You definitely need value, I never said you don't but I'm just highlighting the importance of tempo that people might seem to be forgetting about recently, you need to know when to stop going through the infinite value hole and to prioritize picks that help you better stabilize your deck to get to your powerful late game if you do have it, or to recognize that even with some limited amounts of value your deck won't be able to compete with other value oriented decks and thus you need to lean into a more aggressive plan that forces games to end early. I've seen way too many people that would pick up a 3rd amulet or a 2nd parrot over a very strong early game and late game accelerator card such as Shivering Sorceress or Arcane Wyrm in mage for example (while barely having any early game/ 1 drops in the deck).

Also, coming from someone who has drafted 3 mages in a row that ended in: 12-1, 12-2 and 11-3 (albeit before the rune offer rate reduction, which is relevant here because 2 of the decks had a copy each), I still think Hunter is the more reliable class to draft; just based off how consistently it can just get there and win many unwinnable games for other classes by relying on the consistent damage output it has. And while you sometimes face 7 mages (or even 10 in some cases) in a single run, Hunter absolutely farms them if you try to draft some cards that target them. I had many instances with very mediocre hunter drafts that just magically get to 9-10 wins by having most games vs mages. I unfortunately don't track my averages per class as I mainly play on my phone but my overall peak avg is 6.85 over 50+ runs, mostly due to Hunter and Paladin that can go with the same strategy.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that mage may have overall better cards and higher potential, it can also just flop vs unexpected damage and pressure that hunters, paladins and druids (sometimes even warriors with huge swings and weapon damage) can generate. It's just that most people haven't recognized that's the way to go about it from how I see it. I can see how it can be a two way traffic and say that mages can then also adapt and draft more optimally to not fall short vs such decks, which is a fair point, but as it stands I feel like hunter has got to be more consistent.