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[GreyICE]

I mean no, I don't believe that. Shaman decks do not put so little pressure on mage that mage just goes hog wild and leaps ahead. Same with other aggressive decks. Dragon Warrior isn't gonna go "oh yes, lets let the tempo mage just surge ahead". Sure you can make an aggressive deck with card draw for refill - Divine Favor Paladin was a thing for a long time and people complained about the refill then too (also Prep>Sprint or just plain Sprint) but it in and of itself is not broken. Draw 3 for 5 is a fair effect.

Nourish has two modes by the by~

[BROseidon]

Tempo mage on a perfect or near-perfect draw out-tempos any of those (short of a Shaman going like Tunnel Trogg->Totem Golem->Coin+Tuskar into Totem Golem->Flamewreathed). I've played a lot of Face Shaman, and Tempo-Mage out-tempos me like 1/2 the time.

And you're basically saying "I don't want control to exist."

[BROseidon]

Nourished is also used the vast majority of the time for card draw, since Druid takes card-disadvantage to gain tempo advantage at the start of the game.

[BROseidon]

Lastly, the issue with Cabalist's Tome isn't that it's 5 mana for 3 cards, it's that you have no idea what those cards are, which makes it impossible to play around it effectively.

[GreyICE]

Tempo mage on a perfect or near-perfect draw out-tempos any of those (short of a Shaman going like Tunnel Trogg->Totem Golem->Coin+Tuskar into Totem Golem->Flamewreathed). I've played a lot of Face Shaman, and Tempo-Mage out-tempos me like 1/2 the time.

And you're basically saying "I don't want control to exist."

Well now you're into a sort of weird space. Because any tempo mage that can outtempo face shaman can't also win if its turn 20 against control warrior or something. I mean it doesn't matter that Cabalists tome generates cards, the issue is that you're running enough cheap shit that you can outtempo a face shaman. Or you're just discussing literal god draws, which are... kinda irrelevant. The tempo mage that wins late game versus control warrior and the tempo mage that out tempos face shaman are two different decks (unless its some Reno contraption at which point sure the god draws are excellent, but the average draws are pretty far away from that). And yes, you might not know which of the two you're facing, but that doesn't mean they're the same decklist.

[GreyICE]

Lastly, the issue with Cabalist's Tome isn't that it's 5 mana for 3 cards, it's that you have no idea what those cards are, which makes it impossible to play around it effectively.

Yeah, the time that my opponent got Yogg, Call of the Wild and Tirion was pretty... wait, it just gets Mage Spells?

Yes, it gets 26 spells. That's mostly removal, card draw, and a handful of secrets. The secrets are all fairly easy to play around and weak (there's a reason mage typically runs Ice Block or none at all), the spot removal is... spot removal, the AOEs are pretty predictable too. You can usually figure out what they are from what your opponent does, and you can just do things like, oh, a ton of face damage while they're futzing about making random cards.

I mean maybe you honestly should be playing a different game?

[pickemgenius]

yeah cause when I see the

"Made froM Cabalist's Tome"

subtext after the spell I don't think.

"Wow this guy has a carefully crafted deck and selected this/these card(s) to be part of their deck. I totally shouldve played around x cards."

I think

"Wow, this guy is a fucking talented hearthstone player. I wish I were as good as him."

Like when I get Nourished by a druid to draw 3 cards and then swiped next turn I'm like.

"Oh hey my opponent drew three cards from their deck, swipe is pretty good ya? Makes sense." Because you know swipe is in the deck, you might be playing around it cause you know druid. Oh yeah, and drawing from the deck instead of just getting three cards.

I guess there are shitty results from it, but idk.

[PJ.]

[quote="In post 3955The secrets are all fairly easy to play around and weak (there's a reason mage typically runs Ice Block or none at all)[/quote]

Yeah, that reason is mad scientist no longer exists. And they aren't really that easy to play around, outside of having to test for each scenario. Which requires intimate knowledge of every secret Mage has. And yes, the limited number of spells gives you idea what the guy has, but has you announced already, it's all answers/ways to get answers or like 5 bad spells.

