Please Nerf Time Warp in a different way

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Hello, I know my voice means absolutely nothing, but I can’t help it because I really feel like I need to do something about the situation. So recently, Time Warp has been mega-nerfed to the fact where it isn’t playable with any of the fun decks, and is now only playable with the OTK decks, and while this may be a good thing to those of you that don’t like fighting infinite turn mage, to me, it is so terrible that I legitimately will not return to the game.

So I played Hearthstone in a really unique way, where I pretty much only played against my brother and I pretty much only played infinite turn mage, because I found it so fun that I didn’t want to go any other deck. Of course this means that this one little nerf to Time Warp is catastrophic to me, and my favorite deck is now unusable. While yes, this might be weird, its just how I played the game, and I kind of feel like Blizzard doesn’t really care about players like me. I feel as though, Blizzard has overlooked the importance of diversity in gameplay styles that contribute to the richness of Hearthstone, and it seems like they are more focused on meta strategies so that the health of the game is easier to maintain.

Now this definitely is not to say that Time Warp didn’t need a nerf, and I feel like this is the most important part of the discussion, but the nerf did NOT need to be (Once per game). In my opinion, there are SO MANY places we could’ve stopped at before the “Once per game” nerf. For example, you could make the spell cost 8 mana, therefore it would be more challenging for me and still fun, while the opponent can build up some counterplay. You could also make it so it caps at 8 times or maybe even 5 times. Even though this would still not be the same I would prefer this change 100x compared to once per game. In fact, even if you were to combine both of these changes it would still be better than once per game! I feel like Blizzard has a tendency to think that the only way of properly nerfing a card is killing it completely. I feel as though there were many options to make sure Time Warp retained its unique flavor to the game, but instead, it feels like they thought the only way to fix things was to completely strip the card of its uniqueness and versatility.

So again, I know my voice doesn’t matter, and I’m just a number, but I urge Blizzard to reconsider the balance of embracing diversity in game strategies, and I just want you to know Blizzard, that this one little nerf cost you a player who has been playing since 2017.

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I agree, it disgusts me that hearthstone wants to shut down creative players and force everyone to play the exact same way. I’m also not gonna play this game anymore and I didn’t even run infinite turn mage

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This deck plays somewhat like Time Warp mage, it might be of interest

###Unkillable Orb Mage!
AAEBAf0EBPbWA53uA7OeBrqnBg3AAbQE8K8D97gD5dEDsvcDzvkDkoEEssEElaoF6OgF8/IFzpwGAAA=

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I think the biggest problem you are overlooking is that they already made 2 attempts throughout the history of nerfs to “Fix” timewarp;
-first by increasing quest from 6 to 8 cards
-second when grey sage parrot battlecry went from 5 cost spell to 6 cost.
They have now decided that this is the “best” way to change it. Your recommendation reallows Grey sage parrot and may actually be a Buff to the card as that deck was fairly powerful and may just overperform again.
My Fix(Possibly a programming nightmare) would be to allow 1 timewarp per quest completion(the simplest being make the reward A location called the “WayGate” with 1 durablity)and reduce its requirement to 6 spells again, this allows players to find ways to generate new “open the waygates” and have multiple extra turns but prevent the 1 timewarp goes infinite

Edit: Just remembered cards like nobleman can duplicate it, still better then “once per game” in my opinion but an oversight I did make. I still like my way to “fix” but maybe just too hard to allow a player 2 or 3 extra turns through a game without it just always finding an infinite

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Any nerf was completely unnecessary.
Time Warp has always required other cards to be of any use. It’s one reason the first deck that had Time Warp in it was EXodia Mage, and Time Warp was just a card that helped allow the player to get to the combo, and wasn’t the combo. Another unnecessary nerf, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice nerf, killed that deck though unfortunately(which I think was unintentional) If it was intentional the devs seriously need to massively reconsider what makes them change cards.

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I have a small bit of confusion, you guys are posting things like “these are unnecessary nerfs” but clearly the Hearthstone dev team doesn’t want the card to do what it was doing that is why they changed it. Time Warp was originally printed when mage had no way to get extra copies of it so the original version not saying once per game probably wasn’t a concern( as seen with Zarami being printed when bounce/clone exist and having such text). I think Time Warp being used as it was in the original combo deck where you take 1 extra turn is how they originally planned it so them adjusting the card to function as such is fine.

I would be down for them removing this clause Once per game but forcing a rope timer to only reset when active player switches so you would burn all your extra turns away if you can’t do your combo and win in a 1 standard turn timer so I don’t have to watch you struggle to kill me(purposely waste my time) for 5 mins

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that’s pretty much trash deck. You can kill yourself with ignite. lol. Well yeah rank 50.

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The Galactic Projection Orb targets enemies if possible, so this is incorrect

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This is 2024 Wild, not 2017 Standard. The meta has greatly changed where giving a mage an extra turn for 5 mana isn’t even close to as good as it was in 2017. This is where the hearthstone devs become the problem, they fail to embrace the progression of their cards and they aim to suppress the creative freedom of their players, making sure the game is as easy for them as possible to balance.

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if not, you can die from your own spell.

correct.

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Wanna nerf Time Warp. At least make it playable to play against. It is always instant concede, because how much freedom you can receive by duping the same card.

Not to mention the abuse that players didn’t have to receive.

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“You’re lying they would never nerf my t1 concede deck r—ru—right???”

