Hearthpwn

Quote from Scorpyon >>

I would say it's partly because the other cards that fit around these ones ARE more control-based. In a control deck, you don't have to have all 100% control cards.
You still need a win condition and reasonable threats - otherwise you end up with a deck like Control Warrior which has no real win condition other than wait for the opponent to run out of cards and fatigue to death.
There are other types of control play styles. For Mage, I would say it is more of a case of controlling the game until the late game wherein it will start playing it's big stuff to press for the win.
Of course, being that so much of the Mage's big finishers rely on high-rolls, it does present reason to why it is not as powerful as it could be.

 Control warrior (while having some, but not nearly as many random elements) feel like a control deck though. You limit your opponents and slowly wear them down. Sure, I suppose Random Mage does the same, but Random Mage is rather extreme in what it requires to win. So I guess I agree with you.

Hi there!

Now, I know that Control Mage is a fine archetype still even if it is not in Tier 1, but as I return from a few months hiatus (i haven't played since rotation) I have to scratch my head as I look over the cards that control mage are supposed to play with.

Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron - Cast 10 Random spells.

Power of Creation - Discover 2 random minions.

Tortollan Pilgrim - Discover a random spell, cast it with a random target.

Conjurer's Calling - Destroy a minion, summon random minions to replace it.

Astromancer - Summon random minions based on handsize.

Arcane Keysmith - Discover a random secret.

King Phaoris - For each spell in your hand, summon a random minion (granted this is a neutral card, but it begs the question why as it fits in with the random-summon archetype that mage has going now).

I am sure that you CAN play a control mage without these cards, but they are in the most popular decks so I assume that they are there because they get the job done. Which leads into my question - What kind of control deck depends on randomness?  How can we call this control? Randomness is the opposite of control. When you control, you plan ahead, you can't depend on RNG-cards and hope they pay off. Or atleast, that's my view on things. Sure, some elements of randomness are always present, and some cards have been around awhile now (astromancer, keysmith), but when they are all put together in one archetype it really seems to highlight something - That a control-style deck is supposed to win...with randomness.

I just don't think this is a healthy way for the class to evolve (and I remember back when Yogg was despised for the same reason).

Thoughts? Maybe I'm wrong and this is a general turn towards randomness for all classes. I must admit that I haven't poured over the new cards.