Hearthpwn

Free at last! Free at last! Thank the stars, we are free at last!

With the loss of Mad Scientist in Standard, we can now stop playing anti-tempo secrets in our decks! Tempo mages rejoice! (Yes, yes, they could offer great tempo when the Mad Scientist pulled them, but he was kind of anti-tempo himself, and how many times did you end up drawing those damn things before he even pulled them?)

I had a quest for mage, so I took out my old tempo mage deck and converted it to standard. I originally ran a pretty standard build with 2x Azure Drake and 1x Ethereal Conjurer. I had always preferred Water Elemental to Piloted Shredder because the last thing Tempo Mage needed was more RNG. The only changes I had to make were replacing the secret package (4 cards), Dr. Boom, 1xFlamecannon, and 2x Unstable Portal.

So here's how the changes went:

2x Mad Scientist >> 2x Cult Sorcerer: I wasn't really sure how this card would play out, but spell damage early on is so OP. No one ever ran the Kobold Geomancer because it had such a weak body, but put +1 spell power on a 3/2 body, and you will be one happy mage. This card combined with Arcane Blast and Sorcerer's Apprentice is truly amazing.

1x Mirror Entity, 1x Counterspell >> 2x Forgotten Torch: I hated how easy Mirror Entity was to play around, and while Counterspell could be great, it sucked having to play it for 3 mana when it was in my hand. Plus, I don't want to run a crappy Kirin Tor Mage just to play some secrets that I never liked very much.

On the other hand, Forgotten Torch is performs far better than I imagined. It provides an okay alternative to Frostbolt for early removal, and a combo card with [card]Archmage Antonidas[/card] that provides some good final burst.

Some people might complain that it costs one more mana than Frostbolt, but there has been many times where I didn't have much to do on turn 3 anyway, so 3 damage for removal was exactly what I needed.

1x Dr. Boom, 1x Arcane Intellect >> 2x Faceless Summoner: These guys aren't quite as amazing as Dr. Seven, but they still provide a lot of tempo in the late game, which was exactly what a tempo deck needs. Plus, with the slightly lower mana cost, they can be comboed with removal spells.

Also, since some of my other changes provided more cards, I thought another Arcane Intellect was superfluous since it also often ended up dead in my hand.

1x Flamecannon >> 1x Cabalist's Tome: Since we now have plenty of early removal, and a few spells that can do four damage with some easily present cheap spell damage, I thought a good addition would be more spells to fill our hand. Ethereal Conjurer kind of does this, but I already ran one, and his weak body is easy to remove.  Plus, it's only one more card. The hope with Cabalist's Tome is that you can play it when your opponent has a slow turn, when you have Sorcerer's Apprentice to combo with it, or when its cost has been reduced by Emperor Thaurissan. So far, I haven't needed it much, so perhaps Conjurer would be better, but it also has yet to be dead in my hand. I wouldn't run two though, because Conjurer's high attack is a great way to draw out removal.

2x Unstable Portal >> 1x Emperor Thaurissan, 1x Pyroblast: These replacements don't exactly take the same role as the famed e-Sportal, but they play a very consistent role in the deck.

Emperor Thaurissan reduces the cost of spells to make combos with Cult Sorcerer, Flamewaker and Archmage Antonidas easier, while also providing a minion discount, which was one of the great tempo advantages of Unstable Portal. 

Pyroblastgives another form of burst, or in this very heavy minion meta, another big removal. Some people may argue that Polymorph is a better removal, but it doesn't have the flexibility of 10 damage to the face. The same goes for Forbidden Flame. This card won me a couple of games where I had gotten the opponent down to less than 10, but they played a big taunt against my small board.Fireball is often used for removal, so it was excellent having this in hand.

So far I haven't played a ton of games with this deck, but the games I have played have been really fun. The early game is so much more consistent than the old decks, and with the super slow meta right now with everyone running C'Thun decks, it's very easy to overwhelm your opponent before turn 5 or 6.

I'll be happy to answer any questions or make any changes to this writeup as I get feedback, so let me know how the deck works for you!