[GreyICE]

Yeah like Panzer this is basic game knowledge. You play league you play a game that requires 10x as much game knowledge. You walk up to that weird snake girl face first when she's level 6 you're gonna get wrecked. You just watch your lane and ignore where the hell that obnoxious cat man thing might be at 6 you're gonna get wrecked. You decide to trade with that creepy vampire so you both take damage you're gonna get wrecked. And like every friggin champion has a gimmick like that and they're up to what, like 135?

Here you have to remember what, Ice Block, Ice Barrier, Vaporize, Mirror Entity, Counterspell, Spellbinder and Effigy? So in order, here's your amazing things you have to remember: don't play any minion you can't deal with immediately, don't swing face with any minion you can't afford to lose, run out a test spell before you try your big spell, and if all that fails maybe go face instead of trading?

Like this honestly seems like pure salt, because its not very hard. You should know the general possibilities, if you slam down call of the wild into an unknown mage secret why are you angry that it gets counterspelled? That's all you. Honestly do people just play these games so they can get salty? Because it feels like you're working for things to be mad about. It's an anti tempo card in a tempo-based deck. The very best results from it are only as good as cards already in the mage's deck, the worst results are pretty trash (Dragon's Breath? Vaporize?). You lose temp to get cards that are probably anti-tempo. If you keep pressure on them the card is useless, so of course their deck is super fast or super grindy. Since mages can't be super grindy because they have no real ways of recovering life so get chipped to death eventually no matter what, they're super fast. So you know your win conditions, you know their win conditions, you know what you want your lines of play to be and how to put pressure on them. This seems supremely fair.

Now Yogg? That's genuine bullshit. Who the fuck knows what will happen.

[PJ.]

Yeah like Panzer this is basic game knowledge. You play league you play a game that requires 10x as much game knowledge. You walk up to that weird snake girl face first when she's level 6 you're gonna get wrecked. You just watch your lane and ignore where the hell that obnoxious cat man thing might be at 6 you're gonna get wrecked. You decide to trade with that creepy vampire so you both take damage you're gonna get wrecked. And like every friggin champion has a gimmick like that and they're up to what, like 135?

Here you have to remember what, Ice Block, Ice Barrier, Vaporize, Mirror Entity, Counterspell, Spellbinder and Effigy? So in order, here's your amazing things you have to remember: don't play any minion you can't deal with immediately, don't swing face with any minion you can't afford to lose, run out a test spell before you try your big spell, and if all that fails maybe go face instead of trading?

Like this honestly seems like pure salt, because its not very hard. You should know the general possibilities, if you slam down call of the wild into an unknown mage secret why are you angry that it gets counterspelled? That's all you. Honestly do people just play these games so they can get salty? Because it feels like you're working for things to be mad about. It's an anti tempo card in a tempo-based deck. The very best results from it are only as good as cards already in the mage's deck, the worst results are pretty trash (Dragon's Breath? Vaporize?). You lose temp to get cards that are probably anti-tempo. If you keep pressure on them the card is useless, so of course their deck is super fast or super grindy. Since mages can't be super grindy because they have no real ways of recovering life so get chipped to death eventually no matter what, they're super fast. So you know your win conditions, you know their win conditions, you know what you want your lines of play to be and how to put pressure on them. This seems supremely fair.

Now Yogg? That's genuine bullshit. Who the fuck knows what will happen.

I don't run test spells in my decks, or creatures I don't mind losing. What if he has two secrets? I play a guy, it gets copied then I have to debate how many cards I have to use to deal with it? Tome is real fucking tough man.

[pickemgenius]

100x yogg still more bullshit tho.

[PJ.]

100x yogg still more bullshit tho.

Well yeah. It just feels less bad because sometimes you don't lose because of it.

