Hearthpwn

Yet another Deck I'm experimenting on.

Win conditions are Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate and Mordresh Fire Eye.

It's a hybrid deck that way, it incorporates elements of Freeze/Yogg Mage as well as a pure Hero Power Mordresh deck.

Edits being made as I play, I try to expand the guide below as much as I can and I'm committed to making the archtype work without cutting Mordresh or Yogg / pivoting too hard towards either.

Some cards that might need explanation here:

• Tour Guide: Works well enough within the hero power archetype. It's real strength comes from the fact that we can combo it into Wand Thief for early card generation or Brain Freeze for early removal against aggro decks. Very versatile card that I honestly enjoy a great deal in this deck. Also huge if you do feel like running Wildfire in this decklist.
• Refreshing Spring Water: Easy to explain, this card is great even in a deck that runs 50% minions, it still sort of pays for itself most of the time and replaces Arcane Intellect which often wastes an entire turn for draws. This way you at least have the chance to get Mana back.
• Varden Dawngrasp: Replaces most of your usual freeze effects. Without Blizzard, Control Mage often struggles with clearing big boards. We run load of board clear like Flame Strike, Reckless Apprentice, Mordresh Fire Eye and you can get more off of your spell gen effects of which there are too many to name. If you somehow want more freeze to get the 4 damage off Varden, you can run a second Cone of Cold instead of the second Oasis Ally.
• Reckless Apprentice: This one pays for itself. We only run one copy and it's main purpose is setting up Mordresh Fire Eye. Try to get as much damage as possible out of the Apprentice. You could also not run this, but then you'd probably have to cut Mordresh which would make this a normal boring Yogg deck.
• Keywarden Ivory: You can't even imagine how many good spells this can give you, like Coerce, that can deal with problems your mage cards can't usually handle well. And you get two copies if you play it well. Replaced by Jandice Barov.
• Firework Elemental: Outstandingly good card once corrupted, 12 damage to a minion is a great way to deal with buffed cards or big Warlock minions. Uncorrupted at 3 damage you can use it when it a pinch against aggro decks, 3 damage plus it's body is still plenty.
• Alexstrasza the Life-Binder: Mage doesn't deal well with being burst down too quickly. You don't want a scenario where you painstakingly take back control of a match and then die to 3 consecutive Hunter hero powers. Ice Barrier from Ring Toss can help with that, but only once and only for so long. It's also weak to spell focused decks like Spell Mage or spell-dmg Burn Mage. So instead we run Alexstrasza to heal ourselves or optionally to finish off opponents and kill big minions.
• Taelan Fordring: Easy inclusion in every Midrange or Control deck these days. If you have any 9 or 10 cost win condition this is such a great card to run. We have two of those here, Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate and Mordresh Fire Eye, alternative this can also draw Alexstrasza the Life-Binder.

Why don't I run Wildfire? In short, it's too slow. That's the main issue with Hero Power Mage, it's too slow and has no win condition outside of Mordresh. I tried fixing that with this deck. It doesn't need the continued value from Wildfire because we have so many other removal options. In all honesty, if you feel like you might need a Wildfire in a specific matchup for whatever reason, you are probably going to get it from Runed Orb, Ethereal Conjurer, Wand Thief etc. so I honestly don't see why you would want to waste a card slot for it. If you HAD TO run it because you just like it a lot and think it's fun to run I won't stop you. I'd probably replace Arcanologist and one copy of Oasis Ally since that's also the only thing Arcanologist even draws (done). If you were to run wildfire I'd recommend absolutely keeping Tour Guide in the deck and maybe running a second Reckless Apprentice over something like Refreshing Spring Water, simply because you're adding another minion into the mix and that loses value. Ultimately I understand the appeal of Wildfire but I just don't see it working in our favor in most matchups.

Replacements:

This might look like a fairly pricey deck at first glance but it's really not. I eluded to some technical replacements you might want to make earlier, but if the cost of cards is what you're concerned with, here's some of the details on that.

• • Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, Taelan Fordring: Make no mistake if you just got back into the game and are browsing for decks. These are not in fact new cards, they are part of the core set which is awarded to all players free of cost, so they are completely free to run!
  • Keywarden Ivory: I strongly recommend running this, but if you don't own the Darkmoon Races mini set, you might not own this card. In it's place you might want to instinctively run a 6 cost card to better corrupt the 5 cost Firework Elemental, but there are honestly no real candidates for this because none really fit into the deck. Instead I'd simply recommend running a second copy of Flamestrike. This is another card from the core set, that anyone has access to and mainly does the same thing we want from Ivory which is dealing with your opponents board. Replaced by Jandice Barov. Jandice increases the cost of the deck by a small margin but is worth the inclusion if you do own her. She is however still replaceable by running a second copy of Flamestrike, see changelog spoiler below. 
  • Astromancer Solarian, Varden Dawngrasp: I genuinely think these are two cards anyone should consider crafting for themselves because of their power level and versatility. But I can still make a case for replacing either one if you absolutely don't have them or aren't sure about this deck yet. Solarian helps with the unpredictable nature of the deck that's also inherent with Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate, so I like it here for purely thematic reasons. If you were to replace it I'd use something like Starscryer because it has similar stats and also draws you a card early on. It help that Starscryer can only draw spells so you don't accidentally draw one of your 10 costs on turn 2 or 3. It's also only a common card so it keeps the over all cost of the deck down. Replacing Varden is as easy as running a second cone of cold to replace your missing freeze effect.
  • Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate, Mordresh Fire Eye: These are the ones I have the most difficulty not recommending here because they are the two core components of the decks hybrid archetype. I think if you want to replace Yogg it's best done through another high cost, high value card. The core set brought us some cool new dragons for that! Malygos the Spellweaver helps draw you spells and Ysera the Dreamer also generates big value late game. They're also both free to all players. C'Thun, the Shattered might already be in your collection for other decks it works reasonably well here too, although I'm not a fan of how much the C'Thun parts distract from your main objectives in the game. As for replacing Mordresh, I'd honestly recommend cutting the copies of Reckless Apprentice and Tour Guide as well, if you do so. They mainly act as enablers for Mordresh Fire Eye and serve no purpose outside of that. If you lean into the Spell side of the deck and remove the Hero Power aspect of it, you might just want to add more spell cards like Combustion and Devolving Missiles (added), although they are rather expensive and I like to keep cost down for these decks. Without Mordresh you could also think about replacing Taelan Fordring although I'd keep him around regardless, he's just too damn good.

   

Edits:

