The deck doesn't need to be nerfed as long as there are counter cards (which there are plenty of). Quest rogue had virtually no counter cards (Dirty Rat was sort of okay) which made it frustrating. If you want to beat quest mage, you can include Dirty Rat, Spellweaver, Eater of Secrets, etc, all of which can completely screw over the mage (this coming from someone who played a lot of exodia early on). If you're too lazy to tech, then that's your fault. People were teching Ooze/Crab for pirates, Hungry Crab for murlocadins, and Geist for Jade so maybe it's time people have to take the idea of tech'ing for quest mage seriously.
I wish they would do something about all the freeze effects.
Nothing is more annoying than having your board frozen for 7 turns straight.
I'd rather die to the combo itself than watching helplessly while they set it up.
They did have a tech choice way back when, Wailing Soul. I'd love it if they brought back a similar card into standard as it was a really cool freeze tech and doubled as a nice addition to silence priest.
The real question is, why would they need to change it?
They created Molten Reflection on the same Expansion as Open the Waygate. They purposefully allow people to Exodia people, it is not some oversight that they didn't plan for, it is clearly something they wanted to be a deck.
Now, for this to require some change, we would need a few conditions...
1. The deck be unbalanced, be uncounterable or be simply to powerful across the Metagame. I don't see that happening, it gets really easily countered by both Hard and Soft Counters. So this condition is not met.
2. Being too polarizing while also not being adjustable. This was the case with Quest Rogue, but is not the case with Quest Mage.
Quest Rogue was really weak to Aggro while extremely powerful against Control, and there was nothing the Control decks could use to deal with that matchup. Due to the large abundance of Minions in the Quest Rogue, Dirty Rat, the only possible Tech Card, would have extremely low chances of pulling the correct minion, meaning it was not effective nor reliable at it's job, so this had to be changed.
Quest Mage on the other hand, it is similar in being weak to Aggro and powerful against Control, but heavily suffers from Tech Cards, which is why is doesn't meet the 2nd condition. You can Dirty Rat, Eater of Secrets, Nerubian Unraveler, even Nozdormu and Mayor Noggenfoggen the Quest Mage and you will destroy this deck even playing Control. It is only a matter of whether you want to win this matchup or not. Quest Rogue you simply were forced to change to Aggro. This, believe me, is the reason that Quest Mage will not suffer any nerf until the April rotation of Ice Block, and when it moves to Wild, it will still not be changed. As long as it is possible to Hard and Soft Counter this deck, there is no need to change it.
Thanks for your answer.
While it is true Blizzard wanted people to play the quest, it doesn't mean there is no problem. They printed a card like Jade Idol knowing the potential it would have against Control, but they clearly realized it was a problem and printed Skulking Geist as a result.
As for your 2 points :
-It doesn't have this problem for now, but the polarizing issue is still there and it impedes on future card designs. Either mage doesn't receive anti-aggro tools until 2019, making the class weaker as a whole, or it does, and this will push it to Jade Druid pre-nerf level, which was also a very polarized matchup until then. That's why they nerfed Master of Disguise : nobody used it, but it forced them to balance things around it so badly that they had to change it to free up design space.
-While there are tech cards against Exodia Mage, they are so situational almost no one uses them. Dirty Rat only works if you pull out an Antonidas, otherwise it is a wasted card that can outright kill you against aggro. Eater of Secret is a dead card against any other matchup except maybe Secret Mage, and if Exodia Mage ever get popular and strong enough to force Eater of Secrets into every deck, it would destroy any other secret deck as a whole just like Dr Boom made any 7+ attack minion useless due to BGH being popular.
The other options still hurts you as well on too of being useless against anyone else. Not to mention that they don't always do their work : Skulking Geist didn't made Jade Druid unpopular at the start of KotFT.
I agree that it is a really unfun deck to play against but I do not think your ideas for card nerfs are good. I also simply wish Ice block never existed...
Nerf tier 3 decks now? Please stp with these silly threads. Quest mage is strong, but it can be defeated by too many things.
So was Jade Druid in MSoG. It only needed anti-aggro cards to be broken. It doesn't have to be strong to be nerfed, only to severely limit card design.
I greatly prefer the Giants version (because I think it's more interesting and interactive) but the Giants version won't survive rotation.
As for the Exodia variant, if it goes to Wild that's Wild's problem. Wild is already going to be forever unbalanced with cards like Ragnaros the Firelord and Emperor Thaurissan anyway.
The best change I can see (one that would fuck up Highlander Priest as well) is to make it so that cost reduction has a minimum of 1 unless it specifically reduces the cost to 0. (So for example, with Kirin Tor Mage you could cast Mirror Entity for 0, but if you had 3 Sorcerer's Apprentice cards your Mirror Entity would still cost 1). I just don't think shit that isn't free should be free.
