Maw can’t target a stealthy troop unless they are the last one standing. Also, Maw’s third trait will still Devour you.
!5% chance vs my 20% to dodge his skulls. Rng be sweet to me i think i can dodge or turn ghost when the board fills with his attack. That is assuming that he does not devour my tank. However he goes after my second mana maker so i do not worry too much about the meta.
I know all this already, that’s why I’m gathering data and working on a topic that’s dedicated to counter-Maw-sures. All I need is information on what the popular teams are. All I know right now is that Ol’ Maw and Mercy are an item, but nothing else. Could you give me the scoop on the popular versions of this team?
More like I meant that they were trying to make the AI play in a similar manner to the deck-builder’s playstyle, but that’s probably not a thing: more likely it’s just some regular AI that is built to usually make the best plays with increasing the amount of better plays made and the board leaning in the AI’s favor the higher you get up the ladder.
A bit off-topic but…
What happens if you have 4 troops with the stealthy trait and the AI tries to use Maw’s devour spell against you?
Maw
Maw
Bone Dragon
Giant Spider
Maw
Maw
Infernal King
Mercy
Maw
Infernal King
Alchemist
Mercy
Maw
Infernal King
Sheggra
Mercy
There’s more variations…
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Nullifies the trait. Maw is eating someone.
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Do you know what kind of banner they normally use?
Usually Holy Banner +2 yellow…fill up Maw as fast as possible
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I feel like Alchemist’s synergism is less than Mercy’s due to sharing a color, and no banner boosting his color means that at worst he would require 4 3-matches to go off, and all of them would have to be red…I can see why Mercy is run over and/or alongside Alchemist in this regard.
Thanks, this will help with my research! 
For the sake of your research
Maw
Infernal King
Alchemist or Moloch (better choice if he’s traited)
Mercy
The idea is to fill Maw up quickly so the rest of the yellows go to Infernal King. Mercy has Empowered which is why she is so effective. The reasoning behind Alchemist is he needs 10 mana and has fire link. 2 matches, one being a surge, and he’s ready to go. Using Alchemist also gets rid of pesky colors to maximize Infernal Kings spell so you can keep and control the board. Having Moloch, instead of Alchemist, serves as using his annoying Suppression trait, mana draining, and dealing true damage to your opposition.
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Ahh, I was unaware of the Fire Link on Merchant, that definitely seems more viable, although it would still take 3 regular matches to have him online.
Do mana surges happen enough in high-level play to rely on them?
IMO. They happen so often on Alchemist, Valkyrie, and Goblin that it is almost expected to happen. I don’t rely on them, and they are a sweet surprise when they happen.
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I don’t want to repeat myself, but let me at least say, that I don’t want Maw to get nerfed, because it ist the strongest / most annoying defense troop. There always will be a troop/Team that is annoying because it can win gasp 
I want… yada yada (see above)
I see now that we are talking from completely different perspectives. Early in the game you are very limited in your choices. Missing troops, missing souls, missing traits, missing everything.
Also to your points about the AI: It is perfectly predictable (most of the time), and in my opinion it is one of the “skills” that this game actually requires to sometimes manipulate the board so that the AI makes bad moves.
Maybe you have watched some of Tacets videos to get a glimpse of end game play, maybe not. I wanted to record 10 consecutive pvp matches but was rudely interrupted at 4.
I mean 10 would have been a small sample size, but 4 is obviously not very representative and you have to take my word that there is not much variance in playing this team. Maybe it provides some information for your research.
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Did you actually try that or just have the theory? 
Just on Hard diff in pvp maw dies like every 4th game. It is not invincible. On w4 it takes what, 2 shots of goblin = 2 green matches with the usual mana surge?
Collecting 24 mana is not trivial even with filled mercy or other mana giver.
While winning on friendly board was possible for long time with whatever endless turn deck you chose, it just takes forever. Maw works as the speedup factor. And is needed exactly for that, otherwise it’s just too long and boring to kill the enemy with the thousand cuts. All the additions just keeping to slow down the game (stone/gran skin, barrier, frozen, etc) while health stats creep up.
The main reason I run maw is gorgotha (or even trent/coronet) on many teams. Though possibly it’s time to switch over to shadow hunter 
In 1.9 you could run wl 4 pvp with very high success rate and not much slower than on lower difficulties. It may sound strange, but you would put mercy in the first slot to tank 1 or 2 hits if the gems fall badly, and a little bit more carefully get the mana for maw.
Then place some skull matches for the ai (if mercy is still alive) while loading up your skull generators and fire once maw is in front.
An element of randomness does not negate the impact of skill. The skill ceiling may be relatively low, and the random element relatively high, but that doesn’t mean there is no skill involved. An expert may lose sometimes, and a newbie may win sometimes, but the expert will still win far more often than the newbie. Your team does matter, the matches you make matter, the spells you cast matter, but you cannot guarantee victory.
Whether or not Maw can be beaten is irrelevant to whether or not devour is appropriately balanced, or even an appropriate mechanic for the game.
I would hope for more than a single troop to be the only solution to any particular lineup. While every team doesn’t need to be able to beat every other team, there should still be a variety of ways to tackle any problem. Making it dependent on a single troop isn’t much better than the current meta being dependent on Maw.
Slowing the game down reduces the impact of randomness on the outcome. If you care about the quality of the game as a game, rather than just as a slot machine, then this is a good thing.
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There are many troops in the game that drain mana. Those troops don’t dominate the metagame. What makes my hypothetical troop worse than any of those, besides the fact that it is Empowered and can theoretically cast its spell at the start of the match (when nobody has mana to drain anyway)?
Edit: because people brought it up, there is another change the devs could make to nerf Maw without changing the card. Make it so that Big/Huge/Immense provide immunity from devouring. Most tanky first-slot troops have one of those traits already, so leaving a skull match on the board for Maw would be safer.
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Scoop no but my tyri team has tyri with stealth and my front line has agile. No wonder i am barely affected by its trait, i dodge probably every devour tick. Goblins can tear maw a new one by dodging his skuls and netting extra turns to crush him before he can get going.[quote=“Ashasekayi, post:124, topic:7531”]
What happens if you have 4 troops with the stealthy trait and the AI tries to use Maw’s devour spell against you?
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It will munch on one of them. If you have 3 though and a sacrifice then he is forced to eat the sacrifice and waste his spell.
Huh? repeating the same thing 100 times vs 15 times needs no more skill just more waste of time. The flame/alk and similar decks just went on and on. And in the past gem inserters spawned more gems so were more reliable.
It’s the recent changes reductions pulled them back into the luck/slot machine realm.
Simlar story with gob rider – you could keep shaping the board but the cost increase forces to pass some and hope the opponent will get stuck too.
Sure and while at it also make Gorgotha reduce the the spell damage to quarter too. O,O Then just issue some troop that adds hp&armor to all allies on 4/5 matches and mission tortoise is complete.