I don’t think he is wrong. I just disliked the way he presented it.
Team 5 wants to sell cards, and since they are bad at growing the game, they have to rely on predation of the existing player base.
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yeah and something important to note is that whales are gonna waste their money on this game regardless if the rest of the playerbase or not–one of my favorite games of all time (spiral knights) is basically only alive because whales are pumping thousands of dollars into microtransactions a month, which essentially makes the game unplayable for everyone else since the in-game economy is screwed over.
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also, like I said, core sets should have strong cards in them so that they can operate as pools for decks to pull from, which is important if we’re moving into primarily package oriented expansions.
Like I said, what warrior deck doesn’t run Shield Block? There should be more Shield Block cards in standard, cards that are great tools for enabling a variety of archetypes.
I just want cards that tutor Wildfire, Reckless Apprentice, and Dawngrasp, so that just once, I can have a ping mage deck that actually works.
Hunter can have HP decks, and so can alot of other classes via weapons. etc.
I have waited a very long time.
Hunter has nothing in standard right now, I think it realistically needs a redesign even more than Mage does.
I played about 50 games trying to make big spell mage work and it’s broken. In a bad sense. I would need an hour to write down all the problems it has. It’s downright impressive how an archetype that has 5 or so payoff cards in total can have them working in so many different directions.
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You just cant compare the support the deck has to the last time Big Spell Mage was tier 1.
We had Balinda with target draw and insane mana cheat, Amulet was tradeable( makes the whole difference on a 10 mana spell), Rune of the Archmage is so much better than Yogg in the box that its not even funny.
And it had the support of Dawngrasp for an alt win con, much like the first time BSM was tier 1 with Frost Lich Jaina.
Mage is going backwards in power in terms of support, No Minion Mage never came close to its golden days and now BSM is another disaster.
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I understand where you come from but i believe in some objectives here:
- Avoid reprints
Avoiding reprints is important to ensure the sets have solid quality. So a card like Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron contributes simply by existing. Cards with a strong reprint tendency need to be in the core set just because of that tendency.
Not have this is basically ensure that mage sets will have one puzzlebox every year.
2.Having spells as a highlight
Having spells as a highlight is important for Mage decks, and that truly doesn’t happen when you have decks like Spell Mage. It’s the classic problem of when everyone becomes special. When everyone is special then no one is.
Book of specters is here to be exactly about that. There is a variety of ways to build around it in any era. Mages unlike many think actually want both extremes on spell count.
Both decks with a big number of spells and decks with a very small number of spells.
- Don’t include cards that are implicitly banned from being good.
This is basically about Stargazer Luna. Does anyone outside of Wild players really know how ridiculous a deck has to be for this card to be playable?
In summary, these are decks that make you play through almost your entire deck using her effect and discounts to create an OTK. It’s truly ridiculous, to the point where it makes the decks we have today seem tame in comparison.
She was put there probably to be used in the modern era format of twist and that is it.
And that is as someone who played the dragonic amulet deck non stop during that format. Stargazer luna decks are a no no even for wild. This is how dumb it gets.
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That’s because they ARE tame in comparison, and that’s why Standard as a mode exists - to fight powercreeping (and minimize the advantage of paying customers so as to remain f2p).
Also, although I agree with this:
…it’s still not a way to go from design perspective, as by not making them core, they have the added flexibility of reprinting them when they want it to be played again, and letting them rotate away when it’s not in their interest to do so because it would create some broken synergies with new cards.
If they put, for example, shadowstep as a core, they need to be mindful about what they design and print in every upcoming set, or they’ll have to start banning cards until the broken interactions are no more.
I believe they’re in the process of learning this xD
Yes, but then we’re talking about the perspective of simply not having a core set. I’m not necessarily against that but I don’t think it’s a good time to make players upset about the absence of free cards.
It is a fight that is just not worth fighting in that sense.
Most cards in a core set are put there both to help players learn about the classes and to be a really small part of the decks.
Would you make players that literally not even rationalize the math around it angry for something with near 0 economic impact?
If the game survives long enough, you can bet your house it’s going to happen eventually, when the core set becomes too limiting
They are the backbone, a mould which they base the new cards on
They serve to differentiate between the classes and give them guidelines for what belongs to which class
It protects class identities and prevents broken, unintended interactions, which is partly why it’s easier for them to print a new keyword “Tourist” and print new cards which can be used by two classes, rather than make new dual-class cards
It serves many purposes, but eventually, something new will come about which solves all those problems, and then core set can go .
what i mean is
don’t include cards that A) aren’t good (cone of cold makes no sense in 2024 unless it was like, 2 or even 1 mana) or B) require specific archetypes to be printed to be good (e.g, Conjure Mana Biscuit)
Try Wild. They are the ultimate in face.
It’s like you are reading my thoughts here. All mage draw is crippled. I am running every way to cheat Shy could come up with, and the deck I use still isn’t anything beyond mediocre.
Mage highrolls too slow. They need to change surflapod to be 1 mana and under the sea to be 2 mana. Also I think tsunami should probably be nerfed to 8 mana and reduced to summon 3 elementals.
Explosive runes technically already is stronger.
It’s fireball level damage for 1 less mana AND it has the overkill effect. Not saying it’s the greatest, but it was good enough that they just reprinted it as a 4 mana non-secret spell (piercing shot) for hunters in a later expansion.
The problem with explosive runes - and most mage secrets - is that they punish greed more than they punish tempo.
Hunter secrets on the other hand tends to punish tempo more than greed.
Now take a guess which is usually easier/better to win with: winning tempo. or winning greed?
When tempo secret mage works, it’s usually because they have support cards that greatly up the tempo of playing/using secrets. Casting them for free, getting minions that discounts itself via secrets, gain stats/deal extra damage/etc if you control a secret, etc.
But that sorta thing can also be done to hunter and even pally back when they had secrets.
Another thing is that mage secrets cost 3. One way to build tempo is by playing more cards in a turn. This is obviously harder to do when your secrets cost the most, even if on paper they’re individually more powerful.
Without special support, secrets on their own work better at punishing greed or provide utility, with notable examples being objection and ice block.
Fireball is unplayable at four, and the Hunter Secret from Attorney at Maw or whatever the f*** it’s called is strictly better than explosive for one mana less.
I was responding to your comment that it has to be better than normal cards.
Unplayable or not, fireball is the normal card.
Not strictly better. It has a harder trigger condition. And it only hits face, so it’s not even comparable.
piercing shot was only played when it was around in standard due to Hunter Questline, and fireballs to minions is a horrendous waste of mana when there’s much more efficient removal.
I don’t think 6 damage is enough on explosive runes to be worth playing raw for 3 mana, period. Even if it was 3 mana piercing shot, Mage still wouldn’t run that (I think DH or DK might dependant on decklist but definitely not mage, no burn, Sif, or Elemental)
Sure, and as I said, that’s because of greed vs tempo. The effect of the explosive/piercing shot is more of a removal (read: you win value by killing off their big drop for less mana) than a tempo winning tool.
It’s a removal plus some possible burn. It’s good at punishing greed, where you spend 3 or 4 mana to remove maybe a 5 or 6 drop. Being a secret also can mess up a greedy combo that requires certain unit to be played first to set up.
Even if it does more damage like you said, it’ll still be more useful killing off people’s big drops than helping mage win the early tempo game, which is where secret mage tends to struggle with when there’s not enough secret support. Like… it’s not that a buff isn’t a buff and won’t be helpful at all, but it won’t be that helpful in the places mage needs the most help. You might even regret it’s killing off the shaman/druid titan instead of letting you reverb it.