Sjoesie's echo giant mage
- Last updated Feb 25, 2016 (Explorers)
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Wild
- 19 Minions
- 11 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 6040
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/5/2015 (Blackrock Launch)
- user-6842496
- Registered User
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- 4
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- 36
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Battle Tag:
Sjoesie#2692
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
85
Above: proof of legend over different seasons. The screenshot outside the spoiler is the one I made on 5 January 2016
Updating
Hello, I'm Sjoesie, a legend belgian hearthstone player. At this point, I've been legend for about 11 times, and most of the times I hit it with this very deck: echo mage. Post-TGT echo mage got a lot weaker due to other decks getting huge powerspikes, while echo mage in particular didn't really get anything valuable in order to keep up. Not even LOE was able to change this fact, hence echo mage was considered dead by a lot of players. I continued playing it however, and finally found a version that works good overall. Below is the explanation of the deck as well as other useful information, so feel free to try it out and give your opinion on the deck ^^
You can always scroll down the changelog in order to try an other version. None of the previous versions are bad, and they're not even necessarily outdated. This is the version closest to what I'm playing at this point, and is just another alternative to play the deck.
Questions? You want to see me this deck and others? Any suggestions? Then you can join my channel: http://www.twitch.tv/sjoesie_hs
Also, a huge shoutout for RUZ3, a totally awesome team! You can check their twitter here: https://twitter.com/RUZ3GAMING
Pros/Cons:
Pros:
- Good waveclear with Explosive Sheep and Flamestrike.
- The opponent rarely knows what you're playing until turn 4/5 -> Mindgames!
- Decent drawing power
- Rarely running out of minions with echo and duplicate.
- Doesn't have a hard counter
- Doesn't only rely on molten combo (mainly vs control)
Additionally, this deck is extremely fun to play and you'll have a lot of interesting matches. Every turn can be played in a lot of different ways, meaning that you have to make choices according to the situation each time, which is awesome for people who like tactical games.
Cons:
- Bad single target removal, with only Polymorph (the addition of Ethereal Conjurer partly solved this problem)
- You can easily run out of waveclear if used too early.
- People can play around your moltens
- Kezan Mystic is a huge problem, so is Loatheb.
- Can get outbursted early game before you can draw into your combo.
This deck has a lot of cards which are useless early game (near half of your deck probably), which means you can have extremely horrible hands.
General Tactic:
Split up in early, mid and late. This is the case against most decks, but you'll get to late faster against aggro than you would against control. Just try to feel in what phase you're in.
1. Early, Draw : Try to draw as much as possible early game. Mad Scientist gets the secrets out of your deck, so having at least one secret in play early on both gives you a bit of tempo and ensures that you won't draw the secret. Acolyte of Pain will draw you at least one card, but you should always aim to draw 2 cards from it. Against aggro just dropping this will mostly ensure this, but there are situations where you want to keep it in your hand so you can ping it on turn 5. Use Explosive Sheep as removal if the board get too overloaded. If, by any chance, you get Duplicate in play early on against a token deck, don't be afraid to use it on an explosive sheep. This will give you a lot of clear and tempo early on!
2. Mid, Strengthen: Turn 4/5 is usually the turning point for this deck. You can start throwing out Twilight Drake, Sludge Belcher and Emperor Thaurissan. Having a Duplicate in play by that time is really strong, since it makes the following turns pretty awkward for your opponent. From this point, you're gonna start trying to claim board control. Having board control is great because you both have time to draw into your other pieces (like echo and Thaurissan etc) and you can probably deal with whatever threat your opponent throws out. There are situations, however, where it's better to get a secret up than having board control (when you're expecting a burst for example), so it's not an ironclad rule.
3. Late, Echo: Turn 7 and after you want to look for a good Echo of Medivh. Most of the time you'll be low already by that time, so you can play Molten Giant and echo them quite easily. If you manage to get an echo off against a control class, Don't ever play all of them on the field except if you know for sure they can't clear them! A Shadowflame on a mountain giant is all it takes to remove ALL of your giants. A lightbomb is even more deadly. If you're sure you have enough power on the board, just keep a few in your hand, so that if they manage to clear them, you still have a backup. If they're not putting pressure, you can Alexstrasza their face and put some pressure yourself, or your own face in order to play your giants. Play it smart and predict your opponent's moves.
Note: Don't be afraid to echo early on to get some board pressure, for example if you have two drakes and a mad scientist on the board, and you need those additional minions in order to keep the board. It really depends from game to game whether this is good or not, so you'll have to experience yourself what's a good time to echo.
Card Explanation:
Possible tech cards:
- Harrison Jones against lots of weapon classes. (I like to play it instead of a Twilight Drake)
- second Sludge Belcher when you're feeling you need more taunts (instead of Loatheb / Twilight Drake)
- second Ethereal Conjurer when facing a lot of reno/handlocks (instead of Twilight Drake / Explosive Sheep)
- Big Game Hunter instead of Polymorph if you don't feel like you can deal with boom properly without.
1. IN THE DECK:
Why is Belcher better than Jouster? There are a several reasons: the fact that jouster doesn't always get taunt, the fact that it costs one mana more, and the fact that your opponent gets to see what you're playing in your deck (not unimportant!). The first two were the main reasons why I reverted this card back to a belcher. Also, the deathrattle from the belcher is, and will remain, insane for its mana cost. It's also huge when you get two of them from duplicate, because that will protect you from a LOT of damage.
