I play Cyclone game and even with Conjurers calling if taken me too long to do combo it automatic gg. You need 3 cards to do the combo Khadgar, mountain giants, and the Conjurer’s Calling. It’s not an easy combo to complete early on in the game.
If I can not pull combo t late in the game my match can say is over because getting overwhelmed with just cards in the deck. It’s not even a high tier deck most played.
Also, it’s not the problem of card the reason is other classes don’t like mage class because of freeze ability. If not this card called for the nerfing it going be another till mage is a dead class.
Actually I would design around it instead of nerf.
Not get it wrong but it being powerfull is making the metagame healthy in more than one ways.
Despite of having highroll possibility the cyclone mage deck has a ton of ways were the player can improve it’s performance and there are little to no extreme polarized matchups.
With that said that deck at top:
Not let decks warp the meta while not warping it by itself.
Incentives people to actually get better at the game helping to break the idea that hearthstone is a slot machine.
Not has a linear game plan and every game against it is in fact different being less boring to face multiple times than most decks.
Possible changes to do to make the deck a little more healthier than it is:
Nerf Khadgar to 3 Mana
Buff grave horror to 11 mana.
Well, everyone is posting about it because people outside of legend seem to have finally realized how strong it is. I’m sure I’m just unlucky, but it’s been by far the most common deck I’ve seen on the ladder the past week (rank 6 through 4). The expansion can’t come soon enough. Murloc Shaman until then.
Khadgar is not required as part of the combo. Simply Conjurer’s on a giant is enough to be overpowering. It’s one thing to ask that a deck be able to respond to an early mountain giant as handlock has been doing since forever. It’s another thing to ask a deck to respond to two early giants.
The problem is multi-faceted. First, there is a lot of cheap draw available to mage right now, with Arcane Intellect, Book of Specters and Research Project. This means that they can often quickly generate the hand size to play an early giant.
Second, the buff to Luna’s Pocket Galaxy means that if they can play LPG on 5, they likely can win the game because as bad as it is to deal with 3-4 mana giants, 0 mana giants are even worse.
Third, there’s enough freeze effects available with Frost Nova, Ray of Frost, Blizzard plus the things that can be discovered or randomly generated through Magic Trick and Cyclone that it can be difficult to generate enough pressure against the mage.
And finally, Conjurer’s is just an unbelievably strong card. In many cases it’s a better Faceless Manipulator that costs 2 less mana and is castable a second time, so the Mage actually has at least four of them in their deck, not counting others randomly generated. And because of effects like Sorcerer’s Apprentice, it costs even less mana.
Maybe the answer is to make Mountain Giant cost 13 so that it doesn’t share a mana cost with Grave Horror. Then perhaps there’d be a risk to trying to summon a bunch of giants that couldn’t have taunt. Or maybe they should just hall of fame the rest of the giants. If CC was just a card you worried about for big bodies later on or smaller tempo bodies early on, it’d be a lot less frustrating to deal with.
I agree with the rest of this post, but I really think this is a terrible philosophy. Classic cards shouldn’t be HoF’d just because they interact with an overpowered card. The so-called “evergreen” set has already been whittled away quite a bit by nerfs and HoFs.
If you insist on HoF’ing Mountain Giant for the sake of CC, then you might as well just create a rotating Core set instead.
That’s been Brian Kibler’s stance since forever now. One of the problems with an evergreen set is potential overpowered interactions with new cards. In that way, the evergreen set is limiting design space of what otherwise might be a cool effect.
And it’s not just Mountain Giant I’m worried about. Sea Giant is also a huge threat when CC’d now that Colossus of the Moon and Living Monument is around. And while King Phaoris is a potential low-roll, almost all of the 10 drops are either a sidegrade or strict upgrade from Sea Giant.
Well, I’m one to advocate for the path of least resistance: nerf Conjurer’s Calling.
The existence of CC in its current state discourages Blizzard from printing Neutral or Mage minions with cost-reduction mechanics on them, or any mechanic that allows you to put a high-cost minion on the board earlier than usual.
It’s clearly way above the power curve, even without Giants around. Playing it on a Giggling Inventor can attest to this; it’s approximately equivalent to playing Mutate on it, then a Faceless Manipulator for only 3 mana, then being able to do it again whenever you choose.
But then again, the game is now full of mana-cheating effects that give a ridiculous amount of power for a very low cost, with few to no drawbacks or limitations. Much to my chagrin.
I think if the main target of a Conjurer’s Calling was on a Giggling Inventor on turn 10 (or turn 8 if GI lived a turn), there would be way less hate for the card. Powerful late game plays are fine; that should be the reward for making it to the late game. It’s when you get what should be powerful late game plays on turn 4-6 where it’s a problem and the reason that’s happening is because giants can come down that early.
I was only using Giggling Inventor as an example. Cards like Rabble Bouncer can easily come out much earlier, and furthermore, it punishes you for playing minions. Again, this single card makes it impossible to print any cost reduction mechanics on any neutral minions so long as it exists.
And, again, for five long years, Mountain Giant and Sea Giant haven’t been problematic cards. I can’t recall a single instance where people called for nerfs to either card. Only now, when there’s a deck that can summon no less than two Mountain Giants from hand on turn 4, has anyone even considered HoF’ing Mountain Giant.
People have definitely been complaining about Mountain Giant in warlock for a long time. Remember Even Lock? Lot of people complained about turn 3 MGs while that was around.
Still, the problem is that MG is a neutral and is able to be run in mage and as I was saying earlier, just so happens to have access to a ton of cheap card draw right now that means they can fill their hand to play an early giant.
You could also say that Mana Cyclone and Elemental Evocation are contributing to the problem because they let the mage spend a bunch of resources that would otherwise deplete their hand defending against the early game and completely refill their hand to still play giants early.
No other class has really had that capability until now. It’s a perfect storm of factors but it all leads back to the Mountain Giant’s cost reduction ability.
Again, you seem to be in favor of ignoring several cards that are clearly far, far above the normal power curve, and targeting a card that sometimes sees play in meta decks.
Mana Cyclone’s ability to generate cards is completely unprecedented for a 2-drop. For only 2 mana, you can generate up to 10 cards. Combine it with a Sorceror’s Apprentice and Elemental Evocation, and you can completely negate the normal drawback for playing lots of cheap spells early on. And Conjurer’s Calling would still be far above the normal power curve, even without giants. Even when you look at recently printed, comparable cards like Unsleeping Soul and Molten Reflection, there’s still a major discrepancy in CC’s power level.
Mana Cyclone and CC would still be a problem without Mountain Giant. Mountain Giant wouldn’t be a problem without Mana Cyclone and CC.
I’m not saying CC isn’t a very strong spell and perhaps deserving of a nerf. My point is that when you look at a board state, it’s turn 4 or 5 and the mage has two 8/8s (or 7/8s) in play, the question becomes, how’d we get here? And it starts with a giant coming down super early. CC makes the problem worse, but the problem started because there was an 8/8 in play on a turn when many classes lack the tools to effectively deal with that happening so early in the game.