I honestly don't know why people think that axing the Vargoth + Time Warp interaction would change anything. The interaction is an overkill mechanic, emphasis on over. It's not like as a mage I'd suddenly not be able to get lethal with the original 2 turn non-vargoth win using Antonidas or the normal Time Warp giant version.
If you lost to the 3 turn version, you also lost to the 2 turn version. It makes absolutely no difference.
Getting rid of Vargoth isn't going to change that. Dirty Rat can still miss against the mage and if you're facing the 2 turn win giant version even if you hit a giant they will still kill you with the quest.
It's not like you were doing a whole lot with your turn in the old model after spending 6 mana on Thaurissan. Playing a couple Novice Engineers, Loot Hoarders, or tapping after dropping him is more or less like a 9 mana do nothing turn. Whether you were spending 6 mana or 9 mana you could also always drop a Plague of Flames first, dealing with all or some of your threats. I really don't think the mana difference in this scenario is as big of an issue as it's being made to seem.
Also keep in mind Mecha'Thun is most likely winning against control decks and other otk decks, and generally losing to aggro and midrange. Spending 9 mana to drop a high priority target 5/5 and a 1/5 usually isn't that punishing against slow decks. In most slow matches if you lost the game playing 9 mana in a turn for a single setup turn then you usually lost that game in normal scenarios pre-nerf. Having 3 extra mana for one setup turn wasn't that amazing in slow games.
To everyone saying -1 attack for a DH card here, minus one there, isn't enough, bare in mind that multiple nerfs are happening to the class at once, which does add up in reducing both their speed and damage output in standard (DH in wild is just epic lul compared to the defensive tools we have).
So if you look at just one of the nerfs in a vacuum it may not seem like a lot remember that their early game, mid game, and even late game have all been nerfed in one batch.
It's actually a bigger inconvenience than you're giving it credit for. Remember, you are doing next to nothing (both tempo-wise and survivability-wise) when you are dinking around generating random spells, the one caveat for this statement being when you discover a discounted spell you can play right away.
This means that aggro and midrange, control to an obvious lesser degree, are able to pressure your face. Spending mana simply to add more mana (cards) to your hand affects the game in no way until you get average or good cards and start spending that mana to deal with the opponent's threats.
A really good example of this is that 5 mana generate 3 spells card (Cabalist's Tome?). Why do you think most non-Quest non-otk mage decks didn't use that? One reason is because you spent so much mana at the end of the day, essentially doing nothing but generating and adding cards to your hand, that you massively fell behind on board and were at that much more risk to dying.
Tl;dr - At the end of the day you spend mana to add more cards that cost mana to your hand, which again you have to spend quickly. Adding 2 additional spells to that actually is a big deal because it slows you down a lot and makes you more at risk for dying if you don't just generate cheap spells 100% of the time.
The Vargoth interaction for the quest is irrelevant. You already win in 2 turns with Antonidas and giants. The 3rd turn just lets you win with a different flair of combo, but breaking the interaction with Vargoth means you just go back to the traditional 2 turn win conditions anyway.
The thing is not every variant of quest mage wants to just suddenly chuck almost every rng fiesta generating card in their deck just to make the quest work.
That tanks any form of competitive consistency. You have to remember you still have to have time to spend all of that mana, while surviving, clear threats, cycling, etc, even in control vs control mirrors.
There's reasons why you still don't see bad spell generation cards in Quest Mage player decks.
Honestly the 3 turns thing is rather irrelevant. I've played some Vargoth Quest Mage decks for some meme Malygos stuff, but the vast majority of decks just use the standard 2 turn win method. It's not like Vargoth suddenly made Antonidas or giants able to win in Quest Mage. The 3rd turn is pretty much just there to allow you to change up what type of combo you'd like to win with.
Agree about DH Warlock, but I hated playing against that anyway.
The Mecha'Thun change isn't really going to change that much. Swap out Bloom with Drakkari Enchanter and the deck works exactly the same as normal.
I get where you're coming from, but 0 mana for a swingy tech card is too much of a good thing. Even back in the day when we used BGH to take down something big you still had to spend 3 mana for it.
