Hearthpwn

Hey all, I’m Theo and you might remember me from my previous guides such as my Tempo Warrior or Big Priest guide, or from HGG where I got top 8 with The Netherlands. I also finish top 100 almost every season, so with my experience I hope I can help you climb!

With this deck I managed to reach top 50 Legend on the EU server and had a consistently good winrate during the climb. N’zoth mage is a very strong version of control mage right now as it has still most of the defensive tools of standard control mage, but has more value lategame to win the control matchups. It is a very fun deck to play and often requires you to plan ahead to win matchups, especially the control mirrors. Also the deck can be really good in tournament lineups. In the two HCT Tour Stops this month the winning lineup used N’zoth Mage and I won a big LAN as well this weekend using this deck in my lineup.

If you want to see this deck in play, you can watch my stream on twitch. I stream daily at twitch.tv/theohs_

Vod of this stream where I reached Legend: VOD

At 10000 upvotes I’ll post a guide… Just kidding, full guide below!

Mulligan

The mulligan is an important part of the game and here you always want to keep in mind that your mulligan can change depending on the other cards in your hand. For example: if you find Doomsayer, you can keep some greedier cards as you already have an early game tool. This mulligan guide is based on ladder where you don’t know what your opponent is playing. If you do know what your opponent is playing you should of course alter your mulligan.

Warlock: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Raven Familiar, Polymorph, Dragon’s Fury, Frost Lich Jaina

Mage: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Plated Beetle, Raven Familiar, Tar Creeper, Dragon’s Fury, Frost Lich Jaina

Priest: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Raven Familiar, Dragon’s Fury, Skulking Geist, Frost Lich Jaina

Druid: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Raven Familiar, Dragon’s Fury, Skulking Geist, Frost Lich Jaina

Rogue: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Raven Familiar, Dragon’s Fury, Frost Lich Jaina

Shaman: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Plated Beetle, Raven Familiar, Tar Creeper, Dragon’s Fury, Frost Lich Jaina

Hunter: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Plated Beetle, Raven Familiar, Tar Creeper, Dragon’s Fury, Frost Lich Jaina

Paladin: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Plated Beetle, Raven Familiar, Tar Creeper, Dragon’s Fury

Warrior: Arcanologist, Doomsayer, Plated Beetle, Raven Familiar , Tar Creeper, Dragon’s Fury, Frost Lich Jaina

Cards

Arcanologist: Strong card, I'm only playing one because with two it’s very likely the second Arcanologist won’t draw anything.

Dirty Rat: Tech card mainly to disrupt opponent’s combo and also it is sometimes pretty good versus aggressive decks to stall for a turn.

Doomsayer: Best early game anti-aggro card, allows you to survive until your removals. Generally better to use it early to disrupt your opponent's curve than to save it for a blizzard/doomsayer combo.

Plated Beetle: Extra early tool and armor to survive, synergy with N’zoth and also disarms Explosive Runes.

Pyros: Extra minions for the midgame, synergy with N’zoth to get multiple 10/10’s in the control/value matchups.

Raven Familiar: 2/2 that often draws a removal card is pretty good and it gives some information about the opponent’s deck.

Ice Block: Buys you an extra turn and allows you setup the board without worrying about dying. Just don't rely on it too much vs hunter cause most of them run Flare.

Tar Creeper: Strong early taunt to get through the early turns.

Zola the Gorgon: Flexible (value) tool. Can be used to get a lot of extra value lategame or can be used early on your 2-drops or something like a silenced doomsayer.

Polymorph: Best single target removal, mainly good versus warlocks to deny their Rin or demons for Bloodreaver Gul’dan.

Dragon’s Fury: Insane board clear, average 5-6 damage and even worst case it is still basically a hellfire.

Blizzard: Extra stall to buy some time, clear the board or set up for more removal like Flamestrike the next turn.

Meteor: Very flexible clear, can be used as single target clear or clear 3 minions at once.

Skulking Geist: Used to be only good versus Jade Druid, but now also makes it very easy to beat Combo Priest and helps in other matchups such as Cube/Control Warlocks.

Flamestrike: We didn’t have enough removal yet, so why not have more AoE.

The Curator: Some draw that gives you a 2-drop as well as a big dragon and sometimes the taunt is useful as well.

Sindragosa: A ton of value in this card and with N’zoth you get in total 4 random legendaries and 4 0/1’s which also let you easily get Water Elementals with Frost Lich Jaina. Just make sure you don't overdraw with this in the Control matchups, so only play it if you end up with 7 cards in hand then. 

Alexstrasza: Mostly used as a defensive tool because you almost never kill your opponent unless you have a much stronger board. Often secures the game versus aggro when they are trying to push those last points of damage.

Frost Lich Jaina: The card that allows you to grind out almost any deck and stabilizes versus aggro. Almost always correct to play as early as possible to start generating those Water Elementals.

N’zoth the Corruptor: Another lategame value tool that makes it so that lategame almost no deck will ever beat you in the value department.

Replacements and Tech Cards

If you don’t have or like every card, you can try some of these instead depending on the decks you are facing and what you want to tech against:

Arcane Artificer: Cheap armor in in the midgame to get to the lategame, can often be very easy to fit in a turn with one of the removal spells.

