Quote Originally Posted by Stevestamopz View Post
IMO Driver is best when there are 3 in your hand with a Warchief out on the field. Your opponent does something silly like tap out and attack with everything but one thing and then you get em on the swing back. That to me is the turning the corner.

Of course this all falls to pieces because DRS is capable of both draining off of that one land and of making the 2nd mana to cast a Decay on your Warchief so that you don't get to turn the corner. [redacted], reality is a wet rag.
Well, every goblin in the deck is better with a haste lord out. In those scenarios he's eating an Abrupt Decay. I'm way happier to lose a Piledriver to an Abrupt Decay than I am a Warchief or Vial. If you view the deck as a Midrange deck as I do then Piledriver is literally the card for ending games. Losing your best attacker is not losing the game. You can just keep Matroning and Ringleadering until they die to the remaining garbage. Similar to how Shardless's win con is Goyf. They often win with just a 1/1 Flyer and a 2/2 after the dust settles and the kill spells flew.

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Quote Originally Posted by jrw1985 View Post
I disagree. Vial smasher is nothing like Piledriver. In fact, Vial Smasher is in many ways the polar opposite of Piledriver. Piledriver lets you win quickly when you have a positional advantage in combat. Vial Smasher lets you win through board parity. In other words, Piledriver is a card you really want when you can attack aggressively because it can either force a trade or clock your opponent. Vial Smasher is a card you want when you CANNOT force a trade or clock an opponent. Piledriver helps you when you can attack profitably. Vial Smasher helps you when you cannot attack profitably.

Vial Smasher has a cool ability but I don't think he'll really make an impact and here's why: 1) Most Importantly, he is too narrow. He doesn't help you much when you're ahead and just need to kill your opponent before they kill you. He only really helps when neither you nor your opponent can get the upper hand in combat, and he then lets you win through burn rather than combat. A card like Piledriver is much more efficient in that roll. 2) Black splash. 3) No multiples. If you could play multiple Vial Smashers that would be ridiculous and overpowered. Only being able to play one at a time isn't powerful enough, especially since we're not cast FoW on our opponent's turn.

Vial Smasher is another goblin that's only good conditionally. Much like Piledriver sucks on defense, Vial Smasher ain't great on offense. If they had given him a second ability that mattered he could be really decent. As it is there are too many matchups where he just doesn't make an impact.
An interesting take on the card. When I draw a Piledriver on a stalled board, I become noticeably closer to breaking through my opponents defenses, if not able the next time he could swing. In his own way Piledriver helps break parity by forcing chumps, but I see what you are saying.

Ultimately I agree that the card is not really for the deck, especially at 3 mana, though for somewhat different reasons.