Magic Archer is the definition of a Glass Cannon. He is very weak (dies to Fireball, double Log, 2 Valk swings, etc.) while doing very good DPS, considering he does splash. Also, he can be played at the bridge for that sweet, sweet chip damage. However, I don't think he's "op". A good player will be able to anticipate the Magic Archer, and prevent chip damage.
Now for Ice Wiz. \Sigh**
Where to begin... first off, I want to say that Ice Wiz is possibly the most annoying card in the game to play against. I think everyone has, at some point, experienced their Balloon reach 0.001 tiles from the tower, only to have an Ice Wiz + Tornado player rip it away from the tower.
Personal bias aside, let's explore his stats (tourney standard):
- HP - 590
- range - 5.5 tiles (same as Wizard)
- Damage per shot - 75 (barely enough to kill Skeletons/Bats)
- Hit speed - 1.7 sec
- Damage per second - 44 (possibly the lowest in the game, apart from passive tank cards)
- Slow effect - 35% (movement speed and attack speed)
- cost - 3 elixir
So, Ice Wiz is basically a much cheaper version of the Wizard that does much less damage. Seems balanced. Cheaper card, less damage. But that's if we don't take the slow effect into account. That 35% slow does wonders on defense. It may not seem like a lot, but it makes a significant difference on defense with the tower chipping away at cards.
Ice Wizard by itself is terrible. With nothing else dealing damage, the Ice Wiz will only slow his inevitable death. You're better off using a swarm troop instead of a solo Ice Wiz. But that's the point. Ice Wiz isn't a solo defensive unit. He works in conjunction with other defensive units. And frankly? He does his job a little too well.
- He doesn't even die to Fireball, when he costs less. Don't even think about Fireball + Logging him; you'll be down 3 elixir just because you had to kill an Ice Wiz.
- It's almost impossible to kill him with troops, since the opponent will almost certainly have other defensive units to protect him. This is all while the Ice Wiz is slowing everything down by 35%.
- Basically what I'm trying to say is that it's nearly impossible to kill him for an even or better trade.
- Ice Wizard is similar to Healer or Rage. He's useless by himself. Almost anything else would be better for the same elixir cost. But combine him with other troops? He becomes a monster.
Supercell nerfed spells to 30% crown tower damage in response to "spell cycle strategies" that were creeping up into the meta. You guys might remember this deck from a few months ago:
- Ice Wiz + Valkyrie + Skeletons + Tesla + Tornado + Log + Rocket + Poison
I'm fairly sure Supercell's spell nerf was aimed at this deck in particular. But what Supercell failed to notice, or just ignored on purpose was this:
- Ice Wiz + Knight + Skeletons + Tesla + Tornado + Log + Rocket + X-Bow
- (Yes, I lined up the card names on purpose just to demonstrate how similar these decks are)
You guys know what that is, right? It's Icebow. Any non-Xbow user will shudder in disgust when hearing that name. I'm pretty sure fellow X-Bow decks such as 2.9 also marvel at how truly disgusting Icebow is.
The problem people have with Icebow is the secondary win condition, spell cycling. At first glance, it seems like Supercell made the right move; they lowered the damage of the Rocket, reducing (somewhat) Icebow's ability to spell cycle to win. But did it really? Consider the following analogy:
- A group of kids are having an Airsoft war.
- All of them except one brought a handgun/pistol, which shoots in a semi-automatic fashion, i.e. one shot/bullet per trigger pull.
- One kid either didn't get the memo, or decided to be an asshole and brought a machine gun instead of a pistol. When he pulls the trigger, the gun shoots multiple bullets at once.
- Obviously, the machine gun is overpowered compared to the pistol. So the kids stop playing after a while and complain to the kid with the machine gun, let's call him Ice (last name Bow)
- Ice agrees that the machine gun is overpowered. However, he refuses to give it up, and instead simply replaces his bullets with ping pong balls. His reasoning is that ping pong balls hurt less than Airsoft bullets, so it's completely fair now.
Supercell themselves said that spell cycling was too strong. But did they do anything about it... technically, no. Sure, Rocket does less damage now. Icebow players can't deal as much damage through rocket cycling as they could before. But... does that change anything about the deck's inherent ability to actually cycle the Rockets? No. That's because the problem lay with the other cards in the deck, not Rocket itself. Don't replace the bullets with ping pong balls, Supercell. Replace the gun.
This turned into a bit of an Icebow complaint post. Anyway, back to Ice Wiz:
- Ice Wiz should cost 4 elixir. Ice Wiz is already useless by himself, so raising his elixir cost won't really change much about his individual value (since it's already very low). This way, Ice Wiz can now be killed by Poison for an even trade, or by Fireball + Log (or Zap/Snowball) for a slightly better trade.
- Raising his cost to 4 elixir will also slow down a player's ability to stack multiple Ice Wizards on the field. It's no fun (and also unfair) to spend 10+ elixir just to kill an Ice Wiz, only to have your opponent play another one immediately afterwards.
- Raising his cost will also slow down Icebow and other Ice Wiz decks' cycles. (Ha, get it? Slow down the Ice Wiz decks.) This will actually affect Rocket cycling, since players will have to work with 1 less elixir each time. Slow down the gun instead of using less painful bullets.
- An alternate solution is to lower the slow duration to 1.5 seconds. The current hit speed of Ice Wiz is 1.7 seconds, and the slow duration lasts 2.5 seconds. This means that Ice Wiz will "renew" the slow duration almost a full second before it ends. This makes it nearly impossible to break this "chain" of slow. Lowering the slow duration (or raising the hit speed, conversely) will allow players to more easily cut off the "slow chain", and give their troops a few moments to regain their normal speed.
- The above may not be very realistic due to Snowball also having a 2.5 second slow duration, since cards that utilize the same mechanic should have identical stats, in order to "standardize" the game.
I think that just about covers why I believe Ice Wiz needs a nerf. If I missed anything, or if someone wants to discuss, feel free to comment.
On second thought, I would actually like Drew and the team to see this. Tag u/Supercell_Drew if you also think so. (Hopefully he sees this when he gets back from vaca)
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