Legend in 3-Days: 64%W Secret Tempo Mage
- Last updated Sep 28, 2017 (Evergreen Nerfs)
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Wild
- 16 Minions
- 14 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Tempo Mage
- Crafting Cost: 3720
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 9/15/2017 (Frozen Throne)
- RDeeHs
- Registered User
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- 5
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- 39
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Battle Tag:
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Total Deck Rating
352
Hello! [Big thanks to TwoDoorsThePlebLord and Kreptoman for helping out people in the Comment section! I haven't had time to be around lately as I have a big offline LAN to prepare for. It makes me really happy too see that a lot of people have had success with this deck! :) <3]
My name is RDee and I am a Pro player for Vexed Gaming.
I always try to look at the meta and predict what the next big thing could be.
As we all know Druid dominates the ladder, but Priest is also on the high rise and looks to become even better when the nerf hits 18th September.
If you check out my stats from rank 8 to legend you will see that I am 16-2 vs Priests, my matchups has mostly been Kazakuz Priest with 2-3 Big Priests. You will also notice that the only negative matchup is against Paladin.
Paladin will get hit a little bit by the nerf, meaning the matchup could become better.
So..This deck is working right now and seems really strong when played right, but could it become even stronger when the nerf hits? This is why I want to share it, I have barley faced any Secret Mages on ladder, but still the deck seems so strong. So why is no one playing it?..
The two biggest classes that people play right now is Druid and Priest, I played 151 games from rank 8 to Legend. I went 38-27 vs Druid 58.5% win rate. I went 16-2 vs Priest 88.9% win rate. I believe my sample size is big enough to prove this deck to be Good in this meta.
Alright so advice I can give you:
Mulligan: Mana wyrm / Babbling Book / Frostbolt / Glyph / Arcanologist / Apprentice.
We want Early game, It looks great to save Kirin'Tor + Secret to get an insane tempo start, but it easily backfires.
It's hard to snowball into the midgame without a 1 or 2 drop, even if we coin 3+3 drop (Kirin+Secret) it's rather weak. Mirror + Countespell has different effects depending on your matchup, it can be really weak or really great depending on what deck you face and which mana you decide to use it. But coining it turn 2 into a turn 3 Kirin+Secret usually gives you little value and negative 2 cards in your hand.
So what we want to do is try to mulligan and develope a board turn 1-2 and snowball and not skip 1-2 and go straight to 3. A dream scenario would be go first into Mana Wyrm > Arcanologist > Kirin'tor+Secret > Kabal crystal runner.
Tho the odds of this happening is so small that we can't save Kirin'tor and Kabal in our mulligan on random unless we have all 4 at once, we want the other 1-2 drops more.
The basic of this deck is tempo and that's how we have to look at it, play tempo and not the best value card.
Using secrets is really fun and I'll give you a few examples.
Let's say you have counterspell in your hand vs a Paladin, great! Now we can mess up his Steed, tho has he played Hydrologist? Because that card is great at messing up your CS's, what you want to do is play it at 3 if you think it's aggro pala to counter Blessing of kings, otherwise you play it on 5 to counter steed, but only if he hasn't played a Hyrdrologist and saved the secret in hand.
Vs Priest it can be great to get your board out and use a counterspell first at turn 5, to counter his Dragonfire potion play.
Vs Druid you want to think about turn 4-5.
Jade Druid: Turn 4, if you can do counterspell go for it because it can mess up his Nourish or he has to sacrifice his Innervate to stop your CS.
Vs Token Druid: This is a fun mind game! If you can play a secret turn 4 it's cool, from my own experiance very few Druid players then dare to play Living Mana.
So a dream scenario is you play Mirror entity he tries to play around it and plays Hydra. All of a sudden you get a hydra and board control = GG.
Otherwise if he plays Living mana into a counterspell it's also GG. It's because of mind games like this I managed to hit 58.5% vs Druid.
*You always want to save a Frostbolt vs Druid to counter a turn 1-3 Viscious Fledgling.
Replace:
You can replace the Lich King for one more Bonemare/Medivh/Antonidas - A late game finnisher.
Lich King is a good late game threat as he replenishes your hand when you are really low on cards, he forces a reaction as he is an 8/8 with taunt and a unique card draw effect.
Using 2x Bonemare increase draw consistency but makes you focus more on board to not dead draw a Bonemare without being able to use it.
Medivh has good synergy with spells like Portals for board control/tempo and a nice unique battlecry effect as Bonemare.
Antonidas will usually not see play until turn 9 when you can combo him with a glyph or frostbolt, if lucky can combo with Conjurer's Mirror image at turn 8.
