I feel like there's a fundamental issue with the whole class tbh. It seems (though this might not be empirically true) that with each new expansion Mage in Wild gets an entirely new OTK deck, or one that's already frustratingly powerful is made all the stronger. The immense amounts of mana cheat, free damage, and stall. It's not really any single cards fault. The whole class is mechanically structured for this kind of stuff to be what it does.
It's a fun deck, i honestly don't think the flamewaker version is the strongest one, one simple obsidian statue can literally stop that deck on its tracks. at least wild has something other than hyperaggro now, because Reno decks weren't exactly viable against wild aggro decks before barrens came out, and sice barrens came out with an onslaught of aggro support i'm just glad it didn't devolve further into vomit your hand and win decks. IS the deck annoying?, yes, is it couterable, definitely? does spring water need a nerf? probably to recovering 1 mana per spell so that it's in line with Swindle, Does charge need a nerf ?? YES
If any of you think OTK decks in general or this mage is "alright" then you are really blind or something. I run dirty rat in my deck and also minions that summons minions for BigPriests (uninteractive graveyard) and this what I get? I picked Strength in numebers and had around 15 health on board by turn 7 and mage burned my Dirty Rat so couldn't counter it and then procede to clear board played "fill your hand with spells" got two secrets, Unfair game and get two minions that die to your hand. Then he proceed to finish me next turn from empty hand to draw his deck and full hand.
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"Minion to minion the basic of all combats, only a fool trusts his win to an OTK"
Multiple times I've been killed on literally the 5th turn from almost full HP and 3-4 minions on board. That is not normal. You'd have to stuff your deck with tech cards (and of course draw those) to stand a chance. Someone above said it's a "fun" deck. Maybe for the person playing it. How many people enjoy or find it fair to play against it? I don't have data but I'd wager not a whole lot. You can't even really rush it down cause of all the freeze spells + Ice Block.
I think best would be if Sorcerer's Apprentice got nerfed (spells cost not less than 1).
Edit: Since then, teched in a Dirty Rat (unfortunately I only have a single copy), succesfully pulled out and killed a Flamewaker. Dealt 29 damage. Was at almost full HP. Then comes an Apprentice and the second Flamewaker and I died in one turn again. I wanted to climb to Legend in Wild (currently at D5-D4). Honestly thinking about giving up on that goal, pretty much all my will to play Wild format has been killed by that deck type. I'm fine with an OTK deck if the combo happens on like turn 8 or something (and the deck not getting free turns off Ice Block). But on turn 5, and pretty regularly, with almost no feasible counterplay possible? Yeah that's not something I wanna participate in.
Edit edit: In case someone cares, I know what I said above sounds like exaggeration, here's the replay. If I should have done anything differently, I welcome criticism, but that last turn is just degenerate regardless of any misplays I may have done. https://hsreplay.net/replay/w48UAV74UbVoLrAt4pZQh8
So much salt here...yeesh. Yes flamewaker mage can OTK on turn 4(with coin) but it needs a god hand. Meanwhile most aggro decks can easily and consistently produce 10-15 attack on board by turn 3-4 and threaten lethal esp against slower decks (Aggro token druid, odd paladin, secret mage, even pirate warr if 1-2 brigands are in hand).
On the topic of aggro do people forget for most aggro decks nowadays have way more draw than control decks? No one bats an eye to this, but if you look at any other card game it's basically the opposite. You are playing aggro, you are a fast deck, you either win by turn 3-4 or lose and go home. You don't get to have value and massive refills that make you hit fatigue on turn 7 while the opponent has 17 cards in deck.
Lastly flamewaker has much higher skill cap than most aggro decks, you need to know when to go in, will you be able to kill the opponent at one go, because if you can't and he kills your flamewakers the deck gasses out. There is no divine favor, no skull of guldan, no chance for refill and rebuild. It is rather easily counter able (dirty rat, mindrender, loatheb, iceblock, explosive rune, obsidian statue, convincing infiltrator, pot of poly etc). Finally the animations can be troublesome and lose you the game.
