Secret mage rant

Frost lich jaina was elemental mage. I’m waiting for malygos otk warrior.

it was pretty darn good, seeing a top 3 Legend finish before rotation. Now its entirely too slow.

It’s been hinted at a couple times in this thread but the truth is this: if Mage has anything streamlined and aggressive/effective, it gets complained about more than any other class because they don’t just curve out minions, they often achieve their ends with Spells. Like Mages. Imagine that.

To combat this, they give Mage rAnDoMnEsS and oddball archetypes like Cyclone and Spell Mage, which for the past year have all fallen pretty flat. Highlander Mage is generally accepted because outside of Yogg Box, Reno and tossing out PoC a couple turns early, it just curves out minions like any other midrange deck out there.

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Spot on assessment. If Mage has anything that has curve and synergy it gets assassinated.

you missed the second half of that post…

I didn’t miss it. Without Yogg, reno, and Zeph, the deck is trash. Curve doesn’t matter if the deck sucks.

many decks are trash without good cards, you need to get over the fact that certain archetypes arnt always going to be viable. and if you so desperately need to play Secret Mage then why not give Wild a try? its one of the most successful decks in the format and also one of the cheapest.

I do play it in Wild, but Mage has exactly one viable deck in Standard and if you don’t like RNG then you are out of luck.
Meanwhile Hunter has three powerful decks in Standard, as usual.

youre not making sense. play a deck that has fewer RNG components to it then? why limit your self to mage? and if you REALLY need to play a competitive mage deck in Standard than youre going to need to conform to what is viable, LIKE ALWAYS.

I play mage because mage is what I have. Why isn’t that okay with you?
As for “conforming”? That is partly what this post is about. There is no tempo mage, there is no secret mage, and there is no other mage in Standard beyond Highlander, unless you want to play spell mage which is crap, and also completely RNG dependent, even while other classes enjoy multiple viable decks.
Tempo mage gets slammed hard every single time it is even remotely good and that is the essence of my post.
Apologies if that troubles you.

I play mage because mage is what I have.

you’ve been playing this game for years and you only have cards for 1 class? okay… even though Blizzard basically gave DH away for free? Nah, don’t buy it.

Why isn’t that okay with you?

did you make this topic in search of feedback? or were you just looking to get your pet issue stroked?

As for as “conforming”? That is partly what this post is about. There is no tempo mage, there is no secret mage, and there is no other mage in Standard beyond Highlander, unless you want to play spell mage which is crap, and also completely RNG dependent, even while other classes enjoy multiple viable decks.

Since when has the distribution of meta relevant archetypes been uniform?
Never! Some class’ always enjoys more competitive archetypes than others, and Mage has been one of the more fortunate ones over the years. And a deck representing a 60% winrate (HL Mage, misread what you wrote. The same logic still applies to SM) wouldn’t achieve that level of success if it relied on RNG alone.

Tempo mage gets slammed hard every single time it is even remotely good and that is the essence of my post.

Tempo has been Mage’s bread and butter in Standard for years. just because they want to push mage in a certain direction doesn’t mean that Tempo has left the class, either. I mean, Spell Mage looks like a tempo deck to me and apparently has a positive winrate. but no, you want secret mage. fine, go build a secret mage in Standard… nothing is stopping you.

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So; useless replies notwithstanding, I appreciate the constructive replies I received.
It doesn’t change my opinion about Standard mage one whit, but I do appreciate that some players took the time to respond with thoughtfulness.
I hope that Blizzard sees fit to print new minions that interact with Mage secrets again. If they are good for Rogue and Hunter, then they are good for Mage as well.

Exactly, Secret Mage is a deck in wild. One of, if not the, best decks in the format. They cant just try to force it back into standard with wild SM at its current power level, thats a recipe for disaster. Nerfs for wild SM would have to accompany any further support for the archetype.

Okay…

Try to put yourself at the perspective of an mage or priest player.

You would like to your class to have only one deck that is considered solid for 2 years or more?

From time to time some random fringe deck appears at the metagame mainly because of specific matchups but in fact the only decks that are solid enough for those 2 classes are the former ones is an actual problem.

That because make cards for other archtypes gets dificult due to how easy to break those 2 decks.

  1. Highlander mage is an deck that could be called tech mage due to how easy it can shift cards to adapt to metagame changes. It’s literally impossible to put it out of the standard metagame.
    Give the mostly minor boost to it would mean create a meta tyrant.

  2. Ressurection priest is so polarized that i would be surprised if an ressurect priest player thinks that he is actually playing any game. Make the deck evolve only a little would create inbalance due to how polarized it already is.

In other words:
Those 2 decks restrict design and anything that needs to be designed around they gonna be either trash or extremely situational.

They didn’t "support " the archetype. That’s just where all of the rotated cards landed.
All of Wild is busted. If you nerf one thing it only makes something else ridiculously busted. In other words: Standard 2.0

I’m trying to find a spot to drop my anchor, but I’m not sure I understand your argument. sorry :confused:

That doesnt mean they should break it more. Yes, wild is wild. That doesnt mean that it should be completely ignored when it comes to card design, especially for a top tier archetype.

The argument regarding mage is that the deck is an all rounder of such level that anything that needs to be designed around it will be either trash or extreme situational.

In other words as long as highlander mage exists any other mage deck will be either trash or extreme metagame dependant.

It is the literal definition of design space restriction.

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it is broken by design. How on earth would they break it “more”?

How can they break it more? By buffing T1 deck in it! Any secret synergy for mage needs to be handled very delicately going forward with wild SM at its current power level.

this doesn’t make sense. Highlander Mage isn’t always going to be the archetype. expansions come and go, so do archetypes. Standard is limited to what is Standard-legal. I just don’t understand what your argument is?