0 mana Pact is not just "Kill a demon", but essentially "Kill a demon and then get to play your own 5/6/7 mana worth of cards for instantaneous tempo reversal."
Why would you run double Galvanizer, and Mecha'Thun, and Cataclysm, and Emperor (5 cards to reduce 4 mana & execute the combo) when you can accomplish the same thing without the Galvanizers for one card less in the combo?
tbh, big priest isn't that strong in wild ever since the barnes nerf. raza priest is much more powerful that big priest as of now.
I'd disagree with the part that Big Priest isn't that strong in wild.
Yes Barnes was nerfed, but the moment Vargoth was released he pushed he was into the slot as the most powerful minion in the deck.
Barnes was an early highroll card, that's it. The usefulness of the minion in the deck actually made the deck worse as the turns rolled on since a top deck Barnes at turns 8+ was not impactful at that point. Plus, he naturally diluted the rez pool.
Vargoth on the other hand, is a good draw at almost any point in the game versus the priest. Get him on turn 4 versus a deck with no transforms? Insta play and enjoy the problem the opponent is placed as they determine whether they want to kill him and get him rezzed back with two copies, or don't kill him and let Shadow Essence and other spells snowball you to death. Then in the late game Vargoth completely carries the deck when the spellstone highrolls into instantaneous 7 minion boards.
Even back in the days of vanilla HS Jaraxxus was a situational card to play, and that was without the reach of hyper aggresive finishers/aggro we have today. You pretty much have to have a massive taunt or be way ahead on board to even play him. Play him against mage and you could easily be dead in 2 turns, and leaving up 1 or 2 minions against any other class can also easily be game.
The reasons the actual good hero cards saw play is because most of them had extremely powerful battlecries that actually impacted the game right away. Jaraxxus is the opposite of that and even the value he brings is an incredibly 'slow burn' of value. 6/6s without taunt/rush/charge/lifesteal in the late end game really don't mean a whole lot in the HS of 2020.
On the sac pac change I'm more or less neutral on it (but will miss the memes of old).
However, if you think the change will suddenly make Jarraxus consistently playable I'd think again. A 9 mana 'Do nothing' hero that permanently caps you at 15 health has always been a win-more gamble.
There's a reason cards like Alexstrasza or Fireball, for control and aggro/burn effectively, are so good at closing out games on opponents at low health.
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
This card is slowly making its way into every single list. It does more than disable highlander decks. With most of the classes having such limited card draw, top decking a useless bird is detrimental and extremely unfun. What was put in the game as a counter to highlander, has become a staple in almost any deck list. If all the classes had more card draw, it wouldn't be an issue. But they are set in making some classes bad at drawing cards, and the win rate of those that can draw vs those that cannot is very evident right now.
Hand and deck control has been a thing in both MtG and Yu-Gi-Oh (e.g. Delinquent Duo and Yata-Garasu just to name a couple). Bad Luck Albatross is vastly inferior in comparison. Plus, the trade-off of drawing a bird for the opponent later, can be argued that you're playing a relatively low tempo minion earlier in the game that only pays off if/when the games continues long enough for the opponent to draw a bird.
The limited draw issue also only exists in standard. While you could argue most nerfs just due to a standard format issue most of the time it still remains incredibly unlikely that the next 1-2 expansions released to standard will not have at a couple new forms of card draw, at the very least. So should we really be nerfing a mid power level tier card for something that will most likely get remedied the next expansion with some basic card draw additions? Imo nerfs should not just be made with only the immediate card pool in mind, but if the devs know a soft remedy is coming soon that should weigh into the conversation.
I honestly don't know why people think that axing the Vargoth + Time Warp interaction would change anything. The interaction is an overkill mechanic, emphasis on over. It's not like as a mage I'd suddenly not be able to get lethal with the original 2 turn non-vargoth win using Antonidas or the normal Time Warp giant version.
If you lost to the 3 turn version, you also lost to the 2 turn version. It makes absolutely no difference.
