Hearthpwn

Quote from Lander44 >>

i have actually played 2 times vs combination of book of spectre/arugal and big spells mage... i won both times and he even managed to copy 3 monsters

Quote from batanete >>

Mage is definitely the sleeper class for this expansion. Anyone who disagrees is advised to try out Apxvoid's tempo elemental or aggro mage lists.

I think this is the version I would run. Not 100% if I'd have the Arugal and Book in there, could replace with another Plated Beetle and 1x Phoenix or Pyros, but the upside with that package is pretty superb and the downside isn't too bad. I'd at least try it out before cutting it.

Also getting to Jaina, your only win condition, faster seems really good.

A couple things on this deck.

1) This isn't a 71% win rate deck on competitive ladder. Anything above rank 5 is never competitive, you can hit Rank 5 with auto-complete decks easily, let alone the start of an expansion. This is a low tier 3 deck that can almost never beat a decent Cubelock or Aggro Paladin list and loses 100% to any sort of decent combo deck.

With that said, advice for improving it.

Drop 2x Water Elemental, 1x Alanna, 2x Servant of Kalimos.

Add 2x Firefly, 1x Doomsayer, 2x Rotten Applebaum, 

It still won't be a great deck but you'll gain a little more consistency and a little better viability against Aggro. 

Hero power just isn't that great in Mage.

Thijs' Genn Handmage idea was funny but realistically has to draw Book & Mountain giant by turn 2 and 3 respectively or it pretty much auto loses.

Quote from Infirc >>

uhmm, well, mage did get efficient minions this time around, bonfire elemental is efficient and book of specters is massive card draw, the clas swil prolly be bottom tier duriing withcwood becaus eice block DID enable a lot of the mage decks, but it's not in the bottompit level of Un'goro/Frozen throe Warlock, Kobolds Warrior or Gadgetzan Paladin

First of all, ignore ALL winrates from the first 2 weeks of an expansion. They mean nothing. ESPECIALLY ****ESPECIALLY*** when it comes to Mage and Hunter. Those two classes specifically can always obtain absurd win rates early on.

You can literally hit top 500 Legend with an auto-complete deck.

Mage is playable, it's just bottom tier. If your goal is to ladder effectively once the Meta settles and you're facing 75% plus Aggro Paladin & Cubelock, it's just not a good choice.

It does have some fun decks, though.

The hell? LOL.

Also, for the record, literally any aggressive deck can make top 10 Legend in the first week or two of expansion launch. People play weird shit, ESPECIALLY high legend players. You will see more competitively viable decks at rank 25 than the top 500 of Legend within 2 weeks of a new expansion.

What's the point of running Jaina in a Baku deck?

Might as well just make it a full control deck and lose Baku.

For example you have voodoo doll but voodoo doll doesn't need Baku. So if the only time you're realistically going to get value off ping pre-jaina is pinging Voodoo, what does Baku do?

Gaining an extra damage on ping + black cat, when you don't want to ping until you get Jaina as Mage, from turn 2 to 9 is kind of pointless. 

If Baku stacked with Jaina I'd be all about that Baku life, but considering the entire point and goal of a Control Mage is to play Jaina on 9, thus destroying the Baku effect, ruins Baku.

It is a cool deck, though. Maybe lose Jaina and try to take more advantage of the upgraded hero power? I'd lower the curve and add in some hero power minions to accomplish that.

Also be wary of win rates in the first week of an expansion, especially with Mage and Hunter. Those two classes tend to do well against underdeveloped decks, so win rates aren't accurate early on.

This deck is really funny. Cauldron was the secret ingredient. You stall out with shitty elementals, draw through your whole deck by turn 10, then throw down a bunch of Sorcerer's and trollolol with crappy Shaman spells. Excellent.

Not sure if I want Firefly over Glacial Shard. Wax Elemental stops a lot of damage, so seems good. 

Quote from LardLad >>

What do you think of Trump's Crow Mage deck?

Quote from YourPrivateNightmare >>

he said, two hours after launch without having even ATTEMPTED to make a deck work. MAge got so much better tools than Druid or Warrior. Elemental Mage looks like an actual deck, Baku Mage could work and Vex Crow could still bring Tempo back, flamewaker style.

Hey guys.

Right off the bait, this isn't a QQ thread. Mage is one of the few classes that has consistently been competitive since launch. Whether with Ice Block control decks, Flamewaker decks, Secret decks, or Reno & now Jaina decks, Mage has always had options. Maybe not always tier 1, but always viable on ladder. 

That will NOT be the case in Witchwood. All Mage players should be prepared for the class to be utterly unviable this expansion. The loss of Ice Block, along with the decks that are currently strong, renders Control Mage temporarily unplayable. Burn/Aggro Mage is dead due to just a ton of losses (and good frickin' riddance.) 

This post is coming from a player that has consistently hit legend with Control Mage decks, even when they were tier 3, but legitimately doubts he can do it this expansion.

Now, I'm not too upset about this. The fact is that Mage got some really GOOD cards and really FUN cards in this expansion.. just not enough to cover for really core losses. It's probably time for Mage to have a bad expansion. There's a lot of hope for the future as Mage still has some individually VERY powerful cards and mechanics. Jaina is one of the best DKs and only needs a little more support (and some core meta decks to be pushed out) to make Control Mage viable. Minion Mage doesn't feel TOO far off, maybe 2 or 3 really good cards, with Arugula & Book both being EXCELLENT cards.

So there's hope for the future but be aware if you try to make Mage competitive, it won't work. Fun, sure, but a good ladder deck? Nope.

Elemental/Minion Mage lacks impact and sweepers.

Quest Mage lacks spell generation and Ice Block (although I actually think Quest Mage is the closest Archetype to being viable; if there was still a decent Giant around that version probably WOULD be playable.)

Control Mage has horrific matchups against Control Lock and Big Minion Priest/Inner fire/whatever weird combo Priest deck ends up being good.

I'd love to see someone come up with a deck that proves me wrong but this probably won't be the most competitive 3 months Mage has seen.

How does anyone think this card is good? It's proven not good..

Rogue already has the better version of this card and that's tier 4. In Rogue. One of the two classes that can draw like batshit crazy.

Yet somehow people think Hunter, the class that STILL has no draw, will make this work?

It's one of the worst cards of the expansion and just shows how clueless a lot of players are.

Literally 0/10 unplayable dust. THE CARD ALREADY EXISTS IN A 10x BETTER FORM, IN A 10x BETTER CLASS FOR IT, AND SEES NO PLAY. 

The deck doesn't actually accomplish anything. You're just playing out bad minions and hoping that works.

I appreciate the concept but there just isn't enough support for it right now. 

Dorian, for example, just summons generic 1/1s for you. No on board effects and 1 deathrattle minion (and a weak deathrattle at that) means you just don't get any impact.

Elemental Mage needs a board clear and a way to buff Elementals significantly before it can work.