Yesterday, Dean “Iksar” Ayala has added a quite interesting post on Twitter. While it’s not a 100% confirmation, it heavily suggests that Sorcerer's Apprentice might be one of the cards nerfed in Patch 22.2. After all, the official announcement stated that there will be both Standard & Wild nerfs.
While it (obviously) would have no impact on Standard at all, we all have learned how strong the card can be in certain combos – particularly OTK ones like Exodia Mage. As time went by, it only got worse in the other format. We have all kinds of Wild combos built around Sorcerer’s Apprentice – right now Stargazer Luna + Flamewaker combos and Sanctum Chandler + Ignite combos. I can only imagine that the card would get more and more problematic in the future, so it seems like a really logical nerf target and Wild players should be pretty happy about it.
We’ll learn for sure in just a few days, on January 20. That’s when patch notes should drop.
— August Dean Ayala ???? (@IksarHS) January 15, 2022
Funny though that right now, that card isn’t the real problem (in Wild that is). So yeah, they are years late but yeah, would be an okay nerf.
I don’t really play Wild that much (maybe like a dozen of matches per month), but I’ve heard a lot of people complaining about Ignite Mage on Twitter. Maybe not because it’s too powerful, but because it’s unfun to play against?
It’s not only ignite, even the apm mage exploits this card with flamewalker even worst.
Of course talking of other class baku quest hunter must also be deleted (more then quest war IMO).
tbh, for the majority of Wild players, most decks and combos in Wild are unfun to play against – that’s the nature of the mode.
Point is, if they’d nerf this card they need to nerf other cards first to make Wild more enjoyable. But if they’d do that (nerf Warrior and Hunter Quests, for example), then there would be whining that XY card/deck/combo is broken. Because… that’s the nature of the mode. 😉
The discover of hot water, if they don’t nerf this card the balance patch make no sense. They are still late for years but better late then never i suppose.
Just as I wanted. It has been long enough for Ignite Mage cheating deck to exist.
Somehow the problem not only lies with the mana cheat, if Ignite still exist. You still able to punish your opponents with actual near infinite damage. I’m inclined to support Ignite nerf to shuffle like 2-3 copies just like Garrote. They need to limit those damage potential.
Not 100%, I guess. But 99.9% seems like a reasonable estimate.