tapping just to burn your cards...

[Bluesftw]

no they wont see play, its a trap card for bads

[Mormolyce]

Uh, no they don't. Zoo easily taps the most. It's why everybody plays warlock zoo instead of some other zoo.

And you'd have to be insane to take out twilight drakes in place of another super-lategame card.

Just a thought.

I feel like if a handlock isn't tapping more than a zoo lock then they're on the back foot to a rush deck and in serious danger of getting stomped. Zoo plays minions over tapping wherever possible.

[Simulacrum]

Just a thought.

I feel like if a handlock isn't tapping more than a zoo lock then they're on the back foot to a rush deck and in serious danger of getting stomped. Zoo plays minions over tapping wherever possible.

Right, and handlock plays big minions or expensive board clears over tapping whenever possible, and you need to tap a lot less to play 4+ mana cards (which is roughly 2/3rds of a handlock deck) than to play 2+ mana cards (which should be roughly above half of a zoo deck, never mind the voidcallers who pull out up to two 0 mana cards for you).

[shammypie]

Oh god, I can already imagine the Turn ~12+ Frost Frost Molten Molten echo Frost Frost Molten Molten

you forgot ardents

[Felya]

Did well in my hand pally home brew in casual... But, it's not a competitive deck by any means...

[Lotus Victoria]

Nah. Maybe in budget control decks or mage/warlock.

[Mormolyce]

Right, and handlock plays big minions or expensive board clears over tapping whenever possible, and you need to tap a lot less to play 4+ mana cards (which is roughly 2/3rds of a handlock deck) than to play 2+ mana cards (which should be roughly above half of a zoo deck, never mind the voidcallers who pull out up to two 0 mana cards for you).

But unless you're vs a rush deck or something strong on the board you're tapping aggressively in the early game to buff your Twilight Drakes/Giants. Zoo rarely taps in the early game. Maybe Zoo would come out ahead in a really long game but most are short these days and personally, if I see a lot of tapping I assume it's Hand.

In an ideal world I would never tap as Zoo.