Is this card any good? The dream of three 2/1 unstoppable units seems great, but only relatively early in the game, when spending two gold and a card on something that gives no immediate benefit, and disappears if you can’t keep River alive seems dubious at best. Has anyone had any luck with this card? If so, what strategies do you employ to get value out of it?
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My first instinct would be to combine it with either (1) specs that have draw spells, like the Purple or Blue starter, and (2) specs that work well at low hand, or have good low hand escape plans, like Demonology with Dark Pact and Graveyard, or Growth with its wisps and Stampede gameplan, etc. No idea how good it is at any of that though - I haven’t played much Finesse.
I’ve been trying to make it work.
There are a few major components to figuring out possible Harmony Strategies:
1 - Tower is quite efficient at shutting down Harmony dancers on the offense with nothing else factored in.
2 - Harmony as a plan is by definition spell heavy, or at least requires moderate spells. Spells do not tend to leave you a big hand size.
3 - You need to sacrifice Harmony to flip your dancers; if it dies for another reason you’ll have to either keep your dancers around long enough to recast Harmony, or have an alternative use for them in mind.
4 - It is probably a good idea to figure out how else you want to make use of Finesse inclusion. Are you running neutral starter or a non-neutral starter? What spells do you expect to be casting with Harmony out? Do you want to be casting those spells on your dancers?
In spec the biggest synergies with harmony dancers is probably two step, and the general discounts/buffs from maestro+nimble fencer+grounded guide (the expensive one of the lot really).
The difference between [white]/finesse and [red]/finesse for example is pretty extreme.
Red starter has a MUCH better base-race gameplan in pillage-(scorch/charge)-harmony. Fire and Blood are likely better supports to such an aggressive gameplan with better base damage units and spells compared to Anarchy (Kidnapping, bloodlust, Crashbomber, Lobber, maybe firebat, Jaina spells, either tech 2 blood for bugblatters and the terrifying crashbarrow/glider or tech 2 fire with hotter fire – and bamstamper/firebirds/doubleshot archer all have a place as well).
White starter has access to a more reliable-once-setup plan with safe attacking // sensei // sensei’s advice being able to reliably hit 5 damage on only two dancers. Protecting a pair of angry dancers able to deal 5 damage is threatening enough to demand some sort of answer or risking continual tech disadvantage. Adding in the armor on those dancers means that you aren’t losing them every time to a tower and can potentially be killing units/heroes as needed with the dancers. Sets brings card advantage (maxband) and additional aggressive stealth plans (hidden ninja herself/other heroes or starter ninjas for dancer + card replacement and potential to break tech buildings uncontrollably). Tech 2 sets has options for various types of evasion, defense or haste+swiftstrike to potentially dominate the board. Grave has Martial Mastery (card search, hand restock if last card in hand, cheap spell) as well as bringing Sparring Partner (spar with the dancers for better offense) a perfectly reasonable tech 2 suite. Rook is obviously a truck defensively and birds are an amazing spell (though only cast occasionally) - not much else rook is good for dancing though an EQ with 3 dancers and 2 birds should deal serious damage if you manage it.
Purple starter has very little to offer a Harmony plan on its own. Very little here wants to cast spells to win the game outside of Present.
Black starter has some of the best answers to units, and graveyard can help provide extra unit access while casting said spells. I haven’t looked too much deeper into what spells of note but offhand netherdrain, doom grasp, spreading plague all stand out as strong spells at controlling things for dancers to do their damage (or to make use of dancers in other ways such as sacrificing them to Orpal or doom grasp).
Green starter is slow but reliable which may not be the most conductive to any aggressive Harmony shenanigans. Non-angry dancers can benefit from a mid-band on Midori. Spells like Spirit of the Panda, Dinosize obviously benefit dancers. Midori also brings Moment’s Peace which could buy the space to finish the job with dancers. Calamandra’s spells don’t look particularly appealing, however she is able to be very aggressive in her own way with the option to stealth and use a green-starter spell to snipe targets.
Blue starter is Odd? Manufactured Truth has some potential interactions with dancers that are cute (extra 2/1 unstoppable, or turning a 0/1 dancer into something better temporarily). Arrest likely falls off, and the major value in lawful search is not getting blindsided. Law’s insurance agent and censorship council offer a way to control your opponent and get value long enough to setup dancer aggression. Community Service could potentially take tech 1 + hero’s hall into a competition with tech 2. None of bigby’s spells SCREAM harmony however. Peace, with Bootcamp, Elite Training, and General’s Hammer brings three potentially relevant harmony actors. Boosting the strength of a dancer or two means a much easier time breaking tech buildings, or trading up against units while General’s Hammer + 1x angry dancer will break a building. Truth’s ability to copy units is less relevant in JUST a harmony plan, but dreamscape + river isn’t a terrible plan for units in its own right (and a neutral starter adds spark to target for 1, as well as two more targeting spells for 2 each). At tech 2 dreamscape + macciatus is able to buff your dancers much like a midband midori would.
Neutral Starter brings ‘four’ aggressively early-game spells and 2-3 relevant units (Tenderfoot in tech 2 finesse, brickthief is good at base race and can offer the last point of damage to a tech on arrival unexpectedly, and flagbearer is extremely important in some matchups). I say ‘four’ spells because timely messenger will often act as an aggressive spell – other times it is just another 1/1 body for 1.
Bashing has a relatively inexpensive set of spells outside of final smash (intimidate is 1, the boot 3, and wrecking ball for 0). Torq does a bit of base damage on his own and [color/(bashing/finesse)]/spec has a very rounded set of tech 1 and tech 2 between bashing and finesse regardless of starter choice.
