I am back with a second thread based on my popular past post i made on Open the Waygate. Before anyone calls this post or my last post a salty rant, This is just my opinion backed up with facts and when I made the post before 3 weeks later it did get nerfed so I think I had some right to make a post on this matter.
So I am back again to say that Open the Waygate is just as uninteractive as before and the Nerf has barely done anything. Data from last month has confirmed that open the waygate is still a top tier 1 deck in wild: https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/meta-snapshot/wild/2020-05-12. I was to express my opinions on why Open the Waygate remains a powerhouse of a Wild deck to play on ladder even at the start of this new season:
1: The Number Nerf Did NOTHING
The issues with Open the Waygate is mostly with the quest reward, however blizzard decided to change the amount of spells cast to delay the effect, however this number change is pretty small and pretty non significant for several reasons. Mage can create alot more that 8 spells from random effects and with Sorcerer's Apprentice can do them cheaply and quickly. Second of all Mage has the most ways to Discover and get random spells than any class from Magic Trick, Primordial Glyph and now even Evocation from the latest expansion. The cheap ways to random into spells just makes the quest the most easy quest to complete in the game currently, which undermines blizzard number change as almost not effecting the card at all.
2: The Giant and Vargoth issue
Remember when quest mage could only kill you by drawing its whole deck and needing 4 Sorcerer's Apprentice and Archmage Antonidas? Now it only really needs to draw around half of its deck and it can do the same. Archmage Vargoth is one of the biggest issues with the deck imo. Taking two extra turns is just too crazy in a class with so much burst damage. Even Dirty Rat is not very effective as you have to try and pull out that 1 minion to stop the combo. The other issue is Giants. Mage now has 4 giants to make cheaper which means it can have four 0 mana 8/8, so even if you do stop Vargoth, Mage can have 32 damage anyway. These minions make the deck crazy to go against as it is the same combo to kill every time and yet a combo which is very hard to prevent.
3: Too Much Randomness to play smartly
I think this is another HUGE Problem with quest mage, You can't play around very much. You know their end condition, but they can random into so much stuff through the game, it is almost impossible to predict what cards they will end up playing. You may push damage as an aggro deck to find out they random intoIce Block or you may play slow and careful and they random into Fireball. It offers literally no room for error and very little ways to interact as you just can't play around everything.
I doubt that changing to 7 mana would change anything. Sure it can’t combo with Vargoth and it would slow down quest mage . The problem is they have too many ways to win. Old Exodia requires drawing the exact cards to win. But this deck all you need is a couple of giant and maybesome more minions . The damage from flamewalker + Sorcerer Apprentice is ridiculous. The amount of cards draw they have is insane and generating spell is as easy as breathing. For me , Mana cyclone is the real problem here. They should make it 4 mana 4/4 or something
The main issue is Sorcerer's Apprentice. The cost reduction just allows them to play way too many spells for free. The result of this is some extremely powerful Flamewaker and Mana Cyclone turns which leads to more 0-cost spells which allows them to complete the quest very easily. If the effect of Apprentice is changed to prevent spells from costing less than 1 then it will stop them completely. It will probably kill every single combo mage though. Not that i care.
The real issue is mage's spell pool. It is completely shifted towards cheap spells, leading to auto play turns and ridiculously fast Quest completion and giants discount.
If Mana cyclone would give you spell that cost 7 or more around half of the time, there would be no issue.
They really have to push Big Spell Mage for a couple of expansions, problem solved.
Having to draw half the deck gives plenty of time for aggro to kill, the rest of playstyles are not supposed to beat a combo deck without much luck involved, or flaws in the technical play of the combo player. This meaning, if you are expecting change because you want to beat the Mage but you aren't playing Aggro, you shouldn't expect it, nor should you receive it.
The Quest is fine as is, and the Reward as well. Changing the Rewards particularly, would ruin all other fun decks that use it.
There are two problems. Too much generation of cards, has been a problem for a long time, but it's gonna happen in a game aiming for large audience, need to add random elements to give inexperienced players a chance to overcome (get lucky and beat) experienced players.
