I was recently watching Brian Kibler reviewing some of the new cards when he told his viewers that "looking at every beast as a buff or nerf to [card]Webspinner[/card] is not really a meaningful analysis - it is cute to think about though."
I like cute things, so it struck me that analyzing Webspinner and friends is exactly the thing I should be doing once the full set of The Grand Tournament is revealed. Don't get me wrong, I fully agree that this analysis is (probably) not going to result in mind-blowing changes of prior estimated card value, but I still think it's interesting to know about. Plus, it never hurts to know the exact probability of getting the charge-minion to find the missing point of damage, right? Right. So let's get straight into it.
Piloted Shredder
Right now, the average 2-drop that comes out of a Shredder has 1.88 points of Attack and 2.45 points of Health. Of the 67 different minions, 37 or more than 55% have an additional positive effect while only one minion in [card]Ancient Watcher[/card] has a clearly negative. Furthermore, there are seven different minions which have positive or negative effects depending on the situation - some of them with massive impact like [card]Doomsayer[/card] and [card]Explosive Sheep[/card]. There are others, but those usually aren't too big of a deal: [card]Nerub'ar Weblord[/card], for example.
Once TGT goes live, there will be 17 new 2-drops. The average minion coming out of Shredder will have its Attack value increased to 1.99 and its Health value increased to 2.48. However, there will be two new minions with clearly negative effects, [card]Wrathguard[/card] and [card]Argent Watchman[/card]. Also, only 42 out of now 84 minions or exactly 50% are coming with positive effects attached to them.
Prior to TGT, [card]Succubus[/card] and [card]Millhouse Manastorm[/card] were the best cards to get off of Shredder. Now, there are also [card]Totem Golem[/card] and [card]Wrathguard[/card], the latter only being awesome as long as your opponent can't blast it into oblivion. There still is only one charger that has a driving license for the smallest of Shredders, and that's [card]Bluegill Warrior[/card]. With [card]Sparring Partner[/card], there's a new dude coming with Taunt to maybe save you the last bit of Health - however, the chance to get a Taunt creature was pretty much exactly 6% prior to TGT and will remain the same after its release.
The verdict: Shredder didn't get nerfed, instead it's even more powerful than before. The average attack value of the 2-drop has gone up quite a bit while there are also more heavy hitters which can be dropped by the Mech. The Doomsayer curse/blessing is the same as before, though the chance to get it has gone down from 1.5% to 1.2%. Keep in mind that there's now [card]Darnassus Aspirant[/card], which might totally screw your early turns and now faces of against [card]Captain's Parrot[/card] for the "worst drop off of Shredder"-title.
Piloted Sky Golem
The 4-drop coming out of Sky Golem we're used to is a 3.05/4.25 on average - is it only me or does the Attack value seem awkwardly low? Anyways, 25 out of the 55 possible drops have positive effects, so 45%. With TGT, the average stats will go up to 3.14/4.3 and 48% of the dropped minions will have have positive effects.
There will still be the same three chargers at this mana cost as before: [card]Stormwind Knight[/card], [card]Old Murk-Eye[/card] and [card]Kor'kron Elite[/card] with 4.1% chance to get one, but the four old Taunt minions [card]Sen'jin Shieldmasta[/card], [card]Arcane Nullifier X-21[/card], [card]Dread Corsair[/card] and [card]Mogu'shan Warden[/card] will now have the company of [card]Evil Heckler[/card]. The chance to get a Taunt will now be 6.8%.
The verdict: Like its little brother, Piloted Sky Golem will become stronger with the expansion. Whether it sees play or not will of course be mostly decided by the meta, but still - good card. Interesting to note: The variance on this card isn't as big as on Piloted Shredder. Yeah, there are really good drops like [card]Pit Lord[/card] or [card]Hungry Dragon[/card] and awful ones like [card]Summoning Portal[/card], but nothing as devestating as a Doomsayer.
Sneed's Old Shredder
Oh boy, this is a tough one to evaluate. Facts first: With TGT, the stats of an average legendary minion will drop considerably, from 5.4/6.28 to 5.32/6. However, most of the legendaries aren't defined by their stats but rather by their effects - and it's really hard to put those into numbers, because some of them are probably game-winning while others are the definition of mediocre.
