Hearthpwn

In addition to the above, always keep Secretkeeper and Water Elemental. Sorcerer's Apprentice is a nice keep as well because only an idiot would let a mage leave this up, providing a pseudo-taunt. Never keep Spellbender, even if you have Lackey as it is virtually useless in this matchup.

Play Mirror Entity for free as early as possible as we want to kill every single minion we can. Once the board is stabilized, we win. If you can get a water elemental down on a fairly empty board (or while holding Frostbolt and maybe a Valet), you can keep him permanently frozen and snag a victory. If you have Polymorph Potion, do not play it until T6 or later (unless you have to for certain synergies) as it can be insurance against Leeroy, Kor'kron, etc. Warriors run out of steam extremely fast so if you can hold the line for a bit, we can turn it around. Don't be afraid to Frostbolt his face if it means you get to keep a minion another turn or if it lets you set up a Water Elemental safely.

This deck will overwhelm many other decks very quickly but is susceptible to burn. Aim to mulligan hard for early cards (Wyrm, Secretkeeper, Sorcerer's Apprentice) as we need the early push to do well. It might even be worth forgoing Frostbolt in this matchup to aim for a more aggressive start. Counterspell is fantastic if you already have an Apprentice, Lackey or Kirin Tor.

In this matchup, we want to get stuff on the board as fast as possible. Druids like to have a nice, leisurely 2-3 turns were they can ramp and then start kicking your ass. Use this to your advantage by coining out a Sorcerer's Apprentice. Sometimes they'll be able to remove it, but if they do, it comes at the cost of their own ramping. If they don't remove it, you suddenly have a massive advantage.

Your priority in this matchup is to get a massive Mana Wyrm and/or get an Arcanist or Runner down T3/T4. If you can get a Counterspell or (even better in this matchup) Spellbender down with it, you'll be able to push for a ton of damage. We really have to hit hard, using ping to pick off golems and Frostbolt to stall other minions while we rush face. The only way that druids can come back is with Feral Rage and Ancient of War and most decks only seem to run at most one of each. Our minions almost all have more than one health so Swipe isn't a massive threat. However, do not let your opponent ever keep an Azure Drake down unless you can burn him next turn as it could result in a full board clear. Don't be afraid to use Valets on face to get more presence on the board. Counterspell is hilarious when you use it to cancel out his Jade Blossom or Swipe.

Mirror Entity: Helps you flood the board and can give you massive tempo when you copy anything that's 4 mana and up.

Counterspell: Protects your board from AOE's and protects individual targets from removal. We normally have a bigger board than our opponents so the only way they can get back is by using spell removal.

Spellbender: The card that nobody expects. It's absolutely incredible as people will try to use The Coin to pop your secret, assuming it's Counterspell. Then when they think they're safe to use single target removal, that gets blocked too. This is superior to Counterspell when it blocks buffs, small removal spells (Backstab), and transformations (Hex, Polymorph). Spellbender often remains unproc'd for awhile too so it can help buff Ethereal.

Effigy: Not a fantastic secret but it's nice to get secret variety. Very very good if you manage to get it to go off on Kabal Crystal Runner and pretty decent if it goes on Ethereal Arcanist. Currently out of the deck and replaced by Ice Block

Ice Block: Seems like an odd secret to have in a tempo/aggro deck but it's becoming a necessity due to all of the pirate warriors. Too many times have I died one turn before lethal with Effigy and Spellbender uselessly sitting there. Aside from saving our lives sometimes, this card acts as a mega bluff by keeping your opponent always guessing, and it means that you always have a buff available for Ethereal Arcanist or a way to use Medivh's Valet's battlecry. I like it for now but will remove it if the meta slows down a lot.

Potion of Polymorph: Not 100% sold on this but it is handy for wiping out big taunts or *gasp* Leeroy Jenkins in pirate warrior. If you have this and Mirror Entity, please play this afterward or else you'll get a free sheep.

