Standard Players can't build Mage correctly

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Every “meta” deck of Mage lacks card draw. (Spooky Mage 40 card version, Spooky Mage 30 card version, Burn Mage etc.)

The only card draw card that these decks have is Volume Up, and that’s it.

Of course one would think that that is because of the abundance of value that you get of of just 1 Volume Up. But what happens when the 2 copies of Volume Up happen to be in the bottom half part of the deck.

Suddenly your sole game plan, is survival. Only thing you can do is resource generate enough value to help you survive until you draw your win conditions,
…
Manually!
…
Moreover that resource generation gets real tight if you happen to be unlucky enough to not have infinitize in hand as well.

Right now the Mage decks are super inconsistent because of the difference in power level of the classes cards. This is why you’ll see high rank players put Finley on a 30 card version.

Something which you mostly don’t see in other classes 30 cards decks.

Your ideal start is always:

Turn 1) Pass or drop a relatively weak minion (probably a discover effect).

Turn 2) Cosmic Keyboard

Turn 3) If second Coin + Cold case/ Coin + Volume Up

Turn 4) if you are first Cold Case/ Volume Up

If you get this combo, your chances of winning increase by a mile compared to not getting it.

After turn 4 Volume Up becomes a “too much resource generation to play” card. Because of the decks discover nature you won’t find an easy spot to Volume Up after 4.

It feels like the whole deck is build around 3 cards. Volume Up, Cold Case, Cosmic Keyboard. There is no matchup where you mulligan these cards away. Even against aggro, because of the powerlessness of the rest of the deck, you are still willing to wait until turn 4 because of the power of these cards.

Even Priest, where its class identity is lack of draw, runs more card draw by 3x compared to Mage. (Handmaiden, Cathedral, Clergy)

Should Mage get some good card draw cards? Because you can’t afford to have Arcane Intellect in this fast meta. And how does Priest have more card draw where based on its class identity is supposed to have a limitation on that?

2

The value generation in some mage decks is their draw, notice that the deck i currently play has value and draw.

discoveryville

Class: Mage

Format: Standard

Year of the Wolf

2x (1) Costumed Singer

1x (1) Sir Finley, Sea Guide

2x (1) Suspicious Alchemist

2x (2) Anonymous Informant

2x (2) Arcanologist

2x (2) Audio Splitter

1x (2) Infinitize the Maxitude

2x (2) Prismatic Elemental

2x (2) Spellcoiler

2x (3) Counterspell

2x (3) Energy Shaper

2x (3) Explosive Runes

2x (3) Objection!

1x (3) Photographer Fizzle

2x (3) Remixed Dispense-o-bot

1x (4) Commander Sivara

1x (4) Volume Up

1x (9) Grand Magister Rommath

AAECAdT8BQblsASp3gSjkAWs0QXQ+AXR+AUM558ExqAE3LkE2tAE/uwEvO0EgJYFqpgF26EF6MUFh+QF6OgFAAA=

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

3

Problem being, those “some mage decks” are only secret based decks. Shouldn’t Mage have some generally good card draws?

4

Sounds like the same old thing as always.
If they give Mage too good of draw, then Mage’s decks become “too good”, period. Anytime mage is top tier it gets nerfed to the cellar.
But; right now, they just have weak decks by comparison, because Team 5 has printed too many classes and has zero design space left. Mage isn’t weak, just less busted than other classes.
It’s Mage’s turn to be garbage for laddering, and this will be the case going forward.
There are too many classes, and really only three playstyles, (No matter what anyone wants to imagine.) and so at least one or two classes will be unplayable every expansion.

5

If you really want more consistent draw just run arcane intellect and volume UP.

Yes, it’s that simple.

The card curve well on turn 3 after cosmic keyboard.
I would even say that it would be unviable before the miniset but now there are many matchups were you should just act as a combo deck.

Also don’t get afraid of play volume UP without the finale effect. There are many times it’s more important to just keep going.

There is also a slower secret mage list out there that just don’t appear anywhere due to having too little players using and many sites failing to read it as a different deck rather than a distortion.

Here is a list to check it the slower secret mage:
AAECAceaBgbonwTbuQS95ASjkAXipAXR+AUM558ExqAE2tAEo+QE/uwEvO0E/5IFgpMFkJYFq5gFp

And yes. Spooky mage is a bad deck. People should not even be using it.

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6

Almost all Mage lists run Suspicious Alchemist, Prismatic Elemental, and Infinitize the Maximitude. Which is a ton of generation, leading to less draw being required in the decks.

7

They turned it right back into slot machine crap, that everyone complained about before, because they have no design space at all, thanks to 11 classes.

8

I wont hesitate to claim that the devs only have partly control of released, nerfed, boosted, banned cards. HECK even the nature of a given set (keywords, special cards like quests, locations and) of each set released can often be traced back to corporate HQ moneymongering approving.

Alot has to be cleared with psychologists and analytics that block or force through whatever earns the most money. Its their job. A disgusting job when not paired with regard for game balance or customers.
Also a lot of customers are children, but that doesnt stop Blizz.

A card is to strong but earns alot/uses up dust from players. NO NERF. Its that simple.
A card should be banned? NO BAN, if too costly in refunds.
A card should be boosted? NO BOOST, if other cards or classes will be affected moneywise.

They do have those employées ! If theyre not doing what I claim above…Then why are they employed at Blizz?