And obviously, the stupid decision to allow Ice Block and other immunity granting cards to be generated. This card is balanced to be played at two copies per deck, more than that is broken. Or when it is generated even without them being in the deck, because it enables the player something they aren't supposed to do. Any good player plays around two Ice Blocks in a slow Mage deck. They cannot be expected to play around more, or to play around any when the deck doesn't include it.
This has always made me mad, since the start, that this card can be obtain without including it in your deck, and it tends to give a free win to anyone that generates it. It's one of my favorite cards in the game, but it should be removed from the pool of cards that can be generated. Either you start with one/two in your deck, or that card won't appear to save you.
Edit: Also you don't know uninteractive means. A deck that gives you a good number of turns before it kills you fails to be uninteractive. This isn't Pirate Warrior that can kill you so fast that a bad hand of medium mana cards is a death sentence. If you are dying by turn 10+ you had a lot of time to interact.
Personally i think killing you from full health without you having a single thing to do apart from pray you can kill them first after a barrage of random spells than can Freeze you board and prevent you from doing anything is a pretty good definition of uninteractive.
And if the quest is as I quote" The Quest is fine as is, and the Reward as well." So Why did they nerf it at all? Well the answer is there WAS an issue and maybe there still is, so just keep that in mind before acting like the quest have never been an issue.
Too much card generation has always been a problem i have agreed, but too much CHEAP spell generation has been a bigger problem in the last year since Rise of shadow introduced lots of cheap ways to generate spells like Magic Trick [/card]and [card]Ray of frost.
No one plays the slow version of Quest mage with Archmage Vargoth anymore, everyone plays with the fast version. But there are two other problems that deck has and they are Mana Cyclone and Flamewaker, the least interactive cards. Plus the generation of "random" cards. They should not offer the cards that you have in your hand or on the deck, need a nerf to generate mechanics and another nerf to discover mechanics.
Personally i think killing you from full health without you having a single thing to do apart from pray you can kill them first after a barrage of random spells than can Freeze you board and prevent you from doing anything is a pretty good definition of uninteractive.
And if the quest is as I quote" The Quest is fine as is, and the Reward as well." So Why did they nerf it at all? Well the answer is there WAS an issue and maybe there still is, so just keep that in mind before acting like the quest have never been an issue.
Too much card generation has always been a problem i have agreed, but too much CHEAP spell generation has been a bigger problem in the last year since Rise of shadow introduced lots of cheap ways to generate spells like Magic Trick [/card]and [card]Ray of frost.
It's not a good definition, not even close. The longer a deck takes to achieve its win condition, the harder it is for the deck to be uninteractive.
That is why the closest thing in Hearthstone to uninteractive is Hyper Aggro like Pirate Warrior, because it is possible for you to lose a game without having the possibility of playing a single card.
A deck doesn't stop being interactive just because you yourself couldn't stop it's win condition, it stops being interactive when it is impossible for you to do so.
Combo decks tend to be slow, which means they give you turns. Those turns can be used for whatever you want, but you do have those turns, meaning it is time you have to interact with them.
If I kill you on turn 4, you had almost no possibility to interact with me. If I kill you on turn 10, that is a lot of turns to interact, and most OTK decks tend to kill at 15 or later, which is a long time to interact.
I assume you have no experience with other card games, there are card games where you can be killed on the first turn, before you even get your own turn. That is uninteractive, because you didn't have the possibility to interact, not at all.
Just because a Combo deck relies on a strategy that is harder to stop, which is what all Combo decks do, they use a strategy which avoids giving the opponent the option to stop you, but relying on a Combination that uses the cards on the Hand or Deck, or Graveyard in other games. This feels annoying for players, they feel helpless, if they aren't experienced enough. But you can't forget that all that time you spend feeling helpless is exactly the time a fast deck is using to kill the Combo deck, because they don't afford Combo the time.
The Quest itself isn't the problem, I already explained. The problem is the extreme amount of random generators that exist. This didn't matter when they didn't go ape sh*t on creating every card to give random crap. But now, they have printed so many cards that generate more random cards, that it becomes much faster to achieve the Quest. So they increased the number. Was it the right move? I don't think so, I think the absurd number of random generators they added to the game is actually quite destructive for the game, but it was their choice.