I used to say: I've never been a fan of Sylvanas. I'm still not, but I learned to respect her more. Even if you still throw her down on an empty board, there's no way your opponent can ignore her. The only drawback of this card is that it's really slow, so it can sit in your hand for quite a lot of time before you can safely play her. I mainly re-added her because she's great against midrange decks such as paladin, druid etc.
I'm sorry, twilight drake senpai, can you forgive me for removing you? It's a really strong minion for it's cost, and synergizes with your hand size, duplicate, echo... The only hard counter is silence, and that's why you run two of them, right? :3
Jokes aside, this is a great, if not the best, 4-slot minion, and in this deck even superior to shredder. It can trade with everything of the same cost, and it is one of the tools you will use to reclaim board presence midgame. I have tried with a lot of different 4-drops, but none of them seem to work as well as twilight drake. There's just no better alternative in the 4-slot for this deck, which is why I play them.
4. Explosive Sheep vs Unstable Ghoul
Alright, this is an interesting comparison. Explosive sheep is better against token decks that spam a lot of minions, while unstable ghoul is better against more combo-oriented decks because of its taunt. If you're facing a lot of zoo and tempo mage, you'd rather have explosive sheep. Unstable ghoul on the other side, is an interesting choice against combo druid and face shaman. What I experienced is that overall, explosive sheep has a few more matchups where it's clearly better than unstable ghoul, which is why I re-included it in the deck. Especially with the comeback of zoo, which was gone for a several months, explosive sheep became a much more valuable card.
5. Kel'Thuzad vs Ragnaros the Firelord vs Elise Starseeker vs ...?
This is the lategame part. As for my experience, I think this deck, next to its other threats, needs one really strong lategame threat in order to be able to compete with decks like control warrior, handlock/renolock or a good control priest. I tested with a lot of things, getting the most crazy games because of it, but in the end, I think the three described above are the most impactful ones. Generally Kel'thuzad and Ragnaros are better against midrange, while Elise is 'better' against aggro and way better against control. I have the feeling, however, that this choice is really focused on having a good tool against control decks, which is why I picked elise over the other two for the past month. Especially against control warrior she's the mvp, probably winning me about half of the games against them.
This is the most fun part to play around with though, so you can try some crazy stuff such as Rafaam or Ysera, and it'll sometimes actually work :D Oh, and don't forget that poor Troggzor, he needs some love too!
5. Acolyte of Pain vs Arcane Intellect
There used to be a time where Arcane Intellect was clearly better than acolyte of pain. Arcane is a guaranteed carddraw that can only be denied by loatheb. Acolyte of pain is a bit slower and can possibly give you only one card, so why is it better than arcane? The reason is simple. Because it actually does something on the board. Whether it's proccing that divine shield on the shielded minibot, or making sure you can ping the knife juggler to death next turn, what it does exactly most of the times doesn't really matter. But the fact that it trades into something, matters a lot. Also, it makes people think you're freeze mage, which can give you a huge advantage early on! People will sometimes play around imaginary doomsayers or do crazy removal plays, just because they think they won't be able to use them anyways. I would say acolyte is a bit better than arcane, but you can easily substitute one for another anytime.
2. NOT IN THE DECK:
1.Arcane Blast, Illuminator and Faceless Manipulator:
Arcane blast is a one mana deal two damage, that gains double value from spellpower. We don't run any spellpower cards, so why would we run this one then? Flexibility. The fact that this card costs one mana, makes your amount of options a lot bigger, both in early and in lategame. It is also really good against Knife Juggler decks, since they tend to run a lot of 1/2 hp minions.
Not playing this because of better alternatives
Illuminator is an interesting card, since it allows you to heal for a lot against aggro. It can be tested around with, and from time to time it can give some decent results.
Not playing this because it relies too much on secrets and is not as effective in this meta because hunter is underplayed.
Faceless Manipulator, probably the hardest card to explain. I've been talking a lot about flexibility with these changes, and this card is the one that enforces that the most. You can see this card as a replacement for sneeds or antonidas or whatever lategame card you were playing. 'But if there's no minion on the board, you can't copy anything...' There will always be a target for this guy. Be it your opponent's ysera, your own molten, or just your opponent's belcher, you'll always get value out of it. The only drawback is that it's horrible early game. And even then, you can faceless a twilight drake turn 5 sometimes, which can also instantly get you board control.
Not playing this because of other alternatives, and because of it's unreliability in the current meta.
See Belcher.
Justicar is even slower than sylvanas, and nowadays the one extra damage on the hero power doesn't even matter anymore, so yeah...
4. Nexus-Champion Saraad and Sneed's Old Shredder
Saraad is cool, and definitely worth a try in this deck. However, right now, I don't really need that kind of a minion. The meta is pretty fast, and saraad is just too unreliable. Same with sneeds (which is way slower and gets easily countered by the millions of sylvanases nowadays). If you're lacking a card, you can replace it with one of those two though, since they are interesting additions to the deck.
5. Effigy
My thought on this card remains the same: this is the best secret ever made. But I can't afford to play 3 different secrets sadly enough. It just randomizes your secret drawing way too much, and you can get stuck with a duplicate and an effigy against face hunter (where otherwise you would've gotten a duplicate and an ice block). Interesting card, is worth a try, but I'm not going to play it anymore for now.
With Brann, it's always a question of whether you can ever get value out of it or not. If it just sticks in your hand, waiting for that one battlecry to show up, it's a bad card in your deck. If you have a several really strong combo's however, this card might be worth considering. This card is not bad, and might come back in the future, but for now I chose not to rely on too much comboes, which is the very definition of brann.
