A modest proposal: make flesh spider/recluse a soft immortal otyugh counter

[collimatrix]

You forgot that procratination and turtle shield can block otyguhs. Love the ensnare idea though.

Ah, good catch.  Those two do indeed dramatically reduce otyugh effectiveness.

it's a midsized body for a midsized price. every color needs a creature like this. death also has creature control in the form of virus and plague, one of few creature generators in the game, and the most powerful shield in the game. Life has bond and adrenaline, no creature control, no means of card advantage, and you are all up in arms because life gets a flesh spider for one less quantum?

Seeing as that translates to almost 90% more damage per quantum, yes.

[casthegamer]

Seeing as that translates to almost 90% more damage per quantum, yes.

frog equals 3 damage for 2 = 1.5 damage/quantum
spider equals 3 damage for 3 = 1 damage/quantum

50% is not almost 90%...

[collimatrix]

Surely you're not arguing that the flesh spider is competitive for level 3 monocolored grinding?  It's 1:1, but at 3 damage heaven help you if they possess a shield.

But since you argued that these things have to be taken in context, look at unupgraded frogs + adrenaline.  That's 2 dam/quanta.  It's 2.2 for epenephrine + giant frogs.  Spiders/recluses don't synergize with anything in a mono death deck, so they're still at 1 and 1.6 respectively.  That's a ratio of 2/1 and 2.2/1.6.  The average of those ratios is just shy of a 90% margin of superiority for dam/quanta for a life monocolor deck.

Experience bears this out too; how many death rush monocolor decks did you fight in the top 50?  I recall seeing a great many life mono rush decks.  And of all the death monocolor rush decks you have seen, how many bother with spiders?

As you point out, it would be silly to make the spider/recluse a clone of something else that already exists.  Instead, I think it should be given a skill of some sort.  Ideally one that has some utility against the very difficult to counter otyugh/immortality combo.

[coinich]

For the record, in my Masters challenge, I found I had 3 useful cards: Arsenic, Poison, and Flesh Spiders.  If I had Flesh Recluses instead of Flesh Spiders, I would've probably won at least one more match.  Flesh Recluses also got a bonus to damage, at 6/3 for 3 in the trainer.

[asymmetry]

The flesh spider and flesh recluse are pretty lackluster at the moment.  Usable, yes, but not particularly competitive.  They're completely inferior to the horned/giant frog, for instance.

Immortal otyughs can be countered by four cards, the fire shield, the fire buckler, the ice shield and the permafrost shield.  Momentum-ed immortal otyghus are completely untouchable.  The only disadvantage of that combo at the moment is the time it takes to get in play.

I propose that the flesh spider and flesh recluse be given a new special ability; "ensnare".  For two death quanta the flesh spider/recluse targets a friendly creature and surrounds it with traps of poisonous silk (visible counter).  Any creature that attacks that creature (scarabs, owls eyes, otyughs ect) receives one poison counter.  Since this is a passive defense that's not explicitly targeting anything, it ought to work on immortal otyughs as well.

That's a pretty good idea, but how about this:

For those who've played MTG, they could take the "Flagbearer" ability from Apocalypse.  The ability is basically:

"If any ability or spell that could target this Flagbearer, it must target this Flagbearer."

When you clicked on a creature's ability, the only targeting cursor available would be the spider.  So this would include spells like Firebolt and Lightning that the other player casts.  Maybe even they would get a poison counter. 

(This is also including "good" spells like Bless, Adrenaline, and Momentum.  They could only target the spider.... then again... that's a little too strong.  You would probably have to introduce a new card with this ability or significantly increase the cost, alter the stats, or whatever.)

Like a gravity pull for effects and spells? That would be interesting 

[Ashebrethafe]

The flesh spider and flesh recluse are pretty lackluster at the moment.  Usable, yes, but not particularly competitive.  They're completely inferior to the horned/giant frog, for instance.

Immortal otyughs can be countered by four cards, the fire shield, the fire buckler, the ice shield and the permafrost shield.  Momentum-ed immortal otyghus are completely untouchable.  The only disadvantage of that combo at the moment is the time it takes to get in play.

I propose that the flesh spider and flesh recluse be given a new special ability; "ensnare".  For two death quanta the flesh spider/recluse targets a friendly creature and surrounds it with traps of poisonous silk (visible counter).  Any creature that attacks that creature (scarabs, owls eyes, otyughs ect) receives one poison counter.  Since this is a passive defense that's not explicitly targeting anything, it ought to work on immortal otyughs as well.

That's a pretty good idea, but how about this:

For those who've played MTG, they could take the "Flagbearer" ability from Apocalypse.  The ability is basically:

"If any ability or spell that could target this Flagbearer, it must target this Flagbearer."

When you clicked on a creature's ability, the only targeting cursor available would be the spider.  So this would include spells like Firebolt and Lightning that the other player casts.  Maybe even they would get a poison counter. 

(This is also including "good" spells like Bless, Adrenaline, and Momentum.  They could only target the spider.... then again... that's a little too strong.  You would probably have to introduce a new card with this ability or significantly increase the cost, alter the stats, or whatever.)

Like a gravity pull for effects and spells? That would be interesting 

Not exactly -- the "flagbearer" ability is actually: "While choosing targets as part of casting a spell or activating an ability, your opponents must choose at least one Flagbearer on the battlefield if able." (Flagbearer is a type of creature, and the only Flagbearers that don't have this ability are Flagbearers because of an ability called changeling, which makes them every type of creature, or because they're enchanted with Coalition Flag, which has the "flagbearer" ability itself.) So it doesn't affect the controller; immortal creatures can't be flagbearers; if you had multiple creatures with this status, spells and skills could target any of them, not just the last to get the status; and spells that target everything (like RoF) would still target everything, not just the flagbearers.

[Kyarss]

I like the idea of ensnare. Sound interesting.

[Boingo]

The ensnare idea sounds promising.  I don't know if it ought to be on a flesh spider though. 

A more "natural fit" would be putting a trapping function on the antlion since that's what antlions actually do in real life.  Burrowing in this game is purely defensive, but the real antlion uses it's pit to pull in unsuspecting ants that wander too close.  (Like the sarlacc at the Great Pit of Carkoon in Return of the Jedi.) 

And yes, I realize the antlion already has burrow ability, but how many times have you ever run into an antlion in a match?  And when you do burrow it only does 1 damage which pretty much removes any usefulness it would have if up against a shield.  And since  already has the shrieker, why have 2 creatures with the same ability and have one of them suck?

So, not to "hijack" the ensnare idea too much, but I think it would be a better fit for the antlion.  The flesh spider needs a retooling too--maybe a vampire-like ability but it could bite opposing creatures (like siphon life) for some cost thus making it a true "flesh" creature.