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70% WR Reno HERO Power Mage

  • Last updated Jun 3, 2021 (Wailing Caverns Set)
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Wild

  • 25 Minions
  • 5 Spells
  • Deck Type: Ranked Deck
  • Deck Archetype: Hero Power Mage
  • Crafting Cost: 18100
  • Dust Needed: Loading Collection
  • Created: 5/24/2021 (Forged in the Barrens)
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  • Battle Tag:

    AvenJar#21421

  • Region:

    EU

  • Total Deck Rating

    52

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Intro

Hello!

I'm putting the deck I've been playing since I got my hands over Mordresh Fire Eye. Also worth saying that my favorite class is Mage, and I love playing Reno Mage archetypes. I took Legend with it numerous times, and specifically for this deck, I climbed from the bottom to the legend again.

Before you start

Check out what you can do with this deck here (GAME REPLAY HERE)

The deck is easy to learn & hard to master. SERIOUSLY, PLEASE DON'T TRY IT IF YOU'RE NOT OPEN TO EXPERIMENT  - WHICH MEANS YOU CAN LOSE SOMETIMES. 

Yet, it's very effective against almost every deck in the current meta due to its OTK potential (40+ damage in one turn), decent clear capabilities, survival tools, draws, and more.

Hope you’ll enjoy reading it and get something new for yourself. 

Our sourcery will prevail, and remember - they ASKED FOR IT!

P.S. For those who checked this deck before. As I promised, I'm updating this Guide and adding Mulligan, Getting the Upper Hand, and Card Choices. I was waiting for Wailing Caverns Mini-Set to see if there will be any major changes. It turns out Blizzard decided to support Frost Mage (and that's nice), but new cards have no impact on this deck.

At the same time, the arsenal of your opponents got received such scary reinforcements like Savory Deviate Delight and Mutanus the Devourer. I suggest Rogues can be a bigger treat for this deck now, but I can't say without testing

 

General Strategy

Main win condition

Your main win condition, aka secret weapon, is your burst OTK potential. 

It is always important to understand your main win condition because it should reflect how you manage your resources (cards) during the course of the game. Obviously, against extreme aggro opponents, you won’t look into it, but as soon as you see this transits into the late game, it is vital to keep combo pieces in hand and wait for a perfect moment to strike.

Why “secret weapon”? You’re still playing Reno Mage, which has numerous advantages, but for most of your opponents cards like Mordresh Fire Eye, Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk or Khadgar will come as a surprise. In my opinion, it is very important in Ranked Ladder to have unexpected card choices to stay ahead.

OTK potential could be performed in several scenarios. 

Easier scenarios:

  1. Brann Bronzebeard → Mordresh Fire Eye → Potion of Illusion → Mordresh Fire Eye = 40 DAMAGE
  2. Brann Bronzebeard → Mordresh Fire Eye → Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk = 36 DAMAGE
  3. Brann Bronzebeard → Khadgar → Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk = 32 DAMAGE

Harder scenarios:

  1. Brann Bronzebeard → Mordresh Fire Eye → Potion of Illusion → Mordresh Fire Eye → Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk = 56 DAMAGE (extended combo)
  2. Brann Bronzebeard → Mordresh Fire Eye → Zola the Gorgon → Mordresh Fire Eye = 40 DAMAGE

By now, you probably asking if it even possible to be consistent with the combos above?

The answer is both “No” and “Yes”.

“No”, because every game will be different. Sometimes, you’ll be lucky to discount ALL combo minions with Luna's Pocket Galaxy, and even get them to cost 0 with Emperor Thaurissan, and sometimes you’ll get your Luna's Pocket Galaxy as the last card or even discarded with Book of Specters.

“Yes”, because our deck is basically a Reno deck and designed for a smooth transition into the late game. You have plenty of options to deal a decent amount of damage even without discounted cards. For example, simple combos like Brann Bronzebeard → Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk or Khadgar → Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk will deal guaranteed 16 damage. If you’ll play Emperor Thaurissan with all mentioned above cards in hand, you’ll be able to perform a devastating combo of Brann Bronzebeard → Khadgar → Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk to deal 32.