7.Doomsayer and Frost Nova:
You can play doomsayer + nova combo, but it just takes too much space away in your deck. The list is already pretty cramped, so I prefer not to play them and play cheaper, more reliable clear such as Explosive Sheep or Unstable Ghoul instead.
8.Frost Giant and Mountain Giant:
The greedy giant duo. I get a lot of questions of why I'm not playing them, and I will give the reasoning for that here. Now, since the giants almost have the same problem, let's start with the less reliant one: Frost Giant. Frost giant can be a huge card against control decks, because you will definitely be able to use your hero power ten times in the course of the game, meaning you can play it for 0 and echo it. Now, the question you have to ask yourself, is the following: will it win you the game against control, which is where it's good against. No, it won't. You are already favored against them, and frost giant will not be the key in order to win the game. How is the card against other decks? Horrible. At best it will be maybe a 6/7 mana 8/8 without a direct impact on the board, at worst you won't be able to play it and lose because of it being useless in your hand. Now, that's also where I get to mountain giant. I used to play this card because it actually fit with the idea of 'hand echo mage', where my deck was originally based upon. While it might be good early game, mage doesn't have a reliable card draw like warlock has, so if you draw it mid or endgame it will be completely useless. Furthermore, you won't be able to use your removal early on, because that will just delay your mountain even more. Why pick mountain over something like rag then? There's close to no reason. Most of the games you won't be able to play it before turn 8 anyways, and in that case rag is simply better.
People have been asking me this question a lot lately. Why do you not run sunfury? How can you survive when you can't play taunts? Well, most of the times, sunfury will do nothing. Either you have another way of taunting (belcher, ghoul), or another way to keep yourself from harm (playing a second ice block, alex, healbot...). Yes, it will save you sometimes. But it will lose you more games by doing nothing at all and just sitting in your hand, waiting for that one molten to show up. This card is only good vs aggro, and nowadays those decks are way too fast in order to draw into that combo.
Matchups:
- Always keep Mad Scientist and Acolyte of Pain .
The others are situational (described in mulligan for each class).
Druid :
Mulligans: one Twilight Drake, Frostbolt. If you know it's aggro, keep Explosive Sheep
Tactics:
Druids are a hard matchup to play, and it all depends on how good their tempo is. If they get too much tempo with their wild growths and innervates, you'll be dead in no time. Their main weakness is their lack of aoe, which means you can practically spam your minions if you have a lot of them. Early game, try to draw as much as possible and try to get an ice block up (!). If it's a combo druid, try to remove their minions as efficient as possible. There are two ways to win this matchup: Either get full control of the board in the midgame or put up a wave of moltens and either burst them or heal back up and clear the board.
Against aggro druid you'll be wanting to clear their board as long as possible. All you need is a few bigger minions like sludge belcher or loatheb, and then start clearing their board. Their way to win is to burst you before you're able to stabilize, so if you ever manage to claim the board once, victory is yours. You can also try to mill them when they play fel reaver, but keep in mind that you have to survive, even when their deck is empty. Most of the times you just want to remove it and buy yourself a bit more time by doing so. Also, keep track of the cards they discard, especially combo cards and dr boom!
Warlock:
Mulligans: Frostbolt, Explosive Sheep, Twilight Drake.
Tactics;
Against zoo you want to keep the board as clear as possible early game, only removing the most dangerous minions (knife jugglers and wolves). Try not to clear when they have a nerubian egg up or to clear only 2 minions. If you're lacking aoe early on, try to duplicate explosive sheep, which'll help you big time in clearing their minions. Your midgame minions (Twilight drake, sludge belcher) wreck theirs, and will give you enough time to draw into your combo. When you're getting low, putting down a lot of moltens at once will usually win you the game. That's what usually decides the game, so try to draw into them before they pop your block. Also, Flamestrike is hyper effective! Time it well, and it will make things easier for you. The longer the game goes on, the more likely you are to win!
Handlock/Renolock is a hard matchup. Try to draw as much as possible, clear/slow down their big minions and surprise/outvalue them with your echoes and duplicate. Don't overextend and throw all of your giants on the board at once, because shadowflame can singlehandedly win games. Make good use of your flamestrikes and don't just waste them to kill that 4/4 twilight drake. Very interesting games, where every game has a lot of difficult decisions involved in it. The important part is that you outvalue them, so you have enough threats left when jaraxxus comes down. Ethereal conjurer is one of the mvp's in this matchups, since it will give you the burst you're lacking. Don't be afraid to take a pyroblast or fireball in order to give you a burst when they go into Jaraxxus, which is probably the best card they have against this deck. A good echo can give you too many threats for them to deal with, and can turn the game around fairly quickly. Always be aware that they might run some kind of combo! You can use that against them though, by baiting it out and healing back up afterwards while reclaiming the board.
Mage:
Mulligans: Frostbolt, Explosive Sheep, one Twilight Drake.
Tactics:
Against tempo/flamewaker mage you're trying to claim the board and play around their secrets. If possible, use their mirror entities on your explosive sheep! (or mad scientist/healbot/acolyte otherwise) They tend to run a few bigger minions like boom and antonidas, deal with them efficiently while setting up your own board. The minions you need to remove as soon as possible are flamewaker and sorcerer's apprentice, because those two can deal a lot of damage if left alone. Beware of counterspell, try to trigger it with the spell you need the least!
