With control decks seemingly on the rise with Sludge Belcher making the rounds, I've seen a lot more stall tactics from players in order to bring Alexstrazaout with a sticky taunt on the board to hide her and guarantee a 1-2 turn KO afterward.
After seeing the same strategy for quite some time it's really gotten to a point where I'm tired of this card; it's one of the few I feel reward brain-dead play and promote stall tactics. It generates a similar feeling of playing against miracle/rush decks: you can play exceedingly well and make all the right decisions and still lose within two turns simply because your opponent holds the right cards in hand.
Now, you can argue that the 9 mana cost is reasonable for what it does, but it's effect compared to any other legendary has by far the most damage potential (up to 15 damage points simply for playing her). Her play demands instant removal and gives no opportunity to respond beyond hard cc or maintaining board control. I like her as a legendary and think she's very powerful in a control deck like hand lock or freeze mage, but I also feel that cutting a champ down to half health no matter what happened throughout the match feels silly and unrewarding.
This card would feel much more intuitive to play against if the health drop was 20 health; this way she provides a greater heal option and it reduces her explicit power against opponents enough to allow a meaningful response or letting her sit for a turn to allow fishing for combos and other options via drawing mechanics.
What do you all feel Alexstraza takes away or adds to the game dynamics? Does she promote boring play and stall tactics that hurt the game? Is she fine as is?
She is fine as it is. Against warrior you play around Alexstrasza anyway and don't use heals on yourself early, you can also go down to 15 health safely because you can assume that Alex will come.
In order to play the card you need to have enough tempo or board control which you must build up early, so by no means is this a non interactive way to play. You also can't usually to expect a 2 turn win after you play it, it just builds up a threat. A clever player will expect Grommash and play round it. And if you can't regain board control you lost the game anyways. Getting to late game against warrior is usually bad for you, if you play a deck that can't deal with the late game and you get alexstrasza-d you deserve to lose. Overall I think that for 9 mana and wasting your whole turn this card is fine and predictable, and the player who plays the card needs preparations before it can be played.
By the way, playing warrior is by no means boring, one of my favourite matchups as either side.
Equality is right. Save your health gain - pack a BGH, and snicker about the fact they just spent 9 mana and multiple turns setting up a play that'll never happen. No reason to make a mountain out of a molehill. Now if you really want to discuss a broken legend? (drapes an arm around his buddy Rag).
After seeing the same strategy for quite some time it's really gotten to a point where I'm tired of this card
The same with almost every card at his prime.
Ppl wanted counters because they were tired of zoos, UTH-buzard combo and Leeroy.
Blizzard pleased them with nerfs and now control decks are rising again and so is Alexs.
In a few weeks, BGH will be back in every deck and so on.
And to answer your question, Alex takes away the game dynamics the same way powerful cards does. It laways depend on which side of the cards you are. Thoughtsteal isn't very fun when you're not a priest of traps when you're not a hunt/mage.
The only time I hated Alexs was during Naxx. So many frost mage's decks.
In my opinion I think Alexstraza contributes to interesting decks, however some of them can be really annoying to face. I don't think that the battlecry should change target players health to 20. Firstly, it could possibly remove the potential of these "stall decks", and I think that each deck should be played by the players in favor of what they think the optimal deck is. There should be a variety of game plays that enable the game less predictable and more fun. Secondly, if Blizzard would change to set target players health to 20, it would have been really OP in some decks, and some could even consider it to extreme. To sum everything up, I personally think that the card Alexstraza is fine as it is.
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With control decks seemingly on the rise with Sludge Belcher making the rounds, I've seen a lot more stall tactics from players in order to bring Alexstrazaout with a sticky taunt on the board to hide her and guarantee a 1-2 turn KO afterward.
After seeing the same strategy for quite some time it's really gotten to a point where I'm tired of this card; it's one of the few I feel reward brain-dead play and promote stall tactics. It generates a similar feeling of playing against miracle/rush decks: you can play exceedingly well and make all the right decisions and still lose within two turns simply because your opponent holds the right cards in hand.
Now, you can argue that the 9 mana cost is reasonable for what it does, but it's effect compared to any other legendary has by far the most damage potential (up to 15 damage points simply for playing her). Her play demands instant removal and gives no opportunity to respond beyond hard cc or maintaining board control. I like her as a legendary and think she's very powerful in a control deck like hand lock or freeze mage, but I also feel that cutting a champ down to half health no matter what happened throughout the match feels silly and unrewarding.
This card would feel much more intuitive to play against if the health drop was 20 health; this way she provides a greater heal option and it reduces her explicit power against opponents enough to allow a meaningful response or letting her sit for a turn to allow fishing for combos and other options via drawing mechanics.
What do you all feel Alexstraza takes away or adds to the game dynamics? Does she promote boring play and stall tactics that hurt the game? Is she fine as is?
She is fine as it is. Against warrior you play around Alexstrasza anyway and don't use heals on yourself early, you can also go down to 15 health safely because you can assume that Alex will come.
In order to play the card you need to have enough tempo or board control which you must build up early, so by no means is this a non interactive way to play. You also can't usually to expect a 2 turn win after you play it, it just builds up a threat. A clever player will expect Grommash and play round it. And if you can't regain board control you lost the game anyways. Getting to late game against warrior is usually bad for you, if you play a deck that can't deal with the late game and you get alexstrasza-d you deserve to lose. Overall I think that for 9 mana and wasting your whole turn this card is fine and predictable, and the player who plays the card needs preparations before it can be played.
By the way, playing warrior is by no means boring, one of my favourite matchups as either side.
I bring life and BOOOOAHH
Equality is right. Save your health gain - pack a BGH, and snicker about the fact they just spent 9 mana and multiple turns setting up a play that'll never happen. No reason to make a mountain out of a molehill. Now if you really want to discuss a broken legend? (drapes an arm around his buddy Rag).
The same with almost every card at his prime.
Ppl wanted counters because they were tired of zoos, UTH-buzard combo and Leeroy.
Blizzard pleased them with nerfs and now control decks are rising again and so is Alexs.
In a few weeks, BGH will be back in every deck and so on.
And to answer your question, Alex takes away the game dynamics the same way powerful cards does. It laways depend on which side of the cards you are. Thoughtsteal isn't very fun when you're not a priest of traps when you're not a hunt/mage.
The only time I hated Alexs was during Naxx. So many frost mage's decks.
In my opinion I think Alexstraza contributes to interesting decks, however some of them can be really annoying to face. I don't think that the battlecry should change target players health to 20. Firstly, it could possibly remove the potential of these "stall decks", and I think that each deck should be played by the players in favor of what they think the optimal deck is. There should be a variety of game plays that enable the game less predictable and more fun. Secondly, if Blizzard would change to set target players health to 20, it would have been really OP in some decks, and some could even consider it to extreme. To sum everything up, I personally think that the card Alexstraza is fine as it is.