Player A: Rushes. gets 7th creature out.
Player B: Plays Vulture. Plays RoF, killing 6 out of 7 of A's cards. 6/7 vulture.
(I know you've changed your opinion since you've posted this, however it's a good opportunity to show why Vulture could do with a buff)
This is actually quite a good example as to why Vulture isn't OP. I'll assume Player A all 7 creatures last turn, and they average 5 damage. I'll ignore the creature that survives to simplify things. In which case you've just payed 3
, 7
, 2 cards and 30 health lost to gain a 4 card advantage and a 6|7 creature with scavanger. A 6|7 creature would cost either 5
or 6
(See Abyss Crawler, Toadfish, Steel Golem), so by playing the Vulture compared to other creatures, you have a +3
advantage. The Rain of Fire costs 7
and gives you a +5 card advantage. If memory serves me correctly, the cost of a card is approximately 2
(see Electrum Hourglass), so the Rain of Fire puts you at a +5
advantage.
Considering both cards require the 30 damage to be taken, I'll look at it in the context of both of them. It will take 5 turns of completely uninterrupted damage for the Vulture to pay back the 30 damage taken from your health, which is a long time in all but strong stalls, so the card is very, very costly. Adding more Vultures significantly reduces the cost, but this comes at a higher card cost and becomes increasingly difficult to actually pull off. The Rain of Fire might have you take 30 damage, but it will be saving you 30 damage every turn for the rest of the game, which "heals" in one turn. If you convert that to damage done (healing has approximately half the value of doing damage), it will take 2 turns to pay off at 15 damage done per turn.
Finally, Vulture has to be played in combination with other cards to make it useful. Rain of Fire is standalone.
To summarise all that:
| Rain of Fire | Vulture | 2 Vultures | Rain of Fire + 1 Vulture | Rain of Fire + 2 Vultures |
| Cost (less damage taken) | 7 + 1 card
~= 9 | 3 + 1 card
~= 5 | 6 + 2 cards
~= 10 | 10 + 2 cards
~= 14 | 13 + 3 cards
~= 19 |
| Net gain | 5 cards
~= 10 | 6/7 for 3
~= 3 | two 6/7 for 6
~= 6 | 5 cards + 6/7 for 3
~= 13 | 5 cards + two 6|7 for 6
~= 16 |
| Extra damage done per turn | 30 healing
~= 15 damage | 6 damage | 12 damage | 30 healing + 6 damage
~= 21 damage | 30 healing + 12 damage
~= 27 damage |
| Turns taken to return the 30 damage | 2 | 5 | 2.5 | 1.4 | 1.1 |
| Cost effectiveness (gain/cost) | 1.1 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 1.3 | 1.23 |
| Requires combo? | Standalone card | Requires combo | Requires combo | Is combo | Is combo |
Rain of Fire is clearly
the bread that makes the sandwich of defeating your opponent! And the Vulture is the delicious mustard on that bread! The mustard of your opponent's doom! the key card. So much so that it takes two Vultures to equal the one Rain of Fire in terms of net gain and extra damage done per turn at almost half the cost effectiveness. AND the Vultures need another card to actually get the combo rolling.
If you then consider how slow it can be, and the redundancy of Vulture in the CC + bonewall deck archetype because of the strength of Poison and Arsenic, it's pretty obvious that Vulture could do with a little Zanz love.
