Talk: Kalimos, Primal Lord

Cast spell

Should this count as a Cast spell ability? It does say it "casts" the Elemental Invocation but that seems more for flavor. In function, it's just like a Choose One effect; unlike other Cast spell cards it can only "cast" its subset of effects, not collectible spells. - jerodast (talk) 17:36, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not really a person that knows a lot about tagging, but I think it should count as a Cast spell ability. I usually take a look at the definition of the ability on its article page. It says for cast spell: "Cast spell is an ability that allows a minion to cast a spell. The spell is both created and put into effect by the minion; any mana cost is ignored, and any Overload is not applied. The ability in effect sees the minion casting a spell on behalf of the player." Ok, actually, Yogg now applies Overload right? That's another thing to clarify/correct. :O Aegonostic (talk) 18:06, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

But the question is what are we really counting as a spell. Elemental Invocations aren't collectible or reproducible in any way except for this card - they are essentially just a flavorful way of describing the idea that this card has four different effects. It seems like this is doing something meaningfully different from Yogg and company, because those all work with other spells whereas this is much more like a Choose One. We can always modify the definition of Cast spell if we think it reflects the different abilities better. - jerodast (talk) 18:45, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Yea those are really good points. Also to add to those points (and not to answer anything) is that it is also good to think about future cards which may work like Kalimos (casting specific spells). Would "cast spell" be able to be tagged onto those future cards? Something to ask ourselves and contemplate on. Aegonostic (talk) 20:24, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

That is a fantastic point I had not considered - they will definitely keep exploring this design space. If a card said "Battlecry: Cast Fireball at a random target" what would I call it? The randomness makes it more like Yogg. So what about "Battlecry: Cast Fireball" and they let you choose that target? That's basically "Battlecry: Deal 6 damage." Definitely a fine line. However, I just realized, Spell Damage lets us draw a clear dividing line; see below. - jerodast (talk) 21:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it has the same effect as Arch-Thief Rafaam's effect, but in a Choose One form. TheGamer765 (talk) 18:11, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't quite agree with that; Rafaam gives you a spell in your hand which can then be cast like any other, trigger Counterspell or Spellbender, trigger Mana Wyrm, add to Arcane Giant's spell count, be reduced in cost by Sorcerer's Apprentice, etc. This card does none of those things. - jerodast (talk) 18:45, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, okay, maybe its battlecry is partially like Kazakus' battlecry, and then it will cast it like a manually-guided Yogg? TheGamer765 (talk) 19:00, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm the one who added the Cast Spell tag, which I did based on the card text and the similarity in rules to Yogg. However, I can see why that's not quite correct. I think there's two options: one is just removing the tag and leaving it at Battlecry. That's less descriptive, but matches the fact that this ability is pretty unique. The other is replacing it with a Choose One tag. That stretches the definition of the tag a bit, but it's descriptive to the effect. That would probably go in the tags section rather than abilities. TheMurlocAggroB (talk) 19:53, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Even though I'm the one saying how much this is like a Choose One, I would actually definitely say NOT to mark it as such :) This is for similar reasons to why we don't count Combos as Battlecries - there are certain effects (namely Fandral Staghelm for Choose One, Baron Rivendare for Battlecry, Discovers, etc) that affect specific abilities by name that wouldn't apply here. Our writeups can make it clear that it is LIKE a Choose One without actually being one.

By the way, I was definitely not criticizing the initial marking of this as Cast spell, it just got me thinking. In fact, Aegonostic almost got me turned around on this one (above), until the Spell Damage angle occurred to me. - jerodast (talk) 21:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Okay, this doesn't answer the important question about future cards that User:Aegonostic mentioned above, but it does at least suggest an answer for Kalimos: Yogg-Saron, Hope's End and Djinni of Zephyrs are affected by Spell Damage, but Kalimos card is not. I think that's pretty clear about whether it's "really" casting the spell. They may patch this to say it gets Spell Damage, in which case I'd say we should count it! A fine line indeed, and there'd be no way to tell if this didn't do damage. Since we do have this clear clue though, I'm going to remove the tag for now, but please feel free to continue the discussion if you're unconvinced. - jerodast (talk) 21:31, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that Kalimos should be marked as Battlecry and not as Cast Spell. This follows quite clearly from the comments of CM_Aratil on Reddit, and from Yong Woo on Twitter (see footnotes 1 and 4 on the page). This suggests that, contrary to how the "Known Bugs" section is currently worded, the Air and Fire invocations are actually working as intended, and the actual bugs are the effect of Spell Damage on Invocation of Water + Auchenai, the effect of Velen on Invocation of Water, and the interaction of Invocation of Air with Hallazeal.

Note also that the latter no longer applies. Disguised Toast showed on stream (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/165477349) that, after the KotFT patch, Invocation of Air no longer triggers Hallazeal to heal your face.

I wanted to change this on the page, but I am not sure what to do about the issues with Invocation of Water. I do not know if this invocation is still affected by Spell Damage and/or Velen. And I cannot test this, because I don't possess Kalimos. Can someone please test this and let me know if these interactions were changed as well? BigHugger (talk) 19:37, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Scroll of Wonder and The Runespear behave very similary to Yogg-Saron so this ability is no longer limited to minions. Grommpy (talk) 12:27, 6 February 2018 (UTC)