TL:DR flamewaker mage is no different than most aggro decks, has much higher skill cap, more easily counterable and can gas out.
So much salt here...yeesh. Yes flamewaker mage can OTK on turn 4(with coin) but it needs a god hand. Meanwhile most aggro decks can easily and consistently produce 10-15 attack on board by turn 3-4 and threaten lethal esp against slower decks (Aggro token druid, odd paladin, secret mage, even pirate warr if 1-2 brigands are in hand).
On the topic of aggro do people forget for most aggro decks nowadays have way more draw than control decks? No one bats an eye to this, but if you look at any other card game it's basically the opposite. You are playing aggro, you are a fast deck, you either win by turn 3-4 or lose and go home. You don't get to have value and massive refills that make you hit fatigue on turn 7 while the opponent has 17 cards in deck.
Lastly flamewaker has much higher skill cap than most aggro decks, you need to know when to go in, will you be able to kill the opponent at one go, because if you can't and he kills your flamewakers the deck gasses out. There is no divine favor, no skull of guldan, no chance for refill and rebuild. It is rather easily counter able (dirty rat, mindrender, loatheb, iceblock, explosive rune, obsidian statue, convincing infiltrator, pot of poly etc). Finally the animations can be troublesome and lose you the game.
TL:DR flamewaker mage is no different than most aggro decks, has much higher skill cap, more easily counterable and can gas out.
Classic "I'll find an excuse for this broken deck to exist by complaining about aggro".
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I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
TL:DR flamewaker mage is no different than most aggro decks, has much higher skill cap, more easily counterable and can gas out.
I don't really agree with this take. You can play against aggro in a way that makes sense, and is possible without specific tech. You keep the board clear. You manage your health as efficiently as you can. Those are the things you do against aggro.
But against APM Mage there's no way to do either of those. They don't play minions. Unless you're a Warrior, your health isn't going above 30, which is a totally manageable number for the deck to burn away at turn 5-6. Playing aggressively to take them out before turn 5-6 is the only way to beat them, which isn't how you counter aggro - because that's how you counter a combo deck. But a regular combo deck would need to reach 10 mana (give or take a bit) to combo off, even then they'd need some level of prep.
I don't know what you're saying with this whole "there's no recovery" thing, the deck is like 75% spells that generate more spells, either by drawing them or randomly generating them. It has either 3/4 minions depending on whichever variant of APM Mage you're playing so Refreshing Spring Water nearly always is free or plusses you on mana. Sure, the deck can burnout to like 5 cards after 1 Flamewaker turn and still not kill you (anecdotally I had 2 full boards as even Paladin that Flamewaker Mage managed to burn through and kill me with anyway, so going wide didn't help at all) but if they keep a Flamewaker in hand they can still go again next turn and clean up.
And the "a God Hand is required for the deck to win" argument doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. If the deck was purely highroll, then why is it the most popular deck on Wild Ladder? Why is it doing so well if it only does well when you're lucky? Is every APM Mage just like, the luckiest person in the game? Sure, I've won maybe 2 games against APM Mage, but only because they were really UNlucky. If an absolute terrible brick-hand is the only game state where APM Mage can lose, it's not exactly "God Hand required" - it's more like "literally anything but the worst possible hand required".
I think that playing this deck is unfair. Blizzard really needs to help us quickly on this. I propose extending the length of each turn since I sometimes run out of time trying to play all of my deck and discovered spells on turn 5. Fix this injustice Blizzard.
I've been playing a variation of this since the expansion and love it. I only play Mage and for at almost a year with aggro spite. So this deck fits me well.
It's one of the worst decks to face in the history of this game.
I have no problem with OTK decks. They're fun and take some practice to master.
HOWEVER, OTK decks should be punished by aggro decks since combos take time to assemble in your hand. You shouldn't be able to OTK on turn 4 no matter how good your draw was.
It's so frustrating to just sit there and waste time playing against APM mages because THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP THE COMBO.
