Legend Freeze Mage [Standard + Wild]
- Last updated Apr 25, 2017 (Un'Goro Launch)
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Wild
- 13 Minions
- 17 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Freeze Mage
- Crafting Cost: 8200
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 1/3/2015 (GvG Launch)
- James1
- Registered User
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- 12
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- 70
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
1597
Freeze Mage
"The end is coming" - Doomsayer
Hello! I'm James1. I have achieved legend 7 times with Freeze Mage including season 10, 15,16, 17, 18 , 19 and 37. Proof in spoiler Below. The list you see now is the standard Freeze. Most people including myself thought this deck would be dead with the rotation of standard, however its really good right now.
July :
June :
August :
September :
October:
season 37 :
The Guide
A cold welcome to newcomers of Freeze Mage. I would suggest start studying LaughingHS- if you are unsure how to play the deck. In the spoiler below is a list of streamers wh
Card Replacements
Alexstrasza : sorry there is no replacement for this card
Archmage Antonidas : If you would like to play this card remove a Forgotten Torch
Bloodmage Thalnos : 5th freeze spell like Cone of Cold is a excellent replacement. Lots of people seem to recommend Kobold Geomancer, however kobold is not very flexible, so I don't recommend it.
Match Up Guide/ Mulligan
Mulligan is really important in Freeze Mage. You dont want any secrets, Alexstrasza or Archmage Antonidas in your opening hand. The one card that is a 100% keep all the time is Arcanologist, Loot Hoarder and Acolyte of Pain.
In general aim to get this kinda of hand. This hand is completely nuts.
In general you should : draw or contest board > healing, unless you're close to death. For example: if you have the choice between Arcane Intellect or Ice Barrier on turn 3, play Arcane Intellect.
Vs aggro decks: you want a defensive card like Frostbolt or Doomsayer. Then ideally 2 draw minions such as Arcanologist or Loot Hoarder, to fight there 2 drop. Turn 5 is massive vs zoo, typically you want to Frost Nova, Doomsayer. This allows a turn 6 clean board to play your secret's, acolyte or Emperor Thaurissan (in wild), putting tempo back on your side.
Vs midrange decks : Keep 2 cost draw minions like Arcanologist, loot, thalnos. Arcane Intellect and Acolyte of Pain are also great here. Draw early so u can optimize later plays. Freeze spell get the best value later in the game, were as draw spells get weaker late game.
Consider keeping Acolyte of Pain till five mana against slow decks . With a ping you can guaranty at least 2 draws from him.
Key play: If you haveAlexstrasza them and are burning them out over 2 turns then priority is to Pyroblast turn 10. This is because pyroblast takes a hole turn. Thus if u get ice block popped on your 11th turn u can ice block while burning there face. Pyroblast first also plays around Loatheb in wild.
Important Combos
Turn 5 Acolyte of Pain + ping (Careful of overdraw)
Turn 5 Frost Nova - Doomsayer
Turn 6 Cone of Cold - Doomsayer
Turn 8 Blizzard - Doomsayer
Turn 10 Frost Nova - Archmage Antonidas
Which Spelldamageminion? At the moment im running the 2/2 for 2 mana with spelldamage. Should i play Azure drake? or keep the 2/2?
Been climbing slowly with this deck. However, i recommend Bloodmage Thalnos over a loot hoarder, or alternatively remove the sheep and play 2 hoarders and Thalnos. With that much card draw Pyroblast is a must. Alex > Pyro > Fireball or (frostbolt+ice lance) ( frostboltx2) (Ice lancex2+ping) etc. makes for many lethal variations that are often unexpected.
Antique healbot is interesting, it saved games vs crazy agro decks, and sets back face decks, keep in mind 90% of the time your playing to buy time.
Illuminator is a decent substitute.
Also, Emporer Thaurissan is optional IMO.