*Cool idea is using 1x Bonemare 1x Antonidas and putting in a Bully or two!*
You can replace Conjurer for 1x Babbling book or 1x Acolyte. I've tried both and Book is nice for more early game while Acolyte is nice when you face more control decks for a better late game.
Conjurer is a nice card to curve into and better vs all the Face/Aggro decks!
Conjurer also gives you a good midgame boost with Mirror images into value Bonemare.
I hope this deck can help You to climb the ladder and have some fun in HS :)
Gameplay video vs Highlander Priest by Kadakk:
Gameplay video by TheSynch:
Let's play by seancool_com:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VexedRDee
Twitch: https://Twitch.tv/RDeee - I stream a lot!
I dont understand what Ghastly conjurer does for this deck. It doesn't get value off of Antonidas, nor does it block enough damage to kill them quickly with the images.
The more I play this deck the more I love it. I experimented a lot and currently my changes are the following:
- Removed: Bonemare, The Lich King*, Babbling Book, Ghastly Conjurer, and 1x Mirror Entity
- Added Archmage Antonidas, Burgly Bully, Spellbender, and 2x Bittertide Hydra
I also tryed out Kabal Lackey, 2 Bonemares and Medivh, the Guardian, but did not like it that much. Medivh is kinda slow, Lackey is too situational and Bonemares need to have something on board to be effective.
My idea was to replace the Bonemares with Hydras as the Hydras are even stronger tempo push, and don't need a minion on board to work. The Antonidas/Bully combo is obvious and it serves to provide a finisher in mid/late game, altough if you curve out properly you basically don't even need it as you will win earlier.
I used 1x Volcanic Potion for a brief period of time, but in the end I decided to remove it since I didn't see that much value of it currently. It is a good removal option against aggro, but since I was using only 1 potion in the deck, often I didn't draw it and having 2x potion in the deck seems to much, so better to leave it out completely. I believe that if one wants to use the potion here, you need to include 2x to be sure to have it when you need it. I currently don't see the space for it.
I think the most important change is actually leaving 1x mirror entity out and adding 1x spellbender and I strongly suggest this change. The point of it is having like a different variant of Counterspell. The benefits of this are: both can be active simultaneously, you can collect the buffs (eg. Spikeridged Steed), and if both Counterspell and Spellbender are active, your opponent basically can't play around it. I won several games because of this.
Altough it's crazy fun to play, I think that the deck is limited in the current meta and I don't see a way to push it to legend. Maybe if you want to grind out these last few days before season end, but honestly I don't think it's worth it . Some matchups are just horrid for tempo mage in the current meta and I think you would be better of by using some aggro deck with patches and keleseth and take the easy way.
*I don't have Lich King so initially I played with 2x Bonemares
I've been playing this deck at rank 10, and I'm only 5-6 with it. I'm mostly playing against a mix of rogue, shaman and hunter, against which this deck is not so favored, according to hsreplay.net. I don't think this is great for climbing at the moment.
Yup. Good ol RNG is at it again. 4-9 at rank 10...
Very fun deck, but it's an auto loss to Keleseth Rogue. The early buffed pirates are too much for the deck to stabilize.
But if they don't have Keleseth in their opening hand it's an auto-win for you. Keleseth Rogue relies too much on that singleton in their deck. If they do get it, congratulate your opponent and move on. You can't win every match.
I just want to thank you mate!
I just rushed rank 5 playing last 2 hours from rank 13! I just used mediv instead of lich king (i don't own that). I just got a 75% winrate and this is still working. Keep doing the good work!
Cool deck. Easy rank 10 to 5 with ~80% winrate.
Replaced one Primordial Glyph with Bittertide Hydra
how many card Bittertide Hydra replace ?
From personla experience likely two glyphs.
What a great deck. It's been a while since i played such a tempo heavy deck in HS.
I'm seeing people complain about the hunter matchup, what is exactly the problem? Are you losing the early game? if so, try to fit some more early game tempo plays like one arcane missiles or breath of Sindragosa (maybe take out the lich king). You shouldn't really lose the board late against hunter with this deck unless something goes terribly wrong.
And yes, the deck is mulligan/draw dependent, that's the nature of tempo decks. It makes me want to have Scry in HS.
This deck shouldn't lose to Hunter. After playing maybe 70-80 games with this deck and alot of them were Hunter i've lost just to one hunter and that was because i didn't have any plays for first 3 turns. But that happens very rarley. Hunter is really easy to outplay. You can predict his plays and counter them. And if you are going second you should always win because they cna't use coin to counter your Counterspell. Which is huge! And save Frostbolts for Bitterhyde Hydra that's their main wincondition atm and you just freeze it and hero power it.