Kabal Crystal Runner: Amazing card. Not worth keeping in your opening hand unless you somehow magically draw two Lackeys and a secret with it. Try to protect this with Counterspell and Spellbender if you can. This bad boy is a nice tempo swing but don't feel bad if you end up playing it for 2 mana. You don't always need to get the 0 mana dream.

Ethereal Arcanist: A beauty of a card. It's a massive threat that just keeps getting bigger and bigger if your opponent can't deal with it. I often like to play Counterspell or Spellbender with it to waste Hex/Fireball/whatever else. There's enough secrets in this deck that you should be able to get another one up if your first gets revealed.

Kabal Lackey/Kirin Tor Mage: Lovely cards that give big tempo swings. With 7 secrets, 3 of these should be enough to hold down the fort. I prefer the Lackeys as you get more value for your mana and can do stupid combos early on with your Wyrms and Keeper but it's up to you.

Mana Wyrm/Secretkeeper: Again, I stick with the magic number 3 here. Wyrm is more consistent IMO since it works with all spells, but they're both awesome cards. It sucks to get these later on so don't go overboard by adding 4 of these one drops, and try to mulligan for these.

Sorcerer's Apprentice: Protecting one of these with Counterspell can give you free reign of the board, popping your removal, card draw, etc with impunity. The only time I would play this without combo'ing with spells would be if I was fairly certain my opponent couldn't kill it.

Medivh's Valet: Insane value considering how many secrets we have. Try to save these for removal instead of just dropping for face damage.

Ethereal Conjurer: This card is amazing because not only is it more offensively stat'd than Azure Drake, it also lets you choose what you want. I would highly recommend adding two of these as your late game "draw".

Water Elemental: Currently testing two of these but I've committed to having at least one in the deck due to the hell that is this pirate warrior fiesta. Too often have I lost to warrior weapon damage after stabilizing the board, so I needed to add this in. After adding this, I had two warriors concede after realizing their Arcanite Reaper would be useless the rest of the match. If you hate pirate warrior, this is the best tech you could make. Adding a second one probably means one Ethereal Arcanist is out which hurts your priest/druid matchup, so choose wisely.

Babbling Book: I saw this on another secret mage decklist and I like the idea of it. Not sure how well it would pan out in the end but might be worth trying.

Vaporize: In pirate warrior matchups, the Counterspells only really save you from the last little bit of damage they'll do to you and Spellbender isn't super handy. It might be worth trying this out as a defensive mechanism.

Azure Drake: Had these in but took them out for Conjurers. I do like them but I don't have enough spells that you desperately need to synergize them with. If you're seeing way too much priest, this is a pretty good inclusion.

Forgotten Torch: I liked this card for awhile but then had to replace it with other options as it was a tad on the slow/control-ish side. It might see play again depending on how I feel about other cards.

It may seem awesome to use Lackey on T1 with some secret but the majority of the time this will be a bad play. Here are some reasons why:

1. Mage/druid/rogue like to ping 2/1's on T2.

2. Counterspelling a coin or weenie spell feels bad, while Mirror Entitying a 1 or 2 drop is pretty sad in most matchups.

3. You don't get to benefit from buffing Secretkeeper/Mana Wyrm while you use the secret.

4. You lose the element of surprise as your opponent can slowly test the secret over the next few turns.

5. If the secret gets activated, you don't get the Valet/Arcanist synergies.

That being said, here are some situations in which you may want to use Kabal + Secret T1.

1. If you have The Coin and a Secretkeeper/Mana Wyrm

2. Against Pirate Warrior in conjunction with Mirror Entity so you can get some board presence to contest ASAP.

3. Against druid/priest if you have Spellbender/Counterspell, Coin and an Arcanist/Runner in hand. Spellbender is better in this situation as it won't get popped by druid ramp spells, but killing a druid ramp spell is still pretty nice.

In all other situations (or at least most), it makes more sense to just hold onto the spells and wait for a more opportune situation.