Yeah, if Rickety Mine was a 3/3, it would be very playable. I think even if it gave 4 gold, I still would never tech it…
Honestly, quite often when I play it in Red I end up floating some of the gold it generates anyway. (At least, if it survives the turn).
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I honestly don’t see why, facing a player with a Rickety Mine, I’d ever bother destroying it as opposed to doing the damage to a tech building or the base (assuming there were no units/heroes I wanted to kill).
I mean, it destroys itself usually after 2-3 turns AND does 2 damage to the base - which doesn’t happen if I destroy it 
At this point I do have to admit that I’m the guy who @Fenrir played Rickety Mine against yesterday - as well as Bloodburn on T1! Despite getting a predictable massive board advantage early on I messed it up and ended up losing 
(I still don’t even really remember what happened. I mean, I pulled off Inverse Power Ninja + Zane + Chaos Mirror for a hasty 6 attack past an empty patrol zone, managing to kill max Jaina AND break Tech 2 in the same turn. That was a fun thing to do, at least 
) I have decided I’m just not capable of playing well in real-time games, although clearly the best way to rectify this is more practice
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If you do destroy it and it doesn’t trigger at all it’s two gold and a card that your opponent just wasted. You’re hugely ahead on economy and board position now as whatever you attacked with is on full health. Probably from this position you win the game. That’s how far ahead you are if you make your opponent waste two gold on turn 3 or 4.
Ok, now assume you don’t destroy it and it triggers but doesn’t die. Ok, now you’re behind by one gold and unless you kill it this turn you’ll be behind by four gold. If it lives again you’ll be behind by seven gold. You can’t fall behind to the tune of seven gold. That means they’re ahead of you by a whole max band hero.
Killing a mine without it triggering is huge value. You just cost your opponent three gold (actually cost them five gold since they spent two to get the mine). That’s the main reason mine is such a weak card. The cost of using it if it doesn’t work is crazy high.
If you break through the patrol zone you should always kill Rickety Mine if you can. You can always do another two damage to base. Probably you can’t survive falling behind by 1.5g per turn that mine is in play.
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Good points. I’ve never thought of it like that - probably because I’ve never faced a Rickety Mine before and had already decided (before even reading the forums here) that this was a card I didn’t ever see any point in playing…
Rickety Mine’s actual text:
“Flip a coin 3 times. If they’re all heads you win. If not you lose.”
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I think it would be fine as is if it had Haste.
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Does Rickety Mine need an errata buff then?
No, it doesn’t need a buff. Blood is strong enough even without it.
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No it’s much too soon for that. Blood is perfectly reasonable, I’ve certainly played Rickety mine to effect in mono-red and honestly I don’t think anyone has done any kind of multi-colour testing with Rickety Mine.
There’re likely to be a few viable strategies out there using the better defensive starters and tech ones before transitioning into a more gold limited tech 2.
Gold generation from a Rickety mine in a gold limited tech 2 Peace plan could be a really scary prospect for example.
Or just teching Rickety mine and Scribe early game is enough to sound enticing at first glance. You can play a body with scribe to block and get mine out without going to scarily far down on cards.
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I keep meaning to play the Mine and use the burst gold on a Surplus to help with Reds(specifically Bloods) card hungry ways. I always forget about this plan for some reason…
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I’ve had more success with mine into desperation to “just play all the cards!”
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Mine seems good for “I can always fall back on Zane” strats. Red heroes are expensive…
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So here is a silly Rickety Mine story. For a little while after getting Codex, I’d just flip a +/- chit instead of a coin, because they’re RIGHT THERE. Here is the red herring part of the plan here: those chits have a tendency to land + side up because of their shape, so I started to treat the mine as a solid investment instead of a hopeful gamble, and when we noticed this tendency about the chits and switched to coins, I refused to learn my lesson.
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I’ve found that Mine is not that bad in multiplayer, because by not putting as much stuff on your board that turn, you offer less of a target. Multiplayer games often go on longer, too. That means you can often get away with keeping the mine in play longer (if you get lucky) or replaying it. Your econ advantage can approach or exceed Green’s. And your self-harm (esp. if you’re also playing Musketeer) can approach Black’s. (:
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That almost cost me a few games… Fighting Red team with endless gold reserves.
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God yeah.
It’s totally worth pointing out that against even Mono-Red (which isn’t the best use for having tonnes of gold) if the mine flips heads first time it’s suddenly AMAZING value. Holy shit is it bad that your opponent has twelve gold or more on turn five.
Suddenly they’re max banding a hero and building tech two and building a tower and it’s like, “Whoa, what happened?”
Red herring strategies, eh? I’ve got eight words for you: I’ve got three words for you: Double Flagstone Garrison (“what’s the point of drawing your whole deck every turn if you can’t afford to play it?”)
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Plus the two Scribes you teched in to draw even more cards…
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Hush, you. The system works. If it did not work, the fault lies with my flawed self, not with the system.
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