So first of all this is not another salty thread. I'm a freeze mage player myself, I love the deck and I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with it in terms of concept/idea.
That being said, I believe the deck is already a bit too powerful right now. Once you come to grips with it, you literally just lose to patron/control warrior and druid and destroy everything other deck that exists in the game right now(and everyone who tells me aggro decks can beat a good freeze mage player consistently is so full of it that it's not even funny).
Now let's take a close look at what standard will remove from the game:
Loatheb
Healbot
Deathrattle minions that survive aoe
Druid combo+keeper of the grove(ie the druid match up will actually become favored for the mage)
kezan(not that it makes that big of a difference, since eventually people realized it was just not worth running the card anyway just to counter the 2-3 decks it was ok against)
now let's look at how MUCH(/irony) standard will hurt freeze mage:
mad scientist going away
eater of secrets(irrelevant, will see even less play than kezan did)
Now, like I said I play freeze mage myself. I am not a pro freeze mage or anything, but I have taken the deck to legend before and I would say I know it from the inside out enough to tell that it's just going to be busted in standard. This worries me, because I love the deck a lot and blizzard has openly stated several times that they don't like it and find it unfun to play against. The reason they haven't done much about it so far is because the deck is so complex to play and has such polarizing match ups that even in times where it's actually really good in the meta(ie right now) you still don't play against it over 10% of your games on ladder, except at very high ranks.
I'm worried that this balance is broken by how strong the deck will be in standard. And I'm worried that this will give blizzard an excuse to finally nerf it into oblivion like they did with the old patron warrior(and don't fucking tell me the deck is the same nowadays, because it isn't). With the meta saturated with play-things-on-curve-and-win decks like secret paladin and midrange druid, freeze mage has always been the deck I have been able to fall back on when I want to actually enjoy playing this game. And a lot of players belong in this niche as well(not just with FM, but also with other things like oil rogue and control priest). If the deck actually stops being viable, I would actually consider quitting the game altogether, and I wouldn't be surprised if other people did too.
This also applies to face shaman, a deck that I also enjoy playing and think it's completely fine right now, but will probably also be too powerful in standard with all the anti aggro cards gone and only missing out on crackle.
Your thoughts?(I will go ahead and ignore comments about how FM is an "uninteractive" deck that ruins the game)
Control decks shits on freeze Mage, warrior can beat all decks in the game the same way you claim freeze Mage does, and warriors deck are more consistent. You want to whine, whine about warrior, and shaman new cards, stop complaining about the only viable deck left for Mage that is not based on rng, like tempo. I'm worried about blizzard nerfing the only consistent deck for Mage, since all others Mage cards are so casino like, and I f they do so, I'll just quit the game, freeze is a fun deck to play and makes you think a lot, as of now the only choice we have is to play freeze, why would you run minions on ladder that cast random spells? from all the classes I hate how Mage and shaman are very rng based, that is not consistant to climb the ladder, why can't we have consistant cards and cheap ones like warrior does, it's just frustrating,
The thing is that if Freeze Mage becomes too rampant, then Eater of Secrets will start being teched into decks and then freeze mage will disappear very quickly and then Eater will fall out of decks and then freeze mage will come back again and so on.
As to your point about nerfing the deck. I think freeze mage is fine where it is at the moment. You see it from time to time, but not too often. It is a terrible deck to play against because there is little to no interaction. I have played quite a bit of freeze mage to better understand it and it really is like playing a single player game.
The nerf to Patron was totally fine because Patron is a very good deck, but it was way too OP with the old Warsong Commander.
I still haven't decided what decks to try out in Standard first, but I very well may start with Control Warrior just so I don't have to worry about any silly freeze mage shenanigans.
We will have to wait and see how big impact freeze mage will have in standard. No one can say for sure how the meta will pan out, and that determinates how good the freeze mage will be. The version of freeze mage we have currently can be hated out of meta so hard.
Eater of the secrets...reno... freeze mage is done lol.
Sure, because the card kezan didn't exist for the past year and a half. And reno decks apart from exactly reno mage get destroyed by a good FM player.
I start to regret making this topic, I was actually hoping to have an intelligent debate about the state of FM after standard hits, apparentlya forum where most people belong in the rank 10 mark and believe face hunter is still a good deck is not the place to do that.
I think the loss of mad scientist is going to hurt more than you expect it to. That being said, the deck is still going to be strong. But it's not like warrior and druid are the only decks that freeze mage doesn't roll right over at the moment. Neither Tempo mage nor face shaman are particurlarly good matchups and as someone else said above, I expect c'thun decks to do pretty damn well against freeze mage. But that's nearly impossible to tell right now.
Face shaman is for sure going to be a really bad matchup for freeze mage in standard btw, I predict something like 35/65 at best.
There's so much healing in the new expansion I doubt freeze mage will be good.
