All you need to do is to watch matches on HSreplay, or at least look at the deck lists people run. If they don’t get their turn 4-5 insta-win, which admittedly doesn’t happen very often but often enough to be annoying, they just taunt up behind rabble bouncers or vaults, play stuff like astromancer and CC the astromancer for an instant 2x7 drop + whatever astromancer’s battle cry brought in.
Conjurer mage doesn’t need much of plan B when they can execute their Plan A at a later stage in a match and still generate insane value in a single turn, even without MGs. And that’s where the problem comes in: If you don’t burst them down fast enough, you get steamrolled eventually because it’s always a disaster waiting to happen that you’re up against.
And it’s not like these decks have absolutely no removal options either, because for example crowd roaster exists, or the card that deals 4 with a battlecry if you have a big spell in your hand, which oftentimes these mages do, since power of creation costs 8…
And they also have the 2/2 that allows you to discover a spell if you have a dragon in hand, which oftentimes they do, because Kalecgos, twilight drake etc.
Now you can make the argument and say that some of these things aren’t consistent, and I’d agree, but if the most “reliable” way to win is to either be fortunate enough to have hard removal right when you need it, or have an oppent with poor draw so you can burst them down, then I’d say that just isn’t “good enough”. I’m pretty sure lots of folks are happy that Keleseth is gone, so did the game really need another deck where draw decides matchups instantly? Sorry, but I have my doubts about this.
Conjurer mage can generate so much value in such short time that control warriors have trouble keeping up in terms of removal cards, which is where the “just control the board” line of arguing doesn’t hold up in practice as much as people think it does, because it’s a simple matter of time until the mage can refill their board with power of creation + Khadgar, or simply astromancers. It’s not like all they have is MGs plus CC… How much hard removal can you run to be able to deal with 2-3 8/8 in a single turn? How much more hard removal than what control warriors have can you fit in your deck while still having a gameplan of your own, eh?
Literally the most “reliable” way to win is to burst them down with rogue (and better have a sap handy) while you use pray that they don’t roll out for example a 7/8 taunt too early, or discover a removal spell. You can win with token druids every now and then, but the problem always is that flooding the board allows them to play their bouncers early and for cheap, and since druid has no hard removal besides neutral cards (at least big gamer hunter can help every now and then) because naturalize is gone, you’re screwed once the mage can stabilize, which they are likely to do as well, because many of them already run decks teched against token druids, which also give carpet locks a lot of trouble.
If all these mages could do was to hope that they get their turn 4 win, nobody would consider these decks competitive in the first place.
I find it extremely weird how people get so tangled up in arguing about what to do when their opponent has the nut-draw, when the actual problem isn’t that it’s a “high roll deck” that either works or not, with nothing in between, but it’s like playing against a big-druid with oakheart, except the mage doesn’t even need to ramp, can execute their “combo” at least 4 times by default (6 if you count power of creation), doesn’t depend on a 1-of card like oakheart, is stronger in the offensive-department but can’t gain armour, and on top it also has the high roll potential to win on turn 4-5.
I don’t wanna smack talk anybody here, but let’s get real: If all you can contribute is “well, just put counters in your deck, duh” while conjurer mage is successfully played in high legend ranks where, you know, many of the “smart players” are, then maybe it’s just not as simple as some people like to make it seem, and maybe the negative reactions to their advice, which is based on assumptions about players who they know nothing about, aren’t entirely undeserved after all…