Hearthpwn

This deck write-up comes to us from /u/JohnnyBlack22 on reddit. It has been posted here on HearthPwn with his permission.

The original guide can be found here.
The original match-up analysis can be found here.

Thanks to JohnnyBlack for allowing us to share the write-up an deck! go give him a follow.

• @JohnnyBlack_HS on Twitter
• JohnnyBlack17 on Twitch

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Foreword

Hey guys, JohnnyBlack here. You may remember me as the guy who RISKED HIS LIFE to play for 32 hours straight to become the first player to hit legend on EU this season. Well, by popular demand I'm back with a comprehensive guide to the burn mage deck I've been using this season. While I did technically get rank 1 on June 2nd when I got legend, I think it's more impressive now that we're a third of the way into the season, so I'm going to post another set of proof of this latest rank 1. Lastly, this guide ended up super long, so this post will just be a discussion of eater of secrets, the decklist justification, and the mulligan guide. Here we go!

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Legend Proof

• VoD of the Event
• Last Few Games Log
• Quest Rogue Record
• Burn Mage Record
• Overall Record

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Introduction

Before we get started, I need to issue a warning: this deck is rapidly becoming unplayable due to what seems to be an ever increasing number of clowns running eater of secrets. (I get it, it's a reasonable tech card, and, to be honest, I'll probably crack and add one too, but, as anyone who watches my stream knows, I hate this guy with a passion.) That being said, this little blue nuisance is primarily found in other mage decks. During my time climbing EU over the past few days, I've seen two copies of eater in non-mage decks (1 quest rogue, 1 shaman), while the other 10 or 20 copies I've seen played have all been tossed down by other mages. Due to this, you can just tech it yourself and level the playing field. If, at any point, all the shamans, druids, and rogues start running eater, then we'll probably have to retire this deck until the circus settles down, but until that point, if you're feeling stifled by all the eaters in mirrors, just cut a doomsayer and throw one in yourself, and your winrate will be back to what it was before nobody played this guy.

You're probably wondering how we achieved a high enough winrate to get rank 1 while running into eater of secrets so much. We we able to because we can actually beat mages running the blue plague with the list as is. Often. First of all, most other mages (they don't play acolyte) have roughly 13 cards left in their deck when the game ends. Assuming they keep the blue menace in their mulligan (which idk if they do), there's still roughly a 40% chance they never draw him. In these games, the effective number of ice blocks between us is even, and so since we have the better mirror deck barring the carnivorous tech choice, we usually steamroll to victory.

Even when they do draw him, though, a win is not impossible. See, Eater of Secrets essentially buys the other mage 1 or 2 turns. It functions in a similar manner to an extra Ice Block off glyph in that sense. It can consume 1 block and buy the opponent 1 turn, or it can effectively consume 2 blocks if they are able to hold it until they have lethal, and then destroy your first block with it and kill you. What this means, then, is that if you are more than 1 or 2 turns ahead of a mage running Eater of Secrets, you're still going to win. We can accomplish this with Acolyte of Pain.

By running Acolyte, we are typically deeper into our deck than the other mage. I remember one game in particular during which, at a certain point, I had 7 cards left and the other mage had 14. This means that, in general, we have more options available on each turn leading up to the great unmasker hitting the table than the other mage has. We're more likely to have Firelands portal on 7, Medivh, the Guardian on 8, Alexstrasza on 9, both our blocks, good options post medivh, Pyroblast on 10, efficient removal in the midgame, etc. Every turn we have more options, and therefore, on average, we are making stronger plays in the midgame than the opponent. This is how we assemble enough of an advantage to beat eater: good old card advantage.

One of the ways you can cash this advantage is via defensive Alexstrasza before your blocks are popped. Usually, this is a waste of hp, and forces the other mage to need one fewer burn spell in order to win, but if you've assembled enough of a turn advantage, you can use the inefficient Alex to force your opponent to have a more specific string of cards with his azure atrocity in order to lethal you. There's very little cost to playing around eater (with a turn advantage) in this way. You know you'll be able to pop both of the opponent's blocks and kill him before he burns you down from 15 and then pops your two blocks even though you've effectively gifted him a burn spell by Alexing yourself from, say, 5hp instead of 1hp. In other words, you can gift him a burn spell and still win the race, but by doing so reduce your exposure to eater.

