Taste was only good with Inspiring Presence. The decks were too slow to force people to play on tempo.

1494572:

1312007:

1494572:

I know some people left it out of their mage list (idiots!)

If you say that, the only conclusion I can draw is that you never tested the mirror.

Yes. Cause Taste is clearly so bad in the mirror... Um. Okay? The only reason not playing Taste is remotely a good idea is because people will play around it whether you have it or not in most situations. However once people figure out you are not playing Taste then you've lost a huge advantage by not playing it. Suddenly I can leave 1 open when I want to and force you to leave 1 open too. Meanwhile you can't do the same. You have to play around Taste and at the same time aren't bluffing Taste which is awful. So many game results in the mirror were explained by "he drew double Taste". Maybe it was you who never tested mirrors?

 

I see not running taste being fine if they don't know about it. How you test that however is pretty tricky and it is possible to figure out they have zero taste at least by g3.

 

I often just found it best to just run into taste to get later spells through, so not running it would just result in me getting spells through more.

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Has made top8 of some events

taste is a lot better in the blue agro mage than it is in the red agro mage.
i removed taste for Wubs from my final list, and I didn't regret it.  Taste is great, but Wubs was amazing, and definitely served me better than taste would have. But i was red mage.. i would never cut it from a blue list.

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Trebing..dont you have to at least SHOW UP to worlds to comment on Block :-P

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1494572:

Yes. Cause Taste is clearly so bad in the mirror... Um. Okay? The only reason not playing Taste is remotely a good idea is because people will play around it whether you have it or not in most situations. However once people figure out you are not playing Taste then you've lost a huge advantage by not playing it. Suddenly I can leave 1 open when I want to and force you to leave 1 open too. Meanwhile you can't do the same. You have to play around Taste and at the same time aren't bluffing Taste which is awful. So many game results in the mirror were explained by "he drew double Taste". Maybe it was you who never tested mirrors?

Taste is bad in the mirror.  The main reason (which other people mentioned already) is because in the mirror, you're almost always going to leave 1 open to prevent them from tasting you.  By doing so, you're also posturing your own taste (whether or not you have it) and you force them to play around it or then they are the ones who potentially get blown out.  And if there was one thing we saw in testing, it was that playing all out in the mirror when they did have taste was usually a recipe for disaster, so you almost have to keep that one open at all time...or lose.

On the other hand, I played Spell Richochet instead of taste.  Richochet is much better in the mirror as you get to shoot back cards like heartburn, everlasting cold, spell suppression, and their own counters/tastes.
It wasn't as effective in the tournament as I had hoped since it was not nearly as secret tech as I had hoped, but I still firmly believe it was better than taste.

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My deckbox says "Other Matt"
Northwest WoW messageboards - Northwest WoW forums

1312007:

Taste is bad in the mirror.  The main reason (which other people mentioned already) is because in the mirror, you're almost always going to leave 1 open to prevent them from tasting you.  By doing so, you're also posturing your own taste (whether or not you have it) and you force them to play around it or then they are the ones who potentially get blown out.  And if there was one thing we saw in testing, it was that playing all out in the mirror when they did have taste was usually a recipe for disaster, so you almost have to keep that one open at all time...or lose.

On the other hand, I played Spell Richochet instead of taste.  Richochet is much better in the mirror as you get to shoot back cards like heartburn, everlasting cold, spell suppression, and their own counters/tastes.
It wasn't as effective in the tournament as I had hoped since it was not nearly as secret tech as I had hoped, but I still firmly believe it was better than taste.

Are you making an argument for or against Taste? I can't really tell. You say you have to play around taste or you just lose... What about when they know you are not playing Taste? Either from the fact that they haven't seen one in 2 games or whatever. What happens then?

Inevitably it would come a point in the mirror where one player was losing and had to make a desperate play to try and get back in the game. This usually involved asking the question "do you have a taste?". Sometimes it happened early in the game, sometimes later. As Stu mentioned, sometimes you would tap out for something just to see if they had it and setup your next turn play.

Richochet was awesome, but it wasn't a card you played instead of Taste. It was a card you played in addition to Taste.

I don't think Taste needs to be defended, but apparently the subtle effect it has on any game is being passed off as mediocre.  The fact that it technically can counter any card played is huge.  The fact that it can stall an opponent from playing an additional card/completing a quest/striking with a weapon if you force them to pay one for the card played is also a significant advantage.  I am not the best player, nor am I bad, but I still think for the DOW block, Taste is one of the best, if not the best card overall, for it's power as a card for its cost and synergy with so many other cards.

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 I must add two cards to the format that were definitively my best cards in the deck, allowing me to get to day 2 at the world. Most mages (I've beaten 4 out of 5) were not able to play around Grounding totem. Three out of 5 mages played spell suppression on it. It seemed that only one mage had ice lance to realy kill it, others had to find a heartburn to play around it or send 2 allies in it until another comes out. Grounding totem keeps away taste of divinity, everlasting cold, spell suppression and wub's cursed hexblade, just to say the cards for mages.  The next card that was a easy game ender was spark. As an alliance shaman, I was able to spark for 14 twice during day one. With 25 health mages duplicating like rabbits, a blast of 14 is to be feared. It can also swipe the board completely with just a few ressources, totems and equipment. Bulwark of the amani empire and blackout trucheon staying on board most of the times, with an achilia, a turn 6 spark can cause some serious damage.