Emp makes this already very strong deck even stronger. Since you typically have a large hand as a Freeze Mage, Emp's passive ability will often provide maximum value. Emp enables lethal in fewer turns after dropping a win condition like Alex or Antonidas. Think: in one turn Alex plus Frost Nova, or Antonidas plus 2 or 3 spells. Emp can even restore your Pyroblast to it's pre-nerf glory. In short, it's fantastic to see this great deck archetype improved by the Emp, making freeze Mage highly relevant in today's meta game.
I love the idea and playstyle of freeze mage so I tried climbing the ladder with this but it just does not seem viable in this meta which is really disappointing to me. I played 70 matches with this deck and went 36-34 for 51.4% win rate (EDIT: Am now well below 50% win rate since Kezan Mystic is everywhere). Here’s the breakdown:
Druid 1/10 - Silences stop your Doomsayers, Mad Scientists, and card draw minions in their tracks making them semi-useless. Savage Roar will beat you down if you don’t draw your freeze cards. I thought this would be an easy matchup since Druids are a little slower, but apparently it isn’t.
Hunter 3/9 - Went 1-2 against Face Hunters, the rest were midrange. Again, if you don’t draw your freeze cards or Doomsayers/Explosive Sheep quick enough the relentless damage every turn will kill you far too quickly, even with Ice Barriers
Mage 3/10 - 0-5 against Mech mage. I got destroyed by mech mage every time. The onslaught of minions every turn is just too much for a slow deck like this. They have too many removal options for Doomsayers. By the time you get to the later turns where you need to use Alexstrasza or Archmage Antonidas you’re likely clinging to life and may have even burnt through one of your Ice Blocks.
Paladin 3/8 - Most of the losses here were against extreme aggro decks. Starting to see a pattern here how fast decks catch freeze mage with their pants down (most of the time anyway)
Priest 9/11 - Ahh here we go, finally a favorable matchup. Priests are very slow to start which really helps. They’re also looking to use all of their sneaky removal/steal cards but since this deck is very light on minions they end up just holding them in their hand. By the time I pull out Alexstrasza or Archmage Antonidas and they get a chance to use Shadow Word: Death or Mind Control I don’t even care because they’re dead in the next turn or 2.
Rogue 3/3 - I was (kind of) surprised to only run into 3 Rogues on the ladder. They were all basically just some variant of Oil rogue though, which are kind of slow to put out minions. By mid game I usually had answers to make sure their minions never really got to do much damage. They usually wasted their weapon charges and spells on trying to get rid of the Doomsayers. Would like to play this matchup more.
Shaman 3/5 - I don’t have much to comment on with Shaman matches. These games were pretty standard.
Warlock 9/11 - 2-2 against Zoo, one of them I used my Doomsayer too early and he just flooded the board again right after, leading to my downfall. Handlock and Demonlock were favorable matchups though. This is a good matchup because you don’t have to look for/waste a turn on Alexstrasza. By turn 9 or 10 your opponent will likely be down to around 15 health anyway from tapping so you can just burn him down.
Warrior 2/3 - I was actually really surprised to have a winning percentage against Warriors since they’re almost ALL control. Before I started recording the stats I saw a mech one here and there but not many. One of these wins was actually against a control warrior but he played it very badly so I didn’t really deserve that win. Basically, everyone knows how this matchup should go for freeze mage…
I’ve tried watching people like Kolento and Forsen play their freeze mages to see if there was some trick they were doing that I wasn’t, but I think I’m playing it about as well as anyone else is. I tried playing about 30 matches with Forsen’s freeze mage where he uses Antique Healbots and another Flamestrike in place of the Acolyte of Pains but that had a slightly worse win rate than this one. Oh well, just thought I'd share this
Do you really think Antique Healbot is better then Pyroblast? I've been playing this deck for a week or so now and I can understand why you'd look to get rid of Pyroblast, but why choose Healbot?
