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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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!
TBK can be really cool in a tempo deck, never found use for him in Mage but I am glad that you did! :)
I am a really big fan of this deck -- it's been quite fun to play. I, like many, have noticed the influx of hunter decks now in the meta. Would it be possible to provide some advice on the 2 popular hunter decks currently in play? I roll my face on the keyboard and beat priests -- but hunters are another story.
Thanks in advance for any input!
Haha that Priest comment! :D
Well at the top of my head vs Hunter: You have to mulligan for 1-2 drops, Mana wyrm, Arcanologist, frostbolt and glyph. Apprentice is also good but first at turn 3 in combo with a frostbolt or glyph. We focus on value drops with 3 hp over 2 as their 1 drop is a: 2x Alley cat or b: 1x Firefly. Their max damage at turn 2 is then 2 hp (without playing around random Razormaw), meaning Apprentice is the only minion without value here, we could even drop a Vanilla Mediv Valet to not lose board tempo.
Hunter has a similiar gameplan as us, that's why it can be tricky to play against. Both decks want to mulligan for 1-2 drops to get early board, both decks want to snowball. Mage has great tempo in Mana wyrm, frostbolt, glyph, apprentice. While Hunter wants to mess us up with an early bow and bearshark as bow counters our 3 hp minions over 2x turns to gain board, then bearshark counters our frostbolt, but not a turn 5 valet+secret clear.
All the hunters play a Hydra now, if you can frostbolt that then it should be GG.
They are also weak towards Mirror Image, spec since a lot have skipped Unleash the hounds or just play 1x. Meaning Conjurer gives us good value in this matchup spec since it has 6hp for value trades.
Around turn 5-6 the game is usually over, sometimes it can be a stalemate with minimal trades until turn 8. if that happens we could close it out by going face a lot and get 2x fireballs to face for 12 damage at turn 8.
Hope this helps! :)
That's really helpful -- thanks for the advice! I main rogue -- and have only achieved legend with Rogue before. I have to be honest, my tempo brain is still developing ;) The way you framed information regarding the apprentice is very helpful.
I just climbed from 8 to 5 without losing a single match. A lot of keyboard face rolling going on. I want to know the collective sum of curse words from priest players this deck has played against -- the well played counterspell to combat the dragonfire is what hearthstone dreams are made of.
Now the real climb begins -- hopefully I can squeak out a legend placement this month ;) Going to be tough... but thanks to the speed of the deck, I think it's totally possible to get another 70-150 games according to the sims... 6 days at 4 hours a piece. Totally doable :P
Also Hunter has no board clears so board is the key. Against the hunter you can allow yourself to prolong the game. Hunter easily runs out of cards, although this deck also plays a lot of cards each turn, mages can rebuild their hand with Arcanologist and Arcane Intellect.
At turn 3 try to play counterspell, because on turn 3 they either play Animal companion or Eaglehorn bow. If you get animal companion that's perfect if not your counterspell will stay and potentially could be activator for your Medivh's Valet.
At turn 6 you should try to play Mirror's Entity to get Savanah Highmane (Even tho i saw 0 of them played today) you still often get something good even if it's a Alley Cat if it survives it can be comboed with the Bonemare.
Hey TwoDoorsThePlebLord thanks for the help with replaying you know your shit! :)
what no pyroblast ? thalnos ? ice block ? flamestrike ?
I guess you're trolling but i'll still answer. You have 2x Portal in the deck, we don't need pyro as a finnisher because game isn't meant to go for that long and with a playstyle revolving around pyro (maybe with an alextraza but that is more burn mage).
Thalnos is bad tempo with 1/1 stats, since Arcane blast is rotated out he doesn't do much at all.
Ice block isn't needed, as we are playing tempo and not relaying on Antonidas-Alex combos.
Flamestrike is too slow and anti-tempo, don't focus on board clear spells unless you are desperate with a Glyph.
Hope that helps.
yea about the portal sorry i didnt see it, also thanks for the insight on the others, ima coppy it rn.
after nerf no more druids, rank 6 is all hunters
I don't get why Lich King is in this list, which is a midrange/control card. If you are really lucky and get it on curve, then it's okay, but if you draw it earlier then it's a dead card in your hand, and can be for many turns, which is the last thing you want in a tempo deck. The same goes for Bonemare, but atleast if you already have a minion on board you can swing for a big hit right away. What about playing Spellbreaker instead, which is actually a tempo card?
I've tried to write down most of the info in the info section about the deck, the tech cards and replecements you can use. Even listing why I use "X" card and how it can be useful in the deck.
We want some kind of late game finnishers when we run low/out of our tempo and our hand gets low on cards, this means a card like Lich King / Medivh and Antonidas are good options. They all create tempo and board by beaing a big threat and giving you a new form of card draw.
Lich king = More cards at turn 8 = Instant card effect.
Medivh = Board control with spells good at turn 8, example is using him with a Portal. = Have to save a big spell to use at turn 9 for effect.
Antonidas = Create fireballs, but has to wait until turn 9 to combo with Frostbolt or Glyph, if lucky can use at turn 8 with a conjurers mirror image.
Bonemare tho is good at turn 7 and is great at finnishing the game with the last bit of tempo it gives.
As tempo we want and need to curve into our drops to not lose tempo, that's why we have a little bit of late game.
Spellbreaker is not good in mage as we already have other good 4 drops and silence has never been a thing for mages as we already have great removals.
Hope that helps!
Not for this deck only as we have 3x different replacements for late game finnishers which can be used instead :)
Is it worth adding skulking geist?
No, it's too anti-tempo and it is only good vs Jade druids if you play control, This deck should finnish the game before Jades get out of hand and way before fatigue becomes an option with jade idols :)
Solid deck. Destroys face hunter which is gaining popularity and does really well against DK priest.
I got to rank 2 with it yesterday before tanking with other decks. If you can dodge new rogue and fatigue warrior you'll ladder fast.
Thanks a lot for the list, man ! It's doing great (7-1) ! In my first two games I went against Paladins, I was afraid at the beginning, because I saw there your win rate against Paladins, but I crushed the two ! Climbing has never being so easy !
если так заходит, можно ногами легу взять на любой деке
I like it actually %61 win rate at rank 5
I miss
- Kabal Crystal Runner
- 2 primordial glyph
- 1 counter spell
- 2 kirin tor mage
I have 1100 dust. I really want to craft this deck because it looks strong and fun. Shall I craft this deck or save my dust to craft a Legendary like The Lich King?