Mage is arguably the most complained about thing on this forum right now… yet the recent VS report shows that their decks are tier 3 at every level of play.
What is it about certain decks that makes players hate them?
How can such a large majority of players be completely oblivious to what is and isn’t actually good?
Someone explain this to me… I’m actually lost.
Personally I’ve always found mage to be really unfun to play against.
Nobody likes losing of course but historically most mage decks tend to have win conditions that add insult to injury, be it repeatedly freezing your board and throwing spells at your face, repeatedly freezing your board and OTKing you or summoning 4 giants in one turn and swinging the game.
It’s pretty obvious why folks get annoyed at conjuror mage, although I agree they aren’t a problem, when they get the nuts it just feels like bs, simple!
When you can’t answer a t4 giant and they get to trade with it ,effectively heal it and put an addittional 2/2 and 3 either 7/8 taunts or 8/8s on the board you instantly lose the game and that’s not much fun (and to be fair the complainers do have a point , in that that’s not great design).
Losing a game like that feels like you never had a chance, even if when looked at over a large number of matches it doesn’t happen very often, folks tend to forget the games where they remove the giant with a toxfin etc. because that’s what “should” happen.
The best advice to those complaining about any deck is “go play that deck”, it’s amazing how a few games with an opop! deck will show you it’s faults and weaknesses.
It really isn’t to me, but I guess thats just my opinion. I have always found hunter way more annoying. Face decks in general are stupid to me, and now a face deck is tier 1. Even then, i dont think a deck should be nerfed on how I FEEL about it. Nerfs should happen in terms of power, not because of peoples insecurities.
At least mage takes some skill to pilot. Hunter decks are usually just face, and put you in lose lose situations… (like bomb hunter)
Decks which are able to ‘cheat’ out big boards are disproportionately disliked by the player base on these forums.
Ever since Genn & Baku, for instance, Big Priest is the most complained about deck (and I’m part of it) but has never been #1 during that time as Even Shaman, Baku Paladin, Kingsbane Aggro Rogue, Baku Rogue, and Murloc Shaman have all been more powerful at times during this time frame.
Post-nerf Cubelock would still have a complaint thread here and there, etc.
I just think large boards well ahead of curve are just the number one disliked mechanic in the game.
I guess that makes sense… but thats what card games are about. Getting ahead by any means necessary.
People dont consider playing a murloc warleader on a board full of murlocs a swing… but didnt that effectively become "3/3 , deal 12 damage) for 3 mana?
If its a perspective issue, i’d hope players could see that there are plenty of classes that have insane swing turns when using multiple cards.
Skill has nothing to do with sentiment. Once you understand that, you can stop being lost.
Sounding poetic has nothing to do with being correct either.
You could easily argue that a negative sentiment towards a deck is a skill issue. If you consistently just have a defeatist mentality instead of trying to improve, then you can see sentiment and lack of skill correlate quite nicely.
Your title summarily categorizes those who complain about teir three decks as unskilled. How dismissive is that? Just because some people dislike a card or deck doesn’t mean they lack skill. Heck, they could just simply dislike the whole class, regardless for how that class’s deck performs. Can you understand that? Feelings and impressions are different from skill. Your hypothetical assumes that everyone allows their feelings to cloud their judgment or skill. That’s just flat wrong.
Fair enough. I shouldnt assume that everyone who complains about this is unskilled, but i’d still wager it’s the majority.
My main question back is, if a player dislike a class for sentimental reasons, do you think that entitles that player to ask for nerfs? Because I couldnt disagree more… and every thread (That i’ve seen) about the “dislike” of conjurers calling is paired with “When will this be nerfed?”
It’s pretty uncommon in my experience for people to be frustrated by things they win against, but it does happen I guess.
An issue with swing turns arises if a deck has access to several ones, which are pretty consistent (Spellstones+MassRezz with Vargoth and Shadow Visions) and can happen very early (Barnes).
Murloc Shaman needs to dominate the board to win.
Big Priest overwhelms the board several times and locks the other player out of the game.
Swing turns are important to have in card games.
But building the deck around those turns, and having access to at the very, very least, 4, becomes questionable.
I constantly win against Big Priest. I still hate the deck. And not the class itself.
Still don’t see how “skill” comes into question. If unskilled is not having an answer on turn 4 or 5 for a 8/8 then there are lots of unskilled player.
An people hate being steam rolled. Plus everyone is entitled to jump on here an ask for whatever they want [won’t change anything].
Like the guy above said it becomes a deck sequencing simulator rather than a skill simulator when that crap spell conjurers is concerned. If you cant kill the giant on turn 4/5 then you’re dead. There’s no come from behind counterplay. It’s just straight up dead.
There’s no real disruption for it which makes it an incredibly bland mechanic. Even if it doesnt end up used on a giant its still a 3 mana summon 2x worth of stats, where x is whatever the mana cost of what its used on is which is absurd
I think it’s actually because Mages and other tier 3 decks loses a lot and gets left behind in the lower ranks.
Therefore you will notice people in rank 20 say that ranked gameplay is filled with mages and other tier 3 decks even if it’s clearly not true.
They rarely bump into an actually good deck because a good deck just doesn’t exist at that rank.
I speculate that the main reason has to do with the snowballing effect. Decks that can quickly snowball out of control tend to receive a lot of hate. Remember undertaker hunter? That deck required an immediate answer otherwise it quickly gets out of hand. It was so egregious that undertaker was nerfed relatively quickly. Other snowballing decks are Big Priest and Jade Druid. Those two also got a lot of hate for the same reason. They bring an avalanche threats that crescendo turn after turn and can quickly replenish if the board gets wiped. I’m not suggesting that conjurer mage resembles the same as Jade or Big Priest, but I think it’s fair to say that it receives similar distaste from some players.
As for the entitlement issue, this is a public forum where people are free to express their sentiments about this game. Who’s to judge whether their statements are meritorious or more deserving of server space? Anyone who is willing to put forth the time to type a message and endure its scrutiny by the public is entitled to speak.
Except that you can see that mage is tier 3 at every level of play. Even Legend. Good theory though!
Yeah, those are good mage players. The deck require a lot of skill.
I am pretty confident that deck has a lot more bad players are stuck in low ranks than say a class like hunter
Preference/playing experience is the MOST viable justification for nerfs by FAR and maybe even ultimately the only one. The majority of HS players are “unskilled” and one thing any company selling products cares about is to satisfy their customers.
Balance is secondary. Although people like to claim it is for balance to sound objective. But the real reason why balance is an issue is that it does correlate to playing experience. I would argue, playing experience comes first and when both playing experience and balance do not coincide playing experience should take priority.
Thats why they break it down by rank… most players look at ranks 4 -1 and at Legend to determine balance, because anything below that is usually just user error as you are saying. So looking at ranks 1-4 and at legend you can see the decks are tier 3 in both those brackets.
Players that can easily get rank 5 have pretty consistent play and make a lot less mistakes, so its a good place to look at.
After playing against it a bunch, I think I prefer conjurer’s calling existing over cube. The results you get are randomized, so you can’t abuse charge with it, and the only consistent results it gives are from giants.
The twinspell aspect of it is a little annoying, but it also isn’t a body that sometimes demanded resources to clear before duplicating the minion it ate the way cube did. Plus, other than khadgar, there isn’t a way to make it instantly generate 4-6 big charge minions the way cube could.
Yes, conjurer’s calling is very strong, and will probably remain a mage staple for a long while, but it isn’t unbeatable by any stretch (and a turn 4 giant is not that hard to stop).