Hearthpwn

Quote from FieselFitz >>

And i think that Mana Wyrm will still see some play - not as "tempo-ish" as before but still decent!

And maybe we will get some low cost spells in the next expansion as to why they did this nerf?

In what universe do you think the new Wyrm will see play? It's core strength was to be buffed by cheap spells in the early turns. You just can't do that anymore, and would much rather ping a Amani Berserker. It is a pure tempo card, that was never played in slower decks.

The only upside is that they might print some more playable earlygame spells for mage now.

Quote from SlydE >>

Quote from FieselFitz >>

And i think that Mana Wyrm will still see some play - not as "tempo-ish" as before but still decent!

And maybe we will get some low cost spells in the next expansion as to why they did this nerf?

In what universe do you think the new Wyrm will see play? It's core strength was to be buffed by cheap spells in the early turns. You just can't do that anymore, and would much rather ping a Amani Berserker. It is a pure tempo card, that was never played in slower decks.

The only upside is that they might print some more playable earlygame spells for mage now.

 They want to do that.
As they said:
"we want to nerf it so we could make new cheap spells"

nerf what time?

instead of leaving it playable and make it a 1/2 which would be fiinde since counterable by 2 dmg removal they just remove basic 1 drop out of the game killing any tempo mage deck of past and future.

However those nerfs wont change much since they dont target any real problematic cards anyways. Reason player numbers run downhill is insta win combos and endless value cards in standard. Those nerfs wont bring back any players that left the game like Savijz f.e.

Also MTG arena is the better game by far margin. HS is ghost dead at this point unless they realy show something on blizzcon.

Mana wyrm being in every aggro mage in every meta ever was a real issue, Blizzard stated many times they want standard to always feel new and refreshing. 

I don't see that as a problem at all, as the rest of the decks has gone through some very significant changes. Also:

We need to see good low cost cards for mage in future expansions, otherwise aggressive mage decks will be much lower in tiers. 

Quote from xamos >>

We need to see good low cost cards for mage in future expansions, otherwise aggressive mage decks will be much lower in tiers. 

 Which is a very good thing

The reason for the nerf is in the next sets of cards coming up.

Thanks Blizzard, I know you really needed to do something about my tier-2 odd mage deck that was destroying the rank 16 meta. Don't worry I'm still not planning on spending money on the latest expansions. I guess I'll just have to join the odd rogue meta. It's a shame. I really enjoyed playing mage. 

Druidstone doesn't exist, if anything it's hunterstone at the moment. To all the people who are upset with the nerf, think of how upset your opponents were when you could play mana wyrm and coin out arcane missles to get a 1 mana 3/3 with almost certain board control. This card needed to be put down, good riddance.

Edit: I recently had this game of me versing one of the strongest decks currently, Even Shaman, with a Whizbang deck "Spells are fun, so fun!"  https://hsreplay.net/replay/NYJpicQ6bKisma8kjoQDYZ

And while I was certainly losing for a bit, with a bit of luck and the help of Arcane Artificer (another strong 1 mana MAGE minion) I ended up winning. So tempo mage is definitely not the only possible mage deck to ladder with.

Nuked. From. Orbit. 

Hearthstone is on a scary decline with these developer/lead designer changes. Mana Wyrm makes Mage competitive; why is aggro always punished? There are plenty of other aggro decks taking the game other than mage, but let's nerf a class card that was on par with at least one good opener from each class? Completely ridiculous. The aggro mage was the only competent mage build, and this meta was prided on each class having somewhat equal competitive opportunity. 

Mana wyrm was a far better opener than any other class had, it was as you said "completely ridiculous." The decks that continue to run this card now have a measly 46.5% average win-rate and a 43.3% played win-rate. Tempo mage used to be far above 50%, so this just shows how often the game was decided on the first turn which is very unhealthy for any competitive aspect that hearthstone was trying to push.

Quote from Kissmealloveragain >>

Mana wyrm was a far better opener than any other class had, it was as you said "completely ridiculous." The decks that continue to run this card now have a measly 46.5% average win-rate and a 43.3% played win-rate. Tempo mage used to be far above 50%, so this just shows how often the game was decided on the first turn which is very unhealthy for any competitive aspect that hearthstone was trying to push.

I still don't think Mana Wyrm was to blame, though. Yes, the card was at the very core of the deck along with Frostbolt, Fireball, Arcane Intellect and Sorcerer's Apprentice, but the vanilla set was still never strong enough to make the deck competetive:  that was up to support cards released in expansions.

I am very curious to what Blizzard have in mind to save the faster mage archetypes. Remember that not buffing minions is a trait of the class, so a pseudo buff like Mana Wyrm was needed to stay toe-to-toe with other fast decks. Even with the 1-drop, it had very tough matchups vs decks like odd rogue and paladin.

The faster mage decks were also not very polarizing, having fair matchups vs a large part of the metagame.

