Hearthpwn

NOTE: The guide is not yet finished completely, I barely have time nowadays but I'm doing it on the go and hope I'll finish it soon, if you have any suggestion about what should I include in the guide or something let me know please! 

Hey guys!

This season was the first season I actually struggled to get to Rank 5, I know my decks and I think I have experience but this season it was too diverse and strange meta, release of Karazhan had to do a lot with it and in general Hearthstone is lately very balanced regardless of what hurt people keep saying to justify their losses. Anyways, when the meta is too diverse and strange it's always good to take some good all rounders that don't have too hard counters and that have the ability to win vs everything. It's usually midrange(ish) tempo decks that are never too OP yet always a possible decent choice regardless of meta. I missed some Mage since it's one of my favorite classes and with new Portal and seeing APXvoid on some tournament using a pair of them I made a Tempo Mage and got Rank 5 without any problems that I had with my other decks I used this season (August 2016) so thought I might make some sort of small guide and upload it to share. This will serve as general Tempo Mage deck building and guide, not just for my particular deck.

 

Game Plan

Tempo Mage is one of the very few decks that are named for what they are - tempo decks. Common tempo decks are most Rogues (including Miracle as well) and "Midrange" Hunter. These Hunters that you see on ladder can be considered pure tempo decks, but for the sake of old times people just kept calling it Midrange I guess. Same for Totem/"Midrange" Shamans - that is mostly all tempo. Dragon Warrior is another example, it's a tempo deck etc. Point of those decks, which includes this Mage of course, is to put as early as possible pressure on opponent but not in all aggro/face style as you'd do with say Face Shaman. Whole point here is to open up with 1-2 drops and from that point on keep the board cleared with spells and snowballing opponents face and making "tempo swings" or whatever you wanna call them by combining your cards like Sorcerer's Apprentice and Flamewaker with your spells to gain huge mana/dmg advantage. For example having Flamewaker on board and using Frostbolt to kill 2/3 while your waker kills other 2/1 on board is basically that tempo turn where you paid 1 card to destroy opponent's two. Those tempo cards are usually cheap, often aggressive and make instant pressure on your opponent. For example Cabalist's Tome is not a tempo card - it's a "value" card. You get 3 cards for 1, and that's sort of value (more about it later) but you paid 5 mana for it, and that's huge tempo loss, you basically did nothing for turn 5 but gain "value" - which this deck does not care much about, you care for instant pressure. Example of a tempo card is Shaman's Fire Elemental - you deal instantly 3 dmg which can kill his card, and you lost nothing since you still have that minion on board. Ragnaros also, Cabal Shadow Priest also etc etc. I hope I managed to explain well enough what is tempo cos that's all this deck is about, making advantage by combining cards to do "more" than you pay for basically - bonus dmg from Waker, cheaper cards from Apprentice, higher dmg from spell power and similar. It's played like Aggro/Midrange deck basically, following the curve and using those bonuses to make the tempo advantage - to put pressure on your opponent.

 

Why not include certain cards?

Yogg-Saron, Hope's End - I kept this at first and I told everyone on forum that it's good, and it is a good card. Not a win condition that you play to deal damage or something, but it's lose less card, you play it only when you are about to lose and both in hand and board disadvantage and it can do wonders, even if it wins every 5th time it's still a good card (20% of the games you'd lose you will actually win cos of that single card) - well on paper! Statistics go in your favor and if you play it the right time it's super good, no doubt about that and it's not even a matter of opinion. Problem with it is cos it was a dead card in hand for too long which fast tempo deck like this Mage cannot deal with always. I simply got the impression that it's too expensive vs Aggro cos you can easily die before turn 10 and even if not Yogg rarely saves you if you are on like 5 hp left, and vs Control you often actually lead the tempo so you rarely even come to play it, yet Archmage Antonidas for example can win Control matchups on it's own. Anyways even tho perfect on paper it's cost and use simply did not suit me and I decided to kick it out from my deck.