• • Late April: Added 2 Devolving Missiles and removed Arcanologist and one copy of Oasis Ally: Honestly pretty easy choice after I finally crafted Devolving Missiles. This works as anti-aggro and to more easily remove big things like the 8/8 taunt from Libram of Hope because of it's Divine Shield. In my experience the deck struggled with being overrun early or dealing with endless value-chains like Libram Paladin. This should be a first step in the right direction. I'm thinking of adding Death's Head Cultist in the future to even better counter aggro while also being able to replenish our life total a little, which Mage struggles with significantly since the Barrens patch. As for why Arcanologist and Oasis Ally had to go, the latter just didn't trigger often enough for me as my opponents just went face and ignored my board. Only having one copy of it also means the former is really unnecessary because it loses all value if you draw your one secret before it. In general I feel like not being able to freeze face anymore at all is a huge problem for the deck when facing weapon centric classes (DH, Warr, Pal, Sham) ever since the absence of Frostbolt. I really haven't found a good way to remove that obstacle yet, however I'm considering including Frozen Shadoweaver in future variations to combat this. It can freeze face, but also syngeries nicely with Varden Dawngrasp.
  • Early May: Replaced one copy of Ethereal Conjurer, one copy of Refreshing Spring Water and Keywarden Ivory in favor of 2 Death's Head Cultist and Jandice Barov: This one wasn't as much of a no brainer. Removing one Refreshing Spring Water was mandated because the minion/spell balance no longer warrants 2 copies. We'll see if I need to replace it with another card draw engine, I usually find things like Arcane Intellect too slow for a reactive deck. Ethereal Conjurer had to go because while the value he provides is immense, he is best played on a turn where you are already ahead, which is yet again not exactly the point of a reactive deck. Usually your opponent will have some sort of threat or set-up for one and you want to remove it. Conjurer creates value but doesn't address what's already on the board so a lot of the time it's too slow. Might cut the second copy eventually in favor of a second flame strike. Keywarden Ivory honestly had the same issue as Ethereal Conjurer with a weaker statline and you usually didn't get her spell burst off in time so her potential value was halved. She was therefore not worth including any longer. I still recommend her in Aegwynn Aggro decks, but not here. Both good cards in theory, but in practice they don't pull through with any real level of consistency. I've talked about Death's Head Cultist before, it provides a taunt against Aggro, which is also why I still love Taelan Fordring in this deck, and heals you back up. Mage doesn't really have that mechanic anymore outside of Alexstrasza the Life-Binder which usually comes in too slow against Aggro decks or Ice Barrier which I'm still unsure about because it provides effectively zero value against Spell Mage. Death's Head Cultist should provide two different things here and I hope it performs better than before. Including Jandice Barov was suggested in the comments and I do like the idea. Especially at 6 mana it's now got one huge advantage which is being able to corrupt Firework Elemental. The 12 damage minion removal from that is honestly worth so much against a lot of decks, I find that I use it in a lot of scenarios that I would've usually played Polymorph in. Jandice herself also creates a lot of value since there are good new 5 drops in the game with Barrens, we'll have to see if she pulls through, if not, replacing her with another copy of Flamestrike might be another option.
  • Changes most likely to come soon (not definitive, more of less brainstorming): -1 Ethereal Conjurer (slow), -1Oasis Ally (replaced by more effective freeze effect), -1 Primordial Studies (not enough uses for spelldmg)/ -1 Refreshing Spring Water (?), -1 Ring Toss (only enables ice barrier rn)/ +2 Combust (great aggro clear), + 1or2 Firebrand (works well with our 1 cost spells and is aggro clear), +1 Flamestrike (lack of aoe), +1or2 Shadoweaver (more effective freeze, also applies to face), +1or2 Loot Hoarder or other minion card draw (faster than Arcane Intellect at replacing Spring Water)
  • May 13th: Replaced one copy of Tour Guide and the only copy of Primordial Studies with 2 copies of Combustion in an effort to better out control aggro decks early while also reducing the number of 1 cost minions in the deck that retain little value in the late game. You might not want to make this change if you are looking to cut costs with the deck list. Combustion is by no means necessary, it just helps a lot in my opinion.
  • Still considering removing Ethereal Conjurer/Refreshing Springwater from the deck altogether, but that would leave us with little options to corrupt our only Ring Toss never mind the Firework Elemental, now meaning I'd have to cut those as well and I really find them too strong for that. Ring Toss deals with so many situations as an ace up your sleeve because it's a one size fits all counter to many strategies. Also Firework Elemental ist just unexpected for most people, it's not a card anyone consciously plays around, which you can use to your advantage. It's also usually used where you might otherwise like to use Fireball on a minion. This way you save that direct damage to finish your opponents off with later on, mimicing an old Freeze Mage strategy. I'd also like to keep Refreshing Spring Water around for a little while because it's our only direct card draw. Now that it costs 5 mana, I would consider running Arcane Intellect in it's place, but that doesn't corrupt anything. Brain is still churning out ideas on how to solve this as of right now. Went flawless with the list so far, however I ran into no-deck-Warlock twice so that doesn't really count as a win because they just beat themselves against another Control archetype.