The only deck that i'm sturggling against is Razakus Priest which is probably one of the most popular decks out there. That's where most of my losses come from you just can't outvalue them if they get Razakus on turn 5 and Anduin on turn 8. I'm having really though time against them i have maybe 20% winrate against them and overall with the deck i have 75% winrate. I think i have lost one game to Hunter, one to Jade Druid, one to Token Druid and all the others are to Razakus Priest. Maybe few more games to something else that i forgot.
what is your game plan against hunters? I usually can't beat their face attacks and have the game lost by turn 4/5...
Against Hunter you want to have board dominance. So if you have nothing to play on turn 2 but Medivh's Valet don't hesistate to do it. Or for example if you are going second and your opening hand is Sorcerers Apprentice and Arcanologist. On turn 1 coin i will always coin Arcanologist and than on turn 2 play Apprentice.
After you've somehow established board trade. That's only thing you need to do. All beasts must die. They have too much synergy with beasts: Crackling Razormaw, Houndmaster, Kill command etc. Trading shouldn't be hard to do since they are playing very aggresive deck and it's in their best interest to get you low as possible so they can't really take efficient trades. And that's where this deck shines.
On turn 3 if you have Counterspell play it (Especially if you are going second they can't use coin to activate Counterspell), because on turn 3 Hunter's almost always play either Animal Companion or Eaglehorn Bow.
On turn 5-6 try to play Mirror Entity you'll either get something good like Scavenging Hyena/bitterhyde Hydra or they play something bad but than their original plan to play something big for tempo is gonna be ruined. Which is also good.
You should also try to save Frostbolt for Bitterhyde Hydra. There is few exception ofcourse depending on how the game goes. Some hunters run Vicious Fledling in their decks and that shit has to be stopped as soon as possible. And the other exception is if you want some tempo and hunter has Eaglehorn bow equiped so you play Mana Wyrm and Frostbolt his face. I've done that few times and it usually works out in my favor. Only possible punish is Kill Command.
And last but not least always serach for Meteor from Primordial Glyph because Meteor completly destroys their board and to counter Bearsharks.
This tactic works against pretty much any aggro deck Token Druid, Rogue with Prince etc. You should play fast against slow decks and slow against fast decks. Control decks will always outvalue you if you go into lengthy game. On the other hand aggro decks have no catch up tools and once they lose the board it's over for them. They can't win with one card per turn.
What do you guys think about replacing Counterspell with Spellbender and Mirror Entity with Frozen Clone ?
I'm no pro but I feel that counterspell is too important for maintaining the tempo. I toke out both mirror entities and replaced them for 1 forzen clone and 1 spell bender. ( midmatch spell bender is op)
First I had problems with understanding how this deck works, but when I grasped the concept, it allowed me to climb from rank 15 to 9 (I am playing without Lich King, with a second Bonemare).
My experience with it is that the Babling book is to bad 1 mana play however you put it. The reward it gives is to much RNG, and the body is worse than most of 1 cost minions currently played in the meta, so it's easily removed (and also vulnerable to hero power ping).
I replaced it first with a Kabal Lackey, and altough it allows for a stronger tempo play on later turns, it's also a bad turn 1 play and a bit situational in further development as it has to have a secret to be played, and we already have the Kirin Tor Mage for that. In combination in him with 2 secrets its great, but not always usable.
In the end I decided to completely remove that 1 cost slot and leave only the wyrms. I also removed the Ghastly Conjurer since in my experience this deck does not have enough utility out of her. I added a Volcanic Potion for the hunters and aggro rogues which are flooding the ladder atm, and I added 1x Bittertide Hydra since that mid game is kinda weak and lacks pressure.
Cheers for the deck!
I love this. This is exactly what I was thinking. i kept the Kabal Lackey but toke out Ghastly Conjurer and added +2 Bittertide Hydra . I'm floating around rank 12-11. has the volcanic potion actually helped? I feel like it would end up taking out my own minions if not played on turn 2.
I would say that the nature of this deck is like that when you have the minions on the board, you are most likely wining and in the lead already and therefore you won't have a reason to drop the potion. The point of the potion is to help you when you fall behind to regain the upper hand, and this usually happens when hunters/shamans/rogues curve out pefectly and you're not that lucky.
edit: I am also thinking about a second hydra. I actually have an issue with bonemares as they seem a bit "too late" for me, but not sure how to tweak that.
Bonemare feels like a win-more card most of the time but it helps me a lot vs druid because I don't play more than 2-3 minions in case of Spreading Plague
Besides that, it helps to close out games sooner.