I am hoping that it never catches up in lower levels of play. That has all the elements of an unfun deck, lots of random spell generation with Cyclone, 5+ Fireball generation with Antonidas and mana cheating with Conj Calling and Mountain Giant.
Your definition of unfun differs wildly from mine, facing RNG is not something I dread, the variety is why I keep coming back to Hearthstone. Facing decks that play out the same every time is literally why this game will eventually fail, key word eventually.
facing rng is not something you dread? variety means having a balanced meta with multiple decks per class on ladder. creating 10 random cards a game where you can't play around anything has nothing to do with variety, it just takes skill and fun out of the game imo..
btw conj calling is the worst card of this expansion. so bad for the game.
Yea, random spells, minions and effects are fun for many people. We prefer playing a wider variety of cards and adapt to the current situation, instead of smashing the best 30 cards to a deck that everyone knows each turn what card to expect and what to play around.
Too many fail to see the upside of generated spells: you need SKILL to play them OPTIMALLY, adjusting what you get with what you need is far from easy, or a mere highroll.
Shadow Essence is mostly highroll (made consistent by the rest of the deck, but that's another story)
Babbling Book/Mana Cyclone are also highroll, but they are also much more, because their product costs mana, and requires planning, otherwise it's just a Tempo loss. I mean, let's face it, how consistent can it be a Pavel victory with them?
Magic Trick is only partly highroll, for the most part it's SKILL (to choose the optimal option, and cast it at the right time).
Calling "highroll" anything that includes a random part is reductive and dismissive. It's not a real argument.
When the impact of random effects is not immediate, and requires further steps, involving some decision-making, you can't call it just "highroll" and dismiss it as unfun.
Random casting (full highroll) =/= Random generation (partly highroll)
Because it's actually fun to find a way to produce random stuff and make them useful.
And Random generation is fully balanced, because it's still fully bound to the rules of the Mana.
Otherwise we should point out that Card Draw is also random, and we fall into the topos of any card game being a coin flip. Which is obviously a wrong simplification of reality.
It's not a bad deck but there is a highroll feeling when you play it. Rarely gets out of steam, but some games are just not winnable. I myself like the Conjure/Dragon version(without the Mana Cyclones) because it is more consistent. But if you like Mage it's not a bad deck.
P.S. My bad, this deck is awesome! A pure fun to play. Little hard at times with all that spells that Mana cyclone generates, but the swing turns that you can make are just insane. Almost ever you have a big board and when your opponent thinks that you are run out of steam and is used almost every single removal they have in their deck, you win the board again with Conjures/Giants combo. Great deck.
(Or whatever you call it, Tempo Mage, Cycle Mage..)
rdu, apx, asmo, feno, boar all have climbed to like top 20 Legend rank or higher using very similar decks.
What are your thoughts on the list? Will Mage overtake Rogue as the most popular class?
It's not NOT the best deck in the game. I'd still favor Rogue, but this deck is a late bloomer for sure. I started playing it at the beginning of last week because refined lists were starting to trickle out. And they've only gotten better in the last few days.
I have been playing it since a few days and I think it's strong but def not the best (Rogue says hi). It does require more skill than the other meta decks though which will deflate its win rate in the stats. With such an amount of low-cost cards and synergies there are many options as to how you play your turns during the game.
It's still in refinement stage; I've played a variation with Sea Giants but I've also seen variants with Rabble Bouncers. Antonidas and Questing Adventurers are also in the debate wether to include them or not.
I think the major appeal of this kind of deck is that, because of it's god-draws, it should have a pretty even match-up spread, which makes it feel good to play. No one likes feeling that they lost at the greetings stage of the game.
FWIW, I don't think i'd worry too about this deck being WHOAMG Stier!. I imagine that good aggro decks (Murloc Shamans) or things with suitable disruption (Secret Hunter) should prove to work pretty well. And Rogue just starts to play sap again.
It probably finds itself in the middle-to-top of T2 when the dust settles.
I'd say rogue with nomi & mira package. Strong early game due to weapons + pirate combo or lackeys + Edwin, they almost empty their deck with the draw 3 spell and then after that they play mira, Nomi and bounce Nomi back once or twice. Too much preasure and insane finisher. Too good.
facing rng is not something you dread? variety means having a balanced meta with multiple decks per class on ladder. creating 10 random cards a game where you can't play around anything has nothing to do with variety, it just takes skill and fun out of the game imo..
btw conj calling is the worst card of this expansion. so bad for the game.
Yea, random spells, minions and effects are fun for many people. We prefer playing a wider variety of cards and adapt to the current situation, instead of smashing the best 30 cards to a deck that everyone knows each turn what card to expect and what to play around.
This is an OT now, but...
Too many fail to see the upside of generated spells: you need SKILL to play them OPTIMALLY, adjusting what you get with what you need is far from easy, or a mere highroll.
Calling "highroll" anything that includes a random part is reductive and dismissive. It's not a real argument.
When the impact of random effects is not immediate, and requires further steps, involving some decision-making, you can't call it just "highroll" and dismiss it as unfun.
Because it's actually fun to find a way to produce random stuff and make them useful.
And Random generation is fully balanced, because it's still fully bound to the rules of the Mana.
Otherwise we should point out that Card Draw is also random, and we fall into the topos of any card game being a coin flip. Which is obviously a wrong simplification of reality.
It's not a bad deck but there is a highroll feeling when you play it. Rarely gets out of steam, but some games are just not winnable. I myself like the Conjure/Dragon version(without the Mana Cyclones) because it is more consistent. But if you like Mage it's not a bad deck.
P.S. My bad, this deck is awesome! A pure fun to play. Little hard at times with all that spells that Mana cyclone generates, but the swing turns that you can make are just insane. Almost ever you have a big board and when your opponent thinks that you are run out of steam and is used almost every single removal they have in their deck, you win the board again with Conjures/Giants combo. Great deck.
I like reminiscing on how people were complaining that Mage was dead at the beginning of this expansion. :-)
Heh!
It's not NOT the best deck in the game.
I'd still favor Rogue, but this deck is a late bloomer for sure.
I started playing it at the beginning of last week because refined lists were starting to trickle out. And they've only gotten better in the last few days.
I have been playing it since a few days and I think it's strong but def not the best (Rogue says hi). It does require more skill than the other meta decks though which will deflate its win rate in the stats. With such an amount of low-cost cards and synergies there are many options as to how you play your turns during the game.
It's still in refinement stage; I've played a variation with Sea Giants but I've also seen variants with Rabble Bouncers. Antonidas and Questing Adventurers are also in the debate wether to include them or not.
Fun deck though!
I think the major appeal of this kind of deck is that, because of it's god-draws, it should have a pretty even match-up spread, which makes it feel good to play. No one likes feeling that they lost at the greetings stage of the game.
FWIW, I don't think i'd worry too about this deck being WHOAMG Stier!. I imagine that good aggro decks (Murloc Shamans) or things with suitable disruption (Secret Hunter) should prove to work pretty well. And Rogue just starts to play sap again.
It probably finds itself in the middle-to-top of T2 when the dust settles.
This deck is only good if you're good at RNG. I'm very bad at RNG so Cyclone always gives me 0 value.
It's pretty cool in wild, with the quest and Arcane Giants.
I'd say rogue with nomi & mira package. Strong early game due to weapons + pirate combo or lackeys + Edwin, they almost empty their deck with the draw 3 spell and then after that they play mira, Nomi and bounce Nomi back once or twice. Too much preasure and insane finisher. Too good.
I will crush you!
The MVP there is mana addict.
I will crush you!