Against aggro decks always keep doomsayer and frost nova if u get both so on turn 5 u can clear the board, always mulligan for mad scientist and loot hoarders, never keep any secrets (thats why u keep the scientist so whin he dies u automatically get a secret), against face hunter u can have the luxury to keep ice barrier since face hunter rush you down pretty quick the 8 armor stalls the game more and gives you extra turns to get your big removals, against control decks u can keep arcane intellect, never play acolyte of pain on turn 3 play it on turn 5 and pin it with the hero power, your acolytes and arcane intellect are your main card draw so u need to draw at least 2 times from your acolytes, some useful combos: turn 5 doomsayer + frost nova, turn 8 blizzard + doomsayer, turn 5 acolyte and hero power on him, turn 10 archmage antonidas+ frost nova (free fireball and freeze board), emperos thaurissan is really strong and allows you to get some crazy combos that werent possible before so if u have a bunch of burn spells and emperor thaurissan in your hand play it on turn 6 to get some discounts. If u dont draw alexstrasza because of bad luck u have archmage antonidas as a second win condition tu burn down your opponet with frostballs atnd ice lances and fireballs and get a bunch of fireballs to finish him off on the next turns, u also have pyroblast to help you which is 10 damage to the face. Bloodmage thalnos have 2 purposes: for card draw and to add and extra damage to your burn spells: fireball+frostball+frostball+ice lance+ice lance= 20 famage for 10 mana but with thalnos on board is 25 damage for 10 mana and if you manage to get the discount from emperor thaurissan u can even play: fireball+fireball+frostball+frostball+ice lance+ice lance= 26 damage and with thalnos is 32 damage which is lethal. If you have malygos u can add him and remove pyroblast and have him as a third win condition, malygos is really strong with emperor thaurissan and will strengthen your deck even more. I hoped my tips help you improve your playstyle and have fun :)
I recently build this deck.(my 1st time purchase with 60 packs!)
I have a serious question about this deck: Until when should I try to finished the game WITHOUT Alexstrasza?
In the actual play, I tended to do anything I can to stall, preserved every burning card, just wait until I drew Alex and took 2 turns to burn their face.(while depend on secrets to stay alive)
What I don't understand is that how can I determine if I needed to start burning them if I probably won't get Alex.
Should it be started with Antony in my hand? Or even WITHOUT him?
I've been recently struggling at rank 18~, but my best record was around rank 10 last year.
Looking forward for your reply!
If you are up against a hunter they usually don't have any heals, so if you have the burst go for it but only if he does'nt have the power to kill you.
why replace cone of cold and flamestrike for pyroblast and blizzard?
hey :D thanks for the reply i run drake and i have 64% winrate without pyroblast but i think pyro is very important against warriors oww im only rank 3 atm.
i can replace Bloodmage Thalnos for kobold or azure drake?
If you were to include both Archmage Antonidas and Pyroblast what would you remove? Thanks.
Hi. Thank you for replying. I am currently at 5, been here for a few days, kind of been afraid to play. I practiced a lot yesterday in casual, read both guides and watched some. It's hard, I mean, I'm still figuring things out, made some small mistakes (which can matter a lot) here and there but there are a lot of pitfalls like just not getting the cards you need because of rng or the acolytes getting silenced or even over-drawing or not pinging face (because you pinged a minion) two turns before you would have had lethal..
How goes it for you? Is it easy/hard? Do you lose too and what to usually? Do you recall how many games it has taken you to get from 5 to 2? I'm trying to get an idea so I can better gauge if I should keep at it with my oldish secrets deck that I know or really apply myself to freeze. Thank you. :) And, good luck. :)
That's terriffic!! :) Unfortunately I'm only on NA but thank you for offering, I definitely would have taken you up on that if I could have. :)
Congrats on making legend with Freeze mage! I've attempted a couple of seasons but the best I've managed is rank 4 :) How important has Flamestrike been to you? Is it mostly to "buy" an additional turn? I've experimented with lots of random cards for the last slot, panda to retrieve a silenced doomsayer, coldlight oracle for last required draw etc.
Splendid Sir!