I'm playing Renolock ATM and Dirty rats are my win condition against APM mages. EVEN IF I manage to hit a flamewaker, its not enough since the opponent only needs one anyways.
I got to a point where I'm tempted to concede the moment I see a mage just to spare me some of the misery, and THAT SHOULDN'T BE THE CASE NO MATTER HOW STRONG A CLASS IS.
TL:DR flamewaker mage is no different than most aggro decks, has much higher skill cap, more easily counterable and can gas out.
I don't really agree with this take. You can play against aggro in a way that makes sense, and is possible without specific tech. You keep the board clear. You manage your health as efficiently as you can. Those are the things you do against aggro.
But against APM Mage there's no way to do either of those. They don't play minions. Unless you're a Warrior, your health isn't going above 30, which is a totally manageable number for the deck to burn away at turn 5-6. Playing aggressively to take them out before turn 5-6 is the only way to beat them, which isn't how you counter aggro - because that's how you counter a combo deck. But a regular combo deck would need to reach 10 mana (give or take a bit) to combo off, even then they'd need some level of prep.
I don't know what you're saying with this whole "there's no recovery" thing, the deck is like 75% spells that generate more spells, either by drawing them or randomly generating them. It has either 3/4 minions depending on whichever variant of APM Mage you're playing so Refreshing Spring Water nearly always is free or plusses you on mana. Sure, the deck can burnout to like 5 cards after 1 Flamewaker turn and still not kill you (anecdotally I had 2 full boards as even Paladin that Flamewaker Mage managed to burn through and kill me with anyway, so going wide didn't help at all) but if they keep a Flamewaker in hand they can still go again next turn and clean up.
And the "a God Hand is required for the deck to win" argument doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. If the deck was purely highroll, then why is it the most popular deck on Wild Ladder? Why is it doing so well if it only does well when you're lucky? Is every APM Mage just like, the luckiest person in the game? Sure, I've won maybe 2 games against APM Mage, but only because they were really UNlucky. If an absolute terrible brick-hand is the only game state where APM Mage can lose, it's not exactly "God Hand required" - it's more like "literally anything but the worst possible hand required".
1. You keep the board clear is nice in theory until you you play some games and find out that aggro decks usually outdraw control decks by a mile, hence they can produce multiple boards while you have limited and usually expensive removal. Also "No tech required against aggro" well, mate, your board clears are your tech against aggro. Think about it if there was no aggro at all, would you run low cost board clears in your deck and have them sit in your hand in mirror matches?
2. On the no recovery - if you use tech card and pull/kill a combo piece OR APM mage doesn't kill you on in one turn there is no recovery in 99% of cases.
3. On the god hand - god hand to win on turn 4 is what I wrote, not on turn whatever.
1. You keep the board clear is nice in theory until you you play some games and find out that aggro decks usually outdraw control decks by a mile, hence they can produce multiple boards while you have limited and usually expensive removal. Also "No tech required against aggro" well, mate, your board clears are your tech against aggro. Think about it if there was no aggro at all, would you run low cost board clears in your deck and have them sit in your hand in mirror matches?
Comparing cards like Defile, School Spirits, Volcanic Potion, Brawl, Consecration, and Mass Hysteria - cards that are "widely ran" (just examples of AoE people might play, I don't usually play control) in control decks because AoE is generally good - to cards like Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, and Wild Bloodstinger(?) - extremely narrow tech choices that only function against OTK - doesn't really work. AoE isn't tech because it's versatile, you can use it in various ways to answer problems you're facing, sometimes against other control decks because Brawl and Mass Hysteria are that good. If weapon Rogue were popping off in Wild and somebody was running Kobold Stickyfinger as tech against it, that card would be useless against non-weapon decks.
What I'm saying here is that "tech" cards have an opportunity cost in building your deck, because you're sacrificing a slot or two in your deck for a card that's useful against a tiny portion of decks and useless against all the other ones. AoE isn't tech because it's useful far, far more often than any individual tech card is. The opportunity cost is so much lower.
2. On the no recovery - if you use tech card and pull/kill a combo piece OR APM mage doesn't kill you on in one turn there is no recovery in 99% of cases.