There's going to be way less healing after standard hits than before. And FM never really lost to slow,grindy decks with a lot of healing(apart from CW of course). Those decks tend to be so slow you can just set up an otk and win. Or in the case of things like renolock you can just ping off their hp until the 20 hp mark and force them to either heal when they don't want to and get alex'ed the following turn or just don't heal and get bursted down from 20 hp.
I think the loss of mad scientist is going to hurt more than you expect it to. That being said, the deck is still going to be strong. But it's not like warrior and druid are the only decks that freeze mage doesn't roll right over at the moment. Neither Tempo mage nor face shaman are particurlarly good matchups and as someone else said above, I expect c'thun decks to do pretty damn well against freeze mage. But that's nearly impossible to tell right now.
Face shaman is for sure going to be a really bad matchup for freeze mage in standard btw, I predict something like 35/65 at best.
It's true that out of all aggro decks, tempo mage and FS are the least bad against FM, but they still lose badly to it if the mage knows what he's doing. I currently have above 60% against both decks at ranks 5-legend, and I'm not even a "pro" freeze mage.
Losing scientist will hurt the deck, but nowhere near as much as you're making it sound. The FS match up(and most aggro match ups for that matter) is not about scientist, but about getting a doomsayer early on that slows them down and prevents them from getting as much damage in in the early game. This is often enough to give you the time to set up the win yourself, either via playing defensively and using alex on yourself or just rushing them down with spells before they kill you.
Anyway, I also believe FS will be busted in standard, to the point where FM might be one of the few remaining decks that can beat it consistently.
Look, freze mage is probably the only deck that is not supposed to exist as it abuses so many cards in order to make the opponent's cards completely useless
It is the weakest deck in the game because cards like flare and kazen are going to instantly win it, meaning it's structure and concept is poorly made . it's just not supposed to exist
nah I think you're salty and lost to a freeze Mage and play cancer decks like CW and patron and got mad your op unskilled patron deck got nerfed. I am rank 2 with tempo and freeze Mage and Mage is not op at all, not now not after patch, I managed to hit legend with zoolock that's a real consistent deck, that is not hurt with what you mulligan, stop complaining and saying we all suck here kid, or delete the post you're just hurt and lost to a Mage I can tell.
I played freeze mage and aggro paladin before the patron nerf(two decks which are extremely weak against patron) and I still believe the nerf was wrong. The deck was overpowered and needed to be nerfed but not the way it did.
You're actually interpreting this topic the wrong way. I love freeze mage and want it to continue being a viable deck. What i'm worried about is that it might be so powerful in standard that blizzard might just decide to delete the deck from the game considering they don't like it anyway.
As a midrange shaman I'm not concerned. Ragnaros, Al Akir and Fire Elemental all deal damage despite freeze effects, as do weapons. Also, once you play Alexstraza healing wave is near guaranteed to heal for 14. Earth shock also unfreezes your own minions. There are definitely ways to beat the deck.
There are counters to freeze - if freeze becomes dominant, which I expect, you'll see an upsurge in CWs, which is a tough MU, along with stuff like Echo mage, which is again, really tough (Block+Reno is... bleh), as well as heavy teching of Eater. Not sure if that'll be enough, though; it's certainly going to be defining the meta.
Control warrior will always be a(big) issue for FM, but unless they are literally 50% of your match ups I don't think it will be enough.
I don't think it will get nerfed but blizzard will def do something about Mage cards, since I can tell standard will be full of freeze mages, reason being it will become the only consistent deck for Mage mains, tempo will fall out of grace, I don't think you want random spells hitting your board. It can go really bad or it can win you game, it does look like fun cards but not good for climbing. And sorry if I was a bit aggressive but I'm just frustrated at blizzard for making us play freeze, which is pretty much the only good option now for ladder, with loathed and a lot of healing gone.
So first of all this is not another salty thread. I'm a freeze mage player myself, I love the deck and I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with it in terms of concept/idea.
That being said, I believe the deck is already a bit too powerful right now. Once you come to grips with it, you literally just lose to patron/control warrior and druid and destroy everything other deck that exists in the game right now(and everyone who tells me aggro decks can beat a good freeze mage player consistently is so full of it that it's not even funny).
Now let's take a close look at what standard will remove from the game:
Loatheb
Healbot
Deathrattle minions that survive aoe
Druid combo+keeper of the grove(ie the druid match up will actually become favored for the mage)
kezan(not that it makes that big of a difference, since eventually people realized it was just not worth running the card anyway just to counter the 2-3 decks it was ok against)
now let's look at how MUCH(/irony) standard will hurt freeze mage:
mad scientist going away
eater of secrets(irrelevant, will see even less play than kezan did)
Now, like I said I play freeze mage myself. I am not a pro freeze mage or anything, but I have taken the deck to legend before and I would say I know it from the inside out enough to tell that it's just going to be busted in standard. This worries me, because I love the deck a lot and blizzard has openly stated several times that they don't like it and find it unfun to play against. The reason they haven't done much about it so far is because the deck is so complex to play and has such polarizing match ups that even in times where it's actually really good in the meta(ie right now) you still don't play against it over 10% of your games on ladder, except at very high ranks.