Getting rid of Vargoth isn't going to change that. Dirty Rat can still miss against the mage and if you're facing the 2 turn win giant version even if you hit a giant they will still kill you with the quest.
It's not like you were doing a whole lot with your turn in the old model after spending 6 mana on Thaurissan. Playing a couple Novice Engineers, Loot Hoarders, or tapping after dropping him is more or less like a 9 mana do nothing turn. Whether you were spending 6 mana or 9 mana you could also always drop a Plague of Flames first, dealing with all or some of your threats. I really don't think the mana difference in this scenario is as big of an issue as it's being made to seem.
Also keep in mind Mecha'Thun is most likely winning against control decks and other otk decks, and generally losing to aggro and midrange. Spending 9 mana to drop a high priority target 5/5 and a 1/5 usually isn't that punishing against slow decks. In most slow matches if you lost the game playing 9 mana in a turn for a single setup turn then you usually lost that game in normal scenarios pre-nerf. Having 3 extra mana for one setup turn wasn't that amazing in slow games.
To everyone saying -1 attack for a DH card here, minus one there, isn't enough, bare in mind that multiple nerfs are happening to the class at once, which does add up in reducing both their speed and damage output in standard (DH in wild is just epic lul compared to the defensive tools we have).
So if you look at just one of the nerfs in a vacuum it may not seem like a lot remember that their early game, mid game, and even late game have all been nerfed in one batch.
It's actually a bigger inconvenience than you're giving it credit for. Remember, you are doing next to nothing (both tempo-wise and survivability-wise) when you are dinking around generating random spells, the one caveat for this statement being when you discover a discounted spell you can play right away.
This means that aggro and midrange, control to an obvious lesser degree, are able to pressure your face. Spending mana simply to add more mana (cards) to your hand affects the game in no way until you get average or good cards and start spending that mana to deal with the opponent's threats.
A really good example of this is that 5 mana generate 3 spells card (Cabalist's Tome?). Why do you think most non-Quest non-otk mage decks didn't use that? One reason is because you spent so much mana at the end of the day, essentially doing nothing but generating and adding cards to your hand, that you massively fell behind on board and were at that much more risk to dying.
Tl;dr - At the end of the day you spend mana to add more cards that cost mana to your hand, which again you have to spend quickly. Adding 2 additional spells to that actually is a big deal because it slows you down a lot and makes you more at risk for dying if you don't just generate cheap spells 100% of the time.
Mecha'Thun is far from dead. Going to be using Drakkari Enchanter to discount Mecha'Thun and Cataclysm now for the same results.
The Vargoth interaction for the quest is irrelevant. You already win in 2 turns with Antonidas and giants. The 3rd turn just lets you win with a different flair of combo, but breaking the interaction with Vargoth means you just go back to the traditional 2 turn win conditions anyway.
DH is going to disappear from wild completely imo.
I don't play it but right now I am almost always crushing it with my Explore Un'Goro Togwaggle Warrior.
Yes, as a meme deck, I am almost always crushing an entire class (albeit a fledgling one). Additional nerfs are going to neuter it in wild.
The thing is not every variant of quest mage wants to just suddenly chuck almost every rng fiesta generating card in their deck just to make the quest work.
That tanks any form of competitive consistency. You have to remember you still have to have time to spend all of that mana, while surviving, clear threats, cycling, etc, even in control vs control mirrors.
There's reasons why you still don't see bad spell generation cards in Quest Mage player decks.
Honestly the 3 turns thing is rather irrelevant. I've played some Vargoth Quest Mage decks for some meme Malygos stuff, but the vast majority of decks just use the standard 2 turn win method. It's not like Vargoth suddenly made Antonidas or giants able to win in Quest Mage. The 3rd turn is pretty much just there to allow you to change up what type of combo you'd like to win with.
Agree about DH Warlock, but I hated playing against that anyway.
The Mecha'Thun change isn't really going to change that much. Swap out Bloom with Drakkari Enchanter and the deck works exactly the same as normal.
I get where you're coming from, but 0 mana for a swingy tech card is too much of a good thing. Even back in the day when we used BGH to take down something big you still had to spend 3 mana for it.