It's not just because it's cheap. It doesn't help, but it's their insistence on relying on so much random generation that ruins it. It's absurd to play against a deck that generates more cards than the number of cards they started in their deck. Not to mention, you are simply going to the Casino when facing or playing this deck. You are fully playing against probabilities, rather than playing against a deck you can guess the cards and therefore adopt a strategy to beat.
It's frustrating to see my favorite class be moved to such a bad direction. Priest was the awful class that used to play this way. And I can't stand that class.
Mage is Also my favorite class, have nearly 1020 wins and climbing fast, so I 100 percent agree how sad it is they basically turn the class into a random factory. It used to be about control and combo and now its almost just 100% seeing what you can random out your ass to stay on the board and win the game, I do sympathize alot with you there and I agree it is not really the direction they should go with Mage and not very flavorful to have these amazing spell caster doing random shit 100% of the time.
However, I think you are exaggerating about the uninteractiveness of other card games in comparisons. I have played many other games from Gwent, shadowverse and even some magic and NEVER has I seen a deck which wins turn 1 or heard of a deck that wins on that turn. I think that it not fair to compare other games to Hearthstone as hearthstone has a different game style and play which means winning turn 1 in hearthstone outside brawls is impossible currently, so I think my view of uninteractive of the deck is still pretty good, if not a little bitflawed. I played card games for nearly 7 years and while Quest mage is not the worse deck when it comes to that, the principle of just completing the quest in one turn and lock you out the game by random spells it not interactive no matter how much you say it is. I think it is beatable, but still not fun or much you can do unless you are playing an aggro deck and even then its not guaranteed to win.
I think the quest being nerfed does show it was a problem, however i think it prevents issues in the future and still being very strong right now. I think the reward used to be better and more manageable as it did require you to draw ALOT to get it going, however these days with the amount of draw and randomness it is super easy to complete.
Having to draw half the deck gives plenty of time for aggro to kill, the rest of playstyles are not supposed to beat a combo deck without much luck involved, or flaws in the technical play of the combo player. This meaning, if you are expecting change because you want to beat the Mage but you aren't playing Aggro, you shouldn't expect it, nor should you receive it.
The Quest is fine as is, and the Reward as well. Changing the Rewards particularly, would ruin all other fun decks that use it.
There are two problems. Too much generation of cards, has been a problem for a long time, but it's gonna happen in a game aiming for large audience, need to add random elements to give inexperienced players a chance to overcome (get lucky and beat) experienced players.
And obviously, the stupid decision to allow Ice Block and other immunity granting cards to be generated. This card is balanced to be played at two copies per deck, more than that is broken. Or when it is generated even without them being in the deck, because it enables the player something they aren't supposed to do. Any good player plays around two Ice Blocks in a slow Mage deck. They cannot be expected to play around more, or to play around any when the deck doesn't include it.
This has always made me mad, since the start, that this card can be obtain without including it in your deck, and it tends to give a free win to anyone that generates it. It's one of my favorite cards in the game, but it should be removed from the pool of cards that can be generated. Either you start with one/two in your deck, or that card won't appear to save you.
Edit: Also you don't know uninteractive means. A deck that gives you a good number of turns before it kills you fails to be uninteractive. This isn't Pirate Warrior that can kill you so fast that a bad hand of medium mana cards is a death sentence. If you are dying by turn 10+ you had a lot of time to interact.
Bruh stfu. There isn't a single fun deck that uses the quest.
Lol is kind of unbelievable that people still complain about quest mage .The deck is far from op,is not even really good.Is good ,if ur still think the opposite youdyou dont know how to play.Just because you still lose to it doesnt mean it need a nerf .Get over it and learn the game noob
Lol is kind of unbelievable that people still complain about quest mage .The deck is far from op,is not even really good.Is good ,if ur still think the opposite youdyou dont know how to play.Just because you still lose to it doesnt mean it need a nerf .Get over it and learn the game noob
I think this post is the ONLY post of the entire discussion which is a complete waste of time.