 As shaman is an underground deck in the format, I know I might not convince alot of people to it, but I proved it can stand tall to mages. So consider grounding totem and spark as top cards int the format. The first one neutralise some of other top cards, while the other is an explosive, unexpected game ender.

Mana Ruby should be there. Forgot who actually posted it but someone said it best when they posted that when Mana Ruby is used it feels unfair.

Ice barbs should also be up there. Maybe not top ten but more powerful then least 2 of the cards in the top 10 imo and allows Mage to answer one of the best cards in the block meta. I agree Victimize was a pretty brutal card which is another reason why this card is so great. Sure you still discard 2 cards but they probably do not draw and you are sitting on a Mana Ruby anyways.

1494572:

Are you making an argument for or against Taste? I can't really tell. You say you have to play around taste or you just lose... What about when they know you are not playing Taste? Either from the fact that they haven't seen one in 2 games or whatever. What happens then? Inevitably it would come a point in the mirror where one player was losing and had to make a desperate play to try and get back in the game. This usually involved asking the question "do you have a taste?". Sometimes it happened early in the game, sometimes later. As Stu mentioned, sometimes you would tap out for something just to see if they had it and setup your next turn play. Richochet was awesome, but it wasn't a card you played instead of Taste. It was a card you played in addition to Taste.

Forgot about this over the weekend...

I classify taste scenarios in to 4 categories.
If you do / don't have taste in hand
If your opponent does / doesn't play around taste
Taste is bad if your opponent plays around it and you do have it, since it is basically just 1 burn for 1.
Taste is good if your opponent plays around it and you don't have it, since they're playing behind.
Taste is good if your opponent doesn't play around it and you have it, you can wreck them
Taste is bad if your opponent doesn't play around it and you don't have it, since you can't do anything.

From testing the mirror, getting wrecked by them having taste and you not playing around it usually led to game losses.  Therefore, the strategy was to always play around taste.  This has the upside of making them play around taste as well (since you leaving one open respresents taste as well as playing around it).  From the table, if your opponent is playing around it your best play is to not run it since if you never counter a spell with it it's just bad burn.

It is true that sometimes you can't play around taste without losing.  My opinion was that by that point in the game, you usually had seen that taste wasn't doing anything useful in your hand and so had resourced it.  So, when you had the chance to go and make the big play, you couldn't unless you happened to recently draw one (usually by questing/mana ruby in response).
Not resourcing them usually led to getting too far behind by not being able to make good plays, so I wouldn't consider that an option.

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My deckbox says "Other Matt"
Northwest WoW messageboards - Northwest WoW forums

1312007:

Taste is bad if your opponent plays around it and you do have it, since it is basically just 1 burn for 1. T
aste is good if your opponent plays around it and you don't have it, since they're playing behind.

I don't know. When it's in hand they're still playing around it and thus playing behind, so this should be classified as good whether or not you have it in hand. Doesn't make sense to say it's bad just because it's in your hand, since you're obviously leaving one open for the Taste either way.

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1312007:

I classify taste scenarios in to 4 categories.
If you do / don't have taste in hand
If your opponent does / doesn't play around taste
Taste is bad if your opponent plays around it and you do have it, since it is basically just 1 burn for 1.
Taste is good if your opponent plays around it and you don't have it, since they're playing behind.
Taste is good if your opponent doesn't play around it and you have it, you can wreck them
Taste is bad if your opponent doesn't play around it and you don't have it, since you can't do anything.

I totally agree.

The great thing about taste at this point (or at worlds, anyway) was the threat of it, not the actual reality of it. And you get the threat by representing it against a good opponent (and all the people I played at worlds were at least decent players), not by actually having it in hand. Or by extension, even in your deck.

I fully wish I'd played 4x spell ricochet instead of 4x taste of arcana.

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ConradHex's WoWTCG Card Price-List

Being a good player doesn't mean "always playing around taste". Being a good player means you know when and when not to play around it. If you just assume you should always play around taste then I can see why you would assume that the threat of taste is enough.

If you both sit back and leave 1 open forever then sure, not playing Taste is a great thing. When you start playing more aggressively and realizing you can gain an advantage by playing into Taste sometimes then the person without Taste realizes why they should be playing it. 100% of the time they play into Taste you will not have it, the same can't be said for in reverse.

1494572:

Being a good player doesn't mean "always playing around taste". Being a good player means you know when and when not to play around it. If you just assume you should always play around taste then I can see why you would assume that the threat of taste is enough. If you both sit back and leave 1 open forever then sure, not playing Taste is a great thing. When you start playing more aggressively and realizing you can gain an advantage by playing into Taste sometimes then the person without Taste realizes why they should be playing it. 100% of the time they play into Taste you will not have it, the same can't be said for in reverse.

Ok, well that's a good point too.

By "good player" I guess I meant "a player who realizes all mages are likely to play Taste of Arcana"; i.e., "a player who has done at least a minimal amount of testing and preparation." As opposed to "someone who hasn't picked up a wow deck in 9 months", I suppose.

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ConradHex's WoWTCG Card Price-List

A good mage deck also runs Nether Fractures. And a good druid deck always maindeck Natural Order. You'll never find decks that break conventional wisdom as the X-0 deck.

It's all about running all-around good cards with no regards to the meta and what strategies those cards are intended to counter. Right Pip?

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