Ragnaros the Firelord - A good card, fast card comparing to Antonidas for example and it is the definition of tempo, especially after nerf of BGH but I just saw too many Hunters and some Shamans where Rag simply doesn't do any justice, I kill damn 1/1 to make 3/2 with it, and 8 mana for that is simply too much, or even worse kill some useless totem from Shaman and opponent often just ignores it and go full face and win couple turns after, or vs Control such as Warrior, he simply removes it for 1 mana not giving two shits about 8 dmg cos he was on 5000 hp. Again - Antonidas serve as Taunt vs such aggro if not combined which often makes more trades than Rag would've killed and it wins games vs Control.

Flamestrike - Too expensive for what it does, almost always a dead card in hand and rarely a value, it literally needs to kill 3-5 minions so your 7 mana and whole turn would be justified, and it almost never happened. It's a control card and not a tempo one. I think it's very bad to be kept in deck and I have no clue why suddenly everyone started to use it in their "tempo" decks, before Standard came out no one kept it even in the meta where it was much more needed (Zoo, Secret Pala, Combo Druid), let alone now. It's a mystery to me and I find it super useless in this deck.

Cabalist's Tome - Very, very bad card in my opinion and experience. Even Arcane Intellect is bad but it had to be kept cos we simply need some draw. Cabalist's Tome is simply too bad. If it draw cards from the deck itself it would be slightly more reasonable but still too bad. 1.67 mana to pay for each card draw, and it doesn't even thin the deck out, and it's only spells, and random at that... I cannot believe anyone keeps this card in any deck at all, let alone "tempo" deck. It's huge tempo loss and not even a value. I would even completely ignore writing this but I see many people keep it for whatever mysterious reasons they have, so I wanted to share what I think about it.

Arcane Giant - I saw many people started to use this card in their Tempo Mages and I simply don't see why. By the time you reduce it's cost enough to be good tempo/value the game might as well be over. This is fast deck, with tons of burn taunt ignoring spell dmg in hand with huge tempo swings, I never found Giant to be good for that, nor life saving for that matter (if you are vs Aggro you might as well die by then). It's more of a value card that is good for more controlish decks that don't mind you using it on turn 12 for say 4 mana, in this deck? Not so much. I tested it and decided to kick it out. Simply too high cost which you cannot allow early game, and late game you usually don't even care about it.

Polymorph - Good hard removal. I was keeping one, and I might even return it for some further testings but I've found more important to have as early as possible pressure so I won't even care later about big threats that I need Poly for, also the deck is full of spell damage that can work as removal as well, I simply didn't think one like this was necessary at all, not for 4 mana at least (Hex for example is justified and super good, this is not bad at all but a bit too high cost for a removal that can only be used like that - as a removal). Anyways, inclusion of Firelands Portals further decreased the need for such a card which I will explain later in the write-up.

Forgotten Torch - Straight out too slow for tempo deck. It's a value card, pretty decent one, 2 in one, adds some value to Giant, Yogg and such, thicks the deck in a good way and is good for Reno Mage or some sort of Value mage. Not so much for a tempo deck. This deck is all about gaining as much as possible early tempo, early lead. Paying 3 mana to remove something for 3 hp or less is never a tempo. I'm usually forced to use it on a 2 mana minion, and as a Tempo deck you simply cannot allow to pay 3 mana to remove something that opponent paid 2 mana for. No matter the potential future value. A lot of people don't get it but those 1st turns and those 1st tempo swings are almost always deciding factor + raise of Hunters didn't encourage me using this card at all, can't even remove 2 drop cos it's a damn Kindly Grandmother or something. Also vs Shaman, pay 3 mana to kill his 2 mana 0/3? I'd rather use some other cards. Again, not a bad card by any means, but simply I cannot find space for it. 

