Hearthpwn

I have actually found Poison seeds to be fairly decent in an 11 win druid deck earlier today. The idea is not to use it on big boards, but to use it to get one or two big creatures down. Especially because the cost of 4 mana allows you to follow up with other plays. Think of it as a more tech-y polymorph and it may work out better for you, especially if you trade your board smartly before playing it (trading to damage your minions without killing them while killing most of theirs).

For my variation I chose the freeze mage. Not sure if it's as reliable as the alternatives, but it worked like a charm for me.

Thank you for an amazing guide and resource. This overview excels not just in content, but also in clarity and presentation.

I'm curious if you could comment on a number of your choices:

1. You rate "The Beast" fairly highly as a legendary for most classes, although many people rate it low because of its deathrattle drawback. What made you choose to put it on par with cards like Alexstraza and Gruul for most classes?
2. You choose "Faceless Manipulator" as an automatic pick for most classes. Is this based on what you believe to be its value in an average deck? Or its possible value in a potential 12-win deck?
3. What made you decide not to rate "Keeper of the Grove" as an S-rank druid pick?
4. What made you decide to rate "Doomsayer" as an F rather than a D in a number of classes, although it is almost always a 1-for-1 plus a stall on turn 2 and at worst a heal for 7 or able to draw a silence (and keep a buffable minnion out) for 2 mana?
5. Why did you choose to split "Basic" and "Common" cards even though arena picks mix those up and you are forced to pick between them?
6. What possessed you to rate "Ice Lance" as a top common pick for mage, over cards like Scarlet Crusader, Venture Co. Mercenary and Cult Master?
7. Why do you rate the "Lightwarden" no higher than a D in priest, although it is hard to make it anything less than somewhat situational a 3/2 creature for 1 mana at worst?
8. Why do you rate the "Crazed Alchemist" the same rank C in priest as you do in most other classes, even though a lot of very common priest picks like Shadow words, Cabal Shadowpriest and Shadow Madness rely heavily on the attack value of minions, and the alchemist has additional synergy with extremely common health buff cards like Power Word: Shield and Temple Enforcer?
9. Why did you choose not to decrease the ranking of "Baron Geddon" in Shaman and Paladin, even though it has anti-synnergy with their hero abilities?
10. Why did you give "Mountain Giant" a B rank in Warlock? I understand their hero ability gives them more draw potential, but shouldn't this be offset by people trying to draft a lower curve to try and maximize the potential of this, still often leaving you with a low card count?
11. Why do you believe 1-for-1 hard removal is so valuable, ranking not just hex and polymorph, but also assasinate and siphon soul as top tier (while ranking the priest shadow words no higher than B rank)?

Thank you in advance for taking a look at my questions

Since you can get the first wing for free with the launch event, you would only pay for the last 4, so 2800 gold.

The reason to take Force of Nature over Doomhammer is mainly that there is no good alternative for burst in druid. Force of Nature + Savage Roar is really the way to get that final burst.

Shaman on the other hand has plenty of other options: Al'Akir with Rockbiter or along a Flametongue Totem. Leeroy or Stranglethorn + Windfury etc. In short, if you don't have Doomhammer in shaman, you can find plenty of ways to achieve the same goal without it (and ways that are a lot less vulnerable to ooze or the dreaded Harrison Jones), while the same cannot be said for druid decks.

To summarize what the above players are saying:

• Onyxia is the slightly more powerful card because it gives you more stats per mana, especially if you have cards to get maximum value from your tokens (like power of the wild in a druid deck, or Dark Iron dwarf to buff their attacks). While ETC is weaker because when played early, you don't have the chance to play the card it gives you before your opponent's turn, giving him the initiative on a possible response (and nothing is more annoying than getting your ETC killed by a spell power boosted "Rogues do it").
• ETC is the hugely more fun and flavorful card that makes games more interesting, surprises your opponents and feels great to play.

So the question is: are you going for the most effective deck, or just something to have fun with? (And in the first case, is even Onyxia really your best choice?)

