The efficacy of corrosive orchid

[webcatcher]

So how good is corrosive orchid? Is there any way to defend against its dissolve effect?

[Shad0w]

Thank you for doing this. 

[webcatcher]

 

[Laddinfance]

Intercept protects you from the "dissolve" effect off the orchid. Oddly enough as Forcefield cancels the rest of an attack it would also protect you from the "dissolve" effect. Other than that, I don't really know anything else that can.

[jacksmack]

Divine intervention can cancel the attack.

But you cannot stop the destruction of the equipment if you let the attack hit you.
(force enemy to waste mana.)

[Laddinfance]

Divine intervention can cancel the attack.

But you cannot stop the destruction of the equipment if you let the attack hit you.
(force enemy to waste mana.)

Good catch on Divine Intervention.

[Aylin]

Surprise Armor Ward could help, but only if your opponent doesn't have the extra 4 mana.

[silverclawgrizzly]

Those things are tricky. I haven't fought a Druid or anyone using them yet but I'm not looking forward to it.

[sIKE]

No Shift Enchantment tricks?

[webcatcher]

What would you shift? Unless you've got Armor ward and enchantment transfusion out,  which is a lot of work for a card most people don't use and which can be countered by having four extra Mana.

[sIKE]

What would you shift? Unless you've got Armor ward and enchantment transfusion out,  which is a lot of work for a card most people don't use and which can be countered by having four extra Mana.

I was being a bit cheeky to my forum fiends, someone almost always comes up with a shift enchantment solution. Reminds me of this video note a bit of cussing...

[DeckBuilder]

Enchantment Transfusion + Jinx delays it...
That same Enchantment Transfusion will also bring Nullify, Force Hold, Ghoul Rot, depending on set-up time
Then just get out of the way whilst they divert attention on those lovely enchants buffed by Wardstones

The Way of The Wizard is indeed subtle (and often boringly slow to put you out of your mana starved misery)

Just being facetious: when Orchid was previewed, I applauded the way the designers stuffed Wizard Control with it (no Nullify or Block defence). Much needed. However, I think it has actually weakened other builds more. Why? Because Wizard Control plays Armour Ward. Period. With Mana Siphon and all the other mana drain effects, Orchid is a setback (how many Teleport Wands for your Slow?) but all that mana saved to cast it is all the enemy has cast for 2 turns. That's quite a lot of tempo loss when my recharging Forge simply recasts another copy of Teleport Wand. I will take that trade-off anytime...

Yeah. Orchid is great Equipment kill, especially at vine range. But I think it hurts other builds far more.

(I expect it was also designed for anti-Lash and anti-Fireball Wand vs. Warlock to protect Druid's plants which it does admirably).

[DeckBuilder]

Oh, and the best defence for Corrosive Orchid is to cast your own and stay in that zone!
Or just weather the 2 dice Acid attack where he has already cast one (that's what Gargoyles are for).

[ACG]

Everybody always talks about Corrosive Orchid's dissolve effect, but it is also a vine conjuration with an attack, which I consider to be the more important aspect of it (think about the power of Wizard's Tower or Temple of Light). When I cast it, I often don't bother with the dissolve effect at all. An extra conjuration-timed unavoidable attack with corrode can be extremely useful in many scenarios:

- Removing Voltaric Shield, Block, Forcefield tokens, and other mandatory defenses right before attacking with something else
- Attacking low-health flyers or creatures with defenses
- Comboing with push/pull effects like Thornlasher's snatch (or corroding armor right before a shove through a wall of thorns)
- Abusing creature suppression effects (conjurations are immune to the obelisk, idol of pestilence, and other such effects, allowing you to get around their limits). This is one reason my Druid deck runs Mordok's Obelisk - True, there aren't enough conjurations with attacks yet to have a pure "conjuration swarm", but between the orchid and the lotus you can supplement your creatures enough to have significantly more attack actions than your opponent.

On top of this, you have the one time dissolve effect - a nice bonus, but certainly not the main reason for running Corrosive Orchid.

[piousflea]

IMO, the best counter to Corrosive dissolve is to maintain a tempo advantage, such that it is painful for your opponent to spend Mana dissolving your (Wand, Armor, etc).

Corrosive shares a "problem" with Explode in that you have to spend extra mana over a straight Dissolve. In the case of Explode, the 6 Mana buys a decent Unavoidable attack. In the case of Orchid, the 8 Mana buys an attack and a persistent (though fragile) Orchid. However, it's still Mana that your opponent can't spend on other things, like Raptor Vines that hit much harder than Orchids.

Even though your opponent dissolves your wand or Armor or weapon, if you have enough of a tempo advantage, you will get further and further ahead every round because he used his Mana on equipment destruction instead of reclaiming tempo.