Freeze mage shouldn't be a problem, because you have almost infinite healing and ice block to counter their burst. Heal, echo and heal again and again when you're feeling that you might get bursted. Keep note that if you have a full field and it gets frozen, you can't heal anymore. If they throw down doomsayer and you can't remove it, you can throw down your useless minions such as explosive sheeps, so you make place in your hand for possible echoes/duplicates. Keep polymorph for Antonidas and Thaurissan, or possibly Alexstrasza. Every time you echo, try to echo at least a healbot or Loatheb, because a lot of healing counters their burst and they'll just run out of cards. Most of the time you'll just fatigue them or they will run out of burst. If you lose this matchup a several times in a row, you're doing something wrong.
Priest:
Mulligans: Twilight Drake.
Tactics:
A really intensive skill matchup, which is hugely in your favor. Try to not let them draw too much. Beware of lightbombs, shrinkmeister + cabal combos and always keep in mind that they MIGHT run or Sylvanas + death and DEFINITELY the new entomb. Make good use of your echoes and duplicates. Early Twilight drakes can take their early game away really quickly. A good duplicate/thaurissan usually wins you the game. Just like the handlock matchup, try to outvalue them. Priest is the class you have to mindgame the most. Make them think you're freeze, let them do some face damage, and then outvalue them. If they're playing a lot of minions early on (and are clearly having a godhand), you'll have to start playing your threats early on as well and hope you can outvalue them. Even though it's not an aggro or token deck, flamestrike is a really good card in this matchup, but it requires a lot of timing and preparation. Hard games which can go both ways, depending on each player's skill level.
Warrior: 6 - 5 (55%)
Mulligans: Twilight Drake, Emperor Thaurissan, Frostbolt.
Tactics:
Against control warrior, you use the same tactic like handlock and priest. Make good use of your duplicates and echoes, and this matchup should be very good, if not almost impossible for them to win. Warriors normally run a lot of legendaries, so don't simply waste all of your spells to remove one, because you won't have nothing left for the next one. Try to get good duplicates and echoes. Beware of brawls (also the double brawl decks), play around them by always having a backup in your hand. Count executes and shield slams (and keep in mind that they usually run 1 bgh). This matchup is 50-50 if you play it well, and maybe even more if you play it very well, but it's one of the hardest games in hearthstone in my opinion.
The new grim patron warrior can be tricky. It's not an aggro deck, but they can outrush you if you don't draw in your answers soon enough. Try to draw a flamestrike for the patrons, and clear their board as efficient as possible. Their biggest burst is grommash + inner rage (well, they can use cruel and another but that rarely happens), so keep in mind that they can do 12 burst at any time past turn 8. Lots of board pressure or an early patron clear usually wins you the game, but you can also just look to fatigue them down. A slightly favored matchup for echo mage.
Rogue:
Mulligans: One Twilight Drake, Frostbolt
Tactics:
This matchup is pretty decent. Usually they will just play reactive the first few turns because they don't know you're playing giant mage. After that, they'll get more and more aggressive and rush you down eventually. Try to establish a bit of a board before that with drakes and other not easy to remove drops, a good duplicate is also nice early game. Remove their minions, this way you'll take away a lot of damage from the oils. The teachers are difficult to deal with, but even if he starts to spam tokens, you can always remove them with a flamestrike later. Counting the saps is important, because it's probably the best card against your deck. Also, count the weapon upgrades (deadly poison and, possibly, oil) and flurries in order to know how hard they can burst you at any time. They will probably burst you at least once, if that happens, make sure you have a heal/another block ready in your hand. Drawing is extremely important against them, as well as not giving them time to do whatever they want (especially for oil). Most of the times you will simply outheal/value them, which is something rogue can hardly handle.
Shaman:
Mulligans: Explosive Sheep, Frostbolt, one Twilight Drake. If playing: Harrison Jones
Tactics:
The only dominant archetype at the moment is aggro shaman. They're a harder version than face hunter, since they just have more damage overall. Survival is the most important. Get an ice block up, stall them as long as you need, play your moltens when you're low and heal back up. Taunts are great, and duplicating one of those are game deciding. If you're really having problems with them, you can consider adding an ooze or harrison in order to deal with the doomhammers. It's no shame losing this matchup, because they are sometimes just too fast to deal with.
Hunter:
Mulligans: Explosive Sheep, Frostbolt. If second, one Twilight Drake
Tactics:
Against any kind of hunter. Generally speaking this deck is very good against them because you can kill their minions without having fear to die really fast because of the ice block and the healing. Keep in mind that explosive trap kills you when you trigger it and have 1 or 2 hp left, even if you have ice block up. Play around their traps. Triggering freezing traps on a healbot or triggering a snake trap into unstable ghoul or flamestrike are good examples of this. If it's more of a midrange hunter, keep your polymorph for highmane, except if you have to use it in order to survive. Both a good boardclear or a lot of pressure and healing usually easily wins you the game.
Midrange hunter is slightly harder than Aggro hunter, but a well timed flamestrike will really destroy them. Until then, just try to survive and clear as well as possible. Let your minions soak the damage and don't take too much face early on, because the best way they can win is actually outrushing you or curving out perfectly.
Paladin:
Mulligans: Explosive Sheep, Frostbolt, Twilight Drake
Tactics:
Midrange Paladin is sometimes really annoying to deal with because of their equality combos and their musters into quartermasters. Use explosive sheep to kill the musters or a big board early on, throw giants and drakes out and try to make good use of your duplicate and echoes. Paladins don't have a burst, so even when you're at 8 hp, you generally don't have to worry about dying when they have nothing on the board. Try to keep polymorph for tyrion, but don't be afraid to use in on a sylvanas for example. Don't overextend into an equality play. This matchup is most of the time decided by the early/mid game. If they don't have an insane curve, it's a decent matchup.
