IMHO there's a value curve for every secret and their respective class, it should be the same as with rarity, for example, if a secret is printed as an epic card, you expect it to be very good, at the very least. That's not the case with every secret, but from what I've seen, they get printed in a rarity that allows flexibility with all manner of players and playstyles.
There's one crucial thing to always remember though. The Mage class in HS is synonymous with the word casino, just like I've mentioned in the identity thread OP started a few days back. Every single mage spell since the dawn of time has a dash of gambling sprinkled over the initial design choices. You mainly play secrets because you like to have a good payoff, not for flavor or because you feel like it.
In the end, it comes down to every player's preference. Every single card is worth whatever you decide it's worth to you because you're the one playing the game. As long as you're having fun, min/maxing isn't a priority anymore. It comes naturally. Or not at all.
Do they really cost 3? In standard, no mage secret is really worth a deckslot and playing it from hand for 3 mana. Blizzard knows they are weak and printed Kirin Tor Mage, and then followed up with the mana-cheaters Mad Scientist, Kabal Lackey and Ancient Mysteries, which together makes for an extremely strong secret aggro package in Wild. Other archetypes have used the secrets for value and stall. They failed with Glacial Mysteries, however, it should probably be 6 mana to be viable.
The secrets vary extremely in both how much they have been played:
Yes they are worth 3 mana for sure and please don't compare different classes to mage, they are different for a reason with different cards and different mechanics and hero powers
So they can make a load of boring secret cost reduction or bonus effect cards so they are worth it. And so they are different to other secret classes...
In order to assess the power of secrets from these three classes and prove your claim wrong, I've divided their effects into eight categories.
The first is spell disruption, which is exclusive to mage. Counterspell counteracts a spell cast and Spellbender is essentially a more specific variation with a potentially higher payoff.
Countering a spell can be seen as analogous to destroying a minion, an effect of the mage secrets Vaporize and Potion of Polymorph, which avoids deathrattles, but leaves a 1/1. Freezing Trap can be compared to Vaporize, but, being a Hunter secret, gives the triggering player their minion back, at an increased cost. Explosive Runes is a more polarizing Potion of Polymorph, not always killing, but sometimes dealing damage to the triggering player's face. It's a clearly superior version of the Hunter secret Snipe. The variance of the power level of cards can be shown through Pressure Plate and Dart Trap: one comparable to Vaporize and another a meme.
The most common effect of secrets is summoning minions. While Potion of Polymorph removes the opponent's minion upon play, Mirror Entity copies it, each secret keeping the players equal on board. Splitting image similarly copies a minion, in this case, the secret player's own one, and Effigy, one of the same cost, while Pack Tactics's copy is only 3/3. Hunter has an abundance of Secrets that summon 3 cost minions (Snake Trap, Bear Trap, Venomstrike Trap, Cat Trick, and, obviously, Wandering Monster). Mage? It summons 4 cost minions with Netherwind Portal. Rogue secrets, sharing the same mana cost as those of Hunter, are similar, just Ambush and Venomstrike Trap both summon 2/3's with poisonous. Bamboozle essentially summons a 3-cost minion, by transforming a minion into one 3-mana higher. Rat trap is an exception, but, just like Hidden Wisdom from that set, it offers a high reward for a specific condition of the playing of 3 cards in one turn.
We established earlier that spell related secrets are similar to minion-related ones, and you could see this similarity in Mana Bind and Mirror Entity, Mana Bind adding an immediately playable copy to the secret player's hand. Duplicate and Frozen Clone add two copies of a minion, but without a reduction this time. Cheat Death, while sharing the condition of Duplicate, more resembles Mana Bind, and its inferiority is seen in that it only reduces the minion's mana by two, not to 0. Dirty Tricks stands above the curve, adding two cards to the secret player's hand for only two mana and the power of the Plagiarize is hard to say.
The rest of the secrets are divided into miscellaneous categories, starting with Betrayal. Like the aforementioned two mana spell, the two mana secrets Misdirection and Sudden Betrayal force two things to attack each other.
There are two general AoE secrets, Explosive Trap dealing 2 and Flame Warp dealing 3, although Explosive Trap has slight upsides to the Mage secret.
Ice Block and Ice Barrier both keep the secret player alive, and Evasion resembles the latter, but Ice Block's condition means consistent survival, something Evasion can't provide.
And, finally, Handbuff. The only Handbuff Secret is Hidden Cache and there's no wonder it was the only one.
Mage secrets are deemed to be more powerful/valuable than their counterparts, and hence the cost. This is why Paladin's secrets are so cheap - they are mostly worthless.
Or at least, that was the original intention - over time, this line may have blurred a little perhaps and I suppose that Blizzard's attempt at making the secrets a little cheaper for Mage is the addition of cards that lower the cost of secrets.
Mage Secrets are in general of higher value than Hunter/Rogue secrets, hence the increased cost, however I have to say that I don't find Flame Ward superior to Explosive Trap at all. Yes 3-damage AoE is better than 2-damage AoE, but (a) Flame Ward triggers AFTER the attack meaning that you will still get (sometimes significant) face damage from the highest-attack minion first and (b) Explosive Trap also deals face damage. Which secret would be better is situational of course, but I wouldn't rank one as better than the other in general, despite the difference in cost. Regarding Hunter secrets, Freezing Trap is also insane for its cost. Having the option to play it at a moment when the opponent has only high-cost minions on the board can make it impossible to play around it, which means that it can often provide insane value for a mere cost of 2 mana...
