Hmm, just had a string of games where mages were playing this every turn for about 5-6 turns. They have multiple means to copy and recast the spell; this is very frustrating to play against as a tempo player as it basically means each turn is wasted. Is there some counter to this card that I’m not aware of that is not C’thun (not in standard) or Big D? Did mage just get a “I win vs any aggro/tempo” card this expansion?
Very reminiscent of snowfall guardian for 4-6 turns, but far more frustrating (because face can’t be burned by anything other than very specific means.)
I mean I think that is meant to be an obvious implication in my question. The mage simply is stalling to get the magister online so they can get 2 mana fireballs/pyroblasts.
This deck was never a problem to deal with as tempo or aggro, but now its becoming uncharacteristically strong in this MU due to (abuse) of this one card by repeatedly copying it much in the same vein of snowfall guardian.
Its effectively a much cheaper time-out or ice block, being much better.
Protection of face is much stronger than freezing board vs aggro/tempo, especially if your entire plan is to play near zero minions and stall for X turns until you get a massive ping online and clear board + get 2 mana fireballs/pyroblasts.
Except they play a TON of minions, they literally run the entire skeleton package.
The whole point of the deck is to stall so you can use Mordresh, Denathrius, Kelthuzad, or Magister hero power to finish them off.
The Freeze spells and the pressure generated from the Skeletons is what stalls the game long enough to where Cold Alibi matters, which is near the end of the game when they start clearing boards every turn.
It depends on the deck. Solid alibi doesn’t stop all the damage, and a few turns of taking 7 can lead you to being dead pretty fast. Sure, sometimes solid alibi is better, sometimes the freeze is.
They both serve the exact same purpose in the deck.
It seems very strong, expecially when you discover extra copies.
The “problem” is the same of ice block, shadow cloak and AoE freeze: you can cast then many turns in a row.
If such mechanics had a one turn cool down, they would be more balanced
None of the things in mage by themselves are a problem. Solid Alibi I knew would be good bc of all the freeze effects available to mage all while being recastable with Dawngrasp.
The issue is Mage has a wincon in a hero card that also regains tempo and stalls. Mage is really reminding me of the Boom Mad Genius era of Control Warrior, where no individual card was broken (except for maybe Boom giving all your minions rush), but every single card on the curve was good at pretty much any single time in the game.
Blizzard needs to probably make Dawngrasp significantly weaker AND they absolutely need to push Kael’thas to 8 or 9 mana (or simply just get rid of him. He never should have been created.)
I can’t really say it’s a problem, but that’s not because of the scenario it creates. It’s more due to the fact that I rarely see the card played. A lot of Mage decks that are running the spooky Denathrius build seem to forego Solid Alibi. Maybe they’re running it and I simply don’t see it played? Overall, I believe there are more powerful cards in Mage decks that I wouldn’t even categorize as problematic. This is only based upon my own experiences though. I can imagine seeing a Mage cast this 2 or 3 turns in a row to keep themselves healthy would be really annoying.
That’s also true. Paladin currently have a bunch of support cards like kotori lightblade that have almost nothing to work with, and they have historically frequently had a bunch of strong buffs that never saw much play because of a lack of good targets.
And this is also true.
Support cards are only as good as what they are supporting.
I’d rather a card like solid alibi live and the single card inevitability die than protect dawngrasp and kill off cards like alibi.
Solid Alibi might be the only legitimate line of defence the slower (e.g., LPG) mage decks have against the quest mages of the Wild. The same goes for mirror matches, too, of course. The card is fine for Wild, haven’t a clue about how it fits into Standard.
Was about 4 games, the mage is guaranteed at least 3 copies via magister, then they can roll 1-2 copies off the copying open hand minion, they can discover a number of them. I’d say the mean # of copies if a player is trying to maximize is ~4 (its at least 3) per game, I must of been unlucky where players were consistently coming up with 5-6 thanks to discovers.
That deck runs a ton of freeze spells, purposely not playing them so you recast alibi weakens the deck a lot.
They literally are playing zero freeze spells and zero skeleton spells so you should just kill them.
Most lists of the deck run 1 discover with arcane orb. So the likelihood of discovering more is pretty low.
There’s sivara but when you draw her determines what spells she has, it’s not worth not playing wild fire, arcane intellect, cold case etc just to make sure she has alibi stored in her.
Also not all but a ton of lists are xl, meaning the consistency of drawing both alibis without going into the super late game is low.
I think you’re exaggerating how many get played in a game by a LOT.
I agree with this. Support cards should be good or bad based on what they are supporting.
Druid’s ramp shoudl only be as good as what they are ramping into, but obviously ramp alone isn’t winning the game.
Warriors armor spells are only as good as what that armor is used for, but if they dont have anything they can armor to 60 armor and still die.
The problem cards are the cards that drastically spike in power compared to the rest of the deck causing massive swings of board state, hero life, or hand/deck state.
The MO of blizzard has been for a long time that they want you to top deck that yogg box to slam “random” huge swing events to dramatically alter the game at a moments notice rather than a build up of calculated moves and guesses of the opponents hand/deck in order to win a strategic victory of playing the right cards at the right time.