(September 23rd, 2015, 03:08)Kuro Wrote: The thing is it only really does that consistantly in tempo decks and sometime aggro decks. In midrange or control you'll usually not get to Sap + creature until later which makes it a lot more situational. Innervate is definitely overvalued, Sap I can see the argument for, Acolyte also overvalued IMO, Inventor not so much.
I actually disagree here in the opposite direction - I think Acolyte of Pain is very good. It cycles, it gives you a 1-mana body on the board for potential buffs (a BoK'd Acolyte is nightmarish). But its main utility is that it limits your opponent's options to the extent that they can't play anything with less than 3 attack for fear of giving you more cards; cards that screw with opponents tend to be undervalued, IMO. The only thing it's really much worse against are very niche answers that destroy it without doing damage to it, like SW:P or Kodo.
Gnomish is more consistent but has much less of an upside. You really don't want to play it as a 4 because it dies so cleanly to basically any other 4-drop, so it's only really good in topdeck wars, or in situations where you already have the board and want to extend your lead in cards.
On the picks, the only one I really disagree with is Kodo over SI:7. SI:7 is such a good card! I agree with uberfish on Sap - particularly for the Rogue. It's a really quite flexible card - you either remove a large threat and push for lethal face damage, or you catch up on the board at the cost of card advantage. It takes some skill to use effectively; a new player using Sap on a random high-cost minion and continuing to trade wouldn't get much use out of it, but it has a lot of very good uses.