Thank you. A review that actually sounds reasonable.
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Yeah, like I said, Mage isn’t bad. They are fairly decent. The problem is too many decks right now are TOO strong (but I believe that’s what the dev team wants for some weird reason). Like they literally played Dragon Druid, and all the insane things it does, and thought “This is about where we want the deck to be, so here’s a very slight nerf”
and people think I’m being unreasonable when I say to consider bias.
they are, but most likely due to Druid outclassing them + hard countered by the meta.
but.
Most classes’ core sets are very weak, the only exceptions I can think of are Warrior and Paladin who have significantly more “solid” cards than the other 9 classes. Here’s a quick list of “good solid cards” for each class for core set.
Paladin:
Righteous Protector, Grimestreet Outfitter, Hand of A’dal, Muster for Battle, Crusader Aura, and arguably Consecration are all solid cards that have appeared in multiple meta decks.
Warrior:
Shield Slam, Slam, Bash, Bladestorm, Shield Block, Brawl, and Garrosh’s Gift are all meta parts of any slower Warrior deck.
compare these to say, Hunter–
Animal Companion (possibly), Barak Kodobane (reliant on what secrets are in standard)
or even Druid–
Swipe (only because of Spell Damage package), Malfurions’ Gift
Death Knight is no better!
Frost Strike, Acolyte of Death, Chillfallen Baron, and Corpse Bride
Every class that isn’t Paladin/Warrior have unreasonably weak Core Sets with only 1-4 solid cards. Mage is the worst of them, with almost every card in its’ core set being wildly overcosted, with the only two cards commonly run from Core Set being Flame Geyser in Elemental Mage (which sucks and is one of the worst cards in the decklist), and Primordial Glyph (only in small spell mage)
Core Set 2025 needs to massively increase the number of “solidly good cards” for each class, maybe as much as 8-10 per class. And with how strong powercreep is, its’ time to get actually bold designs in core set–I’m talking cards like Phase Stalker for Hunter, Ray of Frost for Mage, Secret Passage for Rogue, etc. Don’t be afraid to add win-cons like OG Yogg or Zul’jin into Core Set either.
EDIT: I know the irony of me saying this after saying “combating power creep with power creep is bad” but having a strong core set is different–I want there to be more strong options for deckbuilding + package support rather than one or two archetypes pushed with Core Set. Having cards like Prize Plunderer or Siphon Mana would be useful for a variety of archetypes rather than current Core Set where current Mage Core set pushes for a weird cycle/control list that doesn’t function.
My dream Core Set for Mage (which believe it or not is actually my first level 60 class (mostly due to duels)) would look something like this
Mages’ current Core Set is 17 cards so I’ll stick around that number give or take a few.
~3-4 strong secrets (I’m thinking buffed Explosive Runes (this could be 8 pretty easily), Rigged Faire Game, Ice Block, and Objection) with at least 1 Secret Synergy (1 mana Ancient Mysteries would be perfect, control/combo decks could tutor Ice Block while Secret Mage could be supported with 1 mana cycle)
2 Big Spells (Sunset Volley is perfectly fine, and 6 mana Deep Freeze would be fun too), and and a “Spell Cheat” card (Shivering Sorceress?)
at LEAST 2 multipurpose Legendaries (Varden Dawngrasp would be a great option for Tempo, Control, or Combo Mage, and Grand Magister Rommath is an amazing “payoff” card for decks like Arcane Mage from Frozen Throne, or casino mages of the past)
3 “Random Cards” cards (Primordial Glyph is great here, Runed Orb would be great, Evocation would be awesome if we were willing to sacrifice one of our two legendaries (if not, Tear Reality for 3 mana would be fine).)
2 Freeze Cards (Blizzard and Ray of Frost are my initial hunches)
2-3 strong Tempo Elementals (Amplified Snowflurry, buffed Violet Spellwing (3/1?), Animated Avalanche with slightly retooled stats (5 mana 7/5?)
An extra “nostalgia” card or two (3 mana Fireball, 2 mana Arcane Intellect, potion of illusion maybe)
Here’d be the whole list for Mages’ Core Set:
1 mana Ancient Mysteries (down from 2 mana)
1 mana Violet Spellwing (now a 3/1)
1 mana Shivering Sorceress
1 mana Ray of Frost
2 mana Runed Orb
2 mana Amplified Snowflurry
2 mana Arcane Intellect
3 mana Tear from Reality (down from 4)
3 mana Explosive Runes (8 damage)
3 mana Ice Block
3 mana Rigged Faire Game
3 mana Objection
3 mana Fireball
4 mana Varden Dawngrasp
5 mana Animated Avalanche (down from 7 mana, 7/5 instead of 7/6)
6 mana Deep Freeze (down from 8 mana)
6 mana Blizzard
9 mana Grand Magister Rommath
9 mana Sunset Volley
This would give Mage a number of strong cards to springboard off of for decks, such as freezing cards for slower decks, strong tempo elementals, Rommath as a win-con for casino decks, Big Spell mage support, etc.