Ethereal Conjurer - OK, anyone who played any form of tempo deck in the past knows. This is the definition of tempo loss, anti-tempo card, card that will make you lose. It's is extreme counter to your own deck form. Opponent removes it for 1-2 mana max and you pay 5 for it which is extremely bad. Literally. Shaman removes it for 1 mana, Warrior also for 1 mana, Hunter can for 1 mana but it's usually 1.5-2 mana and so on... Discovering a Spell is not remotely justifying. If it got you like 2 cards then sure it'd be good, but like this? No thank you. It's not a bad card at all tho for certain decks, I keep one in my Reno Mage. Not in a deck that is all about gaining and maintaining tempo. It cannot be compared with for example Azure Drake that has more hp - doesn't die to literally 15+ cards that are being kept in every existing deck on ladder like Ethereal Conjurer does, it thins out your own deck which further increases the chance to draw what you need further during the match and it has spell damage which is well, extremely valuable in this deck. Anyways, even if I made space in the deck for something, it's a long list of cards that would go over Ethereal and it's not even worth considering in my opinion.

Babbling Book - I see many people started and in my opinion it is very wrong cos of couple of reasons. If you run Yogg and Arcane Giants in your deck by any chance maybe you'd want to reconsider but otherwise this card is straight out bad. If it got you a card from the deck sure it'd be fine, well maybe not even then but much better than it is currently. 1/1 is completely irrelevant and useless and doesn't trade into anything except Fiery Bat and for that random spell you'd get you might as well keep spell that you want instead of book and pay no mana to get it. Cos instead of that random spell you'd draw that good card you placed intentionally in your deck, so basically Babbling Book is 1/1 for 1 mana which is catastrophically bad and has no connection with tempo that this deck is all about. It's complete mystery to me how can people even consider this card yet I see many "pros" using it, I guess they have to freshen their streams up with new Karazhan cards cos people like to see new stuff - but this particular new stuff is not good at all in my opinion.

 

Why do include certain cards?

Archmage Antonidas - Wins a lot of games vs Control and while Rag often gets completely ignored by Aggro that don't care if you remove them 1 small minion for 8 mana, Antonidas is a taunt basically cos if it stays alive it's gg. Of course he might ignore antonidas if he has lethal, but then it didn't matter which one you kept in deck anyways. I was 1st to say how it's too slow card and how Rag was better but I'm starting to change my mind about it, especially since this deck has 6x 1 mana cost spells unlike my 4x 1 mana cost spell deck before Standard came out (I didn't use Mirror Images back then). Anyways, I wasn't happy with Yogg and Rag and I replaced with one, then with other, then I decided to kick both Yogg and Rag from the deck and use Tony and Portals.

Firelands Portal - Simply too good card. I saw APXvoid using a pair of them on some tournament and I wanted to give the card a try. At first I thought it's not so good, too random for a minion and 5 dmg... well not that bad but 7 mana wtf. It turned out it was so good I had to put 2nd copy of it as well. Absolutely huge tempo swing, remove big threat and gain a decent minion at the same time in one single card. Value wise it's 5 dmg for 2 mana and a 5 drop, and it's in one card which makes it pretty decent value. And it's also tempo at the same time. It's pretty nice when you remove Shaman's 5/5 taunt and get 5 drop, in one turn, by one card. It can also go face which at 1st I didn't even realize, which is also pretty good if you are in tempo lead already. And it's not even rare to get something sick like Earth Elemental.

Arcane Anomaly - Not that good card to be honest but I simply needed one more 1 drop at the very least, so I placed one Babbling Book which turned out to be absolute shit, point of 1 drop is early game to trade and set tempo, not to get useless 1/1 and some random card that I might not even care about. I tried Argent Squire also but Anomaly turned out to be better, often cos you have so many cheap spells. T1 Anomaly T2 any spell to remove something and you have 2/2 for 1 mana, not bad at all. It happened once that it grown to 2/6 which was also nice, basically won vs Shaman cos of it. Anyways, not particularly good card but 3rd 1 drop in deck was simply needed and this is the best option for sure in this deck. It also trades in all other 1 drops and a lot of 2 drops as well (which is often it's purpose), which Squire and Book do not do. 

 

What is staple that every Tempo Mage should have?

• 2x Arcane Blast
• 2x Arcane Missiles
• 2x Mana Wyrm
• 2x Cult Sorcerer
• 2x Frostbolt
• 2x Sorcerer's Apprentice
• 2x Arcane Intellect
• 2x Flamewaker
• 2x Fireball
• 2x Water Elemental
• 2x Azure Drake

You should also have some big stuff to actually win, I opted for Antonidas you might use Rag, Yogg usually doesn't replace any of those two but is rather an extra for the deck, simply to lose less games, but again, read up there my opinion on it. Too expensive and often dead card in hand - which alone can make you lose. Other cards you can play with and there are tons of different options and variations. 

