Hearthpwn

Thanks for the links! I enjoyed these videos a lot.

Good video, good points. However I think these particular Mage nerfs went overboard - they'll affect all Mage decks. Frost Nova and Ice Block nerf would've been better.

Still, Mage archetype is by far my favourite. Mage has been my main in WoW since late TBC and that's also the class I play 90% of the time in Hearthstone. I'll continue to play it despite the nerfs, but the nerfed cards will just be bad picks and the class loses lots of options.

No, the increase in mana cost doesn't "just give opponents another turn". It is making many plays impossible - Pyro+Nova, Azure Drake for a chance to draw Blizzard, etc. Plus it postpones Mage AoE, making the class more vulnerable to rush decks.

Stalling the game for 6 turns definitely feels very strong, especially when the Mage bombards with spells in the mean time. But increasing mana cost of all these spells at once... I think it's too much. Frost Nova is a crappy card unless you build your deck around buying yourself time with freezes. It has a powerful synergy with Pyroblast, so increasing it's manacost to 3 seems logical. Cone of Cold is a versatile defense/removal/stalling card. But at 4 mana it's so inefficient, it can't really be considered removal anymore imo.

Blizzard is the worst though. Compare it to Lightning Storm - a 2-3 damage across the board for 3 mana (5 overall, but it's flexible, available at turn 2-3). Blizzard for 6 basically means that freeze effect costs 3 mana. Mage theme is mana efficient spell damage. There's nothing efficient in Blizzard for 6. Might as well Flamestrike for 7. But all these changes push Mage from the unique AoE potential at almost all turns, to only turn 6-7 board swipes.

I think nerfing Cone of Cold and especially Blizzard in such a way hurts the class itself a lot, despite the change being aimed at stalling control decks, Both cards look like shit with +1 manacost added. I'm not seeing myself running them a lot. I'd rather they removed Ice Block entirely. Or changed it to work with minions - if your minion receives fatal damage, prevent it and make it immune this turn. Should work with removals like Assassinate I think.

If you have a "win 7 games" quest and want to play Arena instead of constructed, then yes, playing against AI or duelling your friends is an option.

I don't like playing against AI, I've even levelled up all classes from 1 to 10 in Play mode. But playing against Druid AI is one of the fastest ways to do that quest.

Yeah, that's a great guide, thanks! I've found this link on one of the pages you linked to in OP.

Many points are self-explanatory, obvious even. But if you don't think them through beforehand, your actual actions might be far from optimal. The first arena I played I thought that you are supposed to pick cards you want to have a chance to get as a reward for wins and try to win with this mess of a deck. I believe something of the kind was iterated upon in the earlier stages of the Forge, but I'm not sure. Needless to say, I suffered a crushing 0-3 defeat. =) The second time I tried to go for some Mage combo and looked for synergy in cards - the result was 2-3, meh. Only then I realized that you should mainly aim for picking cards that are individually strong. Was lucky enough to score 5-3 with a Priest.

Thanks for the good read! I've played only 3 arenas so far: 0-3, 2-3 and a 5-3. That info will be handy if I decide to play arena more.

10 gold for 3 wins feels like a rather small reward, but I guess it should be that way. I'm not a fan of arena, so I usually do my daily and then try to earn the remaining "100 - quest" gold to buy a pack of cards. Of course I want more-more-more, but, all in all, 1 free card pack each day is fine by me.

For people who love arena it might be a good idea to make quests give you 50/70/90 gold instead of current 40/60/100. Also the 100 gold quest is rather strange - not only does it have the best reward, it's also one of the easiest. If you need gold ASAP - just play against Druid expert AI, it has the worst AI of all classes in my opinion. I mean spending all your Innervates and a Coin on some stupid move like going hero power + Claw to attack my hero, which is at full health? Come on!

Ok, your highness, just don't blow up with your smugness.

Do you even hear yourself? "I'm so good, I crush Mages with my Pally". What does that even have to do with anything? You only strenghten my point with all your "moan like little girls" and "what the pros say" - you just want to look cool on the forums. The pros say that MC isn't strong because they already consider playing against it when they build their decks. A lot of cards were denied representation and a lot of tactics were considered unviable just because of these 2 cards. How's that not shaping meta? Tell me, why of a sudden everyone started running 4 damage minions? Number 4 must be universally accepted as the most attractive. Yeah, right.

And dont forget, they did not nerf MC cos it was needed , they nerfed it cos it was not "fun"to play against it cos lower elo people had no defense against it cos of pure oblivion of game mechanics and bad choice making. 

Yes, lower-ranked players struggled against it and the less experienced players were crushed by it, but the thing is that a lot of players (and certainly the top ones) were building their decks with countering Priests in mind. If everyone plots against your class, I'd think it's hard to win tournaments and stuff with Priest.

8 mana MC was OP and very frustrating to play against. I understand that it's so cool to pretend MC was such a weak card at 8 mana and make fun of others, but the fact is that MC alone shaped the meta very considerably. If you build all your decks and plan all your strategies around one single card of one single class (actually 2 cards - MC and SW:Death), then it's not as weak as you make it sound like.

Aharit, well said! =)

Mind Control for 10 mana is fine. It is still powerful, still feared, but the major difference is that you now have a chance to play your big guys. Previously on turn 7 and onward you'd think twice before playing your heavy artillery. Think twice and still not play it unless you had a removal and a replacement available. Now almost all minions can be played and be useful before an MC becomes playable. Also you have time to prepare for MC after playing huge costly Ragnaros or something - e.g. put more minions on the board to wipe out the "traitor" if need be.

Yeah, that makes sense, considering the devs said their goal is to push the open beta and release. But-but-but giving some gold or card packs as a present isn't very time-consuming.... =)

Ok, the rewards I've heard about must be golden heroes and new card backs. Well, cosmetic rewards are good enough.

Well, that doesn't mean Mages are OP. =) I've had an opponent as low as 9 health on turn 4. He just didn't have an answer to my enraged Amani Berserker (5+5+5 Amani and 6 Fireball).

I guess we might see some ornaments in UI, maybe some temporary neutral card designs change (more Christmas-y Chillwind Yeti, Santa-like Dark Iron Dwarf and Santa's little helper dressed Novice Engineer. Also giving all players a special quest, which gives 1-5 card packs as a reward would be really cool! The quest might be something like playing 100 different cards.