[chamber]

I can't help but wonder if it isn't some massive selection bias that makes you guys feel that card is too strong. You see and remember when they get the card that blows you out off of it, you don't see the cases when they get shit. You also see when they are ahead enough on board to play it, you don't see the cases where it's a dead card in their hand. Obviously a draw 3 is good when you're ahead of board.

The notion that's it's too strong because you can't play around it is silly. If that added as much value as you think it does, people would already be adding random ass spells to their decks. How much of that do you see?

[GreyICE]

I don't run test spells in my decks, or creatures I don't mind losing. What if he has two secrets? I play a guy, it gets copied then I have to debate how many cards I have to use to deal with it? Tome is real fucking tough man.

This is not true. At the point (turn 6 at the absolute earliest) a tome secret comes out you should have an idea of how you're going to win the game. You might have a spare Kindly Grandmother or Mire Keeper or something to throw in. Even the most archaic control warrior builds have armorsmiths and stuff (in fact why would control warrior attack face there? Waste of time). The fact they played the secret usually gives you a lot of information, what was worth blowing their tempo for the turn (after blowing tempo earlier) on a completely dead card that doesn't do anything unless you flick the switch?

Like... if your deck is so sensitive to removal that every single minion is utterly crucial and nothing spawns random tokens, every spell is utterly necessary and you don't have a random Living Roots or Lightning Bolt to toss to see what happens, and you can't afford to lose anything... maybe your deck just isn't very good man. Maybe your deck just isn't very good.

I'm not saying Tempo Mage is a bad deck at all. It's a midrange deck, that is to say a deck that focuses on running the most efficient cards at every slot with extremely strong tools. All midrangish decks just exist to horribly punish "brews" that aren't optimized, since throwing non-optimized shit into the meatgrinder that is a good midrange deck is utterly painful (see: Secret Paladin, Midrange Shaman, Midrange Hunter, etc.). These decks are very linear, that is to say there's not too many opportunities for outplays, nor are there too many ways to screw up. If you simply play on curve you'll achieve maybe 70-80% of what an expert player will, while with a non-linear deck with decision points you have more opportunity to screw up. Thus they tend to get favored by mediocre players, and players who are just ass tired of low level brews (seriously, I won't even play Cthun warrior below level 10, there's so much random ass jank that can screw you hard).

All Tome is is the final nail in the coffin. At some point the midrange deck was going to leverage their superior cards and superior tempo plays into either overwhelming card advantage or just hold the board hard enough they can crush your face. At least tome is interactive and can be played around, unlike the old notification that Midrange was driving the nail into your coffin (Dr. 7)

[Glork]

Lastly, the issue with Cabalist's Tome isn't that it's 5 mana for 3 cards, it's that you have no idea what those cards are, which makes it impossible to play around it effectively.

This is why Tome is so overpowered. When a Druid plays Nourish, I can reasonably expect to play around the same cards he might have had before he played Nourish. When a Mage plays Cabalist'a Tome and then a secret created by Cabalist's Tome, I have to play around every Mage secret at once and hope I don't make the wrong/unlucky play.

[Glork]

Also, reducing the Mage spells down to "mostly card draw card draw, and secrets" is asinine.

Three examples:
1) Shatter, Pyroblast, Ice Block
2) Arcane Intellect, Blizzard, Spell Bender
3) Frost Nova, Forgotten Torch, Effigy

These three sets of cards will typically have VERY different optimal counterplay. But all you see on each case is "card, card, secret." Other than context clues from the secret (the Mage is probably not going to play Effigy or Duplicate if he still has that Mirror Image token out), it is extraordinarily difficult to play around Tome with so little information.

[PJ.]

I don't run test spells in my decks, or creatures I don't mind losing. What if he has two secrets? I play a guy, it gets copied then I have to debate how many cards I have to use to deal with it? Tome is real fucking tough man.

This is not true. At the point (turn 6 at the absolute earliest) a tome secret comes out you should have an idea of how you're going to win the game. You might have a spare Kindly Grandmother or Mire Keeper or something to throw in. Even the most archaic control warrior builds have armorsmiths and stuff (in fact why would control warrior attack face there? Waste of time). The fact they played the secret usually gives you a lot of information, what was worth blowing their tempo for the turn (after blowing tempo earlier) on a completely dead card that doesn't do anything unless you flick the switch?

