Quest Mage In Wild Might Get Another Nerf in the Future
If you are playing Wild mode, you might've come across a lot of Quest Mages, who are really annoying to play against, mainly because of the Flamewaker and Sorcerer's Apprentice combo, but the Sorcerer's Apprentice alone can cause a lot of problems and create a huge tempo swing in early/mid rounds.
A Twitter user asked a Hearthstone developer (Cora) about her opinion about this problematic combo or deck in general and she replied with the following answers.
Q: What do you guys think about Sorcerer's Apprentice shenanigans' in wild? Do you think its acceptable the way it is now? (Talking about giants quest mage)
A: It's definitely on our radar. We hit Open the Waygate a while back, but we're very aware that it's a volatile situation and a few new cards could make things really unpleasant. SOURCE
A: We're not just going to leave Wild out to dry. If changes are necessary then we'll make them. SOURCE
cora OMEGALUL
I just burst out laughing reading these 2 after one another.
I welcome a quest mage nerf if only for the sake of meta diversity but there are things far more problematic in Wild that don't simply rely on one broken card. i.e. discolock which has a higher power level, fewer bad matchups, and no hard counters.
In general, I wish Blizzard would pay more attention and give some care to the Wild format overall.
MTG: Arena has recently started supporting their historic (basically wild) format on MTGA more and this has been hugely popular and well-received.
I hope Blizzard takes note and follows suit.
Secret mage? I've played against very few secret mages and they're not even that good. Discolock, Even shaman, Pirate warrior are all better aggro decks.
They nerfed the quest and all combo decks lol
gigantic lol to play this vs druid on turn 10 and steal(play) one of their bullshit cards
This card is kind of a meme in standard but it's freaking nuts in wild. It stops so many potential shenanigans it's crazy. More raza priest support. Just what we needed. But hey, this even counters raza priest mirror. Play this to play their mind blasts, a bunch of their cheap cards so they can't otk. A card that counters itself. What a deal.
I am a top 100 legend player that went there mainly with quest mage and Raza priest. There is one thing I learned through my time in great legend. Quest Mage is not that OP as everyone thinks he is. Do you remember those times where Jade druid was meta, everyone played skulking geist. To counter Quest Mage, you can play and hard mulligan for Skulking Geist, as this will prohibit most Quest Mages of finishing their quests. Then there is Loatheb; he is a five mana 5/5 that gives you a turn against quest mage, as he can't really do anything apart from Questing Adventurer or Licensed Adventurer. After Loatheb, you have to gain control over the board to win the game as it's tough to regain control as Quest Mage. I know that sometimes with a lucky hand you will finish quest in turn 4-5, but that's not the typical case.
Exactly this. The reward for this quest is far, far, FAR too powerful for how easy and consistent it is to complete. The reward needs to be changed.
Sorcerer's Apprentice should cost 3.
Cards that can discount multiple other cards should cost 1 more in exchange.
The same change should be made to Mechwarper and Radiant Elemental, for the same reasons.
As for Flamewaker, reducing the damage from 2 to 1 should balance things out without completely neutering the card.
Then, it becomes sort of like a Knife Juggler for Spells.
The issue has always been apprentice, either killing you with a flamewaker on board and completing quest turn 5, or enabling an exodia deck (even without quest).
Agreed
Apprentice should read "The first spell you cast each turn costs 1 less." Now it's fixed.
I'm looking forward for this incoming nerf!! The Mage's quest is difficult to counter and it might improve the wild mode experience.
I'm not sure if this is going to solve everything but this is one way to nerf quest mage:
Flamewaker should be given Spellburst: Deal 2 or 3 damage split amongst enemies
Mana Giant should cost 12 to 15 mana.
Mana Cyclone should cost like 3 or 4 mana.
I think that the biggest problem of Quest Mage is lack of counterplay. Blizzard is really afraid of creating cards that straightup discard cards from opponents hand (I guess the reason is that displaying 10 cards in HS from opponents hand is really hard and they would need to make it somewhat random which ofc would make it frustrating in some situations). Also I think that Reno variant is ok, but the problem is version with Flamewaker, because it relies so much more on completely random cards - it's frustrating to see that opponent generated 25 freezes and 15 Ice Blocks in contrary to cards like Kazakus or Malygos, Aspect of Magic. I think that HS needs a combo decks and I don't find Reno Quest Mage to be better or worse from other OTKs like Malygos Druid or Mechathun Warlock. Flamewaker version is really iritating because it seems to be solely focused on going off with hardly any cards that interact with opponent.
To be clear - I play almost every deck from Wild Meta and Q Mage isn't a deck that I crafted and now I just want to brainlessly defend it. Feel free to reply and discuss with me points that I've made - maybe I'm wrong in some of my statements but just don't downvote any comment that doesn't say - "Quest Mage Bad".
Burn Mage is the real evil.
"it's frustrating to see that opponent generated 25 freezes and 15 Ice Blocks"
This happened back when the quest was legal in standard. Your hyperbolic of course, but I distinctly remember popping 5 ices blocks in some games, it was awful. In wild this virtually never happens; the pool of random spells is huge. On top of this, the regular duplicate version does not even run ice block or any mass freezes. This is an aspect that balanced the quest in wild; you very often get junk and fold to aggro. People just remember the times the opponent got exactly what they needed, and fail to realize the times they killed their opponent who had a hand full of blanks.
First they should fix Odd DH’s cheating.
Just hit Open Waygate again to needing 29 spells that didn't start in your deck. So in order to complete the quest you need to run a deck with Open Waygate + 29 spell generator cards. After all, Wild is supposed to be a place for fun and whack decks, just make it a really whack deck lol
The deck is not that good, it is objectively not tier 1. The average player of this game is an idiot.
Blizzard has nerfed Tier 3 decks before. You don't need to have a very good win rate to get nerfed, it's all about getting rid of traumatic experiences.