painter combo against salvagers: a tale of bomberman!

[Mdizzle4life85]

So here is the thing i have been testing bomberman for about 3 weeks and sevral different questions//conclusions have arised and i am not trying to duplicate the lets talk bomberman thread however bring up an argument regarding the kill mechanic in this deck. all other concerns regarding this deck should go in the "lets discuss bomberman today" thread

So on to tackling the issue at hand personally i am running salvagers over painter combo because i feel when the need to race arises salvagers proves to be a faster combo and a better beater. other people like the painter grind combo and feel that version helps you open you sideboard up a little more. let the debates begin people! lets tackle this question.

[Anusien]

I've discussed this in the Bomberman thread, but I'll restate my thoughts.

Salvagers rarely races for the kill, the way people who want to add Grindstone seem to think.  A large number of times you accidentally walk into the win by going turn 2 Trinket Mage and landing Salvagers off the top.  Although sometimes you do go turn 2 Trinket Mage, turn 3 Salvagers and just win.  These are nice, but quite rare.  Then again, Grindstone can't combo that quickly because you don't have enough mana.

I think there a few reasons to prefer Salvagers:
#1) Salvagers interacts better with the rest of the deck.  You occasionally can just recur Tormod's Crypt or something with Salvagers.
#2) Aether Spellbomb is better than Grindstone.  I bounce a Colossus much more often than I care about Vampiric Tutor.
#3) The first Trinket.  I can basically always tutor up Black Lotus with Bomberman.  If you do that in Painter's Servant, you can't combo off a Servant.  If you don't, you don't have Lotus which is .  Instead you have this worthless card.
#4) Salvagers is much better in combat against Fish/Goblins.

[magus888]

I will always prefer Salvagers over the painter's combo for one big reason. AS is flat out better when you have reusable utility artifacts (even without a lotus) at your disposal.

[StringBean]

Plus, AS can win by itself just by swinging for 2.  AS is a beast especially when combined with trinket mage.  Bomberman doesn't need to combo off to win, in fact in my experience winning by swing with As and TM wins for often.

[Blueforever]

i have played bomberman for quite some time and find that with the quantity of creatures i have in the deck i can combo with lotus to bounce all the other guys creatures with spell bomb and timewalk for the win with the 20 damage that all the creature dish out. painter servant can't do that. nor can he get back my lotus or EE to blow up all those goblins that are gonna try and kill me.

[Grand Inquisitor]

No one here has spoken to the fact that Painter<>Grindstone is a two card combo, where Salvager<>Lotus<>Spellbomb is a three card combo.  Isn't this central to the issue?

[Anusien]

Sort of, but not really.  The first problem is that I think you actually can set up the Salvagers combo faster, by virtue of the "What does the first Trinket Mage get" discussion.  The other thing is that Salvagers + Lotus is functionally a two card combo.  You have 1 Brainstorm 1 Ponder 4 Trinket Mage 1 Ancestral 1 Tinker 1 Merchant Scroll 4 Thirst for Knowledge 1 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Aether Spellbomb 1 Engineered Explosives (comboes with Top to draw your deck); about 1/4 of your deck will find you other cards.  I don't think I've ever had a problem in testing or tournament matches where I put Salvagers + Lotus together and didn't win.  Generally my first Trinket gets Lotus and my second gets either EE or Top, meaning that most any draw will get you there.

[Mdizzle4life85]

Sort of, but not really.  The first problem is that I think you actually can set up the Salvagers combo faster, by virtue of the "What does the first Trinket Mage get" discussion.  The other thing is that Salvagers + Lotus is functionally a two card combo.  You have 1 Brainstorm 1 Ponder 4 Trinket Mage 1 Ancestral 1 Tinker 1 Merchant Scroll 4 Thirst for Knowledge 1 Sensei's Divining Top 1 Aether Spellbomb 1 Engineered Explosives (comboes with Top to draw your deck); about 1/4 of your deck will find you other cards.  I don't think I've ever had a problem in testing or tournament matches where I put Salvagers + Lotus together and didn't win.  Generally my first Trinket gets Lotus and my second gets either EE or Top, meaning that most any draw will get you there.

Completely true, you don't always need to win right away with slavagers alot of the time salvagers plus lotus gets you there with any other card in the deck, not to mention salvagers is a little stronger vs bounce. if you try to grind you opponent and they bounce the servant they will usually mill two cards and kill you on their next turn, if they bounce salvagers you may just replay it and go infinite again. another problem i have with the painter combo is that painter by himself is alot worse than salvagers by himself. I can not count how many times i have just gotten their by recurring good artifacts, or swinging with giant spider. I think the painter combo already has its deck and it doesent need bombermans shell, in fact it is worse with that shell.