While i understand that many here gonna try to argue against because it isn’t something a player can “feel” while playing it is something that is easy explained by MATH.
How exactly you plan to deal SPELL DAMAGE when you spells are VERY LOW DAMAGE ones?
Yes. I saying that most spells we have to deal damage with are bad damage wise.
Runic orb
The card can be considered “solid” because there isn’t anything better but 2 mana deal 2 damage that gets replaced by another spell is just bad.
You would really just even prefer 2 mana deal 3 damage without any upside(that would still a bad card but not as much).
Why?
It turns into a self fulfilling prophecy.
You gonna many times need another card to combine with it to remove anything you try.
So it replacing itself not only not gives you any card advantage because it’s damage sucks but it also turns into a tempo loss because you gonna spend mana on another card to finish removing whatever you need most of the time.
Mask of C’thun
The entire random damage series of spell(arcane missiles, cinderstorm, eye of C’thun , Mask of C’thun) should be revised at this point (except eye of C’thun if you consider that it is a gimmick for a win condition).
Why?
All of those spells are just worse versions of arcane missiles and the bigger the card gets the worse it gets.
1 mana deal 3 random damage
3 mana deal 5 random damage
5 mana deal 7 random damage
7 mana deal 10 random damage
It doesn’t matter how you look at this.
Cinderstorm isn’t good at all and mask of c’thun gets a even worse mana/damage ratio than it.
Too little direct damage spells.
If most of they being bad(proof both by data and simple math) weren’t enough.
We have only 4 direct damage spells:
Runic orb/fireball.
Conclusion:
Even with the fantastic pool of spell damage minions we have.
Mostly spells capable of deal damage to the opponent hero are so bad that the minions bonuses make they barely “usable” in general.
Creating a deck that just has a very weak win condition.
I think that they’re looking to make use of Spell Damage in ways that aren’t just increasing the power of your nukes.
I’m not saying they’re all amazing cards, but Ras and Cram Session are two very good ways of expoiting spell damage in non-burn manners. There’s also the 6/6 that summons a copy of itself if you have spell damage present.
More things like that being added can definitely turn Spell Damage Mage into a deck that leverages minions just as well as it does spells, while still keeping the option open to end games with those sweet Mega Fireball finishers.
Personally, I love the idea of using Spell Damage to do things other than just increase the raw damage of my Spells because it greatly increases the versatility of the mechanic. Versatility is good.
I don’t mind the use of spells in killing me like it seems so many do. There’s something about being killed, without a board, from a player’s hand that infuriates people and feels unfair. More ways for mage to be viable is always welcome in my book and in the book of a myriad of players.
it’s extremely easy to go from it being bad to it being oppressive. That’s the same for every ccg that tries to intergrate those kind of decks. I’m pretty confident that even a single direct damage face nuke (so 2 copies of it in the deck plus higher chance to discover it from stuff) may be enough to actually tilt the balance.
That’s because in a finite damage deck, there’s a mountain of difference from going from like 20 or so damage to 30 or so damage from spells, easily done even with the introduction of another 3 damage nuke.
So, i would be heavily opposed to direct face nukes entering the pool. What the deck needs, imo, is more, nondamage, synergies, similar to how Cram session benefits from Spell power.
Or, alternatively, go the route that other card games have gone, with giving early aggro starts, so you rely on starting with the aggro to push early damage, and finish off with the burn. That’s the traditional way of fast burn decks.
as for your card assesment:
imo, runic orb is an amazing card. you are talking about 2 mana deal 3 being better, but there’s no way i would ever see “1 damage” as equally good as a full card that you get to choose.
The difference from 2 damage to 3 damage is so big regarding use it as removal that it makes the spell bad.
Alternatively if the number of spells discovered/or even if they did change for just random generation did also escale with spell damage then it would be actually good as atleast a value generation.
Because then and only then you would end getting actual card advantage.
Runic orb is the good old noob trap dificult enough to understand that people fail to see why it is bad.
If you end needing 2 cards to make this work as removal the card ends being just bad in the actual state.
And since you’re giving it spell damage to work as removal or damage the card is always bad.
yes, 3 damage is better than 2 damage, but apart from actually having access to cheap minions to buff said damage to 3 already* (and develop a threat on board and discover a card in process) you are also underestimating the cost of discovering a spell.
