I know...I really do partly agree with you. But in all fairness you aren't starting the game with half health. There are things you are doing every turn. And with the exception of mages the other classes all have very strong cards that enable you to bounce back. Soul seeker for hunters, warriors have their heal attachments, priests have loads of options for healing, elementals remove/return allies, etc.
Any by turn five you can really turn the tables on those rush decks. Braxnorian soldier is available for every human hero, and by turn five that can be a game changed for those zal decks. Krygon is available for every shadow hero. Not to mention there are cards like guardians oath or golden katar with I almost never see people use, and would works wonders against a zal deck running shards. I see traps all the time, that does wonders to stop haste, and early game.
I always just got the feeling that there were plenty of cards available to defend from rush, but players just didn't want to put them in their decks. Instead a call for nerf was raised.
It just seems to me it damages the diversity of the game. Some decks are build for late game wins, with a lot of stall cards, stealth, hidden, etc. Some are ballanced to be ready for anything, mid game wins, some are direct dmg, etc. But instead of preparing for rush decks they should instead be nerfed, taking away a whole play style of the game.
Rush mages did not get nerfed for that reason. People didn't like a meta filled with overpowered rush mages and their counters because it made certain other kinds of decks completely unviable. Sure certain decks could beat rush mages. But certain cards completely disappeared from use. Some heroes also completely disappeared (Zhanna). They went away because they could rarely win against some rush builds.
Sure from your perspective, your favorite playstyle got better. From my perspective, 1/3 of my games became mindless lucky death races and another 1/3 were against shadow hunters and all of my decks had to be built specifically to handle a rush and even then still only have a 50/50 chance of winning against it.
But that's only part of why those cards got nerfed. The real reason is that they were just plain undercosted. Amulet got buffed because it was underused. It got nerfed because 3 cards for 1 resource and 1 SE turned out to be the best draw engine in the game, and a near guaranteed way to get 3-4 fireballs by turn 8. Dagger of fate was routinely doing 7-9 damage for 3cc.
That's really all there is to it. Undercosted cards caused a certain archetype to completely dominate the meta-game and make it so that only that archetype and its direct counters were viable. It made the whole game more boring.
You may define OP as 'unbeatable' but in that you're totally wrong. That is the definition of broken. Overpowered refers to cards that are both undercosted for what they do,and allow certain decks to have an inordinate number of strong to very strong matchups, but they may still have a few weak mathcups. You may have been losing enough as mage that you thought it was balanced, but it should have tipped you off that you were consistently losing to the same 5 decks, and that the only reason you were losing as often as you were is that everyone was playing them.
IGN: ETC BobRoss
"BobRoss puts the 'bRo' in Boss" - Gondorian
Proud Member of ETC - Errors Terrors & Carers
Europe/Africa Regional Champion 2014 (also top 8 in World Championship)
See some videos with commentary of some of my Serena Games on Shadowera.net
I also do a video show with TJ SamuelJ - Bob and Sam Trollin it Up!
Bob he's got a point. Internet discussions need to be couched in passive aggressiveness and name calling.
To be fair. As I said earlier in this thread: I run aramia without amulet. It's a control aramia, with no dagger. My main decks are aramia, threbin, ter adun, and do have a rush Zal deck, but it never had dagger in it, and did just fine, and lost plenty of times as well. Please don't assume you follow my decks, wins, and loses.
I only meant to raise my concern, because I never thought those who used amulet had an 'unfair advantage' (OP). In my humble experience, the highest rated players I ran into - yourself included - were running rouges and hunters (mainly it seemed). So I was just surprised to see mages take a hit.
And I truely don't know what you mean about Zhanna. I still saw plenty of Zhanna. I can tell you I still never see Logan. Maybe once last month. But you've been playing much longer than me so I'll take your word for it.
As far as the shadow hunter rush decks...I'm not defending them. They don't use amulet or dagger. If you had some unpleasant or boring matches, I'm truely sorry to hear it. I'll consider the matter settled. I look forward to the next episode of trolling it up!
While I would absolutely LOVE for Brax to swing a game and score me a win he just gets "skill" controlled or they just fireball him. Plus golden katar is a desd card among a huge majority of any match up, no one wants to drop soul seeker for some katar and guardians oath is really easy to play around, just blow it up or play Viska. Either way the thing about these rush decks you could kill all their allies if you wanted they still have extremely reliable burn (thankfully brimstone doesn't damage heroes anymore cause that was broken as ****) but you know what I mean. Double fireball, free lightning strikes and Brax? Soulbound Armor says hi.
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Greatness, Reborn
"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car." -- Author Unknown
(ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง the unseen phoenix donger is the deadliest (ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง
you're missing the point here - the shadow hunter decks aren't rush decks. They're mid-range decks that are well-suited to countering mage rush. I don't mind playing against them, and I don't think they're OP. In fact they're weak against those slower decks that are weak to rush. The problem is since they're strong against mage rush, too many people are playing them, and it gets boring. With the right balance, the three styles - rush, mid-range and control keep each other in check. When one becomes too strong, it can knock out the style that it's strong against, making it virtually unplayable. In this case, OP rush made it unfavorable to play control. So the meta became 1/3 rush, 1/3 mid-range shadow hunters, 1/3 other mid-range.
I personally like to play a control style, so the power of Rush forced me to play in a mid-range style the last few months. My Serena deck for WC had 7 2cc allies in it, and no allies over 4cc. Why? Because I like weenies? Nope. Because rush decks forced me to make a deck that could consistently contest the board on T2. Incidentally that is a much better counter to a rush deck than sticking 2 Spelleater Bands or Braxnorian Soldiers in a deck. Good players get around individual high cost cards without a hiccup. So I'm happy to see rush decks taken down a few pegs, because it means that I can slow my decks down a bit. Maybe I can even throw in a few Oliver Fagins now.
Last edited by bobrossw; 02-01-2015 at 08:07 AM.
IGN: ETC BobRoss
"BobRoss puts the 'bRo' in Boss" - Gondorian
Proud Member of ETC - Errors Terrors & Carers
Europe/Africa Regional Champion 2014 (also top 8 in World Championship)
See some videos with commentary of some of my Serena Games on Shadowera.net
I also do a video show with TJ SamuelJ - Bob and Sam Trollin it Up!
My belief is just that it was a rush deck with an answer to just about anything so it just made playing against it unfun, plus I once got mind controlled + SF combod 6 over six turns and I just held my hands up in desparation by then. Anywho more rush decks are still out there thankfully I won't relive my nightmares again
Last edited by LucasBlitz; 02-01-2015 at 05:53 PM.
(ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง the unseen phoenix donger is the deadliest (ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง
Justiciar of the Audacious
Warrior of the Blue Pheonix
Greatness, Reborn
"When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car." -- Author Unknown
(ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง the unseen phoenix donger is the deadliest (ง ͠° ل͜ °)ง
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