 

Replacements and options

Other than those staple cards that every Tempo Mage should use there are quite a few different variations and options and I will try to name what I saw people play - which doesn't mean I agree with that personally in any way (example - I think Cabalist's Tome is bad as you could read above, but I will mention it as commonly used card). Here are some cards:

• Forgotten Torch
• Bloodmage Thalnos
• Babbling Book
• Cabalist's Tome
• Yogg-Saron, Hope's End
• Ragnaros the Firelord
• Archmage Antonidas
• Arcane Anomaly
• Acolyte of Pain
• Ethereal Conjurer
• Polymorph
• Flamestrike
• Spellslinger

So if you miss something you can use some of those commonly used cards instead if you have them. Missing Antonidas? NP just use Rag instead, missing Azure Drake? Ethereal Conjurer can be used as sub, missing Bloodmage Thalnos? You can put Babbling Book or soemthing else, doesn't have to be same cost same type of card, you can swap minion with spell if you miss it or something. Also, some cards go better with others so for example, if you use variation of deck that has Yogg-Saron in it, you might wanna use Spellslinger over some other replacement cos it gives one extra spell for Yogg to cast, but if you don't keep Yogg, Forgotten Torch might be the options, so also bear that in mind when it comes to card choices.

If you have specific questions or suggestions please leave them in comments so we can find the best replacement for particular card, I will also further expand this section with suggestions for each legendary and epic card replacement as well as replacements for adventure cards that some of you might miss.

 

Mulligan Guide for Standard

Without Coin:

• Mana Wyrm - Keep always
• Arcane Anomaly - Keep always except vs Rogue and Druid
• Sorcerer's Apprentice - Keep if you have 1 drop and a spell
• Cult Sorcerer - Keep if you have 1 drop already
• Frostbolt - Keep if you have 1 drop already
• Arcane Blast - Keep if you have Cult already and/or 1 drop, always vs Warlock
• Arcane Missiles - Keep always vs Warlock and can keep if you have Cult or 1 drop already

With Coin:

• Mana Wyrm - Keep always
• Arcane Anomaly - Keep always except vs Druids and Rogues
• Sorcerer's Apprentice - Keep if you have 1 drop already and a spell and keep if you have Waker
• Cult Sorcerer - Keep always
• Frostbolt - Keep always vs Hunter and Shaman, and vs everything if you have 1 drop already
• Arcane Blast - Keep always if you have 1 or/and 2 drops as well as Flamewaker
• Arcane Missiles - Same as Blast
• Mirror Image - Keep only if you have Flamewaker already
• Flamewaker - Keep always, especially if you have 1 cost spells
• Azure Drake - Keep versus Priest only, they are too slow so you can afford it + it has perfect 4 attack vs them

 

Mulligan Guide for Wild

Without Coin:

• Mana Wyrm - keep always
• Mad Scientist - keep always
• Unstable Portal - keep if you have Wyrm
• Flamecannon - keep if you have Wyrm or Scientist, but not Frostbolt
• Frostbolt - keep if you have Wyrm or Scientist and don't have Cannon
• Arcane Blast - keep vs Hunter if you have a minion
• Arcane Missiles - keep vs Druid and Hunter if you have a minion already

With Coin:

• Mana Wyrm - keep always
• Mad Scientist - keep always
• Unstable Portal - keep always
• Flamecannon - keep if you have a 1-2 cost minion but not Frostbolt
• Frostbolt - keep if you have a 1-2 cost minion but not Cannon
• Arcane Blast - keep if you have Flamewaker always and vs Hunter if you have 1-2 cost minions already
• Arcane Missiles - keep always if you have Flamewaker and you can keep if you have 1-2 drops vs Druid
• Mirror Image - keep only if you have Flamewaker already
• Sorcerer's Apprentice - keep if you have 1 drop already or if you have Waker + spells for it (potentially destructive turn 3-4
• Flamewaker - keep always
• Azure Drake - keep vs Priest only
• Piloted Shredder - keep vs Priest always and keep vs others if you have perfect curve (for Wyrm and Scientist, turn 3 coin Shredder)