Exodia mage doesn't need to be nerfed. The deck isn't even good and has a 49% win rate overall. I know it can be frustrating, but you don't see it often and win more against it then loose.
I greatly prefer the Giants version (because I think it's more interesting and interactive) but the Giants version won't survive rotation.
As for the Exodia variant, if it goes to Wild that's Wild's problem. Wild is already going to be forever unbalanced with cards like Ragnaros the Firelord and Emperor Thaurissan anyway.
The best change I can see (one that would fuck up Highlander Priest as well) is to make it so that cost reduction has a minimum of 1 unless it specifically reduces the cost to 0. (So for example, with Kirin Tor Mage you could cast Mirror Entity for 0, but if you had 3 Sorcerer's Apprentice cards your Mirror Entity would still cost 1). I just don't think shit that isn't free should be free.
That's actually a good idea, although I don't know how it would severely impede Highlander Priest. Raza's battlecry does say the Hero Power costs 0, not that the cost was reduced by 2.
Nerf tier 3 decks now? Please stp with these silly threads. Quest mage is strong, but it can be defeated by too many things.
So was Jade Druid in MSoG. It only needed anti-aggro cards to be broken. It doesn't have to be strong to be nerfed, only to severely limit card design.
But you can't nerf card/s few expansions earlier just because they might become good. Quest Mage barley see's any play at the moment and winrate is low. There really isn't need for nerf.
Heck no. Exodia Mage isn't the problem, it's the damn solution to this cancer of Priests. I'd love for the deck to be unviable because you aren't FORCED to play it just to deal with the endless flood of Anduins, but that's not the meta we have right now. The meta right now is "less interactive best interactive." If you didn't want to face a million combo decks, you shouldn't have begged Blizzard to make Priest god-tier.
Nerf tier 3 decks now? Please stp with these silly threads. Quest mage is strong, but it can be defeated by too many things.
So was Jade Druid in MSoG. It only needed anti-aggro cards to be broken. It doesn't have to be strong to be nerfed, only to severely limit card design.
But you can't nerf card/s few expansions earlier just because they might become good. Quest Mage barley see's any play at the moment and winrate is low. There really isn't need for nerf.
Yes you can. That's why they nerfed Master of Disguise, and Hex. Because if you don't plan ahead, you'll end up with situations like Patron Warrior Pre-Nerf, or Jade Druid at the start of KotFT. Wanna add a good anti-aggro spell to help Control Mage ? Too bad, Exodia Mage could abuse it, so no help for Control Mage.
As appealing as the idea may be, it is not wise and certainly not needed. Exodia mage is a poorly designed, non-interactive build that diminishes the over appeal of the game. However, it is not a particularly strong, nor ubiquitous build. Like most combo decks, it struggles when the cards don't materialize. To add insult to injury, it is even worse when the RNG from the generated spells yields underwhelming results. Sure, the sweet victory from lambasting the enemy with infinite fireballs is quite choice, but be sure to savor as it seldom occurs. To recap - if you think this build needs a nerf, try running it and see how wrong you are.
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Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
i don't even think it's that polarizing of a deck. i mean it is but it isn't. last i checked jade druid for example, still had a decent chance of beating quest mage. maybe that has changed since i last checked the meta though.
At the moment it does not need to be nerfed as it is not that broken, even in wild. It might be in the future if they release more support but at the moment it just works like freezemage no matter what the style of the OTK is.
However, Blizzard should keep an eye on the archetype for future reference and not just look at statistics. Justifying nerfing or not nerfing a deck based solely on winrate is a clear sign that the person advocating for such is an amateur. Decks with a high skill cap (see patron warrior) are hard to play but in the hands of a player that isn't bad they can achieve a winrate above and beyond 60% which can be a problem when mediocre or bad players start to catch on!
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Nerf tier 3 decks now? Please stp with these silly threads. Quest mage is strong, but it can be defeated by too many things.
So was Jade Druid in MSoG. It only needed anti-aggro cards to be broken. It doesn't have to be strong to be nerfed, only to severely limit card design.
But you can't nerf card/s few expansions earlier just because they might become good. Quest Mage barley see's any play at the moment and winrate is low. There really isn't need for nerf.
Yes you can. That's why they nerfed Master of Disguise, and Hex. Because if you don't plan ahead, you'll end up with situations like Patron Warrior Pre-Nerf, or Jade Druid at the start of KotFT. Wanna add a good anti-aggro spell to help Control Mage ? Too bad, Exodia Mage could abuse it, so no help for Control Mage.