Also, keep in mind that Eater of Secrets costs 4 mana. This means that the maximum damage output from your opponent (barring glyph) that can be played with it is 9, and with just a fireball it's 7. They can never Firelands Portal with it (unless they still have the coin past turn 10 somehow). Sometimes, especially if one fireball has already been used, you can just choose to not play around the Eater of Secrets+Fireball lethal. Your mind is telling you “the mage always has 5 burn” but that's coming from a line of thinking where Firelands Portal also kills you. Don't forget that by requiring the use of 4 mana, the tech monster prevents many burn combos from being possible in the same turn as he's played.

Another way you can cash your turn advantage check applies when your opponent doesn't draw Alex. You can simply adopt an aggressive plan and begin popping your opponent's blocks, or threatening to, while you yourself are still at >20 life. Again, your opponent will miss during the midgame more often than we will (because of acolyte) and thus you'll often find yourself with such a life and board lead by turn 10 or so that 1 turn from eater becomes irrelevant.

Alright, /rant. Let's move on.

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Card Choices

I won't justify cards like frostbolt and mana wyrm here, because I think we're all aware of why those are in the deck. Instead, I'll justify the cards for which there exist reasonable arguments on both sides.

Acolyte of Pain

I think this is the most unique thing about my list, and also, in my opinion, one of the best. This text is copied from my marathon climb article.

The most fundamental change I made is acolyte over kabal courier. This comes down to my contention that the cards in the deck are better than a random discovered mage, priest, or warlock card. For every game that you cheese out with a doom, or cabal shadowpriest, or extra healing card, there are two games you could have won by drawing your actual cards. For example, instead of getting a heal from courier, you can draw into your alex faster. All the cards in your deck work together. The burn cards allow you to go face, and are better in pairs. They are also great with alex. The board control cards help you clear, and often a two turn clear with potion and flamestrike can answer a board you'd otherwise lose to. Alex synergizes with block and barrier for defense, medivh wants you to have big spells in your hand for value, valet needs you to have a secret active. Your deck is a fine tuned combo machine teched to beat the meta. Why would you want a random decent card from some other class over a card from that well-oiled machine?

Additionally, because of your hero power, you almost always get at least 2 cards from acolyte. This means that you're not choosing between a courier card and an acolyte card, but rather between a courier card and two acolyte cards (using some extra mana sometimes). Obviously, stating it like this assumes that the game isn't going to fatigue. With this deck, almost every game you lose doesn't involve fatigue. You get rushed down by aggro, killed by a midrange board you can't handle, or run out of resources in your hand against control. Even when losing against control, your deck isn't drained, you just run out of steam and eventually lose the board to big cards you can't handle. The 2/2 body and 1/3 body are pretty similar, but even then I'd argue acolyte is better because of how people treat it. Ever seen somebody spend a turn using jade lighting on a courier? I didn't think so (unless they had no other reasonable plays). People don't want your hero power to turn into “draw a card”, so they use frostbolt, jade lighting, and weapon charges on acolyte to prevent it. Against shaman specifically, they MUST address it, or it will likely draw 3 cards and eat 2 or 3 small minions in the process. P.S. Acolyte + volcanic potion is a nifty little draw 2 combo.

Counterspell

I don't remember who it was in chat who first suggested I cut the ice barrier for counterspell (if you remember, I'll edit this and give you credit for it), but boy has it made a huge difference. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't think of it on my own. Pirate warrior is quite literally the only matchup in which ice barrier is better, and even in that matchup, counterspell is still effectively 4hp (instead of 8).

Counterspell gives you an extra win condition against quest rogue, and it slows their quest even when it doesn't hit it. It trades with one of the other mage's spells in the mirror and is especially effective when played into turn 7. Countering any token druid spell, even innervate, is usually much more impactful than simply gaining 8 life. It can force a shaman opponent to have a maelstrom portal or a devolve to go with his bloodlust in order to use it. If it counters a jade lighting, the jade golems are -1/-1 for the entire rest of the game. I could go on, but you get the picture. Just try it for a bit if you're skeptical, and I think you'll be quickly convinced.

Volcanic Potion

The logic for this is pretty simple: there's tons of token druid and token shaman. Volcanic potion is so essential against these two decks that, until they die down in the meta, a 2-of in this deck is essential. The card is also pretty good against quest rogue, and even in the slower matchups you can often find a time that it will hit at least 2 minions cleanly, so it's not totally dead.

Meteor & Flamestrike

Meteor is definitely the stronger card (for example, it's often much better than flamestrike against a dopp evolve board) but I like the flexibility of having both. I'll admit, I've very often considered running two meteors instead, but right when I'm about to make the change, flamestrike will win me a game. Since we draw so many cards with this deck, we often have both of these cards in our hand at once, and it's typically better to have the choice between meteor and flamstrikee than to be restricted to meteoring twice. That being said, this is certainly not set in stone, and if you wanted to run two meteors I wouldn't blame you. Don't run two flamestrikes though, as the single target aspect of meteor is essential in so many matchups.