Aggro Paladin is really annoying and probably one of the worse matchups of this deck. The sole reason for that is Divine Favor, which will usually draw them 5 cards or more. The way to win this matchup is to keep the board as clear as possible, to keep you ice block up as long as possible and to draw into your moltens/echoes or enough healing. In other terms: the same way you play against face hunter, but a much harder version of it.
Secret Paladin is a hit or miss. It all depends on both of your curves. If you can't clear any early game minions, they can outrush you. If they, however, have a bad start and you can get a headstart, the game is in your favor. Use explosive sheep and frostbolt to block their early game aggression, while drawing cards with acolyte and mad scientist. Just curve out midgame, and try to get rid of their minions before challenger comes down. A sylvanas turn 6 can really help, since it directly threatens challenger, or when played in a lot of secrets it can take the repentence. If it comes down eventually and they still have a board, either set up for an aoe removal (such as flamestrike), or put down a minion they have to deal with (like sylvanas or thaurissan). It's not necessary that you proc their secrets as soon as they come down, sometimes it's better to wait for the right moment. Try not to stall it too long though, because the secrets alone give him a huge advantage over you. Also, you can wait proccing their secrets early on if there's no pressure, since that will make challenger much weaker.
Tip: when they have 7 minions, noble sacrifice won't activate. Make use of this! If you have 2 moltens on the board and alex in your hand, you can just kill them (and yes, these kinds of things happen :D). This is an extreme example, but you can use it in your favor when you want to trade for example.
Lastly, against murloc paladin, you have a couple of ways to win. Below I will give a list of task in order of importance.
- Polymorph their Old Murk-eye, if they can kill it before you can polymorph it, polymorph their Murloc Warleaders. Also, Conjurer can give you one of those polymorphs, so definitely go fishing if you don't have one in your hand, even when there's not a murloc on the board at that point.
- Echo or duplicate Loatheb! Doing this repeatedly will deny them from playing anyfin and will eventually give you enough pressure to finish him off!
- Pressure them and echo a lot of mid-game minions such as twilight drake, sludge belcher, conjurer etc. Bait out both of the equalities, and keep swarming your board with big minions, so they will be unable to deal with it.
- Deal with both of the anyfins and survive. This will almost never happen, so don't hope for this.
Other notes:
Like I said in the beginning, this deck takes a while to get used to. You can't play it in ranked for the first time and expect to instantly climb a few ranks. I got stuck around rank 3 for a while in the beginning as well, and because of lots of practice and experimenting I finally got where I wanted to be. If you really want to play this deck, have patience, play a lot, learn from your mistakes and learn to recognize your opponent's mistakes. But most of all: believe in the heart of the cards!
Q&A:
Q: Why don't you keep moltens in your opening hand?
A: While this deck centainly plays around molten and echo combos, it's not the only focus you should have. Keeping moltens in your opening hand against a priest for example wouldn't be as good as keeping a twilight drake in your hand. Against aggro it's certainly a good card to have, but you'd rather want a mad scientist or unstable ghoul in order to deal with the threats they're throwing out there. You want to draw into them at some point, but for the first turns there are a lot of better keeps.
Q: My opponent stole my ice block, what do I do?
A: This is unfavorable, but most of the times it's not immediately lost. Try to get your second ice block up, heal yourself to safety while claiming the board or get a taunt up . They won't profit from the ice block as much as you do, so don't be scared of not being able to finish them. As long as you can keep the board and stay alive, their ice block won't do a thing. A good player, however, will kezan when they can actually kill you. There's no way to avoid this, and is something we echo mage players will have to face until they bring out an anti-kezan card (which I doubt they will :3)
Thank you for reading the guide, sorry for my bad English from times to times. If you have questions, you can send me a message on twitch (the link on the top).
Changelog:
Updates:
5 april 18:00 : replaced 2 fireballs with 2 loot hoarders, testing out if i can create more tempo with them (feel that the fireballs are too slow)
6 april 1:40 : replaced the 2 loot hoarders with 2 explosive sheep. Paladin, zoo and druid are tough matchups, and this lessens the pain a bit.
6 april 4:10 : Changed this earlier, but forgot to edit. Switched 1 arcane intellect into 1 healbot for more sustain against aggro (still have enough card draw left)
9 april 3:10 : Reached legend with this deck. I'm really happy with the way it is now, but with 4 more wings to open, I have no idea how the meta's going to change. It may still need some tweaks after a certain point in time.
9 april 20:30: Rebuild the page, still need to complete the matchups
10 april 17:00: replaced 2 ice lances with a big game hunter and a dr boom. 50% of the time i was using the laces to kill dr booms anyways, and antonidas has still enough synergy with thaurissan. I can maybe eventually remove him, but for now I'll continue playing him.
10 april 22:40: updated the page
21 april 11:40: replaced boom with a frost nova. Sadly enough, boom didn't do much and I needed some kind of stall/tempo early game. I tested unstable portals but those didn't work out well. Frost nova gives you a turn, and especially against spamming classes like zoo and paladin it works extremely well.
22 april 22:50: updated the page
25 april 15:33: put everything in spoilers, it's a bit easier to read and to find what you're looking for + updated the page.
7 may 18:40: rewrote the page in order to fit with the new season/decks.
12 may 2:10: substituted mc tech for kezan mystic and one explosive sheep for blizzard. Lately mc tech felt like it didn't do much anymore, even if my opponent had 4 or more cards. I was relying too much on it, and I didn't feel like my deck weakened because i removed him. I replaced him for another tech card, kezan mystic, which is good against the extremely popular hunters and aggro mages. As for the explosive sheep, I felt I was stuck with one sheep most of the times. I like one blizzard because of the stall effect it gives (and the follow up with flamestrike).