People are giving their opinions, showing facts and presents data and all you can say is "GET GUD Noob"
honestly don't know why you responded if you have nothing to add constructive
I'll repeat what I've said before; Change the quest to read "Spend X mana on spells that didn't start in your deck". That way they can't complete it with Ray of Frost + Sorcerer's Apprentice and Magic Trick.
Lol is kind of unbelievable that people still complain about quest mage .The deck is far from op,is not even really good.Is good ,if ur still think the opposite youdyou dont know how to play.Just because you still lose to it doesnt mean it need a nerf .Get over it and learn the game noob
Ah you must be a quest mage player. “Quest mage is far from op” is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. So you either love quest mage so much or you didn’t play rank at all. Idiots like you ruin our community. You can’t even type constructive comment
I am back with a second thread based on my popular past post i made on Open the Waygate. Before anyone calls this post or my last post a salty rant, This is just my opinion backed up with facts and when I made the post before 3 weeks later it did get nerfed so I think I had some right to make a post on this matter.
Must past post: https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/241438-open-the-way-gate-is-now-too-powerful-and-heres#c1
So I am back again to say that Open the Waygate is just as uninteractive as before and the Nerf has barely done anything. Data from last month has confirmed that open the waygate is still a top tier 1 deck in wild: https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/meta-snapshot/wild/2020-05-12. I was to express my opinions on why Open the Waygate remains a powerhouse of a Wild deck to play on ladder even at the start of this new season:
1: The Number Nerf Did NOTHING
The issues with Open the Waygate is mostly with the quest reward, however blizzard decided to change the amount of spells cast to delay the effect, however this number change is pretty small and pretty non significant for several reasons. Mage can create alot more that 8 spells from random effects and with Sorcerer's Apprentice can do them cheaply and quickly. Second of all Mage has the most ways to Discover and get random spells than any class from Magic Trick, Primordial Glyph and now even Evocation from the latest expansion. The cheap ways to random into spells just makes the quest the most easy quest to complete in the game currently, which undermines blizzard number change as almost not effecting the card at all.
2: The Giant and Vargoth issue
Remember when quest mage could only kill you by drawing its whole deck and needing 4 Sorcerer's Apprentice and Archmage Antonidas? Now it only really needs to draw around half of its deck and it can do the same. Archmage Vargoth is one of the biggest issues with the deck imo. Taking two extra turns is just too crazy in a class with so much burst damage. Even Dirty Rat is not very effective as you have to try and pull out that 1 minion to stop the combo. The other issue is Giants. Mage now has 4 giants to make cheaper which means it can have four 0 mana 8/8, so even if you do stop Vargoth, Mage can have 32 damage anyway. These minions make the deck crazy to go against as it is the same combo to kill every time and yet a combo which is very hard to prevent.
3: Too Much Randomness to play smartly
I think this is another HUGE Problem with quest mage, You can't play around very much. You know their end condition, but they can random into so much stuff through the game, it is almost impossible to predict what cards they will end up playing. You may push damage as an aggro deck to find out they random intoIce Block or you may play slow and careful and they random into Fireball. It offers literally no room for error and very little ways to interact as you just can't play around everything.
They can nerf it to 10 spells and it would still be op.
I think the issue is not about how many spells, it is about the reward.
Making the reward cost like 7 or something would stop the double turn play and make it less likely to be hugely discounted by Sorcerer's Apprentice
I doubt that changing to 7 mana would change anything. Sure it can’t combo with Vargoth and it would slow down quest mage . The problem is they have too many ways to win. Old Exodia requires drawing the exact cards to win. But this deck all you need is a couple of giant and maybesome more minions . The damage from flamewalker + Sorcerer Apprentice is ridiculous. The amount of cards draw they have is insane and generating spell is as easy as breathing. For me , Mana cyclone is the real problem here. They should make it 4 mana 4/4 or something
the lead designers favorite deck is secret mage, why do you expect fun from this game?
They said that? Oh well. My hope is gone now
This. What makes it worst is there is no hard counter or tech card to stop it. Its extremely frustrating to play against it because you feel helpless.
