Hearthpwn

So I'm running a control deck and it's been doing pretty well - at rank 13 right now - and have been debating throwing 1-2 heals in my deck as a lot of the games I lose I lose to direct damage where board state is irrelevant.  I was thinking about adding either earthen ring farseer or priestess of elune, as they're both decent and offers some healing for those situations where you're very low but have good board advantage.  

Also, what's the general consensus on having 1 blodlust in a deck?  Be it for constructed or arena.  I understand why not to have 2, but the one for either board clear or to combo with cards like onyxia I've found to be pretty helpful, but would I be better off ditching it for either dark iron dwarf or shattered sun cleric or something else?  Again these are more general questions not for my deck specifically, just wondering what people higher in ranked/arenas thought on these cards.  Thanks.

Yea personally I don't feel like this was a good fix for mages.  I personally have been frustrated with mages, but not for control reasons(although it is annoying).  There are plenty of ways to still do decent against control mages pre-nerf - what really got to me personally was ice block.  The control chain could be dealt with, even if you didn't have any healing in your deck.  Ice block however there's no real counterplay against, and if a mage goes alexstrassa(sp?) --> double ice block you're dead almost no matter what unless you have a lot of healing in your deck like a pally.  I feel like if they change ice block in some way - make it so it's only when attacked not any damage, or only damage of the same type or make some penalty for the mage next turn to compensate for the ice block, it would have balanced them out just fine.  

Granted I'm not super high ranked just 13 right now which isn't great so I know I'm not the best person to comment on something like this, but that's my thoughts anyway.  The cone of cold, and more importantly ice nova mana increase really screwed over mages against rush and I don't think that was the direction it should have gone, but I'm no pro.

Potentially the most damaging bug I've run into is cards not being displayed on the board properly, meaning when you go to play defender of argus or give a minion a buff, what/where you're clicking might not be in sync with where the game says it is, so even though to you you are playing defender of argus in the middle of 2 minions, it will show up on the far side and only give 1 minion taunt.  Similar issue with your hand not showing up right where 1-3 cards overlap each other and playing the card that you mean to can be close to impossible or rather frustrating to figure out as you can't even see your entire hand, let alone select the card you want.  I know I'm not the only person to have experienced these bugs, and I'm sure it's been brought up before, but are they in the works of being fixed?  Was kind of hoping this most recent patch would address these as well but didn't see anything about it and was just curious if blizzard was working on this bug currently or letting it sit until balance changes are fixed first?

Yea again it all depends on the direction you want to go with your deck.  I started using 2 bloodlusts, and after a lot of people mentioning dropping to 1 I eventually did and noticed it to be a lot more balanced.  Sure I won some games from double bloodlust, and there's some games where I think if I get bloodlust next turn I win but don't, but as a whole it's a lot more balanced and reliable now.  As for not putting spells in, again that's all personal preference.  I would recommend at least putting 1 forked lightning in if nothing else as it's super strong for only 1 mana, or even rockbiter as you can put that on your creatures as well if needed, but that's just my thoughts based on my experience and your deck is a fair different than mine.  Food for thought if nothing else.

Personally I'd drop windspeaker/novice/tiger and put in lightning bolt/forked lightning/2nd mana tide totem.  It might be personal preference but I feel like you should either ditch onyxia and try to end the game early with your creatures, or ditch some of your early creatures for board control(lightning bolt/forked lightning/rockbiter) and go for more end game.  With the deck you have I just don't see a reason for the tigers.  Also, might want to think about dropping 1 of the bloodlusts.  A 2nd azure drake would definitely be worth as well.  All depends on what you really want to do though, but right now it seems like you're going for turn 6ish kill with bloodlust, yet you have onyxia and earth elemental in there, both of which would prevent you from going for early kill(as earth elemental gives you 3 overload for turn 6).  

Please note this is not meant to be a bash on the mage class as a whole in any regard.

Is it just me or are mages just really boring, at least right now at any rate.  Over half the game is spent simply stalling to get your spells, then just spam spells at enemy face, dropping mana wyrm/sorc. apprentice/mountain and/or molten giant if applicable.  I know this is grossly oversimplified and there is skill required for mages, but being playing as them or playing against them it just seems beyond boring, like there's no real playing/counterplay but simply stall then burn, and hope you get lucky with draws.  Might just be me idk but just even when I win as a mage I almost never feel like, man that was close but I won cause I outplayed him, but rather that was kinda stupid, I'm bored what's next?  This just me?

