It's just me or Imprisioned Phoenix is actually OP?

Hello everyone,

I know this might sound crazy, but I’d like to share some thoughts about this card.

I think Imprisioned Phoenix it’s a potentially overpowered card and the only reason we don’t talk about it a lot it’s because there’s not shamans or mage decks that can use all of its power.
And I think that because basically when we compare this card with other spell damage minions, it’s so much better.

Let’s start with the fact it’s a +2 Spell Damage, something that is very rare on the standard and core set collection. Actually, there’s only one card with +2 Spell damage right now, which is Aegwynn, a 5 mana cost Legendary Card.

I don’t know about you, but for me just the fact that you can obtain a similar effect of a legendary 5 mana with a minion that only costs 2, it sounds weird.

And yes, you have theorically a setback of “Dormant for two turns”, right? Wrong, this isn’t a setback, it’s a unbelivable advantage to any other spell damage minion for 3 simple reasons:

  1. There’s no way to counter it (or at least, I don’t remember any right now)
  2. it gives you 2 turns to setup. That means 2 turns to draw a bunch of cards, clear the board, etc etc.
  3. since you played 2 turns ago, when you actually gonna use it, it’s 0 cost mana. With any other minion you’d have to spend mana to summon. So with the mentioned Aegwynn for example, 5 mana would be necessary for you to play it, and all this mana is saved to play other spells with the Phoenix.

Just like First day of school nerf turned out to make a way better card, the disvantage of being dormant for 2 turns it’s actually a blessing in disguise.

What do you guys think about it? I think that this card can be actually problematic if more low cost spells start to show up.
I actually played with a Shaman that did 24 damage face in one turn using two Phoenix on board (one of them he finded using primordial studies).

One last note to conclude: None of this is related with win ratio of Mage or Shaman, I’m just sharing my thoughts on the subject.

1 Like

The problem with Phoenix is the same as any other card with a delayed payoff: it needs to be powerful to justify spending two mana to do nothing right away. As you point out, the dormant gives you time to draw cards and clear the board, but it also gives your opponent time to draw cards and present threats and they get two extra mana to do so.

It’s definitely a strong card, but I think you underestimate how big of a drawback the dormant effect is.

3 Likes

Yes that’s right, but if we compare other minions with dormant such as imprisioned felmaw, satyr and other stuff, they don’t benefit of this mechanic (even though they’re powerfull) in the same way as the phoenix does. What I mean is, considering the nature of being a spell damage minion, a dormant function it’s actually perfect for it.

And it is only 2 mana, it’s a very cheap minion. I understand when you say that your opponent also has two turns to prepare, but if in your hand you have spells enough to OTK him with face damage, there’s not much things that he can possibly do to prevent that. And that’s very different to any other minion that can be countered right away.

All things considered, I think that Phoenix is probably the best spell damage minion around right now.

1 Like

Oh, I believe that. I just don’t think it’s so good as to be OP.

1 Like

I play Spell Damage Shaman and Phoenix is strong, but only because of the +2 Spell Damage and that isnt even needed often times.

You see, Spell Damage Shaman is a weird midrange-burst deck that starts its game basically dormant. Turn 1 Primordial Studies, Turn 2 Phoenix or Rune Dagger into Turn 3 Arcane Watcher and on Turn 4 you start to attack the first time. That is so damn slow that you almost already lost the game when the opponent can deal with the Arcane Watcher.

Here comes also the problem of Phoenix into play, because a Turn 2 Phoenix does absolutely nothing on Turn 4. Its mainly there to enable Arcane Watcher. You are not going to burst your spells on Turn 4, especially since you only dealt 5 damage to the opponent up to this point.

So what to play on Turn 4? Squallhunter for another big body. Now on Turn 5 you have only 3 Mana and if you are lucky enough you could play Serpentshrine Portal with +4 Spell Damage. But wait, Serpentshrine has Overload and you want to play Sorcerous Substitute on 6. What to do, what to do?

Ironically, that deck is mainly about big threats and not the Spell Damage in itself. The Spell Damage is more of an enabler than the actual cause for damage.

So yeah, on paper Phoenix looks super good, but in reality Phoenix isnt even the best choice for a Spell Damage deck.

I would not consider this card overpowered. You have to wait 2 turns before you can take advantage of it’s spell dmg increase. For the most part, it only survives the one round to get the value that it provides.

But that’s how it’s used: play to prepare for a full 10-mana spellburst turn. Easy 20 face damage for a mage

Yeah but a good player can counter it. It’s really easy to counter and prevent that from happening. When people talk about the game having no skill, those are the ones that complain all the time, as they are the ones moaning and groaning about each class and how op they all are and how they all need to get nerfed, when in reality, they should expect that they may potentially face this type of issue and to adjust and prepare their decks accordingly. And yes, there will be times when card draw will prevent a player from being able to do this, but that only a fraction of the time.

SO when I see this card placed on the board, I make it a not that I have 2 rounds to find a solution to deal with it. And generally I do. And that’s why I don’t think this card is op.

What kind of deck would that be though?

Certainly not a Spell Damage deck, because they dont really have the tools to control the board to get to the point of having Phoenix out on 10 Mana and then dumping all the burst damage to face. You would easily be dead by then.

So a control-deck then? Basically a far worse Freeze Mage, since they dont need the Spell Damage to begin with. Control Shaman is not even worth mentioning.

Again, on paper the card is strong and can easily be part of an OTK but in reality its not consistent at all and you see its proposed strength only in very few situations.

Yeah, spell damage and no minion both get huge utility from this card.

Not really.

As i have stated before, spell damage decks use spell damage mainly to enable other cards and in that regard Mini-mage is arguably better than Phoenix, because of the possibility to stay on board for more than one turn. Spell Damage decks rarely go to turn 10 in the first place, because they dont have the cards for the long run.

No minion mage would be somewhat plausible, same as APM mage, but they dont need it. They have better cards.