The main issue is Sorcerer's Apprentice. The cost reduction just allows them to play way too many spells for free. The result of this is some extremely powerful Flamewaker and Mana Cyclone turns which leads to more 0-cost spells which allows them to complete the quest very easily. If the effect of Apprentice is changed to prevent spells from costing less than 1 then it will stop them completely. It will probably kill every single combo mage though. Not that i care.
The real issue is mage's spell pool. It is completely shifted towards cheap spells, leading to auto play turns and ridiculously fast Quest completion and giants discount.
If Mana cyclone would give you spell that cost 7 or more around half of the time, there would be no issue.
They really have to push Big Spell Mage for a couple of expansions, problem solved.
no real reason to post this even though I agree
”you just aren’t playing well enough or running counters. Gonna call the mods to lock this thread for salt”
Personally i think killing you from full health without you having a single thing to do apart from pray you can kill them first after a barrage of random spells than can Freeze you board and prevent you from doing anything is a pretty good definition of uninteractive.
And if the quest is as I quote" The Quest is fine as is, and the Reward as well." So Why did they nerf it at all? Well the answer is there WAS an issue and maybe there still is, so just keep that in mind before acting like the quest have never been an issue.
Too much card generation has always been a problem i have agreed, but too much CHEAP spell generation has been a bigger problem in the last year since Rise of shadow introduced lots of cheap ways to generate spells like Magic Trick [/card]and [card]Ray of frost.
No one plays the slow version of Quest mage with Archmage Vargoth anymore, everyone plays with the fast version. But there are two other problems that deck has and they are Mana Cyclone and Flamewaker, the least interactive cards. Plus the generation of "random" cards. They should not offer the cards that you have in your hand or on the deck, need a nerf to generate mechanics and another nerf to discover mechanics.
But there is actually a counter to that deck like warlock with cards like Demonic Project, Gnomeferatu, Howlfiend + Treachery and Chaos Gazer.
Mage is Also my favorite class, have nearly 1020 wins and climbing fast, so I 100 percent agree how sad it is they basically turn the class into a random factory. It used to be about control and combo and now its almost just 100% seeing what you can random out your ass to stay on the board and win the game, I do sympathize alot with you there and I agree it is not really the direction they should go with Mage and not very flavorful to have these amazing spell caster doing random shit 100% of the time.
However, I think you are exaggerating about the uninteractiveness of other card games in comparisons. I have played many other games from Gwent, shadowverse and even some magic and NEVER has I seen a deck which wins turn 1 or heard of a deck that wins on that turn. I think that it not fair to compare other games to Hearthstone as hearthstone has a different game style and play which means winning turn 1 in hearthstone outside brawls is impossible currently, so I think my view of uninteractive of the deck is still pretty good, if not a little bitflawed. I played card games for nearly 7 years and while Quest mage is not the worse deck when it comes to that, the principle of just completing the quest in one turn and lock you out the game by random spells it not interactive no matter how much you say it is. I think it is beatable, but still not fun or much you can do unless you are playing an aggro deck and even then its not guaranteed to win.
I think the quest being nerfed does show it was a problem, however i think it prevents issues in the future and still being very strong right now. I think the reward used to be better and more manageable as it did require you to draw ALOT to get it going, however these days with the amount of draw and randomness it is super easy to complete.
The issue IS Sorcerer's Apprentice
Bruh stfu. There isn't a single fun deck that uses the quest.
Until they nerf Sorcerer's Apprentice aka: girl nothing will change!
Lol is kind of unbelievable that people still complain about quest mage .The deck is far from op,is not even really good.Is good ,if ur still think the opposite youdyou dont know how to play.Just because you still lose to it doesnt mean it need a nerf .Get over it and learn the game noob
I think this post is the ONLY post of the entire discussion which is a complete waste of time.
People are giving their opinions, showing facts and presents data and all you can say is "GET GUD Noob"
honestly don't know why you responded if you have nothing to add constructive
I'll repeat what I've said before; Change the quest to read "Spend X mana on spells that didn't start in your deck". That way they can't complete it with Ray of Frost + Sorcerer's Apprentice and Magic Trick.
Ah you must be a quest mage player. “Quest mage is far from op” is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. So you either love quest mage so much or you didn’t play rank at all. Idiots like you ruin our community. You can’t even type constructive comment