DNA said:
oh yeah I forgot about Badrai from Secret Wonders
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@Captain Oats:
Here's the original picture; I gave due credit in my bio, since it is a custom version. Moving on;
It is possible that they could have foreseen Durant being a powerful force; I definitely don't doubt it. Whether or not that would have stopped them from watering down the new Heatmor's attack, I cannot say. But to be perfectly honest, I do not believe that Heatmor will be the downfall of Durant.
Why? Right now, Durant still has to deal with things that can OHKO it every turn - Terrakion is an example of one thing, and the Tao Dragons are also formidable threats, but as with everything, there are ways to play around it. You have to play very wisely, but you can still play around it. It basically involves being judicial with Revives and Catchers (oh, and Junk Arm), plus a little luck on Crushing Hammer...basically, it's difficult, but not impossible. I don't know if this will see a downfall in Durant's play (to be honest, I think it will, but not by a large margin), but in any case, we need to brace for the inevitable future. That's what EVERYONE did with Catcher. (I really hate Pokemon Catcher, but I am not going to quit the game over it.)
I guess it's just one of those things we'll just have to live with. We have had many moments like this before - what's another one to us?
Thanks for the original, I now know exactly how to build it
I'll have to go back to parents house sometime and get out all my old Bionicle pieces now...
There are cards that can beat Durant right now, yes, but none of them do so with as much ease as Heatmor. {C} for an OHKO vs. the type-type-{C} cost of all the other popular, normal attackers (Genies, Cobalion, Terrakion, Dragons, etc) that serve as your Durant counter. Heatmor can get out and powered T1 an there is nothing Durant can really do against them except Crushing Hammer, Judge/N and hope they don't draw an energy or Weavile drop, etc. But even then there's nothing impossibly hard about getting 1 single energy out of your discard (FSL, Super Rod, Fisherman come to mind), and since you are KOing so easily you shouldn't feel the need to be conservative with draw power/PONTs/etc.
Starting with T1 4 Durant Devour, they get 24 cards discarded from the 47 you start with if you manage to get out Heatmor T1, plus 6 for drawing each turn so that's 17 cards to blow through in 6 turns. That's not including the times that Durant occasionally squeak out a clutch revive/JA etc or the times they have no energy/twins, so that could add anywhere from 2-6 cards a game, on average, in your deck, since tbh, Durant does have
some stability issues once its opponent starts OHKOing every turn. Durant can also play catcher, hammer and so on to stall, but people run switch/JA and enough energy to not really have to worry about this.
So really, yes, you can still lose to Durant even if you are running Heatmor and you aren't careful or you are really, REALLY unlucky, but you can also run through the entire deck with just 2 cards (Heatmor, energy). It will definitely crush Durant out of the meta and make it a scarce rogue, if anything, imo at least. I can't see how else it would happen.
Catcher was a much larger change to the format, since it affected every deck and not just countering 1 single deck, but I know what you meant.
Durant won't fall off completely, but it will take a huge loss. I can't see how Durant can have an honest, fighting chance against a good player teching in Heatmor.
tl,dr; Heatmor is going to be the realistic end of Durant.