I would say the biggest difficulties with Harmony are the speed you can setup dancers and fragility of said dancers.
In any game you look to setup Harmony, it probably needs to be hitting the board T3-5 to have any chance of relevance, and even T5 might be too late, which means you need to commit to teching Harmony on T3 and at that point you must ask yourself what starter spells are worth casting for your plan on T4/T5/T6 and what 1-2 other spells you can tech in and be certain to want to use on their own?
Purple, and Blue starters can probably be eliminated. I’m also thinking that the neutral starter can’t support it as bloom/wither are your most likely candidates for casting but are tricky to justify reliably, and while brickthief and tenderfoot are great in a base race // finesse 2 plan, fruit ninja, and helpful turtle are simply too hard to use, while the selection of starter spells to worker is difficult, and even considering all this, nothing in the neutral starter is either extraordinarily sticky, or particularly valuable to HAVE stick around.
Cards which threaten to stick around in starters or are quite beneficial to have stick around multiple turns, potentially winning the game -
Prospector, Verdant Tree, Rich Earth, Sensei, Smoker, Savior Monk, Nullcraft, Battlesuits, Mox, Spectral Aven, Building Inspector, Jail, Graveyard, Pestering Haunt, Imp, Javelineer.
In red there are at least three cards that tend to trade above their cost - Broger, Dog, and . The threat of pillage is sometimes enough to force small amounts of value to be given up in exchange for not losing significantly more value to pillage itself.
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I haven’t played it myself, but I have gotten stomped badly by an early Vandy/Harmony combo.
Going first, Vandy + 1 drop puts a lot of early pressure on, which gives you space to bring out River and Harmony. Harmony then turns Dark pact into 0 gold for 2 cards and a dancer, which is bonkers good, especially since you have the option to use Vandy’s midband to pull out the dark pact whenever you want.
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If I’m reading Jurisdiction correctly it counts as casting two dancers. So two dancers from a single card sounds like some synergy.
Bootcamp seems like one of the better Harmony combo spells.
I’m curious if there is any value in using the 0/1 dancers for defense and being aggressive with your other stuff.
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Generally I would assume that the Harmony plan uses dancers in tech slot until it has 3 dancers then sacs Harmony.
In the nutty case you can even argue for 2/3 dancer tokens ‘simply’ by having Macciatus, Quince, Midband Midori, Dreamscape in play (arguably also river+harmony). And THAT sounds like a board state where you are winning, as adding a 2/3 to every single spell you cast is nuts.
Another important consideration in any Harmony plan is “One harmony or two”
1x Harmony means you get a single dancer on each following spell and once you sacrifice or lose Harmony (likely because River died or left play), you have to cycle before it comes back. Fewer dead cards if river is out of the picture for a turn or two and less commitment.
2x Harmony means on casting the second harmony you have 1 dancer ready and with your next spellcast you hit full dancers AND can sacrifice one of your two harmonies then, at an opportune moment in cycles or when relevant. Then as you trade out angry dancers you STILL get to replace them with the presumably still up Harmony. Much riskier as anytime river is down you have two SUPER dead cards in your deck.
The best combo I’ve ever seen with it was Demonology. With Harmony on the table, casting Dark Pact is “take 2 base damage, draw 2 cards, gain a token” which is really, really good. If you use the black starter, you get a token on Deteriorate, and it generates fodder for Sacrifice the Weak. This combines with other Vandy/River synergy, like the threat of Discord with Terras.
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I tend to find it difficult to get multiple heroes out in the early game. Leading with a heroes’ hall instead of tech 1 seems to leave my heroes vulnerable to level farming. Without the HH, though, you can’t get Vandy/River out until tech II, which seems too late for Harmony to be much good. How do you keep your heroes’ safe when making plays like this?
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Open with P1 Vandy, basically. Tech Dark Pact, and you can sustain a surprising amount of aggression off Vandy + Dark Pact + Soul Stone/Shadow Blade, none of which requires Tech I. Even P2 Vandy is pretty solid, although probably not powerful enough on defense to go without Tech I units? But that’s just an assumption on my part - I’ve never really played as Black.
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This card is proposed OP with demonology by good players. It’s also proposed OP in bashing vs. finesse by players who are probably good.
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@sharpobject , if it’s decided that a card is OP now that Codex has already been released, any idea how that would be addressed?
What does “probably good” mean?
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I would imagine it would be dealt with either:
- Not at all, players just play around it (I don’t think Harmony + Demonz is "too OP personally, but maybe it is), or
- Like Akuma in SF2: tourney organizers ban its use.
No other way to deal with it really, as it’s pretty clear no re-balance work is planned on Codex.
I think “OP” in this case means “very good”, not “gamewarping”. It is normal and fine for “very good” things to exist. Maybe the balance would be slightly better if it was merely “quite good”, but not nearly enough to justify revising cards.
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I mean that I know a lot less about about 1v1 mode than about 3v3 mode and a lot less about Elyot’s level of play than about the other players who swear by Demo/Necro/Finesse in 3v3 mode.
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Vandy is a pretty good T1 into HH hero, or even skip-T1-HH hero. Metamorphosis is an enormous threat that a lot of specs have trouble dealing with. If you max Garth, you can use his maxband to fetch a Twilight Baron if you have tech 1, which gives you a ridiculously strong early game board presence, and even get a skeleton token to help out. But if you go early HH and Metamorphosis doesn’t seem particularly viable, Harmony + Dark Pact can fuel a different kind of aggression.
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