As a mage player, I'd be more than happy with a 5 mana Fireball or a 9 mana Pyroblast. Formula met and everything's fine =) I'd just remove two Pyros for two Ice Lances. Let's see how happy you are with 17 direct dmg in one turn..."Nerf 4 card combos"
As a paladin you can negate a pyroblast with a Lay on Hands (lacking 2 dmg) and still draw 3 cards plus the ability to drop a 2 drop. How fair's that? Druid needs 3 mana for pretty much the same thing or 10 to have +3 HP and a 5/5 on the board.
Instead of calling out for nerfs, do the same thing as 8 of the last 10 foes I played against and adapt
The problem is that Healing Touch is a dead card in pretty much every other MU. You can build a deck to beat mages easily, but you are fucked in pretty much every other MU if you do.
And people are trying to adapt. I'm seeing a lot more of Earthen Ring Farseer and other healing cards
And btw, that would make epic cards a bit more epic (call it exclusive if you prefer, for being just x1), cause they don't actually feel so "cool" right now, they are just some generally strong-side cards, some of them more niche than others, but nothing special. Prob the most epic, epic card would be Gorehowl (lorewise).
That exclusivity is rightfully reserved for legendaries. Otherwise epic & legendary would basically be identical if you neglected the dust. That would reduce the excitement of obtaining a legendary and also make it much easier to collect all cards in the game (which in turn is something Blizzard tries to avoid).
Legendaries are still much more expensive to craft (which I don't think it's an avoidable fact), and rarer to get in arena runs. Don't know, can't see the issue with that, but maybe that's just me. About collecting all cards, well, they are supposed to be adding much more cards in the future, so I don't see a problem about that aspect neither.
IMO it's much more important to reach balance in game, and that [epic x1] could be a way to fix some issues, and work as a "filter" to add new epic cards that could work fine as x1 and be quite broken as x2, like it happens right now with some of them.
Again, that's just my opinion, you may not agree with me. Have a nice day :)
The problem is that Healing Touch is a dead card in pretty much every other MU. You can build a deck to beat mages easily, but you are fucked in pretty much every other MU if you do.
And people are trying to adapt. I'm seeing a lot more of Earthen Ring Farseer and other healing cards
No, just no. If your opponent used some spell to deal direct damage, then HT is no longer a dead card, no matter how much damage that did. Unless he used Arcane Shot or Holy Smite, that is...
As a mage player, I'd be more than happy with a 5 mana Fireball or a 9 mana Pyroblast. Formula met and everything's fine =) I'd just remove two Pyros for two Ice Lances. Let's see how happy you are with 17 direct dmg in one turn..."Nerf 4 card combos"
As a paladin you can negate a pyroblast with a Lay on Hands (lacking 2 dmg) and still draw 3 cards plus the ability to drop a 2 drop. How fair's that? Druid needs 3 mana for pretty much the same thing or 10 to have +3 HP and a 5/5 on the board.
Instead of calling out for nerfs, do the same thing as 8 of the last 10 foes I played against and adapt.
Ok, first of all, no you would not remove pyroblast and replace them with Ice lances, and if you would, you obviously don't understand the game very well. Just because you can do 17 damage with a 4 card combo in 1 turn doesn't make that combo broken, because you still spent FOUR CARDS to pull it off. Cards are also an important resource in this game. You are limited to thirty cards, so in order for you to pull off that 17 damage combo, you would be making sacrifices elsewhere. Just look at warriors. They have a 5 card combo that can do 32 damage in 1 turn if they are at 10 life or below. That combo isn't broken either, because they need 10 life, molten giant x2, brewmaster x2, and a warsong commander. 5 cards for a 32 damage combo isn't broken. 4 cards for a 17 damage combo isn't broken. Why ? Because it takes a ton of cards to pull off, and cards are a resource.
If you had ran 2 pyroblasts instead of the 2 ice lances, you could use 2 cards to do more damage as that 4 card combo, and free up that icebolt and fireball for other targets, or push them off to another turn for more maximum total damage.
Speaking for myself, I have already adapted my decks to deal with the recent outpouring of mages. I run a paladin deck with lay on hands x2 and guardian of kings x2. And against some mages, it works. But most of the mages in higher ranks play with alextraza, and regardless of what I do, she takes me down to 15 the instant she is played. By that time, I HAVE to draw into my heal the next 2 turns, or i lose. If I've already burned my heals to stay above pyro range, I lose. Once alex comes into play, I have to gain health quickly + deal with an 8/8 on the board in the next 2 turns, or I lose.
