Sacrificial Lamb: "Lamb Slam"

[BlanketEffect]

A) If you haven't started using Sacrificial Lamb in the decks you have for which it's appropriate, you're doing your deck, and yourself, a disservice. It is an excellent card, and wonderful for using on your allies that have been Crippled, Disabled, Frozen, nearly killed, etc. Basically, when 3 cards in hand would be better than the ally you're wanting to sacrifice, it's the surefire card. It's a REALLY nice play if you've also got Wrath of the Forest in play, as the sacrificed card also triggers WotF's draw effect, allowing you to draw a staggering FOUR cards for the price of (2) and an ally that was useless to you, already.

B) Due to the popularity of Santa Bomb ©2011, I have opted to elect a new term for the Shadow Era community lexicon, to describe when you use Sacrifical Lamb on an ally that was either completely useless to you, due to being incapacitated somehow, one that is nearly dead anyway, or both (an Infernal Gargoyle which has been frozen and left at 1 health from Eladwen's frostbolt). Getting rid of this ally for 3-4 new cards in hand is certainly an advantage, and your opponent draws NO cards from it.

So, to describe the use Sacrificial Lamb in this manner, without having to explain the longwinded element of it, is to "Lamb Slam" the ally.

As in, "I thought I was going to lose on the next turn after my opponent played Captured Prey on my Plasma Behemoth, but I Lamb Slammed him and drew the Fireball I needed to win the game."

Yup, a Lamb Slam.

[thendless]

I don't think the strategy is good enough to deserve its own name, or at least I haven't seen anyone using it as effectively as the Santa Bomb trick.

[thantos]

Lamb Slam. I LOVE IT.

[BlanketEffect]

And yet, the scenario I described above happens ALL the time. The only reason Sacrificial Lamb it hasn't reached popular use yet is that the 1.5 meta is still very fresh and people haven't felt out all the cards yet.

Trust me, once the 1.5 dust settles, you'll see Sacrificial Lamb in a LOT of Shadow decks running (3) cost allies.

Allow me to quote an elightening post I made in the A1 forums upon discovering its usefuless:

The WotF is your turn to turn assurance of some card draw. The Sacrificial Lamb is good WITHOUT WotF, and Banebow is fine WITHOUT SL.

But, when you combine them, I promise you it won't take many games for you to see how huge a t6-7 SL can be.

Think about it. You're at 7 resources. You've got WotF and two Gargoyles in play. Eladwen Freezeblasts one of them and plays an Aeon. You've got 2 cards in hand, a Sacrificial Lamb and Flaming Arrow. You draw a Brutalis. Big help... you sac the Brute, go to 8 resources. You play SL on the Gargoyle. Down to 1 card in hand. You draw 3 from the SL and then another from the WotF. FOUR CARDS IN HAND INSTEAD OF A FROZEN, ALMOST-DEAD GARGOYLE. Now you've got 6 resources, and 5 cards in hand. You can now have a productive turn.

It goes WONDERFULLY with WotF, and is certainly not just a win-more type of combo.

[Seth]

You forgot the part about the Unreal Tournament announcer going "LAMB SLAM!" every time you do it :/

[Gondorian]

Deserves a better name.

Lamp Chop would be better.

"I was surely gonna lose, but I hit him with a lamb chop and turned the game around"

[thendless]

I have tried it intensively on a shadow hunter deck, that obviously also relied on Wrath of the Forest for draw, and I found that you can only use it when you already have board control which makes it very situational. Sure, it combos nicely with the aforementioned WotF or even with Oggloth, but there's still nothing like a turn one Fire Snake, turn two Bad Santa.

Still, if someone's interested in testing it, you should try casting a Shadow Knight, sacrifice it to Sacrificial Lamb and then cast another Shadow Knight retrieving the first one (add Oggloth to the mix and...yeah.). Hence and repeat whenever you draw another Sacrificial Lamb.

[iClipse]

Lol, blanket! You strange guy.

[FDL]

The problem with Santa Bomb is that you can only pull it off in about 25% of your games going first (with 4 1cc allies + 4 BS). That's only 1/8 total game and it doesn't count the times your opponent will open with a 1cc ally.

That said, Bad Santa is great, but Sacrificial Lamb deserves to be in the same waters.

[BlanketEffect]

Again... on turn 8, would you rather have a half-dead frozen Gargoyle, or a handful of cards?

How often do you play an ally (3) or more, only to have it rendered completely useless by an incapacitating effect, and have it basically not even be a part of the game anymore? Sac Lamb trades 1:1 with the card they used to incapacitate your ally, and then you turn said useless ally into 3 new cards to use. So, used in this fashion, it literally creates a 3:1 card advantage for you.

- And it only costs (2), so it's not as though it takes up your turn to do it.

- And you said you can only use Sac Lamb when you have board control? I find the exact opposite to be true. I use it when my opponent has the board and has incapacitated my ally.



Finally, it's wrong to compare a Lamb Slam to a Santa Bomb. One gives you some tempo acceleration at the onset of the game (T1 Snake, T2 Bomb), but you only really gain a small card advantage that way, and at BEST, a Santa Bomb can only ever give you a 2-0 card bump, because you spend 1 to get 3, and so you net 2 cards. However, with a Lamb Slam, you NEVER have to worry about your opponent benefitting from it, because they draw nothing ever.