If a tech card works as intended, it still only eliminates 1 Flamewaker or 1 Sorcerer's Apprentice. A single Flamewaker and a single Sorcerer's Apprentice is all the deck needs to combo off and set up a winning game state. I've been a victim to it countless times. I've had Mages pop off turn 5 and fail to kill me, only to just play their second copies of those two minions and kill me two turns later. Fundamentally you're right, if you use all 4 of your pieces, fail to kill the opponent, and then lose because your pieces die, yeah I can't see how you'd come back from that. But that's not how people play the deck, so that fact is rarely ever relevant.
3. On the god hand - god hand to win on turn 4 is what I wrote, not on turn whatever.
Fair enough, I was reading too fast. Missed that detail. But the difference between turn 4 and 5 is only really that meaningful in the mirror, I'd think.
HOWEVER, OTK decks should be punished by aggro decks since combos take time to assemble in your hand. You shouldn't be able to OTK on turn 4 no matter how good your draw was.
I'd say god hand, very rare T4 combo with coin is fine - the issue is more that it seems to be reliably going off T5/6. OTKs should, 100%, be punished by aggro and tech cards most of the time (speaking as a combo player, though I tend more towards jank these days - I'm playing a STD variant of Mozaki at the moment, which without the apprentices is nowhere near broken, though I spent a lot of time playing Freeze when that was an actual deck, unlike now, as it's been creeped. In WIld I usually play three-minion Malygos Shaman). Very occasional nongames that are faster than interaction aren't a probelm - it's reliability, IMO.
I've played utter jank that could T4, which I think I never managed in a few hundred games before Barnes got nerfed (though I did a T5 combo once or twice). That particular deck is fine because it's not reliable going off that early (I think it was a T3 coin barnes hitting ancestor's call, one 2-drop burn and three one-drop burn, then topdecking Maly, or hitting maly and four of (all four 1-drop burn spells + ACall), with the fifth being topdecked. Utterly ridiculously low chance situation, given how the deck mulligans for draw, not combo, and that you can't use draw as that's 2 mana overload or 3 mana, so too slow for this) - or even reliable going off at all! Also a deck that's weak to almost all of the possible interaction (Rat, Loatheb etc.).
Broken eternal formats are a very easy thing to produce that take attention to avoid - look at MTG. Legacy/Vintage there are fine (generally - not heard of them being broken since I stopped playing! There's the occasional stupid card printed, though), but that's almost entirely down to one card (Force) allowing interaction (To the extent that jokes were that JTMS, a few hundred quid card on release, was good in legacy mainly because it was blue and thus could be discarded by force, despite power level of it being ridiculously high.). Without counterspells - specifically zero mana counterspells, because those are fast formats - you'd end up with metas full of oops/belcher et al. With zero mana counterspells, you get slower combo that plays around force, going off T2ish, which then get preyed on by stuff like D&T with Thalia or other taxing, and so on. One card makes a healthy format there. On the flipside, they tried printing Misstep, as counterspell for 1 mana that technically cost 1 mana but you could pay life. Because there's no downside to it, and the best answer to a misstep is your own misstep, it was everywhere. Even goblins, who, despite being far more tempo than aggro, have no place for counterspells, ran a flipping playset of it until it ate a ban. I don't think that Blizz really pay enough attention to Wild to make a healthy format, and cards aimed at Wild are more likely to be a misstep situation, IMO.
But hey, it could be worse (maybe not much, though). We could still have Hysterical Tillers everywhere. That was... not a good meta in any definition.