14 may 23:37: I experimented a bit with a few different replacements for kezan mystic, as it didn't feel that good in this deck. Changed to sylvanas, which was way too slow, added another polymorph, which was good against control but useless against aggro, and finally ended up with bloodmage thalnos. The spelldamage is useful in any situation (you can remove thaurissan with thalnos + frostbolt + ping or blizzard grim patrons for 3 damage at turn 8). For now, thalnos feels like the best option.
17 may 23:15: Added new screenshot + description, added twitch link
7 june 14:30: Replaced a lot of cards in my deck. Went back to the double sheep instead of thalnos + blizzard since I didn't encounter a lot of zoo lately (and a lot of flamewaker mage). Replaced antonidas for sneeds (after trying out with ysera, which didn't work out really well). Antonidas didn't give enough value when i had to use my stallspells (frostbolt, nova...) early. Sneeds is a good replacement since you always get a lot of value out of it, and it synergizes well with duplicate/echo. I added mc tech again, since I'm facing a lot of handlocks and druids.
8 june 20:30: Updated the class specific mulligans/descriptions
9 june 15:00: Added some card explanation
10 june 1:45: Added winrates in order to give a good view on which classes this is favoured against and which not
6 july 19:40: Tested around with a few cards, ended up with minus 1 mc, plus 1 fs. The reason is patrons and locks
16 july 2:01: Huge update, both in deck and on page
30 july 16:30: Updated the class specific tactics/mulligans. Reverted one card choice described in update. Fixed missing class names.
2 august 21:11: Updated twitch link
28 august 0:30: Updated for TGT!
15 december 3:35: Updated for LOE!
26 december 13:19: Few little fixes
4 january 4:00: Updated the deck again, and the whole page except for the matchups
4 january 20:49: Updated matchups, added scores
5 january 10:40: Updated intro
26 february 1:35: Whole new update, with every section slightly altered and a few new cards added.
Farwell sweet prince FeelsBadMan
Just curious: how come you don't keep Molten Giant in your mulligan against Shaman / Hunter? I can understand Paladin or Mage etc since they might not be an aggressive deck, but Shaman / Hunter are always aggressive?
Have not had much use for the exploding sheep yet, but THIS DECK IS MAD FUN 7-0 since creation! Much props!
OK I've played a few games with your deck now and I have to say, Echo Mage is the weirdest deck ever. It's not only incredibly hard to play, it's often unclear if you're actually winning or losing. It leads to the wildest swing turns I've ever had short of a Deathwing board clear. I have no idea what to make of it.
With that said a few thoughts:
1) Loatheb feels out of place. The card is strongest when you already have a strong board presence and are pushing damage. That's the domain of a midrange deck however, and whatever archetype this deck falls into, it's definitely not midrange. Might consider replacing this with Dr. Boom (more on that later).
2) Similarly Sludge Belcher, Sylvanas and Ethereal Conjurer feel out of place, albeit less so. I get the feeling from my games that Conjurer is replacing the second Duplicate, and that change is mainly because of added flexibility: depending on the matchup you can either get Echo / Duplicate, or you can get Ice Barrier, Flamestrike, and so on. However Brann, which is the card that makes Conjurer really good, isn't in the deck. Similarly the singleton Belcher is odd. It's a great anti-aggro card I'll grant, and it's been effective, but it's still odd. I'm not sure if the deck is better without Belcher, but seeing the card there makes me think (so to speak). Finally I've also found Sylvanas to feel out of place. It's quite expensive and doesn't have immediate board impact. The idea behind the card is to play it when you're slightly behind to wrest board control back, but you have Molten Giants for that.
3) I found that a major problem with the deck is that my hand is often full. This is because of the Duplicate, Conjurer and the two Echoes. In two games I had against Reno + Elise Warrior and control Priest, I found myself burning one card (the second game I burned Elise's map, which probably lost me the game lol). There are a lot of dead cards that I can't play, e.g. in one game my Drake was the only minion on the board and I had Duplicate up. That's usually a good thing! Except my opponent simply hero power passes. Suddenly the rest of my hand becomes deader than a dodo, yet I can't sit and do nothing either because I'm drawing a card a turn to go with the two pseudo-cards from Duplicate, and 4 damage isn't fast enough a clock against Priest / Warrior. I don't know how to fix this, however.
4) So far Elise has felt like a masterstroke. The deck has dead cards against every deck, and Elise recycles them. Only one drawback: I can't throw away e.g. Explosive Sheep against a control deck anymore with Elise, which in turn means my hand gets even more clogged. Sigh.
5) I've had some issues with opponent not doing enough damage to let me play Moltens. That forces me to Alex myself, which is a terrible waste of resources. It's possible to turn the Moltens into legendaries via Elise, but it's inefficient: they're dead cards till then, and many legends can't match the stats on an 8/8. Not being able to play Moltens also weakens Echo tremendously.
6) Finally I think Dr. Boom is too good to give up. He's the strongest possible neutral play on turn 7, and while it is possible that Duplicate is up at the time, the opponent would not only have to have some kind of way to kill the Boom Bots first (so e.g. if you play Boom into an empty board, opponent can't Lightbomb), Boom Bots aren't bad Duplicate targets either. They're extremely efficient for 1 mana, and they might allow a combo play like Boom Bot + Boom Bot + something + Echo for even more value.
Just some thoughts.
