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Behold the ultimate ago deck. Secret Mage.
Why do they keep printing stuff like this? Maybe it'll be bad and unplayable, and there's no reason to worry about it, but just, why?
There was a time in this game when making your cards cost zero actually required you to take some risks, but now, every cards they print with this kind of effect gets its discount from normal things, with no drawback, like playing spells. What's the point of this type of design?
And this one even gets reduced by 2 mana instead of the usual -1. Effigy turn 3 into this turn 4, where is the risk involved?
Because they stick with the Cabal's "no duplicates" theme , and that's where reno mage (or Cabal Mage onwards) will need lots of good support. Tempo Mage would not run effigy, because for a deck like that effigy is a risky card
(a 3 mana get a random X-drop where x<3 is usually a bad deal).Althought in Cabal Mage this card may not be nuts but it's quite decent and it is worth using 1/30 of your limited deckspace.
Also on a personal note...I LIKE THE CARD DESIGN OKAY?!?!?! :'( they sould print more innovative cards like that (still being hyped for the NEVER comming of 7+ mana spells that will be OP as frig and make ramp rogue viable, or the OTK cards that will actually NOT need you to be like turn 412451235 to kill your opponent)
That's what I'm trying to say here Secrets need either a Secret Mage deck...and it sucks quite honestly, or a Control shell and since Kabal mage is the thing nowadays (aka Reno mage) this particular Control shell fits the card... idk whether a mid-range secret mage would be something good and surely tempo mage does NOT need secrets. So the usable archetypes for this is Kabal mage or a tryout for a secret mage. It's not a no skill card, requires deckbuilding skills (if ur not netdecking at least...and netdecking a Reno deck is usually a bad idea), certain preparation and in the end u just get a vanilla 5/5 for less than expected (unless you pay 4 mana... in that case it's not less).
It certainly is a very good design to print mini giants for classes that take advantage of the classes features AND not making it aggro friendly (tbh this card is not aggro friendly at all, because i wouldn't want to add secrets to tempo mage, an already barely consistent deck). This is a card that benefits from the slow/long game, and that's what the game needs right now imo.
And what exactly do you mean zero interactivity...? isn't this the same as a druid playing 2x innervate and getting big dudes out...? isn't this uninteractive as well...? isn't freeze mage as a whole an uninteractive deck...? Is that a bad thing...? My opinion is that it's not bad, heck in mtg there are deck so ineractive that whatever you do you lose by turn 7 if you didn't kill them by then and it's not cosidered bad...the only "non-interactive" part of this card is it's mana cost soo... yeah try ineracting with mana costs in the game right now and tell me how that goes.
All-in-all this is a very interesting card that moves away from the Ben Brode logic of "create useless uninteresting cards that either do nothing usefull or they have ADD ME IN AN AGGRO DECK printed all over them" and that helps the game evolve in a more meaningfull way.
P.S.: Sorry, that thing is an essay or something now that I look at it. :)
(also Arcanist is a teribly bad card and it's god to make better variants of it...phew got that out of my system)
I thiought that easily to assume things needed to be ommited BUT you have to hear the sad truth of the game... ALAS secrets will never be a tempo thingy until a new "draw a secret and play it" card gets into play (don't remember the name)...really the secrets there are for mage are all control tools with the slight exeption of mirror... and that's too situational to even count (not a good 3-drop all-in-all) . SOOO... secrets being a control thing means that the secret archetype cards are also control cards.
The wild format is exempted for that argument...but well, we're talking about standard here in which case the most tempo thing i can see existing is a mid-range secret deck and that's not gonna be good because the "ur next secret this turn costs 0" is something that will not be good in a mid-range deck and doesn't help the game's tempo at all. (my point of view ofc ur free to counter-argue it, but i'm pretty positive i'm comletely correct here) ;P
I'm highly in favour of the opinion that this card will be stapled in slower decks and weird whacky decks, while not very good in tempo decks...ur loosing 1/15 of your deckspace for a sub-optimal pile of stats that will never see play until turn 4 at best case, and 4-mana 5/5 is the vanilla test pass grade if I remember correctly, and more support for this non-great card means ur loosing more deckspace to support an already non-great card so it's non-great support. (again not saying that it's terrible on it's own...but constructed isn't keen the "non-terible" but the "super optimal" and this card doesn't cut it for the role)
P.S.: Cabal mage is already a thing actually even without any more support, what it already has is powerfull tools enough. :P
P.S.2:EVEN IF i'm mistaken here (highly doubtfull tho) secrets means thinking, thinking means no "Curvestone", no "Curvestone" means that, whether i'm right or wrong here, the fact is you are wrong already.
I'm not gonna take it in order and soz for that but :
1) Being able to generate a pile of stats turn 10 generates 0 tempo... u can go ahead and play 3 5/5 for free for all i care if ur playing tempo deck means that this is ur last resort play and 1 hard board clear is sufficient.
2) Mid-Range decks doesn't care that much about tempo that is generated throught vast hand expentance you usually want ur cards to 1.5 for 1 in the average case scenario and playing a bunch of cards means that a board clear is gonna rip you in pieces (or any hard tempo swing tool of slower deck for that matter). Mid-Range is there for the value generated by a low card expentance...and sure playing secrets untill turn 3 is fine and all...but that about it...then ur left with no hand and no ways to get back into the game, and that's a lose contition as a Mid-Range.
3) Yes they generate tempo...FROM BEHIND and as a tempo deck that's not usually ur gameplan...you need to generate ADDITIONAL tempo when ahead and spending 1/3 of ur turn best case for a secret is not the way to do it...yeah mirroring a tirion wins games...so what...? 1 in a gazzilion chances this happening and that means that the opponent ALREADY has nothing better to play at ur mirror OR is not a good player...either case it's just a win-more contition not a win contition
4) Control decks actually care very much for efficient ways not to be left so far behind eg. Belcher , simply because there is not a sufficient amount of pure control tools in general...and a 5/5 contesting the board turn 4 is not the best way to do it...but it can give a breather.
Counter-Example : the only time that tempo mage was running secrets was with mad scientist, and that's at most 2 of (and somethimes only 1, because drawing a secret was bad)...and even then they were sometimes cut out of the list simply because they were NOT GOOD ENOUGH for the tempo gameplan, if you can recall. So a 5/5 with no draw on it that needs a card AND a set-up is even worse in my eyes than the scientist pacage ( and I think that you would agree to that at the very least ).
The boobies O_O
Thing From Above
Turn 3 secret. turn 4 this.
Mage gets their own 0 mana 5/5 now
So you're telling me if I play a secret on turn 3.... I get a 4 mana 5/5?? seems good man.
But not enough as a 4 mana 7/7
Greeaaattt more cancer mage. I thought face hunter was bad enough, now mage is just going to be crazy. No skill mages in coming.
if anything mage will become less cancerous, right now theres pretty much only tempo mage. right now there also isnt any face-hunter, only midrange that mindlessly plays sticky minions.
this kind of deck will require more planning and more synergy than midrange hunter or tempo mage
Insane like a mini Arcane Giant
SALTY WARNING:
You can have this at turn 2 if lucky enough.
Kabal Lackey + Secret + The Coin + Kabal Lackey + Secret
Turn 2, 5/5.
Super lucky to go second and get those first 4 cards on turn 1 and have this lady on turn 2 though.
Correct me if I'm wrong but that would be approx. (not counting the 50/50 on coin... let's just say you get second) ~1:17.000.000 (17 mln) chance to get that.