I used to play big spell mage with Jaina Alana etc but when firelands portal and medivth rotated out i switched to tempo with Aluneth and then stopped playing for 4-5 months... Now I returned 2 weeks ago but big mage uses like 5 new epics and Lich King (and it rotates) I can't afford so instead I de'd some old stuff (temporus, gold cards) and made stargazer... Imagine my face when I logged in today... Holy shit blizzard really hates mage class

Quote from SlydE >>

Quote from Kissmealloveragain >>

Mana wyrm was a far better opener than any other class had, it was as you said "completely ridiculous." The decks that continue to run this card now have a measly 46.5% average win-rate and a 43.3% played win-rate. Tempo mage used to be far above 50%, so this just shows how often the game was decided on the first turn which is very unhealthy for any competitive aspect that hearthstone was trying to push.

I still don't think Mana Wyrm was to blame, though. Yes, the card was at the very core of the deck along with Frostbolt, Fireball, Arcane Intellect and Sorcerer's Apprentice, but the vanilla set was still never strong enough to make the deck competetive:  that was up to support cards released in expansions.

I am very curious to what Blizzard have in mind to save the faster mage archetypes. Remember that not buffing minions is a trait of the class, so a pseudo buff like Mana Wyrm was needed to stay toe-to-toe with other fast decks. Even with the 1-drop, it had very tough matchups vs decks like odd rogue and paladin.

The faster mage decks were also not very polarizing, having fair matchups vs a large part of the metagame.

I'm sorry, what? Core cards of Tempo Mage over the years have been: Arcane Missiles, Mirror Image (in budget lists or when Flamewaker was around), Mana Wyrm, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Frostbolt, Kirin Tor Mage, Arcane Intellect, Counterspell, Mirror Entity (before Explosive Runes was introduced) and Fireball. All of those being either basic or classic cards.

To me it seems T5 treated aggressive Mage the same way as they did with Warrior back then. If they don't want a class to be capable of SMOrc (anymore) the respective archetype is going to be hammered. Apart from their reasoning regarding future low-cost spells/minions, of course.

Quote from B0n3d4ddy >>

Quote from SlydE >>

Quote from Kissmealloveragain >>

Mana wyrm was a far better opener than any other class had, it was as you said "completely ridiculous." The decks that continue to run this card now have a measly 46.5% average win-rate and a 43.3% played win-rate. Tempo mage used to be far above 50%, so this just shows how often the game was decided on the first turn which is very unhealthy for any competitive aspect that hearthstone was trying to push.

I still don't think Mana Wyrm was to blame, though. Yes, the card was at the very core of the deck along with Frostbolt, Fireball, Arcane Intellect and Sorcerer's Apprentice, but the vanilla set was still never strong enough to make the deck competetive:  that was up to support cards released in expansions.

I am very curious to what Blizzard have in mind to save the faster mage archetypes. Remember that not buffing minions is a trait of the class, so a pseudo buff like Mana Wyrm was needed to stay toe-to-toe with other fast decks. Even with the 1-drop, it had very tough matchups vs decks like odd rogue and paladin.

The faster mage decks were also not very polarizing, having fair matchups vs a large part of the metagame.

I'm sorry, what? Core cards of Tempo Mage over the years have been: Arcane Missiles, Mirror Image (in budget lists or when Flamewaker was around), Mana Wyrm, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Frostbolt, Kirin Tor Mage, Arcane Intellect, Counterspell, Mirror Entity (before Explosive Runes was introduced) and Fireball. All of those being either basic or classic cards.

To me it seems T5 treated aggressive Mage the same way as they did with Warrior back then. If they don't want a class to be capable of SMOrc (anymore) the respective archetype is going to be hammered. Apart from their reasoning regarding future low-cost spells/minions, of course.

 https://hsreplay.net/replay/tfnp984D6EySQTH9s5rQ5R

I recently had this game with a garbage warrior deck I made just to finish a quest and I would have won if my cleave at the end connected to the proper minions, I think the fact that a previous deck that worked at legend could barely beat the deck I threw together just because mana wyrm was increased in mana price, shows a few things. Tempo mage is nothing without a 1 cost mana wyrm.

There are however good mage decks, such as big spell mage. With it you can constantly clear the board, and given that this meta is very aggressive, depleting their board every single turn ends with them having nothing and you winning. 

Turn one Mana Wyrm was too much of  determinant in the Tempo Mage winrate, regardless of how strong the deck was. In that sense I think a nerf was needed. Making it a two-drop however feels off, I'd have much preferred it to be changed to a 1/2.

I'm a bit worried about the recent determination by Team 5 to limit all and any nerfs to mana cost only, it's a bit condescending to the players. "These are the same people that couldn't handle 18 deck slots, we can't make the nerfs too difficult either". Some more creativity would not go amiss.

This comes on the back of the utterly boring replacement "Classic" cards, and the ditching of Tournament mode - it does not bode well.

Good riddance. But, it makes me wonder if Mage is going to  get something similar next expansion.

Quote from Maxime95 >>

Quote from xamos >>

We need to see good low cost cards for mage in future expansions, otherwise aggressive mage decks will be much lower in tiers. 

 Which is a very good thing

 One aggressive mage deck exists and you're complaining its good to outright kill a class. Bravo.