Hearthpwn

Hello and welcome to my second guide, featuring the Miracle Mage.

I choose the name Miracle Mage, because you can do miraculous things in a single turn with this deck, whether you go tall (buffing a Questing Adventurer to 10/10+ in a single turn is not unusual at all) or wide (with the help of Vex Crow).

This plays well into the meta, where most decks struggle with wide boards, and the lack of silence cards that would otherwise easily deal with Questing Adventurer.

But one of my favorite cards in this deck is definitely Mana Cyclone. This is also where the miracle aspect of this deck comes into play. You can play a bunch of spells and get back amazing value, since most of your spells are 1 mana. With Elemental Evocation you can play this card for 0 mana, meaning you can spend all your mana on spells and still play this card. Even better is that your opponents will have no clue about your hand, which makes this deck unpredictable and therefore powerful.

Archmage Antonidas is there to finish your games. There are no fireballs in this deck, but with all the cheap spells (and especially when combined with Sorcerer's Apprentice) it's easy to fill your hand with fireballs.

Overall Strategy

In your mulligan you want to look for the key minions, because they enable your power plays. These are Sorcerer's Apprentice, Vex Crow, Mana Cyclone, Questing Adventurer, and Banana Buffoon (more 1 mana spells!).

In games that play for the board I also like to keep Mirror Image because it allows you to protect your key minions. If you can stick a Sorcerer's Apprentice on turn 2 with Mirror Image and a Questing Adventurer in hand, you can overwhelm your opponent very quickly if it goes unchecked.

Cards like Ray of Frost allow you to stall your opponent at almost no cost. They have to use removal spells to deal with your minions, because you just freeze their minions and go face. You will get plenty of extra spells from your Mana Cyclone that you can use to clear or freeze the opponent's board.

In games vs Rogue, I also like to keep Frostbolt to deal with their early aggression. The Cosmic Anomaly and Shooting Star combo is also perfect to deal with most of their minions (Dread Corsair, Blink Fox, Hench-Clan Burglar, Lifedrinker all have 3 health). I also keep Magic Trick against Rogue to try and find a Frostbolt. With no weapon removal, freezing the Rogue's face is sometimes the best way to defend yourself against the Waggle Pick.

Finally I also like to keep Arcane Intellect in slower games, as well as Stargazer Luna.

Tall or Wide?

With Questing Adventurer and Vex Crow you sometimes have to make a decision whether to invest in a wide board, or simply make one big minion. This really depends on the matchup and at what point in the game you are. However, in general it's good to go wide vs the more aggressive decks. Rogue, Druid, and Hunter will struggle a lot against you. They will be forced to make inefficient plays and use their resources on trying to keep up with the board, instead of going for your face.

Against the slower decks I like to make a big Questing Adventurer. That card can easily win you the game in two turns. Against classes that deal well with single targets you might want to set up your play with a Counterspell or Spellbender from Magic Trick or Mana Cyclone.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Miracle Mage lines up well in this meta. It can do well against pretty much anything except control warrior. They have plenty of options to remove your board, making it hard to get in the required chip damage to have a chance at burning them later on with Archmage Antonidas. This is the only really bad matchup in my opinion.

Rogues are only a problem if you can't deal with their early board. Usually the combination of Vex Crow, Sorcerer's Apprentice, and a bunch of spells will shift the board tempo in your favor. You can protect yourself vs Waggle Pick & Leeroy Jenkins shenanigans with Mirror Image and Frostbolt.

Conjurer mages are also not much of an issue. This deck is faster and deadlier. Counterspell and Spellbender are absolute nuts if you find them. Often they will have to Conjurer's Calling your Questing Adventurer to buy a couple more turns before they lose.

Hunters and Druids are even less of an issue, because their minions are weaker and more prone to the effects from cards like Shooting Star and Arcane Missiles. Unlike rogues, once they lose the board it's hard for them to come back into the game. And because they can't cheat mana like you, it's even harder to make a tempo swing. The best hunter variant vs this deck is the Beast Hunter with Unleash the Hounds and Zul'jin.

Closing Thoughts

I have seen APXVoid play a similar deck with Mountain Giant and Conjurer's Calling. Personally I do not like this. You don't have the same synergy as with Conjurer Mage, where you have many more cards that you can target with Conjurer's Calling, and being able to play a turn 3 giant when having the coin and Book of Specters.

Furthermore, the requirement of filling your hand encourages slow play, which is good in slow games but not against more aggressive opponents. Maybe you'll have a slightly better winrate against warriors, but it will still be heavily unfavored. The giants also make all of your other combos that much weaker on average and limit your options. Not good in my opinion.

I have also played with cards like Frost Nova, Magic Dart Frog (not kidding), Messenger Raven, and some others, but Questing Adventurer and Banana Buffoon are better. The Raven is just too slow and unnecessary, same goes for Nova. The Frog is unfortunately a bad card. Both the effect and its stats are underwhelming.

You could look into swapping Cosmic Anomaly for something else (in which case you could cut Shooting Star as well and make the deck greedier), but I think both these cards are strong in helping you control the board. The +2 spell damage is very strong when combined with all your cheap spells.

The best card in the deck is probably Sorcerer's Apprentice. Making all your 1 mana spells cost ZERO is insane, especially when you can combo this with Vex Crow, Questing Adventurer, Mana Cyclone, or Archmage Antonidas.

On a final note, this deck is also very cheap to craft. No reason not to try it out for yourself! If you have any questions or suggestions please leave a comment. Or if you want to check out my other deck (Overload Shaman) you can find it here.