I cant think of a single other card that has been less fun to play against than Tickatus. Talk about “Tier 3” or “Aggro beats it” all day long, but that doesn’t stop the card from being one of the most unhealthy cards ever added to the game.
Removes all fun from fighting another player as it currently stands. Even if this card was nerfed to cost 8 mana, it would still be incredibly boring and no-fun fighting a Tickatus deck. It’s similar to how freeze/exodia mage used to be in terms of how absolutely boring it makes this game.
I could give you a list of decks that pretty readily beat tickatus decks from every class except priest. All these decks are competitively viable against more decks than Tickatus decks are. There’s a mix of aggro, control, midrange and combo decks in there. The problem isn’t tickatus it’s you
It’s a polarizing card because it attacks the library rather than the board or the opponent’s life. On the one side of the equation you will have those who argue that discarding an opponent’s card “does absolutely nothing until the entire library is gone”. On the other side there are those who say that Tickatus is the most frustrating card ever put in the game. The reality is somewhere in-between. As an analyst I appreciate the statistical impact that discarding from a player’s library has. It is also a card that really doesn’t have a ‘counter’, and so there’s nothing the player can do to either mitigate it or prevent it … except to go full aggro and try to punch down the Warlock before it drops. The fact that Tickatus doesn’t have a counter is probably what irks people the most.
Except Tickatus decks loses against mostly everything except the greediest of decks. They are tier 3 at best. Let me tell you what needs a nerf waaaay before Tickatus : Arbor Up, Secret Passage, Self-Sharpening Blade, Nitroboost Poison and Lightning Bloom.
These are things that don’t really touch Tickatus in any functional sense unless the player pretty lucky. Good Warlock players yawn at these. I’m not saying Tickatus is broken or anything. I actually like Tickatus … when I play him. But I can see how other people would find the card to be really bad.
So can I guess your kind of new to the game and never endured paying against a mill rouge of old? Tossing only 5 cards is a lot better than burning everything!
C’thun and the primes aren’t meant to prevent to outright win you the game, but having C’thun and shuffling in a prime negates 4 of the 5 cards the first tick burns. It’s just extra cards in deck.
Then if you just avoid playing card draw, the lock hits fatigue before you do, so all you really need is any value engine to finish the lock off, or enough healing to win the fatigue game.
They are relying on burning 10 cards and hoping that to be enough that the deck can finish you off with the pretty much zero threats they can run if they expect to get that late in the game against any aggro deck.
To not die to aggro or midrange strategies, locks get so bloated on control cards that by the time they do get to double Tickatus, they have no threats left to actually win the game. The more a lock leans into destroying control decks, the worse they are at surviving anything else.
The decks that are all over ladder are the ones trying to deal with both simultaneously, and they aren’t particularly oppressive against either.
Aggro still reliably beats them because their healing is entirely controlled.
Slower decks still beat them because they sometimes can just manage their resources better, burn through all the lock removal, or Tickatus doesn’t hit anything particularly great. Hell, some of them are even built to beat the Tickatus lock in fatigue.
My highlander priest deck usually beats Tickatus locks, and that deck is slow as hell.
If you are playing a Galak Lock deck then a Highlander Priest MIGHT be able to win a long game … though that would rely almost entirely on the incompetence of the Warlock. The smart players have Rustwix in the deck and they win the fatigue game 100%. Good Warlock Tickatus decks aren’t trying to win with Tickatus. Tickatus is just there to reduce the opponent’s ability to produce threats and to put them on a clock. Good Tick decks win the games without necessarily touching fatigue.
you shouldnt need to use that many cardslots to maybe tech against this card. Tickatus is just stupid that it isnt a drawback for Warlock, at least make this a mirrored effect so that at the very least the Warlock also burns 5 cards and thinks twice if he slaps it down, they are shuffeling infinit soul gems anyway in their deck and would even be as hurt as their opponent. The card is just down right unfun to play against no matter what you play, and bacause warlock has access to so many removal they dont care what you play, i also wanna highlight Cascading disaster which is also a corrupt card that is just way to good because of Ysharaj.
You get to clear the board for absolutly nothing you burn another 5 cards and summon a 10/10 and a 8/8 on board with just the warlock corrupt cards which is basically a Deathwing powercreepsince you get more stats without discarding your hand.
No matter what you say there are a ton of players who absolutly hate this card cause alot of players dont have luxury to have every card for every class.
Warlock in its current state is just stupid to play against cause these little soul shards give them so so many free healing and the cards they are attached to arnt even bad without them, added to that they also have removal for any situation and on top of that the get to point a shotgun at your deck with tickatus cause 5 cards are alot and most of the time they will burn important cards if you havnt drawn them yet, the only couterplay is to play voul jin and hope you get it out of their hands (spoiler i run voul jin in every deck since he is released not once did i pull a tickatus, yet every single tickatus so far managed to burn an important or strong card of mine).
you could say i am just unlucky or you could say Tickatus is just unfun to play against.
I normally included galakrond for value, soul mirror, nameless one, murozond and Khaarj are just good in general for negating/copying Rustwix and getting even more cards in deck, and locks really don’t have particularly infinite threats.
And you only need to tech against Tickatus if your deck can’t kill the lock first, which isn’t that big of a deal if you build at all aggressively, or for a fast combo.
Like the riddler said, Tickatus isn’t the thing that’s beating you. It’s not the thing you really have to worry about. Your goal is to target the other stuff. Pushing through their removals, having a stronger value engine, bursting them down first with a combo… That kind of stuff.
The only decks that Tick locks generally enjoy high win rates against are very passive or value grindy decks…
I.e. Tickatus is great at ruining infinite Rustwix decks.
what is not funny on playing against priest? There is every round something happening. What is actually fun on all of these “ignore board and hit face only” decks?
What’s fun about ignore face and board only win by fatigue only" decks? Agro also doesn’t completely ignore the board it trades when it makes sense for Face damage economy by trading something smaller to keep a bigger minion alive on board for another round. Agro is more than just mindless balls to the wall nothing but the face. A good agro player know when to put on the brakes and when to put the pedal to the metal.
A class that literally has “do nothing” (overdraw is OK) as a win condition against some decks is fun?
How is it fun sitting there and watching the opponent do nothing except to heal their face, until they steal your hand and use up your best cards, because they don’t care in the slightest about their own garbage cards.
But I can see how other people would find the card to be really bad.