I feel like there's a fundamental issue with the whole class tbh. It seems (though this might not be empirically true) that with each new expansion Mage in Wild gets an entirely new OTK deck, or one that's already frustratingly powerful is made all the stronger. The immense amounts of mana cheat, free damage, and stall. It's not really any single cards fault. The whole class is mechanically structured for this kind of stuff to be what it does.
please don't bully my son
Looks like a fun deck. Thinking about crafting Mozaki, Master Duelist
It's a fun deck, i honestly don't think the flamewaker version is the strongest one, one simple obsidian statue can literally stop that deck on its tracks. at least wild has something other than hyperaggro now, because Reno decks weren't exactly viable against wild aggro decks before barrens came out, and sice barrens came out with an onslaught of aggro support i'm just glad it didn't devolve further into vomit your hand and win decks. IS the deck annoying?, yes, is it couterable, definitely? does spring water need a nerf? probably to recovering 1 mana per spell so that it's in line with Swindle, Does charge need a nerf ?? YES
If any of you think OTK decks in general or this mage is "alright" then you are really blind or something. I run dirty rat in my deck and also minions that summons minions for BigPriests (uninteractive graveyard) and this what I get? I picked Strength in numebers and had around 15 health on board by turn 7 and mage burned my Dirty Rat so couldn't counter it and then procede to clear board played "fill your hand with spells" got two secrets, Unfair game and get two minions that die to your hand. Then he proceed to finish me next turn from empty hand to draw his deck and full hand.
"Minion to minion the basic of all combats, only a fool trusts his win to an OTK"
Multiple times I've been killed on literally the 5th turn from almost full HP and 3-4 minions on board. That is not normal. You'd have to stuff your deck with tech cards (and of course draw those) to stand a chance. Someone above said it's a "fun" deck. Maybe for the person playing it. How many people enjoy or find it fair to play against it? I don't have data but I'd wager not a whole lot. You can't even really rush it down cause of all the freeze spells + Ice Block.
I think best would be if Sorcerer's Apprentice got nerfed (spells cost not less than 1).
Edit: Since then, teched in a Dirty Rat (unfortunately I only have a single copy), succesfully pulled out and killed a Flamewaker. Dealt 29 damage. Was at almost full HP. Then comes an Apprentice and the second Flamewaker and I died in one turn again. I wanted to climb to Legend in Wild (currently at D5-D4). Honestly thinking about giving up on that goal, pretty much all my will to play Wild format has been killed by that deck type. I'm fine with an OTK deck if the combo happens on like turn 8 or something (and the deck not getting free turns off Ice Block). But on turn 5, and pretty regularly, with almost no feasible counterplay possible? Yeah that's not something I wanna participate in.
Edit edit: In case someone cares, I know what I said above sounds like exaggeration, here's the replay. If I should have done anything differently, I welcome criticism, but that last turn is just degenerate regardless of any misplays I may have done. https://hsreplay.net/replay/w48UAV74UbVoLrAt4pZQh8
I've changed my mind, this is not fun anymore, please delete from game.
HOW. COME. GIRL. HASN'T. BEEN. NERFED. YET?
I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
eh dont just play the flamewaker version.
So much salt here...yeesh. Yes flamewaker mage can OTK on turn 4(with coin) but it needs a god hand. Meanwhile most aggro decks can easily and consistently produce 10-15 attack on board by turn 3-4 and threaten lethal esp against slower decks (Aggro token druid, odd paladin, secret mage, even pirate warr if 1-2 brigands are in hand).
On the topic of aggro do people forget for most aggro decks nowadays have way more draw than control decks? No one bats an eye to this, but if you look at any other card game it's basically the opposite. You are playing aggro, you are a fast deck, you either win by turn 3-4 or lose and go home. You don't get to have value and massive refills that make you hit fatigue on turn 7 while the opponent has 17 cards in deck.
Lastly flamewaker has much higher skill cap than most aggro decks, you need to know when to go in, will you be able to kill the opponent at one go, because if you can't and he kills your flamewakers the deck gasses out. There is no divine favor, no skull of guldan, no chance for refill and rebuild. It is rather easily counter able (dirty rat, mindrender, loatheb, iceblock, explosive rune, obsidian statue, convincing infiltrator, pot of poly etc). Finally the animations can be troublesome and lose you the game.
TL:DR flamewaker mage is no different than most aggro decks, has much higher skill cap, more easily counterable and can gas out.
Classic "I'll find an excuse for this broken deck to exist by complaining about aggro".
