I'm wondering which of these buffs you guys like more for the Spider Spawning build: Elder of Laurels, Chorus of Might, or Beastmaster Ascension?
-Elder of Laurels is a creature and synergises with spawning, but is the easiest to remove. Small plus side; it can activate multiple times per turn if you have the mana for it.
-Beastmaster Ascension is useless when milled (unless you happen to have a Treasured Find...), but is more difficult to remove and provides a permanent boost to ALL your creatures. Worse when you're somehow lacking in creatures (<7), though.
-Chorus of Might is an instant, so it's useless when milled, but it does have surprise value. You can use it to kill one of their bigger creatures, or push for (lethal) damage. Plus side is trample.
Chorus of Might and Elder of Laurels synergise well with making Wandering Wolf unblockable, Child of Night for big lifegain or Agent of Fates for a sacrifice effect. Of those, Chorus of Might gives valuable trample to Nemesis of Mortals and/or Scion of the Wild.
Yet the general, permanent bonus of Beastmaster Ascension is not too be underestimated either (or is it a win-more card?).
I'm currently running 1 Elder, 2 Chorus and 2 Beastmaster. Somehow, Beastmaster always seems to get milled. Chorus has been good, but Elder of Laurels has been amazing against the AI. I fear though that intelligent opponents will remove him instantly.
I've opted to run without the pump, and based on the last 25-30 duels, there is not a single game that would have ended differently with beastmaster or similar overrun effect. In a 100 duels, there will probably be a handful of games where beastmaster just fits so perfectly after a spider spawning where you have 7+ creatures to take full effect. And I promise you, there will be at least twice that many where it's a dead card in your graveyard
I've ended up focusing on what the deck does best, early pressure trading little freaks, to ending the game with a LOAD of little freaks. Will I get run over by other stuff ? Yes, certainly. I will lose every time to
Siege Dragon or an early hero with ascension enchanted on it if I don't manage to grab a Reclamation Sage in time. But those are the only real threats. I just recently won a game after having had Planar Cleansing twice and Anger of the Gods twice to clear out my army. 4 times he killed them off, 5th time he just went ffs in chat and conceeded.
But I digress. Best choice ? Beastmaster and hope for a treasured find if you get it milled. And make sure you do not cast it until you have 8-9+ creatures in play. Nothing worse than playing it with 7 creatures, and having 1 of them killed or bounced. Then opponents turn, he removes Beastmaster and leaves you a little flustered and probably tapped out ready to eat the counter-attack.