I'm worried that this balance is broken by how strong the deck will be in standard. And I'm worried that this will give blizzard an excuse to finally nerf it into oblivion like they did with the old patron warrior(and don't fucking tell me the deck is the same nowadays, because it isn't). With the meta saturated with play-things-on-curve-and-win decks like secret paladin and midrange druid, freeze mage has always been the deck I have been able to fall back on when I want to actually enjoy playing this game. And a lot of players belong in this niche as well(not just with FM, but also with other things like oil rogue and control priest). If the deck actually stops being viable, I would actually consider quitting the game altogether, and I wouldn't be surprised if other people did too.
This also applies to face shaman, a deck that I also enjoy playing and think it's completely fine right now, but will probably also be too powerful in standard with all the anti aggro cards gone and only missing out on crackle.
Your thoughts?(I will go ahead and ignore comments about how FM is an "uninteractive" deck that ruins the game)
Control decks shits on freeze Mage, warrior can beat all decks in the game the same way you claim freeze Mage does, and warriors deck are more consistent. You want to whine, whine about warrior, and shaman new cards, stop complaining about the only viable deck left for Mage that is not based on rng, like tempo. I'm worried about blizzard nerfing the only consistent deck for Mage, since all others Mage cards are so casino like, and I f they do so, I'll just quit the game, freeze is a fun deck to play and makes you think a lot, as of now the only choice we have is to play freeze, why would you run minions on ladder that cast random spells? from all the classes I hate how Mage and shaman are very rng based, that is not consistant to climb the ladder, why can't we have consistant cards and cheap ones like warrior does, it's just frustrating,
The thing is that if Freeze Mage becomes too rampant, then Eater of Secrets will start being teched into decks and then freeze mage will disappear very quickly and then Eater will fall out of decks and then freeze mage will come back again and so on.
As to your point about nerfing the deck. I think freeze mage is fine where it is at the moment. You see it from time to time, but not too often. It is a terrible deck to play against because there is little to no interaction. I have played quite a bit of freeze mage to better understand it and it really is like playing a single player game.
The nerf to Patron was totally fine because Patron is a very good deck, but it was way too OP with the old Warsong Commander.
I still haven't decided what decks to try out in Standard first, but I very well may start with Control Warrior just so I don't have to worry about any silly freeze mage shenanigans.
Heh, greetings.
We will have to wait and see how big impact freeze mage will have in standard. No one can say for sure how the meta will pan out, and that determinates how good the freeze mage will be. The version of freeze mage we have currently can be hated out of meta so hard.
C'Thun decks seem to be fairly obvious counter to Freeze Mage, with their plenty healing options and C'Thun as damage from hand to finish the game
My greatest achievement yet:
Not disenchanting my double Shadowbomber
There's so much healing in the new expansion I doubt freeze mage will be good.
You're worrying over nothing. Freeze Mage will always be a viable deck but it won't get nerfed/destroyed by Blizzard.
Like you said, it's a bit too difficult to play well (with Mad Scientist gone - even more so), so it'll never become ultra popular.
Shaman decks will be the new "OP PLS NERF" thing. Particularly Aggro shaman with Dr. 4.
I think C'thun Priest can beat FM (testing required). Control Pally with heals can also compete with it IMO.
I think the loss of mad scientist is going to hurt more than you expect it to. That being said, the deck is still going to be strong. But it's not like warrior and druid are the only decks that freeze mage doesn't roll right over at the moment. Neither Tempo mage nor face shaman are particurlarly good matchups and as someone else said above, I expect c'thun decks to do pretty damn well against freeze mage. But that's nearly impossible to tell right now.
Face shaman is for sure going to be a really bad matchup for freeze mage in standard btw, I predict something like 35/65 at best.
Look, freze mage is probably the only deck that is not supposed to exist as it abuses so many cards in order to make the opponent's cards completely useless
It is the weakest deck in the game because cards like flare and kazen are going to instantly win it, meaning it's structure and concept is poorly made . it's just not supposed to exist
As a midrange shaman I'm not concerned. Ragnaros, Al Akir and Fire Elemental all deal damage despite freeze effects, as do weapons. Also, once you play Alexstraza healing wave is near guaranteed to heal for 14. Earth shock also unfreezes your own minions. There are definitely ways to beat the deck.
I don't think it will get nerfed but blizzard will def do something about Mage cards, since I can tell standard will be full of freeze mages, reason being it will become the only consistent deck for Mage mains, tempo will fall out of grace, I don't think you want random spells hitting your board. It can go really bad or it can win you game, it does look like fun cards but not good for climbing. And sorry if I was a bit aggressive but I'm just frustrated at blizzard for making us play freeze, which is pretty much the only good option now for ladder, with loathed and a lot of healing gone.
Where is CW a cancer deck o.O Is every deck that is able to beat another deck automatically cancer?