 

How to adjust the deck for Wild mode

What you need in Wild mode:

• 2x Mad Scientist
• 2x Unstable Portal
• 2x Secrets - 3 is too much, diminishing returns simply put, you don't wanna draw it, I vote for Mirror Entity and Counterspell which is especially important now with raise of Hunters and their Calls, but you can use what you see fit
• 1x Flamecannon

Other options are Dr. Boom, Loatheb, Piloted Shredder and similar tempo cards. Candidates for kicking out are: Mirror Images, Arcane Anomaly, Cult Sorcerer, Bloodmage Thalnos, Firelands Portal. I recommend using Piloted Shredder instead of Water Elemental in Wild mode but you can do with both, or even one of each is a decent option. Here is my variant for Wild Tempo Mage:

 

Matchups 

Aggressive decks:

Aggro Shaman - You need to play more control here. For example tempo play would be to attack face and force your opponent to trade, but in this instance vs decks that are more aggressive than you, which includes Aggro Shaman, you need to be more cautious and trade a bit more often. Even if he has just "meaningless" 0/2 totem on board, better kill that with 2/4 Flamewaker than to attack face ignoring 0/2 cos it can backfire a lot, for example with Flametongue Totem that gives +2 attack to adjacent minions, Rockbiter that he can use on that 0/2 for trade or if it's more of a totem/midrange Shaman he can use some card that buffs the totem. So overall play a bit more defensively even tho it might look like more aggressive play would be more tempo - and it would, but since Aggro Shaman can be, and usually is, faster than you you wanna go for control here.

Zoo Warlock - Just like with Shaman you wanna play more defensively here and control the situation. It's very important that you keep the board as clean as possible cos Zoo has tons of stuff to punish you for leaving even 1/1 on board. In this matchup it's very important to properly plan and use Flamewaker as it is the winning card here, it alone can win you this match and it's essential to save some cheap spells if possible to do huge tempo turn with Waker to clear everything. Zoolock will deplete it's own health so just focus on clearing the board, mid-late game if you get to it will be pretty easy and snowballing, but it's very important to keep the board controlled as much as possible and to make the most out of Waker. Also avoid using Missiles while he has Imp Gang Boss on board of course and don't be afraid to "waste" fireball on his 1/5 Darkshire Councilman, even tho not a tempo play it's potential value that will be essential to win the match.

Secret/Midrange Hunter - This is one of those matchups that you will regret not having Polymorph cos of his Savannah Highmanes, and if you see Hunter a lot I recommend placing Poly in the deck. Just as in two matchups above this deck can be very aggressive and you wanna control things a bit more than usual yet not as insane as with Zoolock where you will absolutely remove everything at all costs. Hunter doesn't have good defense and it doesn't have any heal, also it can reduce it's own HP by attacking with Eaglehorn Bow, so calculate carefully if you have lethal in the near future and at that point just go full face. It's not as easy as it sounds and it takes a bit practice and "feel" for you to decide when to switch to full face mode but it shouldn't be much/any different from say Shaman.

Slower decks:

Control Warrior - This can be pretty unfavorable for Tempo Mage and it usually comes down to good Yogg if you keep it or in case of this deck good Antonidas. Control decks, including Control Warrior are very slow and they allow you to basically stack up and save cheap spells without using them at all until you have Antonidas on turn 10 to make 3 Fireballs or combined with Sorcerer's Apprentice even more. If possible try to lure out Executes and Shield Slam with Drakes and Faceless but it's likely that Tony will die the turn after, which can still be enough if it makes 3 or even more Fireballs. So bear that in mind, there is no tempoing out Control Warrior or controlling it, it's all about making huge dmg with Antonidas or really lucky Yogg. So save those small spells and even apprentice if you can and use your opponent's slowness for your own benefit. 

 

I will continue with guide soon!