And It´s not just HS. Those people are all over the gaming/gambling industries. And also on and behind TikTok, YT and so on. But HS is easypeasy to control.
A big shady business like this…You can be dead sure that if it was revealed to the public how much that is being controlled by greed and manipulation, Blizzz would suffer a Crazy Heavy blow publicly.

9

You never win solely on resource generation though. How are you meant to get closer to your win condition when you don’t have a way to draw it. Being forced to put Taelan on the deck is the only way to draw your win condition on Mage decks now. And it is ridiculous.

Let me add that Mage doesn’t even have a clear win condition anymore. You would expect the devs to tone down on the card draw, only if there was an Archmage Antonidas type of win condition on Mage.

Rommath: Situational, Way too slow, doesn’t win the game unless you are playing a light show deck (which you won’t cause it’s too weak)

Kel’Thuzad: Even more situational, even more slow, only wins the game if your opponent is an idiot and hasn’t dirty ratted your hand by turn 20.

Manastorm: Requires way too many key pieces for the otk to work. Which you probably won’t draw fast enough because of the lack of draw on Mage. (Bonelord + Manastorm + Solid Alibi(probably the first spell after Manastorm + at least 3 Pyroblasts in hand make it 4 if it is renathal and 5 for blood dk)

Vexallus + Aegwynn: Burn Mage is a weak archetype. You need to highroll Aegwynn into Vexallus with the effect to actually win. And of course … drawing them manually. And of course not using your arcane bolts before you get the combo.

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10

I still say that mage has been made this way because there is no design space left.
Team 5 can pretend that diversity still exists by saddling some classes with decks that win by pure blind luck.

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11

To be fair people play spooky mage anyway even with better mage decks existing.

I atleast can come with 2/3 lists better than spooky mage so people using this probably just hate priest so much they don’t Care about winrate.

It’s basically an error to judge mage by VS status right now because they’re not able to hit legend development.

Burn mage should be running a more combo centric build with more draw.

And secret mage should be going in a value oriented builds for standard for the first time in history for the deck.

Both caused hollow hunter making it really dificult for agressive decks to prosper without a burst turn.

12

they do it because people LOVE this type of deck and play it no matter if the deck is competitive or not

these card generation cards are fun and often if not always end up being extremely popular

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13

No, they are addictive in the same way that gambling is. They aren’t fun, they are intentionally made to hook your brain into the game.

If you like gambling, go to a real casino.

14

uh in the real world these cards dont ask you to put money when you play them unlike your fantasy

and playing with these cards is fun

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15

It’s not about the money, it’s about how the brain reacts.

The same pathways that fire for gambling addiction are activated even without the money.

No, it ruins the fun. They are toxic. They are the single worst thing about the game.

16

You know; I remember you complaining about slot machine cards back when mage had tier 2/1 decks using almost the same discovery style.
You need to decide what side of the fence you are on.
The style is solitaire play, and it always has been.
Team 5 uses it because there is no other deck they can give mage anymore, thanks to their greed.
And I would love to know who “they” is.
More players have complained about this style of deck than any other.

17

you just hate people having fun thats why you keep repeating"gaaaaaaambling"

for some reason you think there must be something wrong with people having fun

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18

what? i always post about how much i like these type of cards and want to have at least 1 in standard to play with

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19

Why everybody here exagerate so much?

  1. Decks based on randoness can also be engaging and take some skill to play.

We had many during the history with the most notorious probably being cyclone mage around 5 years ago.

Not everything is Black or white with this.

  1. Mage decks development kinda froze on time.

There are better mage decks than what you gonna see on VS and other sites but most people aren’t interested at all.

It’s the same type of stagnation paladin did face before the miniset. Basically no one is really interested in playing better mage decks until something new comes.

So they did stop refining mage decks autogether and lists are almost the same as pre miniset despite of the Room for get better.

There even still people who didn’t do even the simplest improvements like put starpower in their decks despite of being one of the strongest mage cards nowadays.

  1. For the OP.
    Just run both arcane intellect and volume UP if you want more consistent draw. It’s better than it looks.
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20

Hearthstone has a spectrum of randomness.

There’s randomness like original Yogg-Saron, which can throw the game as easily as it solves your problems. There’s no skill here.

There’s randomness like Thief Rogue with Tess, which randomly targets everything but only plays things you played, often meaning you can slightly control what happens. A tiny amount of skill here.

There’s randomness like Concoctions, whose pool of options is so small that it’s often good. Mostly thanks to Discover through Potion Belt. But figuring out what to do with the options you generated randomly (Putricide and the 1-mana 1/2) introduces skill.

There’s randomness like Rune of the Archmage, which almost never punishes you since it’s designed to only target enemies. Zero skill. No deckbuilding skill required, either. Just plug n’ play.

There’s a sweet spot of skill requirement that you can find in Thief Rogue, which has to work around things it generates purely randomly. There’s no skill in the generation, but plenty in the piloting.

There’s no skill required in things like Yogg-Saron or Rune of the Archmage.

There’s a sliver of skill required in things like Casino Mage, because you do have to be able to read. Or at least recognize card art. Discover paradoxically increases skill requirements, by making you choose 1 of 3 options best suited for your game, and decreases the demands put on the pilot, by presenting you with a deterministic choice between a mere 3 cards rather than just tossing you a random card and saying “deal with it.”

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