Doomsayer

At first, I was a little skeptical of doomsayer, but the card has really sold me. The absolute game ending potential of this card vs shaman and token druid is so large that I don't think I'll every play the deck without a copy again. The more I played with this guy, the more I found good spots to drop him, even in slower matchups (like into the opponent's medivh turn). That being said, the second copy of doomsayer is definitely the worst card in the deck. There is often one good spot in a game to drop a doomsayer, but rarely two. Yes, running two doomsayers increases the chance of having one early against the token decks, but, due to drawing so many cards with this deck, we often draw both copies and would much rather that second doomsayer be a different card. The only reason there are two in the list provided is because this is the version I happened to hit rank 1 with. I'm actually pretty convinced that replacing one doomsayer with one of the honorable mention cards I'm about to discuss is better.

Honorable Mentions

If you're going to add one of the honorable mentions, I recommend cutting the second doomsayer. From my experience with this deck, there are 29 great cards, and the 30th card (second doomsayer) is mediocre.

Bloodmage Thalnos

Thalnos is really good with volcanic potion, and pretty good with flamestrike. With volcanic potion specifically, thalnos moves the AoE from 2 damage to 3 damage and thus allows it to kill all of shamans 0/3 totems and every druid token with 1 buff. The rest of the time, he's pretty much the same as just a ping. The difference, though, which I initially thought was less significant than it actually is, is that thalnos cycles himself after use. Let me illustrate this with an example.

Let's say you cut a doomsayer for thalnos. You need to use a 7 damage fireball. After it's all said and done, if you fireball+pinged (doomsayer deck), you how have the doomsayer in your hand. In contrast, if you thalnos+fireballed (thalnos deck), after thalnos dies you have one of the other 29 cards in your deck in your hand, instead of the doomsayer. Therefore, by cycling himself, even when you would have just pinged normally, thalnos essentially becomes one of the other (very good) 29 cards in your deck. Although the number of cards in your hand is the same after using thalnos or a ping, the identity of the card involved (in this case thalnos, which cycles himself into another card, or doomsayer, which stays as a doomsayer) is different.

This cycling property really impressed me as I was playing. There were many games, especially games against aggressive decks where I really wanted to draw alex, where I was extremely happy that thalnos was cycling himself to get me closer. I've listed him first because I think he's the strongest of the honorable mentions. In fact, if you held my feet to the fire and forced me to pick an optimal list, I would cut a doomsayer and play him.

Ice Barrier

As I stated in the counterspell section, Ice Barrier is only better than counterspell against pirate warrior. I experimented with a 4 secret version (2 block, 1 barrier, 1 counterspell) for a little bit, but it felt pretty underwhelming, as secrets are generally underpowered cards only placed in decks to support overpowered cards (mad scientist, arcanologist, valet) which Blizzard prints to encourage secrets to be played. In short, I think the 3 is the optimal number of secrets, and counterspell is better than barrier by such a wide margin over so much of the field that I would never consider barrier in a 3 secret list barring a significant change to the meta.

Kirin Tor Mage

This guy is fine, but that's really it. He's just fine. First of all, the tempo gain from his power doesn't really matter much unless he's played exactly on turn 3, but we're running him as a 1 of anyway, and we never really want him in the mulligan, so that rarely happens. Additionally, tempoing out an ice block just doesn't really matter, so it doesn't even really feel like you're cheating when you play it for 0. All in all, a fine card, but not a great card, and since the rest of the deck is made of great cards, kirin tor gets the axe.

Eater of Secrets

Basically, you can refer to my diatribe in the intro to get my thoughts on mysterious challenger's all consuming enemy. In short, our deck runs so much draw that you can really justify a tech card like this. Since we typically draw around 20 cards in the mirror, there's a very good chance we'll have this guy when we need him. The drawback of having a dead card in our hand in other matchups is also somewhat mitigated by the powerful draw engine from acolytes.

Harrison Jones/Gluttonous Ooze

These are weaker techs in the mirror, but more powerful against the rest of the field (eater only really hits paladin). Harrison is an absolute game swinger when he hits an Atiesh, but even ooze is essentially destroying 3 minions when he eats it. Overall, I haven't seen much pirate warrior, but I suspect that in a meta filled with pirate warrior and mages, ooze would be a great tech.

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Mulligan Guide

The mulligan section will be split by classes, and then divided into “always keep” and “personal preference”.