2^nd Arcanologist: Play this if you want to have almost always an iceblock and it’s a decent minion early versus aggro.

Acolyte of Pain: Draw,  but can be risky with overdrawing and sometimes unplayable in control matchups.

Coldlight Oracle: Instant draw and can burn important cards versus slow decks or allow you to find your important cards faster. Also doesn’t fatigue you faster in control matchups, but pretty bad in aggro matchups.

Dragonslayer: Only if you are facing a ton of dragons and want to easily deal with an Drakonid Operative/Cobalt Scalebane.

Gluttonous Ooze: Best anti weapon card because you already have quite a few 2-drops and don’t need or want the draw of Harrison Jones.

2^nd Tar Creeper: If you want to bolster your early game.

Kabal Courier: Greedy card if you face a lot of control matchups and you also want to get in some interesting situations.

Tinkmaster Overspark: If you really don’t like warlocks and want to make their voidlords a cute Squirrel.

Twilight Flamecaller: If decks with a lot of 1 hp minions such as Dude Paladin are a big part of ladder, this adds an early aoe to deal with them.

Eater of Secrets: If you keep facing Secret Mage/Hunter this might be an option.

Saronite Chain Gang: 4-drop to go into your AoE’s to soften up the board and gain some health.

Arcane Tyrant: Decent card and best when played turn 5 with Dragon’s Fury, but pretty average card besides that.

Cairne Bloodhoof: Only if you really want to play this deck but don’t want to craft Sindragosa.

Medivh, the Guardian: Only if you really, really hate other control decks.

Dragoncaller Alanna: Only if you really, really want to win control matchups hard.

General Strategy

This deck usually wins by just not letting your opponent win as you outvalue almost any deck. Also you don’t really have any aggressive tools so it’s quite hard to kill your opponent, even if you wanted to. I’ll go over the aggressive and the control matchups as well as Control Warlock specifically as that matchup is very interesting and of course very common on the ladder right now. If you want some more specific tips for matchups you can always ask me in the comments.

Against aggressive decks the early game is all about surviving and getting to your 9-drops. Until turn 5 you only have your minions, so having some 2-drops early is key. You want to keep the board small so you can keep your clears as long as possible. However, you only want to do this against board focused decks such as Murloc Paladin. Against decks like Secret Mage and Spell Hunter you really want to prevent taking as much damage as possible because they have a lot of ways to deal damage directly to you. In these matchups you often have to plan to survive until turn 9 when you can play either Alexstrasza or Frost Lich Jaina to stabilize. Especially playing Frost Lich Jaina turn 9 with an iceblock up almost always wins the game due to all the healing with the water elementals that aggro decks can’t deal with well.

In control matchups you often don’t want to play any draw cards early like Raven Familiar and even Arcanologist, if you expect the matchup to go to fatigue. If you opponent does draw himself, feel free to draw if you need to because you’ll still be even in the fatigue battle. This means these cards and also The Curator often just get stuck in your hand, although sometimes it’s quite nice if your opponent tries to rat your N’zoth and pulls The Curator instead. Generally you also do not want to waste cards in this matchup, so frequently you’ll have Sindragosa in your hand and it’s unplayable because it generates 2 cards and you don’t want to overdraw. Additionally in these matchups you want to be really patient with N’zoth to get full value until you have Pyros twice and the Frozen Champions from Sindragosa in the resurrect pool and you won’t overdraw a card. Sometimes it’s fine though to overdraw if you don’t have any good cards left and you need to pressure. Waiting until fatigue with N’zoth is fine because you’ll get so many times Pyros which has lifesteal that even if you take 7 fatigue you’re still likely to be at full health.

The Control Warlock matchup can be quite an interesting one. Cubelock often is very hard to beat as they have too many threats, but Control Warlock is fine as a matchup. Key to this matchup is to polymorph their Voidlords. While ideally you want to polymorph Rin, good players will save it for the combo with Dark Pact so you won’t get the chance. If you have a polymorph in hand feel free to proc their lackeys to instantly polymorph the voidlord and not give them a chance to kill it. If you have played geist already it can sometimes be fine to save a polymorph for Rin over a voidlord because they can otherwise only kill it with a Greater Amethyst Spellstone. If they do get their Rin killed early though, you have to pressure them to not allow them to cast the runes, or at least not play Azari. Keep in mind they play Twisting Nether twice, so don’t overextend into that. In this matchup you want to hold on to your Dirty Rat until the lategame when they have played both Voidlords and you feel like they are going to play N’zoth soon. In fatigue they will run out of resources generally and you play a Pyros every turn so going into fatigue is fine and it is not necessary to win before that.

Closing Thoughts

This deck is quite hard to play but very rewarding. If you love interesting control matchups, this is definitely a great deck to choose. It works well both on the ladder and in tournaments and has a chance to win every matchup.

If you want to learn more about this deck or other (control) decks, I stream daily at twitch.tv/theohs_. You can also follow me on my Twitter where I often share decks. Thanks for reading and hope to see you at my stream or the next guide!

 

Videos

VOD of me getting top 50:

 Kiwiinbacon deck showcase:

 If you also want you video here, I would appreciate linking this guide in the description.