Hearthpwn

Welcome to Freeze Mage!

What is Freeze Mage?

The general idea behind Freeze Mage is to control the board in the early-/midgame by using effective freeze spells, and to use your draw to draw into all the important burst cards. You want to reduce the cost of those cards by the effect of Emperor Thaurissan so you can play them all on the opponents face after you Alexstrasza them down to 15 health.

Card Replacementes

Before starting with the guide, here are a few replacements if you don't have certain cards:

Alexstrasza - Sorry, this is one of the main cards in the deck and cannot be replaced. If you want to play this deck, craft this card.

Bloodmage Thalnos - Best replacement is a Cone of Cold. Some people say put in another low-cost Spell Damage card like Kobold Geomancer but Cone of Cold serves a better job as another freeze spell.

Archmage Antonidas - Some people like to play "Torch Mage", a Freeze Mage variant with Forgotten Torch in it. In that case, you would replace Archmage Antonidas and a Blizzard or Flamestrike with 2 Torches.

The basic gameplan

The gameplay is quite simple in Freeze Mage. You want to get all your draw in the early game to get to your combo pieces as early as you can. Be cautious about overdrawing though! Along playing your draw, you want to use your Secrets and freeze Spells accordingly to clear the board or prevent a lot of damage to your face. You want to take as least damage as possible to keep your Ice Block up long. Once you gathered your combo cards it's time to use Emperor Thaurissan to get all cards reduced by 1 mana. Thaurissan usually doestn't survive longer than 1 turn, but that 1 mana discount is enough. Then just bust our your Alexstrasza and the turn after kill your opponent with your gathered burst spells!

Mulligan

The Mulligan is pretty much the same against everything: Keep all draw, get rid of all the high cost stuff for now.

Against aggro, keeping a Frostbolt is fine for early game removal but keep in mind that you need 1 Frostbolt to trigger the Ice Lance for the 4 damage later on! Doomsayer is a fine keep, too.

A perfect hand would be something like Hoarder/Hoarder/Intellect or Novice/Hoarder/Intellect. If you get the coin, you can use it whenever it's really necessary. Saving it for a ton of burst samage later on is good, but using it earlier (coin thaurissan or coin alex) aint bad either.

Early Game: Prioritize Draw!

The early game is all about draw. After you hopefully got some draw from the mulligan, put that to good use. Don't be afraid to coin a Loot Hoarder on turn 1 if you have another one or a Novice Engineer to play on turn 2 plus a turn 3 followup play.

Mid Game: Freezing the board and saying doom!

In this stage of the game you want to setup your board and hand for the late game. This consists of gathering Thaurissan, Alex and your burst spells in hand and setting up Ice Block. You want to be using the freeze spells wisely here: 1 to prevent damage and 2 to clear the board in combination with your Hero Power or the Doomsayer. You really don't want to at low health and/or have no Blocks up after this stage, before you setup the big combo.

Late Game: Burst down the opponent!

This stage is rather simple. Once you gahthered a decent amount of burst (that can deal 15dmg or more, like Fireball/Frostbolt/Lance/Lance) it's time to reduce the cost of them withEmperor Thaurissan. Once all the card are low-cost, play Alexstrasza on their face to get them down to 15 HP, then play all your burst next turn to finish them off. Hopefully you still have one Ice Block up after you play Alex so that you cannot die before playing all the burst. Bloodmage Thalnos also comes in handy here as his Spell Power +1 for only 1 mana (after Thaurissan) helps a ton with getting all the damage in. Now your opponent should (hopefully) be done (unless it's a Warrior with 100 Armor...)

 

Important Combos

Turn 5 - Frost Nova + Doomsayer; Boardclear if they can't remove the Doomsayer.

Turn 5 - Acolyte + Ping; Instant card draw + you're guaranteed to get at least 2 cards from the Acolyte.

Turn 10 -  Kobold, Fireball, Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Ice Lance; 25 damage, requires at least 2 mana Emperor discount.

 

Matchups

Freeze Mage is not too strong in the current Meta. It struggles against heavy Aggro decks, which as of right now are Pirate Warrior, Aggro Shaman and some Aggro Rogues. It also struggles against Control Warriors if they get too much armor.

Good matchups are against Mid-Range Shaman, Jade Druid or Control Decks other than Warrior for the most part.

THAT'S IT!

Thank you all for reading. If you have anymore questions, please post them in the comments below, I'll be happy to answer them!

Happy Freeze Magin'!

 

 

Change Log

Dec. 26th, 2016: 

• Removed: Pyroblast , Archmage Antonidas and one Ice Barrier
• Added: 2 Forgotten Torch and Evolved Kobold