0 mana Pact is not just "Kill a demon", but essentially "Kill a demon and then get to play your own 5/6/7 mana worth of cards for instantaneous tempo reversal."
Guys, Drakkari Enchanter.
Why would you run double Galvanizer, and Mecha'Thun, and Cataclysm, and Emperor (5 cards to reduce 4 mana & execute the combo) when you can accomplish the same thing without the Galvanizers for one card less in the combo?
I'd disagree with the part that Big Priest isn't that strong in wild.
Yes Barnes was nerfed, but the moment Vargoth was released he pushed he was into the slot as the most powerful minion in the deck.
Barnes was an early highroll card, that's it. The usefulness of the minion in the deck actually made the deck worse as the turns rolled on since a top deck Barnes at turns 8+ was not impactful at that point. Plus, he naturally diluted the rez pool.
Vargoth on the other hand, is a good draw at almost any point in the game versus the priest. Get him on turn 4 versus a deck with no transforms? Insta play and enjoy the problem the opponent is placed as they determine whether they want to kill him and get him rezzed back with two copies, or don't kill him and let Shadow Essence and other spells snowball you to death. Then in the late game Vargoth completely carries the deck when the spellstone highrolls into instantaneous 7 minion boards.
You actually only need to replace Bloodbloom with Drakkari Enchanter and look for Mecha'thun and Cataclysm to reduce instead of Bloodbloom.
8 mana Mecha'Thun
2 mana Cataclysm
No need for Galvanizers
Fixed that for you
Yeah that's what I just said.
Even back in the days of vanilla HS Jaraxxus was a situational card to play, and that was without the reach of hyper aggresive finishers/aggro we have today. You pretty much have to have a massive taunt or be way ahead on board to even play him. Play him against mage and you could easily be dead in 2 turns, and leaving up 1 or 2 minions against any other class can also easily be game.
The reasons the actual good hero cards saw play is because most of them had extremely powerful battlecries that actually impacted the game right away. Jaraxxus is the opposite of that and even the value he brings is an incredibly 'slow burn' of value. 6/6s without taunt/rush/charge/lifesteal in the late end game really don't mean a whole lot in the HS of 2020.
On the sac pac change I'm more or less neutral on it (but will miss the memes of old).
However, if you think the change will suddenly make Jarraxus consistently playable I'd think again. A 9 mana 'Do nothing' hero that permanently caps you at 15 health has always been a win-more gamble.
There's a reason cards like Alexstrasza or Fireball, for control and aggro/burn effectively, are so good at closing out games on opponents at low health.
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
Bloodbloom I can understand. As a player as and against Mecha-Thun Lock I know how fast and powerful the deck is. Plus, even with the nerf to bloom all you need to do is swap out Bloodbloom for Drakkari Enchanter and let thaurassan tick twice with Mecha-Thun and Cataclysm in hand to accomplish the same thing. So the deck wont' be dead, but it understandably addresses the annoying near insta-lose of playing against DH Warlock so early on in the game.
Open the Waygate seems baffling to me. Just seems like the old philosophy of hating on any form of non-meme otk deck. If anything from mage would be nerfed in wild it should've been something from Secret Mage (e.g. Flamewaker) than a combo mage I honestly don't see as much in wild as its burn variant.
Hand and deck control has been a thing in both MtG and Yu-Gi-Oh (e.g. Delinquent Duo and Yata-Garasu just to name a couple). Bad Luck Albatross is vastly inferior in comparison. Plus, the trade-off of drawing a bird for the opponent later, can be argued that you're playing a relatively low tempo minion earlier in the game that only pays off if/when the games continues long enough for the opponent to draw a bird.
The limited draw issue also only exists in standard. While you could argue most nerfs just due to a standard format issue most of the time it still remains incredibly unlikely that the next 1-2 expansions released to standard will not have at a couple new forms of card draw, at the very least. So should we really be nerfing a mid power level tier card for something that will most likely get remedied the next expansion with some basic card draw additions? Imo nerfs should not just be made with only the immediate card pool in mind, but if the devs know a soft remedy is coming soon that should weigh into the conversation.