I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
I don't really agree with this take. You can play against aggro in a way that makes sense, and is possible without specific tech. You keep the board clear. You manage your health as efficiently as you can. Those are the things you do against aggro.
But against APM Mage there's no way to do either of those. They don't play minions. Unless you're a Warrior, your health isn't going above 30, which is a totally manageable number for the deck to burn away at turn 5-6. Playing aggressively to take them out before turn 5-6 is the only way to beat them, which isn't how you counter aggro - because that's how you counter a combo deck. But a regular combo deck would need to reach 10 mana (give or take a bit) to combo off, even then they'd need some level of prep.
I don't know what you're saying with this whole "there's no recovery" thing, the deck is like 75% spells that generate more spells, either by drawing them or randomly generating them. It has either 3/4 minions depending on whichever variant of APM Mage you're playing so Refreshing Spring Water nearly always is free or plusses you on mana. Sure, the deck can burnout to like 5 cards after 1 Flamewaker turn and still not kill you (anecdotally I had 2 full boards as even Paladin that Flamewaker Mage managed to burn through and kill me with anyway, so going wide didn't help at all) but if they keep a Flamewaker in hand they can still go again next turn and clean up.
And the "a God Hand is required for the deck to win" argument doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. If the deck was purely highroll, then why is it the most popular deck on Wild Ladder? Why is it doing so well if it only does well when you're lucky? Is every APM Mage just like, the luckiest person in the game? Sure, I've won maybe 2 games against APM Mage, but only because they were really UNlucky. If an absolute terrible brick-hand is the only game state where APM Mage can lose, it's not exactly "God Hand required" - it's more like "literally anything but the worst possible hand required".
please don't bully my son
I think that playing this deck is unfair. Blizzard really needs to help us quickly on this. I propose extending the length of each turn since I sometimes run out of time trying to play all of my deck and discovered spells on turn 5. Fix this injustice Blizzard.
I've been playing a variation of this since the expansion and love it. I only play Mage and for at almost a year with aggro spite. So this deck fits me well.
It's one of the worst decks to face in the history of this game.
I have no problem with OTK decks. They're fun and take some practice to master.
HOWEVER, OTK decks should be punished by aggro decks since combos take time to assemble in your hand. You shouldn't be able to OTK on turn 4 no matter how good your draw was.
It's so frustrating to just sit there and waste time playing against APM mages because THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP THE COMBO.
I'm playing Renolock ATM and Dirty rats are my win condition against APM mages. EVEN IF I manage to hit a flamewaker, its not enough since the opponent only needs one anyways.
I got to a point where I'm tempted to concede the moment I see a mage just to spare me some of the misery, and THAT SHOULDN'T BE THE CASE NO MATTER HOW STRONG A CLASS IS.
1. You keep the board clear is nice in theory until you you play some games and find out that aggro decks usually outdraw control decks by a mile, hence they can produce multiple boards while you have limited and usually expensive removal. Also "No tech required against aggro" well, mate, your board clears are your tech against aggro. Think about it if there was no aggro at all, would you run low cost board clears in your deck and have them sit in your hand in mirror matches?
2. On the no recovery - if you use tech card and pull/kill a combo piece OR APM mage doesn't kill you on in one turn there is no recovery in 99% of cases.
3. On the god hand - god hand to win on turn 4 is what I wrote, not on turn whatever.
Comparing cards like Defile, School Spirits, Volcanic Potion, Brawl, Consecration, and Mass Hysteria - cards that are "widely ran" (just examples of AoE people might play, I don't usually play control) in control decks because AoE is generally good - to cards like Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, and Wild Bloodstinger(?) - extremely narrow tech choices that only function against OTK - doesn't really work. AoE isn't tech because it's versatile, you can use it in various ways to answer problems you're facing, sometimes against other control decks because Brawl and Mass Hysteria are that good. If weapon Rogue were popping off in Wild and somebody was running Kobold Stickyfinger as tech against it, that card would be useless against non-weapon decks.