To follow up on one point from mavericace, The trick from cards like flamestrike, fireball and polymorph is to 'draw them out' when they don't get maximum value. In other words, you want the mage to use these spells on relatively weak minions or relatively empty boards (or boards with minions above 4 health).

Finding this balance where you make your board or creatures seem threatening enough without actually expending too many resources is the challenge you have to practice, but there is no better feeling than having a mage fireball the 4/4 half of your silver hand knight or getting a flamestrike on a murloc tidecalller and a few hero-power totems. Some things to keep in mind for flamestrike in particular:

1. Mages that have flamestrike tend to want to cast it as soon as they hit turn 7. This will make them tend to use it on that turn even if the board isn't that filled up. If you can make your board look like it's halfway decent to flamestrike on that turn, they probably will, even if it isn't great value.
2. If they don't play anything on turn 6 or 7 (or they play some weak bait to draw out some more creatures), don't over-extend. They probably have a flamestrike in hand.
3. Play cheap creatures that make the board seem full before a flamestrike turn. In particular paladin and shaman hero powers are good, a card like silver hand knight or defias ringleader is good. Also, normally it doesn't matter that much against a mage whether a trade kills your creature or leaves it at 1HP, since they can just use their hero power to kill it. Against flamestrike though, a 1HP creature will make the board seem more full, drawing the spell out, when using hero power and dealing with the rest of the board in other ways may actually be better for the mage.
4. Observe how players decide to use flamestrike on a mediocre board. If they do so almost directly, that signals that they might well have a second flamestrike or blizzard in their hand.
5. Save your healers. Earthen Ring Farseer in particular, but Dark Scale Healer can be good too. This combined with 5 HP creatures will make mages more willing to flamestrike a creature down to 1HP to hero power next turn, but you can then heal it up, decreasing the effectiveness of the flamestrike.
6. Finally, if you can manage it, the easiest counter against flamestrike is to never have more that 1 flamestrike-vulnerable creature on the board after turn 5 - unless your opponent is almost out of cards - decreasing the chance they have flamestrike. This means you have to trade aggressively, and it is far from a surefire way to victory, but it is the best protection against flamestrike.

Similarly for fireball and polymorph, you can draw it out by playing your 'so-so' targets like yeti's, senjin's, druid of the claws and spiteful smiths as soon as your opponent doesn't have a good way to answer them on the board - even when you might have enough mana for something like a boulderfist ogre or a stormwind champion. Once you have 'tested' for removal, then you can risk a bigger creature. In general, it is better to be too slow than too fast, unless you're going for an all out rush strategy where you try to get the mage overwhelmed before turn 7.

One final tip would be to take a look at Kripparian's stream on twitch. He is an accomplished arena player, but in particular, one who is often frustrated with mages for the same reasons you are and goes into great detail on how he tries to play around them and why he makes certain choices in regards to playing creatures to draw spells out.

Although all the above suggestions are good, the most important part are the details of how you build the deck.

A handlock is great, with double hellfire, double shadowflame.

A Control Warrior is great, with brawl, cleave, spell power for whirwinds, wild pyro, Baron Geddon.

Similarly, hunter can be bad or great depending on how many things like explosive traps and unleash combos you have that are strong against zoo in particular.

In general, pick a deck that has a strong matchup, then add in cheap multi-target removal options. (Also, Black Knight is a bit slow against zoo, but it is almost always guaranteed to get value from a minion buffed by Defender of Argus)

Quote from modded »

This would be an awesome cards IF AND ONLY IF there were demons other than Voidwalker/Doomguard worth using.

Do you mean demons like Flame Imp, Lord Jaraxxus (sure, the battlecry is great if you get there, but can you really pass up a free 3/15 on the board on turn 5?) and for arena players Dread Infernal and Blood Imp?

I'm not saying this card will be great, but there are certainly more possibilities than just grabbing a quick doomguard or voidwalker.