That's for Blizzard to decide as they have in the past. If they find that a future expansion (and note they work on things 2 expansion ahead) will end up creating a nightmare via Exodia they'll change Exodia to prevent it. Again, Hex is proof of this. That they have not has shown that they don't see Exodia as a problem that's getting in the way of their design.
We can't really see how cards get in the way of their design and don't really have to. What we are better suited for is looking at how the deck affects the meta and, despite the game focusing heavily on dragging the game out, Exodia failed to blow up. It's just not a contender. Meanwhile, it has one expansion to really blow up as next rotation it loses A LOT of it's new card creation in babbling book and cabalist tomb. If Block gets HoFed, it's flat out dead no matter what they do.
A deck being polarizing really isn't the only criteria as MANY decks are polarizing. It has to warp the meta. Both Quest mage and Pirate Warrior (yes Pirate Warrior was actually a low winning deck during MSG, pre nerf, which is why Blizzard had a hard time realizing it was a problem) are polarizing AND meta defining. you couldn't just ignore them occasionally. The meta was abased around them forcing people to play around them.
If Exodia was popular as well as polarizing, it would be in consideration. It's not and showing no signs it will be going into Wild. If it proves a design problem for next exp they'll pre-nerf it. If it proves a balance problem it'll get nerfs post-exp.
If it pisses you off and ruins your specific decks while not really being noticed by the meta at large it stays. Otherwise, I would've been able to wipe out Evolve shaman from existence long ago.
(don't actually know why I dislike Evolve Shaman. I'm glad I didn't craft the DK and just have no fun fighting the deck. it just rubs me the wrong way. It's ok for it to exist.. just know that I'll be dancing a merry jig if the deck dissolves in standard and finds itself too weak for Wild.)
It doesn't seem particularly fair to complain for a nerf simply because a deck is frustrating to play against - especially when the deck in question has both a low play-rate and win-rate. Looking at the most recent VS report, Quest Mage has a 2% representation on ladder, and 43% win-rate. The other sites which track the format have similar numbers for the deck. So far, Blizzard has reserved nerfs for low win-rate decks when they have high play-rates which warp the meta-game - currently, QM doesn't really seem problematic with respect to any metric for which a deck might possibly be nerfed.
The thing is, quest mage is not a totally polarizing deck, it is beatable by many of the current meta decks. There was a time midway through Un'Goro that quest mage was dominating and a lot of aggro and control teched Eater of Secrets to improve their win rate vs those decks, but that card currently doesn't see a lot of play because there aren't a lot of exodia mages on the ladder.
Nonetheless, you can still run it if you think this deck is overpowered, because Eater of Secrets is in a lot of ways, a win condition against this deck. Other ways to counter this deck are cards that give your quest mage opponent cards or minions so they lack board space. Play Coldlight Oracle and mill them. Play aggro and hit them in the face. Dirty Rat an apprentice or Antonidas - pretty much any minion you Rat them with will help you win the game even slightly more often because their other minions are all card-draw related, which you want to deny them. Ratting a Doomsayer can allow you to spread out and make a stronger board in the following turns. Play warlock and Treachery a Howlfiend lol. There's also the epic KoFT Nerubian card I forget the name of that makes spells cost more.
Bottom line is, no nerf is currently necessary. The reason quest mage wins games is because it takes opponents by surprise by them not having anything to counter your quest. Aggro decks are favored to win. Current quest mage lists rely heavily on Cabalist's Tome which will rotate out in April of next year. Ice block probably won't rotate out like people seem to think, because it is a core mage card that allows for these kinds of combos to be played, but Babbling Book will also rotate out. Until then, find a way to beat quest mage - it's possible to do and you might learn a lot about the game by doing so.
No. Ice Block will go away at the rotation, and since it's only stupid and not both stupid and really good, we can wait.
Ice Block is part of the classic set, it won't rotate out. Although it may join the Hall of Fame.
That being said I don't feel exodia mage is that OP, you win some, you lose some.
During the last nerfing, Blizzard talked about Ice Block as a possible consideration and said that they don't want to touch Ice Block because they don't want to HoF cards mid-year. This HIGHLY suggests that the only reason why they are waiting is due to it being the wrong time, which then suggests that it'll be one of the first to go come next rotation.
Which is why everyone is all but assuming Ice Block is on its way out.
Whoops, double post
I agree that it is a really unfun deck to play against but I do not think your ideas for card nerfs are good. I also simply wish Ice block never existed...
I greatly prefer the Giants version (because I think it's more interesting and interactive) but the Giants version won't survive rotation.