Honestly my only real beef with mages is no real counterplay against ice block.  Yes you can account for the fact that it's there and get them to 1-2 health intentionally before going for the kill, but even still there's no real way to deal with it.  Take any other secret, if you can pick it out you can play around it to not be that impactful, such as noble sacrifice, freeze trap, etc.  If a mage has double ice block and is sitting at 1 health it doesn't matter if you know it's ice block you just have to pop it and end turn.  If mage plays alexstrassa that turn/turn before, pretty much insta gg if you don't have healing on hand.  The freeze is definitely annoying and will help especially with early game, but there are many decks(that are viable and work) that don't play early game creatures/much early game damage, meaning this will have no impact on a decent group of people.  Most of the games I lost against mages are only due to ice block, and even though I know it's ice block, there's nothing I can do about it.  But I might be in the minority/need to change the way I play who knows.

also why do you find flametongue to be so bad anyway?  I've found it to save my hide in so many occasions, either comboed with rockbiter or for the kill with bloodlust.  I know it's not a great card by any means but if you have 1-2 totems up early it really helps with early board control without having to waste spells/overload yourself.  Not saying you're wrong for not liking them/saying they're bad just wondering why.

the reason I liked having totemic might is the fact that it very rarely dies from actual creatures but from spells, like frost bolt or hammer of wrath or things like that, making a taunt not that effective at protecting it >_<

Quote from Lenor »

Totemic might is a terrible card. Might want to try stormwind champions, they work wonders with totems.

I'm not a fan of flametongue totem either.

I've mainly been using totemic might to buff my flametongue/mana tide totems so they can't be killed by frostbolt/hammer of wrath, flamestrike, and so my other totems won't be killed by blizzard/consecrate to try to keep board control early if a spell doesn't drop.  I could definitely see getting rid of it and flametonguex2, but then the question becomes with what?  Not a huge fan of stormwind champion as this deck is more about getting bigger creatures out late, though it could be nice.  Just doesn't seem to be worth enough for me for its mana.  I don't have argent commander or defender of argus which is really frustrating as either of those could work super nice for this deck(commander mainly), and don't know what else to really add in place of those.  I know it's only a rare so it shouldn't take too long to craft, but what could I even put in place in the meantime?  stormwind knight seems like a decent choice I guess, but then I would want to hold on to flametongue as the 2 damage is rather low for it's mana cost.  

I could maybe see dark iron dwarf or shattered sun cleric in place of those - thoughts?

So I've been tweaking I deck I made about a week ago here and there and this is what I ended up with.  Gone on two pretty large winning streaks since the changes and currently at rank 13, but I feel like this deck still needs some tweaking.  I kind of want to add another feral spirit but currently don't have it.  Was running with an ancestral spirit for sunwalker/earth elemental but when I got a 2nd azure drake and lightning storm just didn't feel worth it.  I've seen a lot of decks running double earth shock instead of a frost shock which I've debated, but I really like frost shock to stall for a turn when I want to fork lightning and just don't have a 2nd minion to use it with.  I personally really like the mountain giant because I don't usually spend many cards early so I can reliably get it out on turn 6 or so which is pretty nice.  

But yea typical control deck for the most part but to get much higher up think I'm gonna need to change something for like maybe defender of argus or something when I have it but not sure what for.  Maybe could put an unbound elemental in which I have but not really sure what to replace if I do.  Any tips/thought welcome.

I understand that and the thought process behind this deck - my thought was simply if you do win by turn 5-6 usually anyway then why not swap out a 5-drop for something that could help early if needed.  Not sure how the games play out when you do lose it was just the first thing that came to mind that could be a potential issue.  If you've found them to be worth it(feral spirit especially, was more in regards to silver hand knight) then keep them, but if you're finding the game ends by turn 5 usually anyway then why bother with a 5drop?  unless you coin play him turn 4 when you go 2nd - just my thoughts without seeing how games pan out(when you lose anyway) that could help if you don't have a ton out from aoe spam

Have you tried ditching the silver hand knight for rockbiter weapons?  My thought was if you're playing like a priest you plays a divine spirit --> inner fire combo on a drake or lightwell or something of the sort, or druid double innervate, you might HAVE to deal with it and sacking 3-4 creatures(could be wrong here never played murloc deck as don't have cards) would really hurt but 1-2 rockbiters would mean either using your face or buffing a murloc enough to kill it outright.  That or maybe drop a feral spirit, either for the rockbiters or maybe even flesheating ghoul?  Not sure if that would work as only 3 health would get it zapped in some fashion but if you do have to sack your murlocs for whatever reason might help?  

Not having whole card library in front of me kinda hurts but yea I'd recommend ditching either the silver hand knights or feral spirits for something personally, either a spell for more oomph when needed or something else that plays on creatures like a sea giant or even molten giant if you're getting hit hard.  Or even defender of argus would be nice for those cases where you need to get a taunt up/don't want old murkeye to get hit.

so far I've taken out windspeaker, novice engineer(1), cult master(didn't feel I was getting enough use out of it), demolisher. and stormwind champion

I replaced these with: faerie dragon(x2), stormwind knight(x2), and harvest golem.

I've been thinking about removing earth elemental + ancestral spirit for more early game pressure or earth shock, as well as 1 bloodlust, but still not really sure.  Ice block mages giving me TONS of trouble lately as everything frozen for 6 turns straight then ice block for 1-2 turns when I have lethal and my face goes boom, even without him having anything on the board.  So yea really not sure.  Would like to put in shattered sun clerics but think it's worth ditching earth elemental and ancestral spirit?

oh my bad sorry - thank you.  Didn't notice my bad >_<