In other words, I have already attempted to counter the current mage meta, and while I do have some success, the better decks simply stall you until they draw alex, and then burn you down.
The problem is that Healing Touch is a dead card in pretty much every other MU. You can build a deck to beat mages easily, but you are fucked in pretty much every other MU if you do.
And people are trying to adapt. I'm seeing a lot more of Earthen Ring Farseer and other healing cards
No, just no. If your opponent used some spell to deal direct damage, then HT is no longer a dead card, no matter how much damage that did. Unless he used Arcane Shot or Holy Smite, that is...
But mages are pretty much the only class that use spells directly on my hero, at least in my experience.
Not exactly. Priests have Holy Fire, Druids have a lot of direct damage, Warlock has Soulfire, and Warrior has his weapons. Arcanite Reaper does 10 dmg total, Healing Touch heals 8 of that damage, and you basically traded a 3 mana card for a 5 mana card. Also, the meta is mage right now, isn't it? So most of the time you'll play against a mage, hence most of the time it will be useful.
Not exactly. Priests have Holy Fire, Druids have a lot of direct damage, Warlock has Soulfire, and Warrior has his weapons. Arcanite Reaper does 10 dmg total, Healing Touch heals 8 of that damage, and you basically traded a 3 mana card for a 5 mana card. Also, the meta is mage right now, isn't it? So most of the time you'll play against a mage, hence most of the time it will be useful.
That's why I'm using it. But it is a dead card most of the time vs other classes, since they only use spells to deal direct damage to me if they have lethal.
Not exactly. Priests have Holy Fire, Druids have a lot of direct damage, Warlock has Soulfire, and Warrior has his weapons. Arcanite Reaper does 10 dmg total, Healing Touch heals 8 of that damage, and you basically traded a 3 mana card for a 5 mana card. Also, the meta is mage right now, isn't it? So most of the time you'll play against a mage, hence most of the time it will be useful.
That's why I'm using it. But it is a dead card most of the time vs other classes, since they only use spells to deal direct damage to me if they have lethal.
According to your logic you consider it a dead card unless your hero took damage from spells?? As if there was a difference between 'physical' and 'magic' damage. Don't tell me you're not being hit by minions at all throughout the game...any damage that can be healed by HT makes it a useful card.
Not exactly. Priests have Holy Fire, Druids have a lot of direct damage, Warlock has Soulfire, and Warrior has his weapons. Arcanite Reaper does 10 dmg total, Healing Touch heals 8 of that damage, and you basically traded a 3 mana card for a 5 mana card. Also, the meta is mage right now, isn't it? So most of the time you'll play against a mage, hence most of the time it will be useful.
That's why I'm using it. But it is a dead card most of the time vs other classes, since they only use spells to deal direct damage to me if they have lethal.
That's only true for pyroblasts. And it's not 100% of the time either.
Not exactly. Priests have Holy Fire, Druids have a lot of direct damage, Warlock has Soulfire, and Warrior has his weapons. Arcanite Reaper does 10 dmg total, Healing Touch heals 8 of that damage, and you basically traded a 3 mana card for a 5 mana card. Also, the meta is mage right now, isn't it? So most of the time you'll play against a mage, hence most of the time it will be useful.
That's why I'm using it. But it is a dead card most of the time vs other classes, since they only use spells to deal direct damage to me if they have lethal.
According to your logic you consider it a dead card unless your hero took damage from spells?? As if there was a difference between 'physical' and 'magic' damage. Don't tell me you're not being hit by minions at all throughout the game...any damage that can be healed by HT makes it a useful card.
Yeah, you can heal damage done by minions, but most of the time it's not worth a card imo (you also lose tempo). Yeah, sure, there are situations where it's really good, but most of the time it just sits in my hand the whole game and I don't even use it.
It's a combination of things that really peeve me off with mage.
I'm quite new to the game and I've taken a liking to Rogue. I have an impressive board with multiple minions out of flamestrike range, and she has none, and for 2 mana she casts Frost Nova which nullifies my minion's damage for a turn while she gets to do whatever with her remaining mana, which usually revolves around pinging me down or random fireballs/frostbolts/ice lances to the face. Then she proceeds to do this for six turns with no-brainer board freezes where as a Rogue my only direct damage output is through weapons, eviscerates, and my two southsea deckhands (I don't have enough dust to make commanders yet, but the deckhands work nicely). If I've somehow managed to survive through that, I still have to break through ice barriers and two free turns of ice block. What exactly am I supposed to do against this? I really don't understand.