“OMG THIS IS SOOOOOO STUPID REEEEEEEE”

“N-nnooo wait wait, look I can buy some packs okay I will I promise”

“nah I dont want to play today Danny… no im alright im just take a nap or something”

We are here…

Nah lets be real their still mad/trying to negotiate lol

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Time warp mage in a good list was not low tier. It was a Repeat Rank #2 / #47 / # 243 top legend+ deck.

It could, off the top of my head

  • Ice block and discover ice blocks / alibis off ETC to play infinite ice blocks.

  • Regenerate from 1 to 30/40 hp once or twice or even thrice and loop bounces

  • Discover more ice blocks to loop ice blocks off other cards

  • If you somehow played a 8/8+ minion, mage could get 30+ armor. Almost to absurd points. Druid paid 4 mana for 12 armor. Mage could get literally 120 armor + a 4 turn freeze in certain circumstances, or punish you for playing a Edwin in spellgiant rogue.

If it was a weaker one sure, but it was a very dominant deck with a long lifespan with questions asked about it. While i don’t doubt that it was a fun deck to play, For the opponent it was like trying to drive to work for 1-6 hours. Being teleported to your house every time you reached 99% of your destination. Before being tazered, frozen in a ice blocked. Infinitely looped. And then having to wait to see if your opponent tripped down the stairs to ‘win’.

And it was like the control priest problem. If you wanted the best win rate, you had to see if the mage player could accidentally jam their hand from the infinite infinite turns + potion of illusion.

Sometimes they did, and sometimes they bricked, but it sometimes took 1-4 turns to know.

Not to mention mage was in a class with Iceblock + alibi + counterspell + OBJECTION. Meaning you often played against a empty board + Reno + iceblock reno ± duplicated renos + potion of illusion renos ± 30-120 armor + 40 hp x 2. Potentially forcing you to fight 110-200 hp + iceblock renos in a NATURAL game.

Even by most armor standards, even for wild, about +20-40 armor is about the normal amount to get. Mage isn’t even a class meant to have 40-120 armor by freezing the board, but the whizzband cards + potion of illusion allowed them too.

Hell, it was like a double lifesteal that also had armor steal and kept the minion on the board, basically allowing them to punish you for playing minions.

The only answers to quest mage were often very uninteractive and uninteresting gameplay wise. Wild Hero power / Quest Druid just simply hit them in the face. Board freezes were uninteractive. it was very uninteractive gameplay. Hit a empty board until ice block until the 1-> 2 mana Rake nerf (and lack of hero power druid support killed it in a few months of inception. Even though it was a interesting unique deck idea that lasted… like 1-2 expacs in wild.)

While i could see maybe a 2 or 3 turn cap quest mage version tried with rollbacks if neccessary, i still feel the infinite turn version was kinda unhealthy as a #2 ranked legend/+ deck in the game. It’s kinda objectionable as a t2/t3 spot or t1.5.

But everyone knows to get #1 in wild, you have to have a most degenerate of the degenerate decks. The kind of stuff that turns a 30/30 into 120-240 armor.

While the mage player definitely interacted with the enemy player. The enemy player just saw empty cards. If you played around counterspell, you triggered OBJEcTION, if you played around objection, you triggered counterspell. If you played around iceblock. You triggered objection.

it got to the point rogue lists were literally running 3 mana Beneath the ground: Shuffle 3x AMBUSHES that summon a 4/4 nebulian token when/if drawn JUST to enable the ice block → 1 to 40 hp reno combo. Which usually let them poof.

Ask yourself in standard if you’d want to fight against a mage deck that went from 30 hp with iceblock to 40 hp x 2 + iceblock + both renos + 40-200 armor…

And the #2 isn’t #2 best deck. It’s the #2 rank of legend the player got playing it. I Think zarami might have had better odds just countering iceblock shenigans with it’s own second turn and hyper aggro approach?

But it wasn’t that timewarp quest mage didn’t interact with the opponent. It was kinda that the opponent felt more like a guessing mouse in a trap for a dominant deck that had it’s run. But it was really uninteractive (for the opposing player) to play against.

Even by wild standards. A 1 turn board freeze has nothing on infinite ice blocks even when the combo failed.

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you would have to play a spellt hat deals damage to both players

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This is a weird take because “Infinite Turns” was the same as an “OTK deck” in reality.

You’re basically complaining that it’s only usable in decks where you get killed in ONE turn rather than killing an opponent on INFINITE turns until they died.

The only difference between the 2 is that one was very toxic gameplay for your opponent. There was nothing fun about sitting on the other end of the infinite turns wondering if your opponent really had a killing turn coming or was just purposefully extending their turns out when they didn’t have it hoping it would just come eventually.

Think about your opponent here.
They see you cast Time Warp. They don’t concede hoping you don’t have it.
You play an extra turn. They don’t concede hoping you don’t have it.
You play an extra turn. They don’t concede hoping you don’t have it.
You play an extra turn. They don’t concede hoping you don’t have it.
You play an extra turn. They don’t concede hoping you don’t have it.
You play an extra turn. They don’t concede hoping you don’t have it.
You play an extra turn. They don’t concede hoping you don’t have it.
Finally, they concede assuming you may get it, but it’s not worth their time sitting around doing literally nothing in a game but spectating minute after minute.

If you didn’t have it, this entire thing was extremely toxic and not fun for an opponent.

Thus, most opponent’s just quit the game immediately upon you playing your 2nd turn because it wasn’t worth waiting around.

With an OTK deck, it’s 1 turn and you don’t need to sit around wondering.

It deserved to get nerfed to 1 turn only. Should have happened years ago.

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