Firestorm is GOOD for the meta

3DC can compete for the high ranks. As can variations on FS.
I've run both above 1600 with 63+% win rate.
My 3DC got me rank 11 and I retired it because too many people were mad at me for running it.

 

I'm agreeing with a lot of things being said here, such as the whole armor encouraging thing. I'd even say it's nice to see a FS deck once in a while.

... at least, I WOULD, but when you run three elf wizards, there's practially nothing worse to play against then an enemy that can hit you from anywhere and can't be stopped from doing that. The fact that firestorm is also most often used in bulk AND it's paper quality adds up to too much firestorm. Now, if firestorm was bronze quality, that would be different. It would require power tokens on the arcane items, which would force the users of FS to either choose to use less firestorm, or have the same amount of FS but have lower quality other cards.

 

Yes, but the flipside of that design coin is that then the game becomes pay-to-win or play-obsessively-to-win. Those are not such good things to be.

 

You should also say when that was.
But even if you got that high at one point, you did not stay very long above 1600 because the current dominant meta is aimed against that.
So what i said is true, FS or 3DC are solid for a specific ranking range but they don´t compete with the top.

 

The 2nd highest rated player played 3DC until the expansion. Not sure what will he play now.

 

It was on the current map rotation, within the last month.
I moved away from 3DC because of complaints, as I said. I maintain low to mid 1600s with my FS-control hybrid currently (or at least, up until the expansion, I've only played one game since launch).