Hearthpwn

While I don't completely disagree with this year's laureates of the "Get dumped to Wild" award, I'd personally choose other cards to be removed from Standard, and my list consists of Counterspell, Divine Favor and Doomguard. All of these cards are too powerful providing extreme tempo and/or value while being amazingly obnoxious to play against and completely uniteractive. Let's just talk a little about each of these cards.

Counterspell - when a mage plays a secret you have to accept the fact that if it's a Counterspell, you'll have to dump a spell into it, and lucky you if you're going second and can save a coin to test for it. And if not, the only interactivity it offers is to decide which spell you agree to lose. Now it's not Counterspell solely which is a problem, but it being played of off Kirin Tor Mage's effect on turn three which makes the tempo trade completely unequal. It's not such a big deal for minion-based decks which sometimes can go through the whole game without triggering Counterspell, but I mostly pilot spell-based decks, no matter which class I'm playing. And when I have to waste a spell on turn three leaving me with essentially doing nothing, mage continues to build up its board and I fall even more behind. I was thinking for a while which card I want to leave Standard more - Kirin Tor Mage or Counterspell, but finally I chose Counterspell for one reason - while Kirin Tor Mage allows you to also play Explosive Runes for free which is a minion equivalent of Counterspell, it's not so devastating, because losing a minion and some health is one thing, but not able to cast a removal is a much more significant issue. You can say that a mage secret is too good when it's good even if you play it for the full cost which often happens in a topdeck mode of just later in the game (if you manage to survive).

Divine Favor - I could write a whole opus about why I hate this card, but I'll stick to mentioning the specific reasons it deserves to go to Wild from my point of view. And the most concerning reason is this card punishes only control and combo decks. Why, why for the love of Dog God can't I play control? I love control, I've always been a control player, but when a time comes and aggro paladin is a thing, this card just kills any possibility of coping with its unstoppable vomitting on the board. It is especially infuriating when they topdeck it. And now when paladin has Call to Arms, another broken tool, it is as bad as it could be in a sense of surviving constant board refills. And, like other cards on this list, Divine Favor is utterly unfun to play against - the only feeling you get when a pally draws eight cards for three mana is disgust.

Doomguard - while being an instane aggro tool for ages, now it is also the main component of a tier one combo deck in which it comes on board without its downside (which, frankly speaking was often the case in zoo too). We all had a "great" time of dealing with Malchezaar's Imp + Doomguard bullshit, and now when this ridiculous one-drop rotates out of Standard, we have to prepare our asses for two more years of "fun and interactive" Doomguard shenanigans. I'm convinced that the power level of the Cube combo is completely above the power level Standard should stick to.

These are my thoughts about the cards which should've been HoF'ed. And what cards don't belong to the Standard format in your oppinion?

I don't like divine favor or doomguard but they can at least be played around fairly easily.  Counterspell seems like the best choice if they were going to pick from these.  I mean they killed coldlight because it was "preventing people from playing their deck" or whatever since it milled cards, but counterspell is basically doing the same thing to one of your spells.

I like mana bind as a more fair version of the card.  You still get punished for casting a spell, but at least you still cast it.

That said, it's such a basic part of the mage's identity that I don't see it going anywhere - basically every game (card or otherwise) with a mage class has some kind of counterspell ability.  Plus I don't think it's overpowered too much, just annoying.

Counterspell punishes all the big spell decks. It is a one for one card, which is in my opinion the best idea of a fair card. I would not touch this card. 

Divine favor and Doomgard are not the cards I like best, but I don´t consider them problematic in isolation.

Yes, lets just hall of fame every classic mage card...

Play Counterspell on Divine Favor. GG

None of the above.

Counterspell has been in the game since 2014 and has never been an issue. It was not even an issue during Year of the Mammoth where Razakus decks dominated.

Divine Favor has never been a good card since it’s beginning.

Doomguard is only good if you can cheat it out to avoid the cost. It was never an issue. Not even during Year of the Mammoth where Razakus decks dominated.

Quote from loliksdeh >>

In my opinion Divine Favor should be nerfed not banned. It is a cool and unique design that is worth building a deck around. But the fact that it restricts the design space is due to the fact that it is completely broken when used correctly. Increasing the mana cost would be better than Hof.

Counterspell is just fine. You can easily play arround it, even as summoner priest. Just play the archivist so you dont play the spells yourself or play operative to steal a cheap spell from your opponent. 

Doomguard is fine in my opinion but it is uninteractive because of the charge. I would rework it. Add one attack and remove the charge. I really like this tempo card with a drawback.

Divine needs a rework. It is good that pally has some draw mechanics. I would limit the maximum to three cards.

None of the cards should be put inthe Hall of Fame, but Divine Favor and Doomguard should be reworked.

The best rework of doomguard I've read so far is basically to have him stay as is but change the discard + charge to a battlecry. So when you "cheat" out the card you bypass the discard but lose the charge.

Divine Favor needs a mana increase or a fixed max number of cards possibly drawn.