No Board Clear for mage

Almost every class has a guaranteed board clear, except mage. Why? According to Blizzard, the mage should excel in AOE. Is AOE something different from a guaranteed board clear? I do not understand. Any1 has ideas about this?

I'm kinda glad that mage doesn't have access to big aoe damage or cheap powerful board clear (Dragon's Fury is there, but it's fine). She can be excel in some specialty like transformation effect Polymorph, but that card isn't in every deck anymore. I hope mage will get more good sort of spells in the future that isn't a board clear itself.

AOE (area of effect) is no guaranteed boardclear by definition. As long as more than one minion is affected, it‘s technically AOE. (Stuff like Cone of Cold is debatable, let‘s just say everything that affects the entire (enemy) board)

So yes, mage has plenty of options and just got two new ones with Flame Ward and Arcane Flakmage.

Besides, hunter, rogue, paladin and druid haven‘t gotten any boardclears at all.

True, mage doesn't have unconditional board clears, just those that deal damage, that's mostly because the basic and classic sets got 3 strong AOE cards that are constantly seen in mage decks: Doomsayer + Frost Nova, Blizzard, Flamestrike.

they might not be Plague of Death, Psychic Scream or Brawl, but thanks to mage's hero power those aoes are better at dealing with the board and "softening" the targets, and the access to freeze effects makes those aoes more inevitable..

Because mage got a 3 damage explosive trap & Arcane Flakmage, and because that class identity memo is an unworkable mess.

Quote From AliRadicali

Because mage got a 3 damage explosive trap & Arcane Flakmage, and because that class identity memo is an unworkable mess.

For once i totally agree with you. ;P

It also makes sense that Mage plays differently with spells and AoE btw. Otherwise it'd be too similar to Warlock.

I know mage excels in AOE, but sometimes you need a real board clear. Now the question is, why does mage has no board clear while other classes do. I can create some 2/3 card combo which should clear the board, say a 6 damage to all minions. But his does not clear a board of mountain giants for instance, or one 24/24 mech.

Quote From Zwane

I know mage excels in AOE, but sometimes you need a real board clear. Now the question is, why does mage has no board clear while other classes do. I can create some 2/3 card combo which should clear the board, say a 6 damage to all minions. But his does not clear a board of mountain giants for instance, or one 24/24 mech.

You freeze them repeatedly.

Mage can easily stall for several turns with freeze effects and win with or without clearing the board. So there is not a real need for this one card to clear a complete board (not to mention to include it into a current deck would be questionable).

Mage can very well deal with one big minion. Just permafreeze oder polymorph plus ping solves your huge minion problem. 

But yeah, maybe there will be a full and unconditional boar clear in one of the expansions to come. But right now mage is in a very good spot. 

Quote From Zwane

I know mage excels in AOE, but sometimes you need a real board clear. Now the question is, why does mage has no board clear while other classes do. I can create some 2/3 card combo which should clear the board, say a 6 damage to all minions. But his does not clear a board of mountain giants for instance, or one 24/24 mech.

Mage with board clear was a thing on the release of game, every mage was enjoying using flamestrike, blizzard and such. Then there are classes that didn't have powerful aoe back in the days, like defile, or mass hysteria. Right now, her board clear sucks, but she has decent other options to have.

She is very good at bursting opponent's health, not to mention she can stale the game with freezing minions.

If we wanna talk about current mage now, she has very good spell generators, and no other classes have that, so it definitely helps mage alot.

Tell that to a Paladin, who has to rely on his weird Piro combos and a really old boardclear.

Quote From UselessFantasy

Tell that to a Paladin, who has to rely on his weird Piro combos and a really old boardclear.

Enter the Coliseum, right? I can't believe there were no good AOE card printed for Paladin since then.

The new mage secret (Flame Ward) technically is a board clear, with conditional activator. 

O cmon, Paladin? I count 4 guaranteed board clears with Shrink Ray and Equality. And they are supposed to be bad at AOE according to Blizzard's comments on class identities. I mean 4 is a lot more than 0 for a class that should suck at AOE.

Flame Ward only kills stuff <3 health, so no guaranteed board clear. But maybe with some spell power you can turn it into a more reliable board clear, so this one has potential. I am not talking about general AOE, I am talking about "heey, my opponent has this huge board and I need to get rid of all of them right now, otherwise I am dead".

We used to have Dragon's Fury which was a pretty reliable board clear at turn 5. But that one has rotated.

Quote From Zwane

I know mage excels in AOE, but sometimes you need a real board clear. Now the question is, why does mage has no board clear while other classes do. I can create some 2/3 card combo which should clear the board, say a 6 damage to all minions. But his does not clear a board of mountain giants for instance, or one 24/24 mech.

The "EVIL" classes got the board clears this xpac. They said all of the villain classes would get the plagues. Mage is one of the "hero" classes. Hence no board clear.

Quote From Zwane

I know mage excels in AOE, but sometimes you need a real board clear. Now the question is, why does mage has no board clear while other classes do. I can create some 2/3 card combo which should clear the board, say a 6 damage to all minions. But his does not clear a board of mountain giants for instance, or one 24/24 mech.

Why would mage so desperately need a guaranteed board clear? 

Because Blizzard is consistently inconsistent.

The plagues were given just to the villains. 

Quote From Zwane

I know mage excels in AOE, but sometimes you need a real board clear. Now the question is, why does mage has no board clear while other classes do. I can create some 2/3 card combo which should clear the board, say a 6 damage to all minions. But his does not clear a board of mountain giants for instance, or one 24/24 mech.

Mage's removal spells are almost without exception damage (and/or freeze) based, that's the class's flavour. What little single target hard removal exists in the class typically requires the target to be frozen already.

As for why other classes regularly get good AoE clears and mage doesn't, it's because of mage's evergreen card pool, which contains flamestrike, blizzard, frost nova and cone of cold. If you want to see better mage AoE, petition blizzard to HoF some more mage spells or better yet, change the rotation system to somehow include evergreen sets. Considering how strong the basic mage cards are I'm genuinely surprised mage even got the AoE it did this set, especially since it shores up the major weakness of secret mage which is already a viable (and incredibly irritating) wild deck.

Quote From Zwane

Almost every class has a guaranteed board clear, except mage. 

Maybe if by "every class", you mean Warlock, Priest, Warrior (discounting that Brawl leaves 1 minion), and Paladin (assuming you have a Pyro or Consecrate to combo in with Equality or Shrink Ray), and we also discount the number of deathrattles that summon new minions.  Shaman has only damage-based clears, but granted that usually enough to get the job done.  The other 3 classes have only low-damage AoEs: Hunter has flame trap, Druid has Swipe and Starfall, and Rogue has Fan.

Quote From Zwane

Why? According to Blizzard, the mage should excel in AOE. Is AOE something different from a guaranteed board clear? I do not understand. Any1 has ideas about this?

Again, 90% of the time, damage (in this case, Flamestrike and Blizzard) can clear a wide board.  When it can't, it's either because there's a single tall minion (which you should answering with Polymorph, Fireball or freezing instead), or its because your opponent is just winning, and sometimes that just happens.