Priorities

You have 3 main priorities in every match:

  1. Survive
  2. Discount your Cards
  3. Perform OTK

Survive

Your gameplay should be a classic control archetype. We’re not pushing draw to get a lot of combo pieces in hand that will make an easy kill. Moreover, it is better not to hurry with the card draw until you can discount them with Luna's Pocket Galaxy. 

On top of that, both Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk, and Mordresh Fire Eye require you to deal 8 and 10 damage with your Hero Power respectively, in order to be able to activate their effect. Please keep that in mind.

So, your game plan for the early-mid game is to make sure you won’t die. This deck equipped with a lot of tools to ensure your survival:

  • Armor Vendor - 1 mana 4 armor + decent body - Yes, please!
  • Mistress of Mixtures - 1 mana 4 health +decent body - Yes, please!
  • Daring Fire-Eater - 1 mana “Deal 3+ damage with your hero power”. I really need to highlight the importance of this card for survivability. 

Not only it fits well with the Hero Power deck itself. 

If it combined with the Tour Guide, you will only need 2 mana to deal 3+ damage. If you played Wildfire before, it will be 4 damage, and if you have Arcane Amplifier on the board, it gets equal to 6 damage.

The most important: if you combine it with Spirit of the Dragonhawk, damage improvement applies to the adjacent targets as well. Unfortunately, if you’ll play Reckless Apprentice after Daring Fire-Eater, it will only deal improved damage to its first target (enemy hero). 

  • Tour Guide - can be played turn 1 to make your hero power cost 0. In some situations, you’ll have to keep a discounted hero power for another devastating turn. For example, if you’re playing against aggro, you can play Tour Guide Turn 1, Spirit of the Dragonhawk Turn 2, and Arcane Amplifier Turn 3 to deal 3 damage to 3 targets. If you have a coin, you can deal 3 damage on Turn 2 while getting Arcane Amplifier on the board, which is a very strong tempo move.
  • Dirty Rat - can be a defensive tool against some aggro decks with a lot of small minions
  • Doomsayer - this card doesn’t need a presentation. Sometimes you’ll need to predict your opponent's move to put in on the empty board. You’ll use it protectively most of the time. However, Doomsayer can be used aggressively to ensure you’ll have an empty board for all Ragnarosses, summoned with Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk
  • Mad Scientist - to get Ice Block on your hero early + get 2/2 body + saving 3 mana for something better
  • Starscryer - a more or less ok body that can be played for tempo. What’s important that it has quite a specific deathrattle - you’ll get 1 of 5 spells from your deck into your hand. It is always better to get your spells in hand to make sure you won’t discard them with Book of Specters
  • Zephrys the Great - you’ll usually keep it for the worst situations
  • Deathlord - 2/8 powerful taunt. Can make your opponent mad if they play some combo or Reno deck and you summon something vital from their deck.
  • Arcane Keysmith - 4 mana 2/2 body, a minion-way to get a secret in play. Why not another, specific secret? We have a limited number of spell slots in our deck. I had 3 spells in the first version of this deck, but all 5 of them now look perfect for me now. Just try not to play Tortollan Pilgrim with 4 or 5 spells in your deck. You can find yourself in a stupid situation when you wanted Luna's Pocket Galaxy but got 3 other cards
  • Reckless Apprentice - a decent body that deals AoE with your hero power, which is very good for our deck. If you want to play Tour Guide and keep a discounted hero power, you need to play Tour Guide AFTER Reckless Apprentice. Reckless Apprentice will always trigger the discount in the first launch. Or, if you have 5 mana, and you want to use both hero Power + Reckless Apprentice, you need to play them in the following order:

Tour Guide → Hero Power → Reckless Apprentice

Discount Your Cards

This goes right after survival. If you can, you need to play Luna's Pocket Galaxy or at least Emperor Thaurissan asap. If your deck will be full of 1 mana minions, you’ll be able to make absolutely crazy stuff.

So, if you’re lucky enough to get a coin, you can keep it to play on Turn 5 and unleash Emperor Thaurissan. If you had Luna's Pocket Galaxy in your hand, it will be discounted and you’ll be able to play it on Turn 6 now. The same you can do with just a coin on Turn 6. Sometimes, you’ll cast Luna's Pocket Galaxy with Tortollan Pilgrim. I tried adding Grand Archivist before, but it has two big problems: it can cast spells you want to keep for now, and it still cost 8 mana. Tortollan Pilgrim costs the same but casts a specific spell.

