Hearthpwn

I think it's generally accepted that it's clear there is an issue with a card, when a player uses said card, and his opponent's entire strategy has shifted from beating his opponent, to playing around that card. Ice Block is one of the worst offenders for this "bad card" criteria I've ever seen. The worst thing is that even if you want to play around it, there are 0 decent tech choices, so you have to play incredibly suboptimally to rush them to as close as possible to 1 health, to trigger the Ice Block and hope they don't have another one (or more). All the while, the Ice Block player gets to do anything they want if they have another Ice Block available (and they will because Arcanologist or generating one out of nowhere) because their opponent is doing nothing but worrying about triggering said Ice Block.

Mage is my favorite class but when I trigger my opponent's third (or fourth) Ice Block in a game, my eyes just about roll through the back of my skull. It's already obscenely difficult to actually get to the point in the game where you get through two Ice Blocks and have survived the Frost Novas, Blizzards, Flamestrikes that were preventing you from triggering the Ice Block in the first place.

I have no idea how Ice Block is still around when so many completely fair cards were just forced into the Hall of Fame. The actual strength of the card isn't ridiculous, but what mage can do with it is nuts. The card is #1 on my list of cards I never want to see played again, way, way above Fiery War Axe and Backstab.

lol, this reminds me of when I was watching Reynad play Control Mage - The deck was called 'broken cards' because that was everything it was made of.  :D