Every Class

Always Keep: Mana Wyrm, Arcanologist, Frostbolt

Personal Preference: Arcanologist + Medivh's Valet going first, Frostbolt(vs quest rogue)

If you're not on the coin, you can mull a second Arcanologistif you want. Other that that, decisions involving these cards are pretty straightforward. If you're a newer player and don't understand why these cards are auto-keeps in every matchup, try the “Trump's Teachings” series on YouTube. It's a pretty good introduction to basic HS concepts and mulligans.

A note about Frostbolt: While this isn't nearly as powerful of a card to have as Mana Wyrm or Arcanologist, it's still so much better than the other cards in your deck for the early game. Most of your deck is slower cards or late game, so a card that affects the board on turn 1-4 is always valuable. That being said, if you're positive you're facing freeze mage or quest rogue, you can consider mulling Frostbolt. Even then, it answers Arcanologist or a Brewmaster, so it's still a fine card, and since you really want it against other mages and miracle rogue, I'd recommend just always keeping it.

Medivh's Valet + Secret/Arcanologist?: I don't typically do this, but I'll admit I haven't experimented with it enough. First, you need to have a block on 3 in order to valet on 4; there's a good chance a different secret get's popped and valet's battlecry won't trigger. Further, the earliest the valet is active is on turn 4, and in most matchups, that's pretty slow. I don't think I'll ever start keeping valet + secret, but I put Valet + Arcanologist (on the play only, or else the curve doesn't really work), into the personal preference section.

General Strategy

Basically, you want your early game minions to contest the board early and/or snowball the game out of control. The more face damage you can freeroll with a turn 1 Mana Wyrm, the easier it will be to burn your opponent down to zero later. Volcanic Potion is often a keep against token decks, or suspected token decks, as it is an essential tool for controlling the board. Lastly, Acolyte of Pain and Arcane Intellect [/card]can sometimes be keeps in slower matchups when you already have your early game. These cards are equally as essential as the early game cards, except that as long as you draw them before, let's say, turn 8 you'll be fine, whereas with [card]mana wyrm you really, really want it on turn 1. That being said, if you already have some early game it can be nice to guarantee you'll have your draw cards, and it's often nicest for the curve to play them right on 3.

Class by Class

I'd recommend using the headings to skip around this section to the classes you're interested in, and coming back later if you're curious about another class. This guide is super long, and this is probably the most straightforward and simplest information in here. That being said, if you want to read it all, enjoy.

Warrior

Usually, you don't know which kind of warrior it is until the game actually starts. Because of that, mulligans can be difficult.

Always Keep: Doomsayer

Personal Preference: Volcanic Potion, Acolyte of Pain, Arcane Intellect

Against pirate warrior Doomsayer is amazing, and against taunt warrior it's fine. Even against taunt warrior, in the worst case scenario Doomsayer will eat something like a Slam and an axe charge and save you some hp. In the best case scenario, it will clear up a taunt or Armorsmith. So keep it.

The rest of the mulligan is basically about how much you want to gamble on pirate warrior or taunt warrior. Personally, if I don't have any information about the deck, early in the season I keep Volcanic Potion and late in the season I try to guess based on what I've been seeing more of likely which archetype it's most likely to be, and mulligan accordingly. Even Volcanic Potion, however, is pretty mediocre against pirate warrior. Typically it cleans up their 1 drop and patches and kills 3hp minions with a ping or a trade, which is enough to keep the game from snowballing, but since it's not a game breaking card (like it is against shaman) it's not that bad if you accidentally toss it vs a pirate warrior. Acolyte of Pain keep isn't a death sentence against pirate warrior, but you should only keep AI if you know the opponent is taunt warrior.

Druid

Early in the season it's almost always token druid. Late in the season, there are more jade druids, and the mulligan becomes more difficult.

Always Keep: Volcanic Potion (early season), Doomsayer (token)

Personal Preference: Acolyte of Pain, Volcanic Potion (late season), Doomsayer (unknown)

I always keep Doomsayer unless I know I'm playing against a jade druid, in which case I toss it. Since we're probably not going to beat jade druid anyway, I just keep Doomsayer and potion to maximize my winrate against token, and if it happens to be jade instead, so be it. That being said, if my opponent just counter queued me or I otherwise know it's jade, I will toss these cards to better my chances.