What I'm saying here is that "tech" cards have an opportunity cost in building your deck, because you're sacrificing a slot or two in your deck for a card that's useful against a tiny portion of decks and useless against all the other ones. AoE isn't tech because it's useful far, far more often than any individual tech card is. The opportunity cost is so much lower.
If a tech card works as intended, it still only eliminates 1 Flamewaker or 1 Sorcerer's Apprentice. A single Flamewaker and a single Sorcerer's Apprentice is all the deck needs to combo off and set up a winning game state. I've been a victim to it countless times. I've had Mages pop off turn 5 and fail to kill me, only to just play their second copies of those two minions and kill me two turns later. Fundamentally you're right, if you use all 4 of your pieces, fail to kill the opponent, and then lose because your pieces die, yeah I can't see how you'd come back from that. But that's not how people play the deck, so that fact is rarely ever relevant.
Fair enough, I was reading too fast. Missed that detail. But the difference between turn 4 and 5 is only really that meaningful in the mirror, I'd think.
please don't bully my son
It's just not fun to play against. There is no real interactivity and as a result the game just isn't fun.
I'd say god hand, very rare T4 combo with coin is fine - the issue is more that it seems to be reliably going off T5/6. OTKs should, 100%, be punished by aggro and tech cards most of the time (speaking as a combo player, though I tend more towards jank these days - I'm playing a STD variant of Mozaki at the moment, which without the apprentices is nowhere near broken, though I spent a lot of time playing Freeze when that was an actual deck, unlike now, as it's been creeped. In WIld I usually play three-minion Malygos Shaman). Very occasional nongames that are faster than interaction aren't a probelm - it's reliability, IMO.
I've played utter jank that could T4, which I think I never managed in a few hundred games before Barnes got nerfed (though I did a T5 combo once or twice). That particular deck is fine because it's not reliable going off that early (I think it was a T3 coin barnes hitting ancestor's call, one 2-drop burn and three one-drop burn, then topdecking Maly, or hitting maly and four of (all four 1-drop burn spells + ACall), with the fifth being topdecked. Utterly ridiculously low chance situation, given how the deck mulligans for draw, not combo, and that you can't use draw as that's 2 mana overload or 3 mana, so too slow for this) - or even reliable going off at all! Also a deck that's weak to almost all of the possible interaction (Rat, Loatheb etc.).
Broken eternal formats are a very easy thing to produce that take attention to avoid - look at MTG. Legacy/Vintage there are fine (generally - not heard of them being broken since I stopped playing! There's the occasional stupid card printed, though), but that's almost entirely down to one card (Force) allowing interaction (To the extent that jokes were that JTMS, a few hundred quid card on release, was good in legacy mainly because it was blue and thus could be discarded by force, despite power level of it being ridiculously high.). Without counterspells - specifically zero mana counterspells, because those are fast formats - you'd end up with metas full of oops/belcher et al. With zero mana counterspells, you get slower combo that plays around force, going off T2ish, which then get preyed on by stuff like D&T with Thalia or other taxing, and so on. One card makes a healthy format there. On the flipside, they tried printing Misstep, as counterspell for 1 mana that technically cost 1 mana but you could pay life. Because there's no downside to it, and the best answer to a misstep is your own misstep, it was everywhere. Even goblins, who, despite being far more tempo than aggro, have no place for counterspells, ran a flipping playset of it until it ate a ban. I don't think that Blizz really pay enough attention to Wild to make a healthy format, and cards aimed at Wild are more likely to be a misstep situation, IMO.
But hey, it could be worse (maybe not much, though). We could still have Hysterical Tillers everywhere. That was... not a good meta in any definition.
Guys I found a solution. Crafted an Odd warrior deck, been farming APM mages in wild legend all day long!
Change Flamewaker so that it can't trigger on 0 cost spells.
That would make no sense, a spell is a spell. Just change Sorcerer's Apprentice and BOOM, 0 mana spells are not a problem anymore.
I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
just add three words "that costs mana" to the text and "boom". Sorcerer's Apprentice is far from the only means of creating 0 mana spells.