So, let's just focus on game-winning chargers and live-saving taunts: There were seven charge minions after Blackrock Mountain (counting [card]Ragnaros the Firelord[/card] and [card]Baron Geddon[/card] here) while there will be eight after TGT. [card]Skycap'n Kragg[/card] is the new cool kid in town (no, [card]Icehowl[/card] doesn't count). However, your chance to get one of those went down from 10.4% to 9.2%. As for taunts, we have two new ones: [card]Chillmaw[/card] and [card]Bolf Ramshield[/card] (sort of). Your chances? Up from 4.5% to 5.7%.
Webspinner
Prior to TGT, there were 33 beasts you could get off of this little guy. Soon, there will be 39. A large number of said 33 beasts - 28 to be precise, which equals 85% - can have positive effects when played from hand, what happens pretty much all the time. Some of these effects can have a huge impact ([card]Ironbeak Owl[/card] or [card]Savannah Highmane[/card]), others probably won't do anything at all (think [card]Captain's Parrot[/card] and [card]Hungry Crab[/card]). With TGT, the number of minions with a positive effect will go down to 79%. However, there will still only be two beasts with an actual drawback, [card]King Mukla[/card] and [card]The Beast[/card].
Something very interesting to point out lies in the minions' mana costs:
As you can see, quite a number of beasts you could get off of Webspinner prior to TGT were 1- and 2-drops - 39% of them to be precise. Once TGT hits, this number will go down significantly: only 33% of all collectible beasts will be early drops. On the other hand, the chance to get a 4-drop (from 9% up to 13%) or 7-drop or higher (from 12% up to 15%) will be rising quite a bit.
The verdict: Webspinner doesn't lose any of its value. It's important to note though, that if you play the little spider on turn one and hope to get a minion to play on turn two off of it, you're chances will be slimmer once TGT hits. The average random beast is going to be more midrange-y than it is now.
Excursus: A look at [card]Ram Wrangler[/card]
The average minion you will get in addition to Ram Wrangler will be a 3.49/3.77, so if you manage to get the Battlecry working consistently, Ram Wrangler will be a 6.49/6.77 which comes with an additional positive effect in 62% of all cases. Now that you don't play the random beast from your hand anymore (as you do with Webspinner), only 1 of all 39 beasts has a drawback: The Beast. Your chances to get a charger or Taunt will be 7.7%. The card is probably still worse than [card]Houndmaster[/card], but at least we now know the stats.
Hungry Dragon
[card]Hungry Dragon[/card] didn't see too much play before TGT, so I'll cut it short here: The card will be even worse than before. The stats of the average 1-drop will go up from 1.33/1.64 to 1.38/1.67. There's also a new Taunt that can screw you over in [card]Tournament Attendee[/card] and while summoning a [card]Flame Imp[/card] was already bad, there's the new worst case scenario of summoning [card]Injured Kvaldir[/card].
Bane of Doom
When I looked at the list of new demons being released with TGT, I was fairly sure that Bane of Doom would be worse than before, especially because of [card]Dreadsteed[/card] and [card]Tiny Knight of Evil[/card]. However, as it turns out, this is not really the case: The attack of the random demon will rise from 3.69 to 3.71 while the health will drop from 4.94 to 4.62.
The latter is quite a step backwards, but this was pretty much inevitable to happen because the small amount of demons in the game together with the ridiculous health on [card]Lord Jaraxxus[/card] bloated the number. It's important to note though, that the "dream scenario" of summoning [card]Mal'Ganis[/card] or [card]Illidan Stormrage[/card] will drop from 12.5% to 9.5%. On the bright side, you will be able to get the massive [card]Fearsome Doomguard[/card] and I'm sure that sometimes there will be sick plays you can set up for if you manage to get [card]Void Crusher[/card].
On last note: Recombobulator for the win
As you all now, Recombobulator (like [card]Unstable Portal[/card]) can create any minion in the game. We're reaching a point here where even I think that looking at all the stats becomes ridiculous, so instead I'll only focus on the chances of getting either a charge-minion or a taunt-minion on each mana cost. Both can save lives in the right situation, so instead of pushing you into yet another wall of text, have a neat graph to copy and keep around if you're going for that sick "I'm recombobulating for the win now"-lethal in your next tournament. The graph only applies once TGT hits, so I'm not responsible for recombobulations with stupidly low percentages before the expansion is even live.
I'm pretty sure that all of the above numbers are accurate, but if you find any mistakes, you can go ahead and shout at me on Twitter. Of course, I'm open to more healthy discussions, too.
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