New Mage Spell - Siphon Mana

Once again team5 have outdone themselves by essentially printing broken cards that discourages anyone from playing minions. I can see it now. Mage playing Wand Thief just so they can octobot their hand, and also because no one wants to play minions because mage is bs.

Because in a class that can discover spells, and with plenty of cheap spells to boot, what is team5 really expecting would happen other than people getting upset at playing the game, when playing the game gives your opponent an advantage straight out the bat. Wouldn't be surprising if this card gets a week one nerf, after yet another reddit explosion, and people giving up because mage is bullshitting them to death.

The only true play around this card offers is that most mage spells deal even damage, so we'll all just play odd health cards, forcing them to hero power just to proct this shit. Unless of course, they just discover a minion with 2 health (not exactly impossible given how many cards in mage have 2 health) and 'honor' kill their own shit just to octobot their hand.

Can't even play Cult Neophyte because this essentially nullifies it. Great work. Im praying to god this card isn't meta, because Im getting distinct impressions of yet another week 1 stormwind mage bs a-coming.

Alright here is the first actual potentially format BREAKING card. I think we know why Mage questline was REALLY nerfed. Triggering the Honorable kill is pretty easy with spell damage and it can lead to a LOT more of mana cheating. OH and it deals damage, so it can go FACE as well. 2 mana deal 2 is still pretty decent and it deals a good amount of damage with spell damage. Also this will be great in wild, as there are plenty of 2 health minions in wild. 

In standard i bet this will see play in Spell mage obviously, and in wild i'm sure it will see play in some combo decks to reduce the cost of spells, and lets be honest. It will also see play in Sorcerer's Apprentice + Flamewaker burn decks. 

Plenty of good Arcane spells already, but this is amazing as the 2 damage point is really easy to reach to trigger it's effect.

Mana cheat is always too strong. This will be no exception.

I kinda hate this card: it feeds too much into the Mage BS. You play a 2 health minion? Ha, now I reduce the cost of my spells! Which were already cheaper because Incanter's. All of these feelings are related to how Mage plays now, but this feels like the direction isn't changing: Mage isn't playing minions, and they are being rewarded for you playing them.

Somewhere in the depths and crevices of Alterac Valley,  Millhouse Manastorm can be found crying in the corner wondering what his purpose in life is.  Actually, I think I will just include Millhouse in my decks now.  Its not like mages use mana anyway.

While technically speaking it's less powerful overall than Incanter's Flow in both ease and overall mana discount, would take a miracle for this card to make it through the expansion cycle without it being nerfed.

Wow - very strong card! I guess against mage you're not allowed to play minions anymore :) :) 

The honorable kill aspect might be too hard to activate, but when it does it can be crazy good mana cheat, or just disappointing. Hard card to evaluate.

Looks strong but I think it'll be balanced by the fact that you probably have to set it up and therefore use spells in your hand to do so, which weakens the overall effect.

Seeing how Flow still beats this by a mile in a dedicated  quest deck I don't see this breaking the game. If anything it enables other archetypes that don't use Flow. Imagine discounting some Fire spells to combo with Sanctum Chandler. Could also work in a regular Spell damage mage where you have more control over how much damage you're doing.

Also it goes face because of course it does.

Another really efficient Arcane spell for Questline Mage. 

Arena: Pretty bad honestly. Just a 2 mana deal 2 most of the time. Not only do you need spells in your hand for the effect to matter, but you also need to deal exact amount of damage. And on top of that, the discount isn't guaranteed to be beneficial. Situational is the word that comes to mind.

Constructed: I wonder if decks that include cards like this will include specific minions to target with cards such as Siphon Mana just in case your opponent doesn't provide you with a good target. As with all mana cheat cards, I'm sure this will see play somewhere, but I don't expect it to be the new Incanter's Flow. Not even close.

Cost reduction is solid, and Mage has plenty of spell damage available to it, so this seems like a good card. Hard to say if it's good enough to supplant other cards in the current Questline Mage decks, though.

Looks like no minion Mage isn't going anywhere. I'm almost certainly going to be replacing something for this in my quest Mage deck.

Thanks to pings and other cheap spells, it should be almost too easy for Quest Mage to trigger the cost reduction, which is great because everyone knows Mage needs more cost reduction. This is going to see play, the only question for me is whether Mage branches out of Quest decks because this opens up more powerful synergies.

Quote From FortyDust

Mana cheat is always too strong. This will be no exception.

Especially into Mage's hands - I second tha

For the love of god, T5, just make it an unsung rule that cards can't be reduced below (1) mana unless stated otherwise.

When will Blizzard learn to stop printing more mana cheat for mage? Especially for spells. If this reduced the cost of minions only, they sure it would incentivize minion builds for mage again. But nope, more support for Quest Mage/No minion mage, so yay...

Quote From Caro

When will Blizzard learn to stop printing more mana cheat for mage? Especially for spells. If this reduced the cost of minions only, they sure it would incentivize minion builds for mage again. But nope, more support for Quest Mage/No minion mage, so yay...

Agreed.  In fact I think a "minion mage" deck where you can't include any spells, and have to try and make do with discovered/generated spells would be fairly interesting..

This makes me want the to roll one final patch stating that discounted cards can't cost less than 1 unless card says otherwise. It needs to happen sooner or later. Preferably sooner.

Being an spell maybe it's easy to use the honorable kill mechanic, but maybe it will become a dead card in your hand if you can't find a good moment to use it

If Magister Dawngrasp is included in big  spell mage, the arcane slot is going to be the one that you don't care about what is repeated. You will want to run this spell in that deck. It is also probable that you run Arcane Brilliance and Incanter's Flow as well. It still should be a an auto-include.

Really good card for Spell Mage, of course. You want to make sure you hit that Honorable Kill, but when you do it's amazing.

Spell Mage support. At least this is more conditional than Incanter's Flow, but it will exist along that card which might be a problem for the new meta.

Pretty good, specially after completing the quest, and shouldn't be too hard to trigger the HK effect.