It irks me so much because it just feels obnoxious to play against. There's no concept of trading minions efficiently, just cast one spell a turn and ignore the board. Spellpower Druid was nerfed with Wrath and Starfall able to only hit minions, but mage was untouched? I don't really mind pyroblast that much, but I think something really needs to be done about the silly AoE freezes and ice block giving free turns. If every class stands a fighting chance against each other, but you need specific setups of immense self healing (paladins, druids) to reliably trounce a mage, isn't something wrong here?
Happy to see someone who feels more or less the same way as me. Everybody is complaining about pyroflower, which is a bit annoying (call it lame if you want), but it's OK at the same time. The real problem with mages, in my opinion, is that crazy amount of megalazy frost spells (as I said before, I find Ice Block to be the ultimate lamer spell/secret in game). You wanna melt my face with no brain and just throwing spells to my face? OK, I can deal with it. But at the same time just stop [freeze] / destroy every movement I make is just annoying as hell. Their spells mana curve is plain mad, and even with their so obvious strategies, it's just überhard to find a way to deal with them, while using a deck that can work against the other classes.
Seriously, now I get why mage is the tutorial hero, it's with difference the most zero-skill-high-reward one, you don't even have to use that coconut in your head at all to make good plays with Jaina. Not saying that other heroes are so hard to play with, but mage right now is just an obnoxious joke. And I gotta say that even if you don't consider them OP (and I think they are), their gamestyle is super stupid. I'm OK with the hard focus on spells, but man, they are cost efficient as hell, and so easy to make them work with no risk.
I play a deck that I find "viable" while maybe not optimal, but it's the deck I enjoy to play, and I find I can deal with any other class with a decent win ratio, but mage. Gotta say that, in fact, it's a bit focused to counter mages (with some heals and that stuff) and even with that, I tend to win many times against any class but vs mage it's just a terrible headache.
Oh yeah, because playing minions isn't lazy strategy as well...
You complain about freeze, about board removal? Simply don't play a lot of minions at the same time, then. It's THAT simple.
I'll agree on Ice Block though, there should be a way for everyone to remove it, not just Hunters.
There's nothing lazy about playing minions. If you play minions, you still have to calculate which minions to play depending on which minions are on the board. Then, you have to calculate when to hit the minions on the board, and when to go after the hero. There's a lot more thought involved in playing minions. When you freeze the board, you stall the enemy's minions for 1 turn. There is very little thought involved.
Oh yeah, because playing minions isn't lazy strategy as well...
You complain about freeze, about board removal? Simply don't play a lot of minions at the same time, then. It's THAT simple.
I'll agree on Ice Block though, there should be a way for everyone to remove it, not just Hunters.
Well, if you gonna say that playing/using minions is as lazy as keeping on clicking a card and freeze/kaboom everyone just with that, I don't think I can have a discussion here. If you don't play any minions, mage will just melt your face. If you play just some of your minions (non rush), they have so many spells (or they can use the few minions they tend to have), so they can deal with that easy mode while keeping the big removal for whenever is necessary. And the big joke is that all their stuff is so mana efficient that they can almost [and actually] do both things at the same time (plus you still gotta add all the mega-cheap secrets to the ecuation, which not only are strong, but a plain headache).
Mage is just the class that can do what others can (except for freeze, their only-mage obnoxious gamestyle), but just with much more and better ammunition, and no risk at all (no discard, no overload, no self-damage, no fresh mojito... just insanely good mana efficiency) and one of the strongest and most versatile hero power (uses for enrage, break divine shield, delete minions, throw to your face).
I don't think I can add much more to the table, I'm playing the same game as every of you and like many people, the only class that feels just annoying and unfair as hell, is mage. When metagame was about another class, I could think "OK, then let's just add this cards / change to X strategy so you can beat them while still being able to deal with any other class", but that doesn't work against mages. As said, I've always hated them, now is just too much for the lame abuse-mage-party.
@VicVii: Wow your eyes must be really red. Thats one huge bulk of whine there.
"mega-cheap secrets" is a nice way of discribing the most costly secrets in the game. I do agree that mages are slightly OP in the current meta, but hell you guys are overdoing it.
@VicVii: Wow your eyes must be really red. Thats one huge bulk of whine there.
"mega-cheap secrets" is a nice way of discribing the most costly secrets in the game. I do agree that mages are slightly OP in the current meta, but hell you guys are overdoing it.