*if needed that is, other times 2 damage is plenty, especially to get rid of 3/2s or for other stuff like pinging shields or finishing off things and etc.
discovering a card is usually costed at least at 1 mana, so you basically have a 1 mana deal 2 and a 1 mana discover a card, all bundled up together in one card (which further increases cost of cards because of how card advantage works: more effects in 1 card = better). Which is actually a very good card all in all together.
I think spell damage mage is actually meant to be a minion focused deck, where minions contribute to a large chuck of damage mage does. Spell damage is there to help the few spells mage does run. Edit: consider aegwynn. She only makes sense if mage runs minions.
If you want a deck where almost all the damage comes from spells, that’s no minion mage. No minion mage doesn’t start with spell damage, but they can generate extra stuff, and that extra stuff adds to your damage potential in lieu of spell damage.
I’m largely in the same boat. I feel like Spell Damage Mage is set up to be perfectly capable of ending games with super-boosted Fireballs, but is largely build around tempo pieces that are required to get them to that point.
What really makes me like Mage is that I can sit back, loom at these toolkits (Secrets, Freeze, Spell Dmg, Hero Power) and think of a dozen ways to combine them in different directions. The synergies obviously stand out to a degree, but only as parts of a whole that still needs to be built and executed. The thought process of sifting through that and seeing what jives best together makes me happy.
I’d also agree with you taht spell Damage Mage lacks, well, good burn spells, but i think there are only so much burn you can print for a class at once, lest they achieve a critical mass of It.
I started playing Very late this season, only 3 days before the end, and Spell Damage Mage carried me somewhat well till D3.
What i think It needs is more synergies. Right now you have a handful of spell Damage cards being leveraged to get draw and cheap damage, and that’s It. Feels like whenever you don’t have one of these in play, the deck slows to a crawl, and when you have them but not ways to leverage the SD, It does exactly the same.
It’s Very dependent on certain interactions, which leave It, IDK, inconsistent? Is that the word?
Spelldamage should,at least in theory,favor low cost low damage spells over higher cost high damage spells. The lower damage spells get a bigger increase relatively.
Right now we only have 1 low cost low damage spell that can go face, 2 damage for 2 mana discover a spell. Its not ideal and that spell alone maybe isnt enough.
If we still had frostbolt on top of this then spell damage mage would probably be a pretty decent deck.
As far as burn goes, Arcane Missiles is sorely missed. Between discover, natural inclusion and 2x from Violet Spellwing, tossing out 3 or 4 7+ damage AMs was not to be underestimated.
We got Shooting Star in place of it which, combine with Spell Dmg is actually a pretty darn good tempo piece, but we lost that much burn potential in the later game without really getting any kind of minion power to make up for it.
Here’s a hero power and freeze mage variant I’ve been having success with today. It has Yogg-Saron and Mordresh as win conditions should you need them (you probably will). Do you see any room for improvement?
I love the idea of spell damage mage. I even made a post asking what it needs to be better, but I have never gotten it to work very well.
Maybe we will see some support.
persoanlly i would replace ring toss with wandmakers, simply because wandmaker does offer a pretty great selection of spells for this kind of deck, even the “bad pulls” of stuff like snap freeze are cards you are inherently running.
and replace Sayge with something else (Alex for burst maybe?).
Alternatively, maybe swap deep freezes for those wandmakers and keeping Sayge since those seem kinda slow in the current meta.
Also not sure RSW is worth it over regula AI since you have about an even split of minions and spells, meaning that on average it’s the same thing but with equal chances to both backfire or reward you with a +/-2 mana cost.
I’d argue the RTs are too useful to remove and that Sayge is as well for her spell generation and versatility. RFS is mostly for draw (duh) and to corrupt RTs. I’ll definitely consider this, if my luck runs out.
I’m working on something at the moment. Had some success with it before bed last night but haven’t had the chance to play today yet. Essentially reworking my Hero Power list to drop the HP stuff for now in lieu of more early-game tempo.
I’ve been running a Wildfire / Spell Damage deck that I enjoy and I have found Aegwynn to be a solid addition. Getting that +2 spell damage in sequence multiple times (often on minions that ALREADY have spell damage bonuses) makes for a potent ongoing bonus. It clears boards and wins games. It’s not a bad deck - at least in my experience - so I was a bit puzzled when VS called it the “worst deck in the format”.
“Essentially reworking my Hero Power list to drop the HP stuff for now in lieu of more early-game tempo.”
Seems like that would make it better against highly aggressive decks but worse against everything else.