In a way I agree, but in a way I don’t.
It’s not a good idea to look at foundations in terms of binary “good” or “bad.” There are better foundations and worse foundations, relative to each other, and there is no such thing as a perfect foundation. The phrase “don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good” applies here, and neatly summarizes my principal critique of your core argument. The question is NOT “is/was Lamplighter a good foundation,” the question is which foundations is/was it better than.
(I was not playing Standard before Lamplighter was nerfed, so I do not have an answer to that question.)
I take back all I have ever said critically about you. Please take over mage design immediately:)
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babbling book is good, but not for mage currently
primordial glyph is ran in all my mage decks
yeah but not to face, which is why fireball is better
yeah but not to face, which is why frostbolt is better
ive been in hearthstone, actually playing these core cards, and winning.
lowkey I think this core set you wrote might be stronger than any other
explosive runes 8 damage???
6 mana deep freeze?
5 mana animated avalanche?
the only thing I agree with is grand magister rommath, thats a great card
Babbling book had it’s time. Nowadays random generation without a small catch is bad.
You can say that it is here to teach what mage does to the new players but that is it.
That small catch can be the pool, a discount, some small effect , it literally does not see play for years.
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What we need are these replaced with cards that tutor the spells and minions that power Our decks.
It is a dream and while most there aren’t really unreasonable that specific one would not happen because blizzard needs to sell packs.
I can see a core set with cards that suggest what you should build for btw.
Some stuff that really should have been in a mage core:
Book of specters
puzzlebox of yogg saron
Lab partner
Evocation as one of the legendaries
They hint over certain themes that are common to the class without being overly powerful and giving space for blizzard to expand on it with new cards.
I disagree with BOS and PB. Others seem ok.
wanna know what I want in core set?
I want yogg box, rune of the archmage, and the yogg in the box, simply so I can play all of those at once with galactic projection orb
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Have PB in the core prevents blizzard from printing 832792437243 versions of the card like they do lately. So basically have one in the core to not have to have a new one every damm year taking space of a new card.
So i would rethink it if i was you.
I wish they would abandon the Hail Mary idea.
I’m sick of it personally.
They probably won’t because they were greedy, and printed two extra classes that they didn’t have design space for, and so they had to steal ideas from the other 9 to create them.
I believe they’re doing it because of people like you, who are married to one class, no matter what.
Since some classes clearly see more play than others, they figured “Hey, let’s borrow ideas from what’s working to what’s not working, to balance the classes’ playrates”
It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Considering that mage was broken for a few months, and I’ve heard it was also broken a bit last year, I would hold my breath - there’s like 8 classes to go before Mage is back in it’s full strength.
This is a pessimistic prediction - it’s possible it comes sooner if my data is wrong. I don’t know when’s the last time Mage peaked in all ranks, but I do know it was played a lot and was winning a lot this year with Sif Rainbow mage (for months) and Naga APM mage (for 10 days).
Bore someone else with your novice sarcasm.
Very rude. Also, very stupid. I don’t use sarcasm, and I didn’t use it in my last post.
This is not sarcasm. It’s my honest belief, and it makes sense from an economic aspect (satisfying demand).
It might be paradoxical - you are complaining about things they do to prevent people like you from complaining.
But it’s definitely not sarcastic.
Secrets need to be stronger than normal cards since they are locked behind a condition. This is demonstrable even back in Classic Hearthstone, with cards like Explosive Trap being strictly superior to Consecration… because it was locked behind a condition and inherently had counterplay on account of that.
6 mana for Freeze a target and summon two relatively strong mid-range bodies sounds fine to me?
at 7/5, that’s not as egregiously strong as you say it is, but ok
Book of Specters shouldn’t be core because it directly goes against the spell heavy focus of mage.
I’d be fine with both of these.
not this though, it’s arguably too overpriced for modern hearthstone and besides isn’t a reliable card and shouldn’t be a part of a set that should be comprised of “toolkit cards” (like Shield Block, Grimstreet Outfitter, etc)
Altair isn’t wrong here,
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