I'm just wondering what actually makes Mage Nox VidmateVLC secrets worth the cost? Are Mage secrets actually worth 3 mana compared to Hunter and Rogue secrets?
he cost reflects how hard it is for them to keep a secret :)
IMHO there's a value curve for every secret and their respective class, it should be the same as with rarity, for example, if a secret is printed as an epic card, you expect it to be very good, at the very least. That's not the case with every secret, but from what I've seen, they get printed in a rarity that allows flexibility with all manner of players and playstyles.
There's one crucial thing to always remember though. The Mage class in HS is synonymous with the word casino, just like I've mentioned in the identity thread OP started a few days back. Every single mage spell since the dawn of time has a dash of gambling sprinkled over the initial design choices. You mainly play secrets because you like to have a good payoff, not for flavor or because you feel like it.
In the end, it comes down to every player's preference. Every single card is worth whatever you decide it's worth to you because you're the one playing the game. As long as you're having fun, min/maxing isn't a priority anymore. It comes naturally. Or not at all.
If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve.
Glacial Mysteries was so weird
Yes they are worth 3 mana for sure and please don't compare different classes to mage, they are different for a reason with different cards and different mechanics and hero powers
So they can make a load of boring secret cost reduction or bonus effect cards so they are worth it.
And so they are different to other secret classes...
In order to assess the power of secrets from these three classes and prove your claim wrong, I've divided their effects into eight categories.
The first is spell disruption, which is exclusive to mage. Counterspell counteracts a spell cast and Spellbender is essentially a more specific variation with a potentially higher payoff.
Countering a spell can be seen as analogous to destroying a minion, an effect of the mage secrets Vaporize and Potion of Polymorph, which avoids deathrattles, but leaves a 1/1. Freezing Trap can be compared to Vaporize, but, being a Hunter secret, gives the triggering player their minion back, at an increased cost. Explosive Runes is a more polarizing Potion of Polymorph, not always killing, but sometimes dealing damage to the triggering player's face. It's a clearly superior version of the Hunter secret Snipe. The variance of the power level of cards can be shown through Pressure Plate and Dart Trap: one comparable to Vaporize and another a meme.
The most common effect of secrets is summoning minions. While Potion of Polymorph removes the opponent's minion upon play, Mirror Entity copies it, each secret keeping the players equal on board. Splitting image similarly copies a minion, in this case, the secret player's own one, and Effigy, one of the same cost, while Pack Tactics's copy is only 3/3. Hunter has an abundance of Secrets that summon 3 cost minions (Snake Trap, Bear Trap, Venomstrike Trap, Cat Trick, and, obviously, Wandering Monster). Mage? It summons 4 cost minions with Netherwind Portal. Rogue secrets, sharing the same mana cost as those of Hunter, are similar, just Ambush and Venomstrike Trap both summon 2/3's with poisonous. Bamboozle essentially summons a 3-cost minion, by transforming a minion into one 3-mana higher. Rat trap is an exception, but, just like Hidden Wisdom from that set, it offers a high reward for a specific condition of the playing of 3 cards in one turn.
We established earlier that spell related secrets are similar to minion-related ones, and you could see this similarity in Mana Bind and Mirror Entity, Mana Bind adding an immediately playable copy to the secret player's hand. Duplicate and Frozen Clone add two copies of a minion, but without a reduction this time. Cheat Death, while sharing the condition of Duplicate, more resembles Mana Bind, and its inferiority is seen in that it only reduces the minion's mana by two, not to 0. Dirty Tricks stands above the curve, adding two cards to the secret player's hand for only two mana and the power of the Plagiarize is hard to say.
The rest of the secrets are divided into miscellaneous categories, starting with Betrayal. Like the aforementioned two mana spell, the two mana secrets Misdirection and Sudden Betrayal force two things to attack each other.
There are two general AoE secrets, Explosive Trap dealing 2 and Flame Warp dealing 3, although Explosive Trap has slight upsides to the Mage secret.
Ice Block and Ice Barrier both keep the secret player alive, and Evasion resembles the latter, but Ice Block's condition means consistent survival, something Evasion can't provide.
And, finally, Handbuff. The only Handbuff Secret is Hidden Cache and there's no wonder it was the only one.
Mage secrets are deemed to be more powerful/valuable than their counterparts, and hence the cost. This is why Paladin's secrets are so cheap - they are mostly worthless.
Or at least, that was the original intention - over time, this line may have blurred a little perhaps and I suppose that Blizzard's attempt at making the secrets a little cheaper for Mage is the addition of cards that lower the cost of secrets.
Mage Secrets are in general of higher value than Hunter/Rogue secrets, hence the increased cost, however I have to say that I don't find Flame Ward superior to Explosive Trap at all. Yes 3-damage AoE is better than 2-damage AoE, but (a) Flame Ward triggers AFTER the attack meaning that you will still get (sometimes significant) face damage from the highest-attack minion first and (b) Explosive Trap also deals face damage. Which secret would be better is situational of course, but I wouldn't rank one as better than the other in general, despite the difference in cost.
Regarding Hunter secrets, Freezing Trap is also insane for its cost. Having the option to play it at a moment when the opponent has only high-cost minions on the board can make it impossible to play around it, which means that it can often provide insane value for a mere cost of 2 mana...
he cost reflects how hard it is for them to keep a secret :)