Try to play only small bodies against Magmar and get annihilated by Frenzy and Plasma Storm 
seriously, in some matchups you need the big threats. Those lacking immediate effects are often bad, but they can be played with proper building.
Are Strong Bodies Pointless?
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but not against vanar
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Just be patient, I’m betting that after next update and nerf bat, we will have plenty of Vanar player whining.
It’s just a cycle, meanwhile, you have to take the bullet, be patient … or play Vanar as most of people 
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You must be new here~
Anyway, you’re pretty much right. You play the game by doing out of hand damage or out of hand abilities or by swarming the board with so many things that your opponent can’t remove them all. That last strat is dubious, though, due to AoE removal and the fact that those things won’t likely be all that threatening. It is never a good idea to focus your gameplan on 1 or 2 strong minions due to all of the unconditional removal running about.
Each expansion releases more unconditional removal too–generally that’s cheaper or just outright better than previous removal (see: Punish, Blood of Air, Enfeeble). They also tend to release cards that are super strong even if they are immediately removed (see: Variax, Noshrak, Embla). Thus, we continue into the abyss that is all of the strong-bodied minions of yesterday being rendered moot. This last expansion even sought to bring the staple bignions, Golems, into the realm of combos and out of hand damage.
Not exactly. Playing something that doesn’t do something turn it’s played has always been a problem in these types of games. It’s just not a smart idea to invest your mana into something that relies on your opponent not being able to answer it, even more so if it’s very high cost. Even in other games cards like this aren’t a good idea. In Hearthestone cards like Rhonin(8 mana 7/7 that give you 3 1 mana spells that deal 3 damage randomly once it dies) and Cairne Bloodhoof(6 mana 4/5 that summons a 4/5 on death) don’t see play because how slow they are and how susceptible to getting removed via removal. The cards like this that do see play are so strong to that their effect cannot be ignored, ex; Sylvanas(6 mana 5/5 steal an enemy minion on death.)
However, Duelyst has much more viable removal than HS and this is being exacerbated by the current meta. Hard removal wasn’t all too popular a month ago when Lynor was the top dog but with Vanar and Magmar running around hard removal is plentiful these days. That being said I don’t see strong bodies being pointless. If you drop an Ironcliff and it eats a Enfeeble and a Deathgrip, that’s fine the card went two for one and generated value for you. The card wasn’t useless, you forced your opponent to use resources on it, two cards and most of their turn, to answer your threat leaving less removal for future threats and passing the turn to you to redevelop threats. This mostly works with 4-5 drops and anything over 6 is way too slow. As for minions that require you to develop board presence, well it really depends on the card. I’ve been playing a lot of Golem Vet recently and despite being a board focused deck it actually goes even with Vanar. The deck has so much draw and board refill potential that it can even overwelm Vanar when played correctly. In a deck like that cards that benefit from a board presence like Nosh- Rak, Feralu, and Inner Oasis are viable because of how easy it’s to create a board.
That being said I wouldn’t mind removal being toned down a bit but even with that cards like Excellsious and Peacekeeper probably wouldn’t see play. They’re just far too high risk and high reward to be commonly played and meta cards by their nature.
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I do, mate, I do 
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I would not say so.
Only vanar have lots of hard removal. All other factions have what 3 removal spells? If you play 4 big minions the opponent will not be able to casually remove it for cheap.
Vanar will clear anything you play, you will not be able to stick a big minion but a little one would not stick for long either.
Other than that you can get something to stick if you try hard enough.
You were the chosen one! It was said you would destroy the Vanar not join them!
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No they are not. It’s just a numbers game really. The average deck has 3 hard removals, play more fatties than that and one will stick. Even Vanar has only 5-6 cards to deal with fat bodies and its unlikely they will get all of them. And if your fat minion has a dying wish the number of efficient answers they have is reduced to 3.
I have a bunch of decks with really high curves, Midrange Sajj, Midrange Magmar, Bond Lyonar, Creep Cass etc, all of them are filled with fat shit and they work just fine, there is just no way for any deck to answer them all. You’ve got to have a decent early and midgame though, if you have your back against the wall by the time your fatties arrive you will lose.
Just to jump in, Magmar thrives off of hard removal as well. It’s one of the reasons they’re competing at the top of the ladder.
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Plasma storm isn’t going to remove a 7/7. Natural selection is conditional and thumping wave is their win condition, you take it away and they won’t have as much out of hand potential.
Very few play egg morph, but that’s 4 mana + attack so quite expensive and a tempo loss.
Magmar aren’t really comparable to vanar in the removal depertament. It sure is good compared to other factions but not as much compared to vanar.
Plasma storm doesn’t need to remove a 7/7 though. It just needs to remove all the 2/1 tokens so you can remove it for 2.
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I honestly question your arguments if you think Thumping Wave is a win condition. Thumping Wave, if used offensively, is a finisher. Not a win condition. And there is a great difference between the two.
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Still, he’s right in saying that forcing a Magmar player to use TW as a removal is going to make her life harder. Magmar players want to keep it as a finisher
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Its not pointless against songhai, lyonar and vetruvian
Heck, half of lyonars minions rely on strong bodies, and you cant tell me ironcliffe or silverguard knight is a pointless minion
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i have no idea what the difference is, i haven’t studyed the terminology, i was however killed by top deck double thumping on random minion before, or more common illucidator + thumping.
forcing the opponent to spend it as removal is a great way to avoid that, he has only 3 copies of it max.
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so you spend 2 cards, 7 mana and a likely the whole turn for that, assuming the opponent has no 4 attack minion in between. seen people play like 3 natural selections in the row against me, that happens too, if they are incredibly lucky. it just has coditions that need to be met to get that play.
it could work, once, maybe twice but it isn’t as convinient as a 1 mana clean removal on particular minion, or even enfeeble + skorn. that’s why i consider vanar removal a whole level above the magmar one. they can deal with any situation regardless of board state and little to no luck involved.
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Not gonna lie, was super hoping someone would ask. I’m narcissistic like that
ahem
Generally speaking, a win condition is your goal. A finisher is a tool you use to reach that goal. Win conditions often use finishers, but a finisher by itself is not necessarily a win condition.
Some examples would be Variax vs Meltdown. Variax is a win condition, because it is what the player is primarily focusing on to win. Meltdown is a finisher. Very rarely do people plan around getting lethal with Meltdown, but it is often used to seal the deal anyway.
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I was speaking more broadly that it was something you could do.
I don’t feel like its really fair to talk about vanar removal and magmar removal in the same breath either - but that’s an entirely different discussion unless you wanna talk about how vanar makes playing any body pointless unless it grants instant gratification.
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