He may have meant cheap in the 'lame' sense.
Compare the Mage secrets to all the others and you'll see why, a mage has the only mage-counter secret which is Counterspell xD I mean, they could've given warriors Spell reflect or something.
@VicVii: Wow your eyes must be really red. Thats one huge bulk of whine there.
"mega-cheap secrets" is a nice way of discribing the most costly secrets in the game. I do agree that mages are slightly OP in the current meta, but hell you guys are overdoing it.
He may have meant cheap in the 'lame' sense.
Compare the Mage secrets to all the others and you'll see why, a mage has the only mage-counter secret which is Counterspell xD I mean, they could've given warriors Spell reflect or something.
Yeah your probably right.
And hunters are the only class that can counter traps, so... But I agree on Warriyos, I never see them on ranked anyways
@VicVii: Wow your eyes must be really red. Thats one huge bulk of whine there.
"mega-cheap secrets" is a nice way of discribing the most costly secrets in the game. I do agree that mages are slightly OP in the current meta, but hell you guys are overdoing it.
I'm in absolute calm, actually, just a rude vocabulary user. So nice try, but that's not my case, won't go that mad because of a game ;)
And yep, when I say mega-cheap secrets, it's because for their use, they are actually cheap and super easy to cast in any mid-late game turn with another spell / minion. Would love mages to have, for example, hunter like secrets, because while still being useful, they don't make as obnoxious plays as mage secrets do. If you want to understand it, fine, if not I don't mind anyway ^^
And BTW, I haven't asked for any terrible nerf, I said in my first comment that my real concern is with Ice Block being a x2 card, when I think that only x1 would be enough. Or at least have a debuff just like in WoW where mages can't Ice Block twice in a row, so you still got a chance to kill him next turn and not Ice Block again right after.
Oh yeah, because playing minions isn't lazy strategy as well...
You complain about freeze, about board removal? Simply don't play a lot of minions at the same time, then. It's THAT simple.
I'll agree on Ice Block though, there should be a way for everyone to remove it, not just Hunters.
There's nothing lazy about playing minions. If you play minions, you still have to calculate which minions to play depending on which minions are on the board. Then, you have to calculate when to hit the minions on the board, and when to go after the hero. There's a lot more thought involved in playing minions. When you freeze the board, you stall the enemy's minions for 1 turn. There is very little thought involved.
There's nothing lazy about stalling the board for 1 turn. First, you must decide how important it is to stop the oncoming aggression (sometimes you could just soak the damage in favor of tempo), then you have to plan ahead on what to make of that turn (since, well, you already have 2 less mana, at the very least), then you must also think of possible plays for the next turn, since the opponent's board will probably only get bigger, and if he's worth a dime, he'll use some high health minions that are quite impossible to remove through one AoE (yeti comes to mind here, but there are other options as well, like twilight drake or blademaster with priests), forcing mages to use polymorph or fireballs, which is a very suboptimal solution since: 1- fireballs are potential finishers, 2- polymorph is the last resort, having to use it on a high health minion instead of a Ragnaros or Tirion or a heavily buffed minion is really sad for a Mage.
Controlling the board through stalling is not exactly an easy job, because your opponent's side will get bigger and bigger and harder to remove... Compare that to just laying down cheap minions and going for the kill, and we'll know which is the laziest strat. But I know how obnoxious this can be to you, since you don't really have a lot of options to counterplay this, and most classes only rely on minions to win the game. But then again, Mage's freezing capability is also limited, so as long as you have minions within a safety net (like harvest golem, which comes back after dying, or pretty much any minion with more than 4 health), you'll be fine against Mages.
Ice Block, however, is a completely different story, and I'll agree that every class should be able to deal with it, not only Hunters.
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about 10 games yesterday, 6 vs mages.
The problem is that Healing Touch is a dead card in pretty much every other MU. You can build a deck to beat mages easily, but you are fucked in pretty much every other MU if you do.
And people are trying to adapt. I'm seeing a lot more of Earthen Ring Farseer and other healing cards
Legendaries are still much more expensive to craft (which I don't think it's an avoidable fact), and rarer to get in arena runs. Don't know, can't see the issue with that, but maybe that's just me. About collecting all cards, well, they are supposed to be adding much more cards in the future, so I don't see a problem about that aspect neither.
IMO it's much more important to reach balance in game, and that [epic x1] could be a way to fix some issues, and work as a "filter" to add new epic cards that could work fine as x1 and be quite broken as x2, like it happens right now with some of them.