It is also important to remember that your #1 priority is to Survive. If you see that your opponent will probably kill you next turn, it is better to play something defensively. 

What you can do with discounted minions in your deck?

  • Draw 3 1-cost, sometimes very powerful, minions with Book of Specters
  • Draw a lot of cards with Stargazer Luna
  • Most important - you’ll be able to make OTKs that is impossible to achieve otherwise.

Perform OTK

As soon as you got your cards discounted, your opponent can start counting turns until he loses. Experienced players will try to destroy you asap because they understand: if you discounted something huge, you’ll probably get a huge advantage in a few turns.

You have several ways to destroy your opponent. Depending on what you’ve got, you need to act respectively:

  • If your opponent is low on health (20 or less), you can try to finish him with double-battlecry from Mordresh Fire Eye. In this case, if you’ll obviously need to find Brann Bronzebeard. But what if both of them are not discounted? In this bad scenario, if you kept your Coin, you can play Emperor Thaurissan to discount them to 9 and 2 mana respectively, and then perform a combo. It gets easier if you have 1 card discounted already
  • If you play against a slow deck, it is better to get the most from your OTK potential - to make sure your opponent will die and not heal.
  • If you have discounted Mordresh Fire Eye, Khadgar (no matter discounted or not), and Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk (no matter discounted or not), and your opponent has some minions in play, you can play Mordresh Fire Eye to clear them and deal 10 damage to enemy hero, and follow up with Khadgar + Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk for another 16 damage. In the next turn, your opponent will need to deal with 5 decent bodies and heal himself.
  • …

There are plenty of different situations, and I don’t see value in explaining each and every one of them. I guess you can get the main idea from the info above.

Mulligan

I'm happy to announce that this deck became popular enough so that HS Deck Tracker gathered & processed enough data to generate deck stats and a mulligan guide. For those who use it, the link is here.

I'll explain Mulligan in two sections:
1) Good to keep
2) Needs to be replaced
3) VS Every Class


Good to keep

Needs to be replaced

  • Everything above 4 mana. Exception: specific opponents (see below)
  • Book of Specters - better not to play before you discounted your cards
  • Khadgar - useless until late game, combo piece
  • Brann Bronzebeard - not so useless until late game as Khadgar, as you can combo it with other Battlecry cards (e.g. for protection), but it's a combo piece and we will try to Mulligan something better for early. Besides, to combine it with something, you'll need more than 3 Mana, so it makes him useless until turn 4 minimum
  • Ice Block - try to mulligan Mad Scientist instead
  • Zola the Gorgon - for the same reasons as Brann Bronzebeard
  • Potion of Illusion - useless with an empty board, can't help until Turn 4

VS Every Class

What you should try to find against every class

{Demon Hunter}

{Rogue}

Generally, you should expect two Rogue types: aggro, and exhaust. In both cases, focus on playing cheap cards fast.

{Druid}

Druid brings harder choices. On lower ranks, I'd expect more aggro Druids. Most Legendary Druids now are Maligos/Miracle/Combo kind with Celestial Alignment. You never know who is who, so it's better to follow the general Mulligan guide.

{Hunter}

Usually aggro, or variations (Reno, token, secret - all try to get you down sooner than later).

{Paladin}

Usually aggro/mid-range variations.

{Mage}

You'll either meet Secret or Combo mage (Mozaki or Flamewaker variations). Reno Mages aren't a big threat. VS Secret Mage, you need to stabilize asap, keep low-cost cards only, but also keep both Renos as they can save you in tough situations.

VS Combo, you need to cast your Ice Block asap, even if it will be left in your hand instead of Mad Scientist. In this regard, Dirty Rat and his combos with Brann/Zola/Potion of Illusion is a nice way to pull out Mozaki/Flamewakers. Just be careful and do it too early. 

If your Mage-opponent played Taelan Fordring, you know that if you kill it there'd be Mozaki in his hand.

Zephrys the Great can be played early (at 3-4 mana) to receive Flare. Don't play it unless you know there's no Counterspell in play from your Opponent. Don't hesitate to waste any other spell, and wait, as it will help you to defuse up to 4 other secrets for 1 mana.

...Next part tomorrow, guys. Please forgive, I'm writing it for 2 hours already.