EDIT: the next time I play the deck I'd probably try these changes -
- Loatheb
- Sylvanas
+ Ethereal Conjurer (flex slot, possibly use 2nd Belcher instead or even something like Stampeding Kodo, Bomb Lobber, etc)
+ Dr. Boom
EDIT #2: to deal with the hand size problem perhaps Mountain Giant might be good? It would also offer a way to start the Echo combo even if the opponent is not hitting you.
You flatter me :) I'm not nearly as experienced as you are with this deck, and probably at the game as well, since I've not played to legend for months. You did inspire me to work on this deck though (been experimenting with Brann + Discover Mage).
So far in my experience I think Loatheb is indeed not worth using. I don't find I miss the card. Presumably an unaware opponent may hit you into double molten + Echo + Loatheb range, but if he's hitting you into double Molten range you're already winning. Dr. Boom vs. Sylvanas is a different question however, and I have had situations where I wished for the other card. Main problem with Dr. Boom is that if you're mildly behind on the board and play it, you could get hit by BGH and become severely behind on the board. Not necessarily the end, but force a board clear since e.g. playing one Molten Giant is probably insufficient (it'll probably just get traded away). It also costs more than Sylvanas, of course. Main problem with Sylvanas is that it's not a minion you can play into an empty board, and it's much more annoying when a Priest Entombs her compared to Dr. Boom. At the moment I think which is better depends on the meta. More Priests / more control = run Dr. Boom, otherwise run Sylvanas.
One more thing I noticed is that right now Acolyte can potentially trigger Duplicate. So you can't exactly curve Mad Scientist into Acolyte, since if Mad Scientist pulls Duplicate you just end up with unplayable cards in your hand. I'm using Intellect at the moment for this reason, although I can acknowledge that Acolyte has its uses. I haven't played enough to say with confidence which is better however.
One problem with throwing away useless cards when the hand is full is that if I'm the one with minions on the board I can't exactly play Explosive Sheep =/ That's usually the most useless card; the next most useless card is probably Mad Scientist but that may pull out Duplicate, followed by card draw, which doesn't help reduce the hand size problem. Other cards are just literally unplayable (like 2nd Ice Block).
At the moment I'm experimenting with dropping Frostbolt. Frostbolt is by no means a bad card but sometimes I wonder what this deck is trying to kill with it, e.g. you could kill a Healbot with it but you often want it to hit you instead into Molten range, so why not use the Nova + Doomsayer combo instead of Frostbolt? Double Flamestrike may be overkill as well, but Flamestrike has some matchups where it's the most valuable spell in the deck. I'll have to play more to see; Nova Doomsayer might be able to compensate, as might Conjurer digging up Flamestrike / Blizzard.
EDIT: Screw Deathlord. No, really.
EDIT #2: Played five games, am unimpressed by Nova + Doomsayer. The deck doesn't have enough card draw to reliably get the combo, and without it both cards are rather bad (with one exception, playing Doomsayer into Mirror Entity). Sometimes even with both cards the combo is unimpressive, since it only triggers at the start of the next turn. So e.g. if it's late game and my opponent has three weak minions on the board, I can't pop a sheep and then play something for immediate board control. I have to wait till the next turn, risking the silence / Entomb / Shield Slam etc. It also means against a Hunter for example I can't start clocking him until the turn after. Finally Doomsayer sucks against Repentance. Next iteration, I'll probably try dropping the combo.
After playing a lot more with the deck I think you can drop one Flamestrike: it's a little too slow against aggro decks, and useless against control decks. Against board control decks like Zoolock it can be great, and it's vital against patrons, but it still helps to have extra tools early. Plus not having BGH makes you weak against Dr. Boom / Malganis / Sea Giant. So -1 Flamestrike +1 BGH seems quite natural to me.
I tried running without Frostbolt for a bit, replacing them with Flame Juggler. This is OK I've found: if for example you go first against a Warlock and he plays Voidwalker turn 1, Flame Juggler is better than Frostbolt. It's also obviously better against stuff like Muster and Shielded Minibot, and it's better in the control matchup. On the other hand, it greatly weakens you against Shaman. You're not only unable to kill Trogg, you're unable to break through Feral Spirits. You also can't kill Aspirant anymore (that card is not common however). Not sure if it's the better choice, feels like it's a metagame call. I might even start running Flamecannons next in the slot to kill Shades and Flamewakers / Unbound Elementals.
Otherwise, I think the deck is pretty close to perfect. Alextrasza is the next weakest card I'd like to cut, but not having it against a player who knows that you're on the Echo plan and so doesn't hit you might be deadly. idk, I might try it eventually anyway since if you don't get hit, Moltens can still eventually be recycled by Elise.
Edit: Actually thinking about it, in all my games I've played so far I don't remember any game in which the Monkey was of consequence. There were plenty of games in which I played Elise, plenty of games in which Elise was duplicated or echo'ed, and plenty in which I played Map (sometimes getting it countered by Counterspell too), but I only remember one game in which I played Monkey, and I died immediately the turn afterwards. Monkey just feels really difficult to play because often some of the last cards in your hand are Healbots, and those can't be recycled. Perhaps it's just me not playing against good Warriors right now, or perhaps it's because I have two Ethereal Conjurers doubling the chances of pulling Duplicate / Echo / some other value spell, but if this is any statistic to go by then Elise may not be necessary. I mean to test Dr. Boom or Ragnaros in place of it, although I should also say I feel Elise's 4 mana cost and associated anti-aggro value is valuable, in which case Fireball may be the better replacement - Fireball shores up the matchup vs. Druid as well, which is one of the weaker ones.