Again, that's just my opinion, you may not agree with me. Have a nice day :)
No, just no. If your opponent used some spell to deal direct damage, then HT is no longer a dead card, no matter how much damage that did. Unless he used Arcane Shot or Holy Smite, that is...
Ok, first of all, no you would not remove pyroblast and replace them with Ice lances, and if you would, you obviously don't understand the game very well. Just because you can do 17 damage with a 4 card combo in 1 turn doesn't make that combo broken, because you still spent FOUR CARDS to pull it off. Cards are also an important resource in this game. You are limited to thirty cards, so in order for you to pull off that 17 damage combo, you would be making sacrifices elsewhere. Just look at warriors. They have a 5 card combo that can do 32 damage in 1 turn if they are at 10 life or below. That combo isn't broken either, because they need 10 life, molten giant x2, brewmaster x2, and a warsong commander. 5 cards for a 32 damage combo isn't broken. 4 cards for a 17 damage combo isn't broken. Why ? Because it takes a ton of cards to pull off, and cards are a resource.
If you had ran 2 pyroblasts instead of the 2 ice lances, you could use 2 cards to do more damage as that 4 card combo, and free up that icebolt and fireball for other targets, or push them off to another turn for more maximum total damage.
Speaking for myself, I have already adapted my decks to deal with the recent outpouring of mages. I run a paladin deck with lay on hands x2 and guardian of kings x2. And against some mages, it works. But most of the mages in higher ranks play with alextraza, and regardless of what I do, she takes me down to 15 the instant she is played. By that time, I HAVE to draw into my heal the next 2 turns, or i lose. If I've already burned my heals to stay above pyro range, I lose. Once alex comes into play, I have to gain health quickly + deal with an 8/8 on the board in the next 2 turns, or I lose.
In other words, I have already attempted to counter the current mage meta, and while I do have some success, the better decks simply stall you until they draw alex, and then burn you down.
But mages are pretty much the only class that use spells directly on my hero, at least in my experience.
Not exactly. Priests have Holy Fire, Druids have a lot of direct damage, Warlock has Soulfire, and Warrior has his weapons. Arcanite Reaper does 10 dmg total, Healing Touch heals 8 of that damage, and you basically traded a 3 mana card for a 5 mana card. Also, the meta is mage right now, isn't it? So most of the time you'll play against a mage, hence most of the time it will be useful.
That's why I'm using it. But it is a dead card most of the time vs other classes, since they only use spells to deal direct damage to me if they have lethal.
According to your logic you consider it a dead card unless your hero took damage from spells?? As if there was a difference between 'physical' and 'magic' damage. Don't tell me you're not being hit by minions at all throughout the game...any damage that can be healed by HT makes it a useful card.
That's only true for pyroblasts. And it's not 100% of the time either.
Yeah, you can heal damage done by minions, but most of the time it's not worth a card imo (you also lose tempo). Yeah, sure, there are situations where it's really good, but most of the time it just sits in my hand the whole game and I don't even use it.
Happy to see someone who feels more or less the same way as me. Everybody is complaining about pyroflower, which is a bit annoying (call it lame if you want), but it's OK at the same time. The real problem with mages, in my opinion, is that crazy amount of megalazy frost spells (as I said before, I find Ice Block to be the ultimate lamer spell/secret in game). You wanna melt my face with no brain and just throwing spells to my face? OK, I can deal with it. But at the same time just stop [freeze] / destroy every movement I make is just annoying as hell. Their spells mana curve is plain mad, and even with their so obvious strategies, it's just überhard to find a way to deal with them, while using a deck that can work against the other classes.
Seriously, now I get why mage is the tutorial hero, it's with difference the most zero-skill-high-reward one, you don't even have to use that coconut in your head at all to make good plays with Jaina. Not saying that other heroes are so hard to play with, but mage right now is just an obnoxious joke. And I gotta say that even if you don't consider them OP (and I think they are), their gamestyle is super stupid. I'm OK with the hard focus on spells, but man, they are cost efficient as hell, and so easy to make them work with no risk.
I play a deck that I find "viable" while maybe not optimal, but it's the deck I enjoy to play, and I find I can deal with any other class with a decent win ratio, but mage. Gotta say that, in fact, it's a bit focused to counter mages (with some heals and that stuff) and even with that, I tend to win many times against any class but vs mage it's just a terrible headache.
Have a nice day.
Oh yeah, because playing minions isn't lazy strategy as well...