Like... if your deck is so sensitive to removal that every single minion is utterly crucial and nothing spawns random tokens, every spell is utterly necessary and you don't have a random Living Roots or Lightning Bolt to toss to see what happens, and you can't afford to lose anything... maybe your deck just isn't very good man. Maybe your deck just isn't very good.

I'm not saying Tempo Mage is a bad deck at all. It's a midrange deck, that is to say a deck that focuses on running the most efficient cards at every slot with extremely strong tools. All midrangish decks just exist to horribly punish "brews" that aren't optimized, since throwing non-optimized shit into the meatgrinder that is a good midrange deck is utterly painful (see: Secret Paladin, Midrange Shaman, Midrange Hunter, etc.). These decks are very linear, that is to say there's not too many opportunities for outplays, nor are there too many ways to screw up. If you simply play on curve you'll achieve maybe 70-80% of what an expert player will, while with a non-linear deck with decision points you have more opportunity to screw up. Thus they tend to get favored by mediocre players, and players who are just ass tired of low level brews (seriously, I won't even play Cthun warrior below level 10, there's so much random ass jank that can screw you hard).

All Tome is is the final nail in the coffin. At some point the midrange deck was going to leverage their superior cards and superior tempo plays into either overwhelming card advantage or just hold the board hard enough they can crush your face. At least tome is interactive and can be played around, unlike the old notification that Midrange was driving the nail into your coffin (Dr. 7)

I'd much rather play against dr 7. Very much actually. I'd rather play against 7 then yogg or tome. Or yogg AND Tome. Also tempo mage isn't really a mid range deck. I get A LOT of early wins with it, but because of Yogg, I can beat basically anything that stabilizes at turns 7 8 9. I don't even run tome. The only thing I am ever like "oh man this is too much" is Cthun warrior.

[Glork]

So I've been playing Arena since the update to see if class balance is any better. I'm not a particularly GOOD Arena player (I average 5 wins/run according to heartharena), but here are my results so far:
5-3 as druid (losses to mage, rogue, mage)
5-3 as paladin (losses to mage, rogue, warlock)
4-3 as paladin (rogue, rogue, warrior)
3-1 as warrior so far (loss to mage)

8/10 losses to mage/rogue. 12 of my 17 wins have been to classes other than mage/rogue. And it definitely *feels* like those two classes are still way stronger than everything else.

(Random sidenote: In my 2nd run, I had a Dr. 7 but only drew him in one game out of the 8 I played. RNG, man.)

[chamber]

I mean, there are other considerations this early. You might just be running into more mage still. Also they can always nerf things harder.

[Glork]

Yes I know this is a 2-day snapshot, and the sample size is small. But while class diversity is definitely up, my competitive experience doesn't feel much different. This isn't a declaration that Arena still sucks, it's just a personal observation.

[BROseidon]

Lastly, the issue with Cabalist's Tome isn't that it's 5 mana for 3 cards, it's that you have no idea what those cards are, which makes it impossible to play around it effectively.

This is why Tome is so overpowered. When a Druid plays Nourish, I can reasonably expect to play around the same cards he might have had before he played Nourish. When a Mage plays Cabalist'a Tome and then a secret created by Cabalist's Tome, I have to play around every Mage secret at once and hope I don't make the wrong/unlucky play.

Yes. This is why the card is bs. The variance is far too high, and it negates player knowledge as a meaningful skill

[BROseidon]

Also tempo Mage can consistently win by turn 6 if it isn't met with a strong early game.

That's aggro

[Lady Lambdadelta]

I have been running Shieldbearer, Divine Spirit and Inner Fire.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

er to be clear, I meant in Top 3 Tavern Brawl

[PJ.]

Yeah tempo mage is basically aggro control, first of its name. Just like Faeries back in lorwynn standard for MTG. Faeries was also bullshit