Edit #2: Discovered that losing one Flamestrike weakens the matchup against Priest. In hindsight it's obvious. If you don't draw Twilight Drake (and sometimes even if you do, since Deathlord just won't die) it'll often take Flamestrike to clear his board. Meanwhile there's usually nothing in his deck to BGH. However if you live long enough, chances are he'll Entomb something big like Alex, and then you will have something to BGH. At the moment I'm rather hating the Priest matchup if he curves out well, e.g. Cleric into Curator into Deathlord into Velen's - perhaps another matchup in which Fireball over Elise helps?
You wrote in the Pros that it doesn't have a hard counter but if you watched Strifecro's latest video (I think he was a warrior against echo giants) as well as Trump's older video (Paladin against echo giant) they both just stalled the game and left the other guy at 20+ health until fatigue. I used to play Grinder mage and I did this tactic as well when I figured out they were echo giants and there was almost nothing they could do. I'd say that's a pretty hard counter right, and most control decks will be able to do this.
The one time I lost though was when my opponent had teched in a Frost Giant as well. It cost zero similar to molten and didn't require he had low health. Maybe it's something to consider.
Excuse me Sjoesie but what do you recommend against matchups such as combolock, otk worgen and murloc otk paladin. I've faced these types of decks numerous amount of times regardless of what I play and I was wondering what would be the best course of action to take against these deck archtypes.
Feels really weird without any sunfuries so I just went with 1 unstable ghoul to 1 sunfury. It's a bit strange to have big guys on board and then no way to stop them going face. Beat a face shaman by taunting up a molten and a drake. Definitely would have died without it
Hi, love playing your deck for one month but really struggling a lot. I'm not so skilled and it's very tricky to make right decisions. I'm having a lot of problem with very aggro decks especially secret paladins, I lose against most of the time. At rank 8-10, it's 70% of them. When the board is overflood, often flamestrike come too late. I'm not convinced by Elise because in late game, we don't really need her. Tried to put one explosive sheep instead, or thinking about deathlord to stall so as to have the combo. What do you think ?
One polymorph is sometimes to few against deck with big or buffed minions. A control priest with a deathlord + velen's chosen is very hard to beat.
Taking all the advice possible
Keep on streaming sjoesie, I'm learning a lot, as you explain your choice, it's muche funnier to play this deck than aggro secret paladin even if it's much harder and kina disavantaged.
Any tips for playing against Murloc Paladin?
Keep Polymorph for Old Murk-Eye and get as many Sludge Belchers duplicated/echoed as you can
Interesting deck, I'll probably give it a try at some point.
Have you considered using not just Frost Nova + Doomsayer but also Blizzard as a stalling tactic to get your Molten Giants into play? Like, opponent hits you to 9 HP, you Frost Nova his board while dropping two Moltens. Next turn you swing for 16 and freeze his board again (Alex of course is even better), and the turn after you win.
Hello, great deck I'll try it today. One question and place for Brann Bronebeard ??
(the reason why: twilight drake, antique healot, ethereal conjurer)
okey, thank you, I already tried your deck .now i'M in level 8 (7 matches: 5 wins / 2 loses)
Hello,
First of thank you for the nice deck list an explanation. I must admit I am struggling quite a bit with this deck though but improving each game.
I have two questions if you dont mind.
1. How to you go about mad scientist giving your duplicate early game? I find it troublesome finding follow up plays because I dont want to duplicate acolytes, ghouls or more scientist.
2. Whats the reasoning behind not keeping acolytes in your starting hand in any matchups?
Ah I guess the matchup guide is from a while back when the deck didnt include them. Just using that section while Im playing. Cheers potvorki!
Edit: Its actually there at the top =)
Thanks for the quick reply!
Yeah against aggro Im ok with duplicating ghouls. Acolytes I had not really considered. But as you stated this could work as an emergency solution. I will try this in future games and thankfully those terrible opening hands are far apart!
Had a great last game today against control preist. Went to turn 6 fatigue with 6-7 cards in my hand where he had one in his(which I was certain was a second lightbomb!). I was going to die from fatigue in 2 turns. Reading your guide I knew not to be a boon and play all my giants at once hehe. So luckily my last molten giant and a pyroblast from ethereal conjurer sealed the deal my last turn :D His last card was emperor.
Im going to play this deck extensively this season, great fun. Thank you ^^
Played a few more games today and I have improved quite a lot. Currently 12-8 over 2 days but 0-5 vs pala :/ I need more practice vs secret pala. Think I am proccing their secrets to early. I am going to work on this my next games!
I have to ask sjoesie does anyfin pala hard counter this deck? They have so much draw potential while I have a hard time playing fast while being concerned of dodging board clears. How to you play this matchup? The two games I have played I couldent stop them from drawing their entire deck and playing 2x anyfin. After the equality/consecrate, equality/wild pyro combos and doomsayers ofcourse ^^ Any pro tips?
I don't think Kel'Thuzad is good enough in this deck:
- against the majority of the meta (aggro) you're gonna be playing reactively most of the game and won't be able to get value out of him since you never have the board (until the end, and then you've already won)
- against control you've got more than enough tools to overwhelm them already (Duplicate/Echo of Medivh on key minions like Emperor Thaurissan, Sylvanas Windrunner or Alexstrasza)
- in general the synergy isn't really there, getting a Twilight Drake resurrected is terrible, and there isn't really any other decent midrange body to bring back to life other than Sludge Belcher (who rarely survives a turn)
In the end I decided to replace him with Ragnaros the Firelord since he has a direct impact on the board and can tip the scales in your favor against midrange and control. Also getting him duplicated is often auto-win