You complain about freeze, about board removal? Simply don't play a lot of minions at the same time, then. It's THAT simple.
I'll agree on Ice Block though, there should be a way for everyone to remove it, not just Hunters.
There's nothing lazy about playing minions. If you play minions, you still have to calculate which minions to play depending on which minions are on the board. Then, you have to calculate when to hit the minions on the board, and when to go after the hero. There's a lot more thought involved in playing minions. When you freeze the board, you stall the enemy's minions for 1 turn. There is very little thought involved.
Well, if you gonna say that playing/using minions is as lazy as keeping on clicking a card and freeze/kaboom everyone just with that, I don't think I can have a discussion here. If you don't play any minions, mage will just melt your face. If you play just some of your minions (non rush), they have so many spells (or they can use the few minions they tend to have), so they can deal with that easy mode while keeping the big removal for whenever is necessary. And the big joke is that all their stuff is so mana efficient that they can almost [and actually] do both things at the same time (plus you still gotta add all the mega-cheap secrets to the ecuation, which not only are strong, but a plain headache).
Mage is just the class that can do what others can (except for freeze, their only-mage obnoxious gamestyle), but just with much more and better ammunition, and no risk at all (no discard, no overload, no self-damage, no fresh mojito... just insanely good mana efficiency) and one of the strongest and most versatile hero power (uses for enrage, break divine shield, delete minions, throw to your face).
I don't think I can add much more to the table, I'm playing the same game as every of you and like many people, the only class that feels just annoying and unfair as hell, is mage. When metagame was about another class, I could think "OK, then let's just add this cards / change to X strategy so you can beat them while still being able to deal with any other class", but that doesn't work against mages. As said, I've always hated them, now is just too much for the lame abuse-mage-party.
Have a nice day.
@VicVii: Wow your eyes must be really red. Thats one huge bulk of whine there.
"mega-cheap secrets" is a nice way of discribing the most costly secrets in the game. I do agree that mages are slightly OP in the current meta, but hell you guys are overdoing it.
He may have meant cheap in the 'lame' sense.
Compare the Mage secrets to all the others and you'll see why, a mage has the only mage-counter secret which is Counterspell xD I mean, they could've given warriors Spell reflect or something.
Yeah your probably right.
And hunters are the only class that can counter traps, so...
But I agree on Warriyos, I never see them on ranked anyways
I'm in absolute calm, actually, just a rude vocabulary user. So nice try, but that's not my case, won't go that mad because of a game ;)
And yep, when I say mega-cheap secrets, it's because for their use, they are actually cheap and super easy to cast in any mid-late game turn with another spell / minion. Would love mages to have, for example, hunter like secrets, because while still being useful, they don't make as obnoxious plays as mage secrets do. If you want to understand it, fine, if not I don't mind anyway ^^
And BTW, I haven't asked for any terrible nerf, I said in my first comment that my real concern is with Ice Block being a x2 card, when I think that only x1 would be enough. Or at least have a debuff just like in WoW where mages can't Ice Block twice in a row, so you still got a chance to kill him next turn and not Ice Block again right after.
Bye bye, little flowers.
There's nothing lazy about stalling the board for 1 turn. First, you must decide how important it is to stop the oncoming aggression (sometimes you could just soak the damage in favor of tempo), then you have to plan ahead on what to make of that turn (since, well, you already have 2 less mana, at the very least), then you must also think of possible plays for the next turn, since the opponent's board will probably only get bigger, and if he's worth a dime, he'll use some high health minions that are quite impossible to remove through one AoE (yeti comes to mind here, but there are other options as well, like twilight drake or blademaster with priests), forcing mages to use polymorph or fireballs, which is a very suboptimal solution since: 1- fireballs are potential finishers, 2- polymorph is the last resort, having to use it on a high health minion instead of a Ragnaros or Tirion or a heavily buffed minion is really sad for a Mage.
Controlling the board through stalling is not exactly an easy job, because your opponent's side will get bigger and bigger and harder to remove... Compare that to just laying down cheap minions and going for the kill, and we'll know which is the laziest strat. But I know how obnoxious this can be to you, since you don't really have a lot of options to counterplay this, and most classes only rely on minions to win the game. But then again, Mage's freezing capability is also limited, so as long as you have minions within a safety net (like harvest golem, which comes back after dying, or pretty much any minion with more than 4 health), you'll be fine against Mages.
Ice Block, however, is a completely different story, and I'll agree that every class should be able to deal with it, not only Hunters.