New Freljord Card - Faces of the Old Ones

Even as early-game control cards go, this thing is BOOOOORIIIIIIING.

It's nice you can get the extra mana gem earlier but 2 health is very fragile and having an 8 cost card at turn 2 really sucks.

This seems horrible.. 2 hp, with conditions and doesn't even actually ramps you.

just gives you The Coin basically.

These type of cards almost never work out.  Attune is far better and most of those cards have legitimate stats.

To play devil's advocate for a sec (and I don't entirely buy into what I'm about to say):

We all know playtesting is a thing. Riot surely put their weird Behold deck up against existing meta decks to make sure the whole thing doesn't crash and burn. We also know that they want every card to have a home, and they have no incentive to print "filler" cards.

So maybe this card isn't the Dumpster fire it appears to be. It's half the cost of Wyrding Stones, and it can block a spider or two at the very least, or absorb a burn spell that might have otherwise hit the nexus. Played on curve, and assuming it lives, you can cast Catalyst of Aeons on the very next turn (turn 3, which is a pretty good investment). That bumps you up to 6 mana the following turn, when your opponent has only 4.

On the flip side, however, Faces of the Old Ones can't survive an Avalanche, which is one of the better ways you might survive early aggression. So like I said, I'm not really buying into it, but I still have to believe the devs have their reasons. I certainly would rather have borderline weak ramp tools than OP ones.

Quote From FortyDust

So maybe this card isn't the Dumpster fire it appears to be. It's half the cost of Wyrding Stones, and it can block a spider or two at the very least, or absorb a burn spell that might have otherwise hit the nexus. Played on curve, and assuming it lives, you can cast Catalyst of Aeons on the very next turn (turn 3, which is a pretty good investment). That bumps you up to 6 mana the following turn, when your opponent has only 4.

Except its not any more. They lowered the cost of Wyrding Stones a few patches back, and they still haven't found a spot other than super-ambitious Warmother's decks. Here, you're  paying 1 less mana for -0/-2 stats and the possibility the effect doesn't occur, and now it instantly dies to Fleetfeather Tracker, Sapling, and keg + AoE. The one thing I can think of is perhaps if you triple down on ramp then there's a like an escape velocity factor where you can stabilize that much faster; otherwise it just seems almost always inferior to Stones.

The biggest problem with Faces of the Old Ones isn't the weak body, it's that Behold is kind of impossible for these early game synergies. I didn't feel like doing the actual math with a hyper-geometric calculator, so I put together a little simulator that tries to play Faces of the Old Ones on curve by hard-mulliganing for it and a Behold trigger, then drawing a couple of cards naturally.

Even without worrying about the trigger, you already have kind of meh odds of getting this out on curve - something like 55%. If you want proc the effect most of the time you play it on curve, you'll need something like nine or ten 8-cost or higher cards in your deck. Even the Corina Control decks - perhaps the only really successful true control deck in LoR - never really ran more than six cards that would fit that bill. And at only six triggers, you're looking at getting this ramp on curve in only about 44% of games. Now add in the fact that this ramp is too slow to get that 8-drop out much earlier than expected, and too vulnerable to even make sure you maintain your mana advantage, and you've got a really awful card.

Maybe Riot gamed this all out and knows what they're doing with this archetype, but right now it seems crazy weak, with Faces of the Old Ones as the weakest card in the bunch.

Quote From OldManSanns

Quote From FortyDust

So maybe this card isn't the Dumpster fire it appears to be. It's half the cost of Wyrding Stones, and it can block a spider or two at the very least, or absorb a burn spell that might have otherwise hit the nexus. Played on curve, and assuming it lives, you can cast Catalyst of Aeons on the very next turn (turn 3, which is a pretty good investment). That bumps you up to 6 mana the following turn, when your opponent has only 4.

Except its not any more. They lowered the cost of Wyrding Stones a few patches back, and they still haven't found a spot other than super-ambitious Warmother's decks.

LOL, just goes to show how often I play or see Wyrding Stones, which is still terrible at 3.

As I mentioned, that was all pure devil's advocacy. No one has to convince me Faces of the Old Ones is one of the worst cards in the expansion.