As for the Exodia variant, if it goes to Wild that's Wild's problem. Wild is already going to be forever unbalanced with cards like Ragnaros the Firelord and Emperor Thaurissan anyway.
The best change I can see (one that would fuck up Highlander Priest as well) is to make it so that cost reduction has a minimum of 1 unless it specifically reduces the cost to 0. (So for example, with Kirin Tor Mage you could cast Mirror Entity for 0, but if you had 3 Sorcerer's Apprentice cards your Mirror Entity would still cost 1). I just don't think shit that isn't free should be free.
Other cards that would be affected: Primordial Glyph (each additional Glyph costs you 1 mana instead of 0, makes it much more like Shadow Visions cycling which is fair), Far Sight, Radiant Elemental, Emperor Thaurissan (you can pay 1 mana to deal 4 damage, Freeze Mage), and etc.
Exodia mage doesn't need to be nerfed. The deck isn't even good and has a 49% win rate overall. I know it can be frustrating, but you don't see it often and win more against it then loose.
Bitch i'm Willy Wonka!
Heck no. Exodia Mage isn't the problem, it's the damn solution to this cancer of Priests. I'd love for the deck to be unviable because you aren't FORCED to play it just to deal with the endless flood of Anduins, but that's not the meta we have right now. The meta right now is "less interactive best interactive." If you didn't want to face a million combo decks, you shouldn't have begged Blizzard to make Priest god-tier.
As appealing as the idea may be, it is not wise and certainly not needed. Exodia mage is a poorly designed, non-interactive build that diminishes the over appeal of the game. However, it is not a particularly strong, nor ubiquitous build. Like most combo decks, it struggles when the cards don't materialize. To add insult to injury, it is even worse when the RNG from the generated spells yields underwhelming results. Sure, the sweet victory from lambasting the enemy with infinite fireballs is quite choice, but be sure to savor as it seldom occurs. To recap - if you think this build needs a nerf, try running it and see how wrong you are.
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
i don't even think it's that polarizing of a deck. i mean it is but it isn't. last i checked jade druid for example, still had a decent chance of beating quest mage. maybe that has changed since i last checked the meta though.
At the moment it does not need to be nerfed as it is not that broken, even in wild. It might be in the future if they release more support but at the moment it just works like freezemage no matter what the style of the OTK is.
However, Blizzard should keep an eye on the archetype for future reference and not just look at statistics. Justifying nerfing or not nerfing a deck based solely on winrate is a clear sign that the person advocating for such is an amateur. Decks with a high skill cap (see patron warrior) are hard to play but in the hands of a player that isn't bad they can achieve a winrate above and beyond 60% which can be a problem when mediocre or bad players start to catch on!
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
It doesn't seem particularly fair to complain for a nerf simply because a deck is frustrating to play against - especially when the deck in question has both a low play-rate and win-rate. Looking at the most recent VS report, Quest Mage has a 2% representation on ladder, and 43% win-rate. The other sites which track the format have similar numbers for the deck. So far, Blizzard has reserved nerfs for low win-rate decks when they have high play-rates which warp the meta-game - currently, QM doesn't really seem problematic with respect to any metric for which a deck might possibly be nerfed.
The thing is, quest mage is not a totally polarizing deck, it is beatable by many of the current meta decks. There was a time midway through Un'Goro that quest mage was dominating and a lot of aggro and control teched Eater of Secrets to improve their win rate vs those decks, but that card currently doesn't see a lot of play because there aren't a lot of exodia mages on the ladder.
Nonetheless, you can still run it if you think this deck is overpowered, because Eater of Secrets is in a lot of ways, a win condition against this deck. Other ways to counter this deck are cards that give your quest mage opponent cards or minions so they lack board space. Play Coldlight Oracle and mill them. Play aggro and hit them in the face. Dirty Rat an apprentice or Antonidas - pretty much any minion you Rat them with will help you win the game even slightly more often because their other minions are all card-draw related, which you want to deny them. Ratting a Doomsayer can allow you to spread out and make a stronger board in the following turns. Play warlock and Treachery a Howlfiend lol. There's also the epic KoFT Nerubian card I forget the name of that makes spells cost more.
Bottom line is, no nerf is currently necessary. The reason quest mage wins games is because it takes opponents by surprise by them not having anything to counter your quest. Aggro decks are favored to win. Current quest mage lists rely heavily on Cabalist's Tome which will rotate out in April of next year. Ice block probably won't rotate out like people seem to think, because it is a core mage card that allows for these kinds of combos to be played, but Babbling Book will also rotate out. Until then, find a way to beat quest mage - it's possible to do and you might learn a lot about the game by doing so.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
No.
Good grief do these whiney nerf threads never end??