I'm almost positive that even against jade druid, Arcane Intellect is too slow, and should be tossed. Jade druid is a pretty bad matchup, but your goal should be to kill them as quickly as possible, hopefully setting up a big Medivh board early. That being said, Acolyte of Pain is still great early as it draws off the early jade golems or at worst tanks a wrath or swipe and cycles itself. This gives you more options in the middle turns of the game making it more likely you can hit your curve and out-tempo the draw/jade engine that will beat you between turns 10-12.

Rogue

Personal Preference: Volcanic Potion, Acolyte of Pain, Doomsayer

I have had a lot of success keeping volcanic potion against rogue. It's decent against miracle early; it can clean up Patches the Pirate, a Swashburglar, and a Razorpetal Lasher, and against quest rogue it is best used to clean up all of their little bodies right as they're about to finish the quest. This often buys you at least one extra turn to burn them down. If you have some early game already, acolyte is nice because it's nearly impossible for rogue to deny it at least 2 cards.

Personally, I toss Doomsayers against rogue because I find it's almost always quest, and I don't want them tossing an Igneous Elemental into it. Further, it's not even that good against miracle. That being said, I wouldn't blame you if you kept it, and I haven't really tested out keeping it, so I can't say categorically that keeping it is wrong.

Paladin

Always Keep: Doomsayer (unless you know it's control)

Personal Preference: Volcanic Potion

Doomsayer is amazing against board/buff oriented decks, so keep it if you know nothing about the paladin you're facing. In a similar vein of thinking to the jade/token guess, we'll mull for midrange and murloc pally because we're probably not beating control anyway.

Obviously Volcanic Potion is pretty good against straight murloc pally, and pretty dead against control pally. That being said, again, we're probably not beating control paladin anyway (at least in my experience) so I usually keep the volcanic potion.

Mage

Always Keep: Doomsayer (unless you know it's freeze)

Personal Preference: Acolyte of Pain, Arcane Intellect

Gauge how you like to play this matchup. Due to the other mage having access to Medivh's Valet, Frostbolt, and Volcanic Potion, as well as their own early game minions, I've found it very uncommon that one mage snowballs the other with early game. This makes greedy keeps like acolyte and AI more appealing. That being said, I usually like to have at least one early game card when I keep these draw engines to guarantee I won't be snowballed out of the game on turns 1-4.

Doomsayer functions pretty similarly to Frostbolt early; it removes a Mana Wyrm or Arcanologist. If the mage happens to be a secret mage, Doomsayer is even better because it denies their next turn, preventing them from tempoing out. Further, even if your opponent whiffs his early game, Doomsayer is pretty good going into their medivh turn; the first player to drop medivh (provided the board is roughly even at the time) has a big advantage in the mirror.

Shaman

Always Keep: Volcanic Potion (yes, even 2), Doomsayer

Personal Preference: Acolyte of Pain

Doomsayer is great against shaman. If it goes off early, killing some stuff and also giving you board initiative, you almost win the game on the spot.

In my last game to legend during the marathon climb, I kept 2 Volcanic Potions and a frostbolt in my opening mulligan. You can never have too much AoE clear against these guys, and all their tokens typically line up perfectly into volcanic potion, or Volcanic Potion ping on 5. In general, it's very difficult for shaman to deny value off of Acolyte of Pain, and often they will spend an inefficient turn removing it, or just allow it to draw 3 cards and mop up their small minions because they have to.

Hunter

Always Keep: Volcanic Potion, Doomsayer

Yes, they can drop grandmother into your doomsayer, but still keep it. It's very effective against most of their game, and since they're a board/buff deck like murloc pally and shaman, stealing the board initiative from them can be devastating.

Potion pretty cleanly sweeps up all their early game minions, like their Alleycats, Crackling Razormaws, Kindly Grandmothers, and assorted beast tokens. It also kills an unbuffed Scavenging Hyena, and can sweep up Savannah Highmane's deathrattle later. All around just a good card against them.

Priest

Always Keep: Doomsayer

Personal Preference Arcane Intellect, Acolyte of Pain

Doomsayer is pretty great at dealing with Northshire Cleric (although they do get a draw) and Radiant Elemental. That being said, it usually just eats a Shadow Word: Pain. This class is relatively uncommon, so I haven't had enough experience in the matchup to really decide whether or not keeping the draw cards is good. Just remember to avoid playing acolyte with another minion if at all possible (due to potion of madness) and also that priest can pain the acolyte and deny you any cards off it, which can sap your resources significantly.

Warlock

I guess keep Volcanic Potion? If someone's playing warlock it's probably zoo, but it could also be renounce or handlock. Honestly, I have no idea how to mulligan against warlock, but you never see them anyway so who cares.

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Match Up Analysis

Check out the match up analysis over on our forums.