[Legend] Value-Control Mage
- Last updated May 9, 2017 (Un'Goro Launch)
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Wild
- 14 Minions
- 16 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Freeze Mage
- Crafting Cost: 8060
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/22/2017 (Un'Goro Launch)
- PrinceOberyn77
- Registered User
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- 4
- 12
- 28
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
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Total Deck Rating
577
Hello guys,
I just went Legend with this beautiful Mage-deck by PsyGuenter (credits to you man!), with only one actual card-change. Starting Rank 5, I went 41 - 17, which makes over 70% winrate.
Legend Proof (rather poorly, lol): http://imgur.com/jXpTHGV
The final Stages: http://imgur.com/e3D5fuB
Match Ups*: http://imgur.com/iY3iirl
UPDATE:
- 25.04. Here´s a gameplay video from KiwiiNbacon, showcasting the Deck. His opponents were quite unlucky, but it gives an idea how to play and pilot this Deck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLbmgTPtPaQ
- 25.04. added the Matchup-Guide section.
- 26.04 added a few specific Metadeck-matchups (Rank 1-3 predominant)
- 03.05 added the rubric "Card Choices" including possibly tech cards + replacements
This deck got way more attention that I thought and I do appreciate all the positve feedback and comments - I´m glad quite many of you could find the same enjoyment and success in playing this, as I did. If my guide helped you in any way (even if it was just finding it, lol) to play this deck, it saturates my heart with joy! ;) - anyway thanks for the amazing feedback!
Prince Oberyn
Card Choices:
Note that this deck in particular was designed for Rank 1 - 3, also known as the legend climb. Therefore the Techcards here aim especially at Pirate Warriors and Murloc Paladins:
Gluttonous Ooze, Blizzard are both tech choices vs. those decks. However if you face more decks that can put up one single big minion (Purify Priest, Control Pala etc.) you should tech in Sheep (you know what I mean haha) or Meteor. If you´re still struggling with Murlocadin or let´s say Aggro Druid you can also add a Volcanic Potion. However, I can only recommand you NOT to replace Ooze, the ladder is full of warriors, paladins and hunters - it´s like this tech card was made for the current meta.
"Can I replace ..."
1. Alexstrasza? - no, you can´t.
2. Pyroblast - no, damnit!
3. Medivh - uhm, probably you could switch it to another high-value card like Elise the Trailblazer, but it really doesn´t make much sense, because this deck is build around Medivh (many high-mana spells / win-condition vs. control / fun!!)
4. Bloodmage Thalnos - this card, unlike the first 3, is no core-card to this deck. It´s just incredible good - carddraw + spelldamage for 2 mana? C´mon, dust your golden King Krush and craft it!
5. Recently I´ve seen many people replacing the two Babbling Book with tech or value cards of their choice. This is totally legit, since I´m an intellectual I just don´t like throwing books away.
Generel Gameplan:
This Deck is a hybrid version of classic Freeze and popular Tempo / Burn Mage. It is NOT a linear "only hit face"-deck, nor a super-control deck, where you only wait for your Alexstrasza + burst combos. It is indeed a reactive deck, which playstyle heavily depends on your match up and the current game dynamic. You have to ask yourself every turn: can I win with board-value or do I stop fighting for board control, go for face and will eventually win with my enormous burn.
The Mulligan:
Generally you wanna mulligan for your low-cost early game cards of couse. But there are two cards that are more important than others: Mana Wyrm and Arcanologist. These are your priority cards to start with, which doesn´t mean you always have to hurd-mulligan for them, when you´ve got something like Babbling Book, Frostbolt and Arcane Intellect. Still, the double-Wyrm-start, especially with coin and 1-2 spells to follow up, is the best you can get and can win you an aggro-matchup in like 2-3 turns. Primordial Glyph is also a decent card to keep, especially with turn-1-Wyrm, because it helps you to find answers in early.
Besides you don´t wanna keep secrets in your starthand, instead you go for Arcanologist to get your secrets + early board pressense. If you´ve got one of them, you can also keep Medivh´s Valet. If you´re facing Warrior or even Rogue and already got a decent curve, including a 1-drop, you can also keep Gluttonous Ooze.
Matchup-Guide
So generally you can classify your matchups into 3 sections, being vs. Aggro, Midrange and Control. Each of those matchups requires a different playstyle and adaptation to given situations. So first of all I will briefly sum up those overall matchups. Furthermore I will list some of the current popular Metadecks and go more deeply into those matchups.
vs. Aggro
These Matchups are pretty straight forward, you just have to control the board and survive as long as you can. And believe me - you have all the tools to do so. Your plan is to get out your low-cost minions early for board presence followed by your surviving tools (secrets, arcanalogists, blizzard´s). With Primordial Glyph you are searching exactly for those defensive extra-cards. You try to get out Ice Block on Turn 3-4 and use Medivh´s Valet to clear their minions afterwards. Medivh is a dead card and Alexstrasza brings LIFE here.
The only scenario where you desist from that strategy is, when your opponent had an extremely bad start and you managed to deal decent damage to him + control board (e.g. you started with double-Wyrms and some spells to follow up while he doesn´t get any board pressure). In this case you can actually decide to rush him down before he will be able to kill you. Given your survive-mechanics you nearly always have 2-3 extra turns to kill him, after you´ve decided that face is the place.
vs. Midrange
These are definitely the most fun matchups, because of the immense versatility they offer and that funny turning point, where you suddenly stop fighting for board and do the “Marine Le Pen-Style” (just go face with everything you have). This turning point heavily depends on your exact matchup of course (vs. Quest Rogue it is the turn before they finish their Quest e.g.). But in most of the games it´s around turn 6-7. By then you should have your survivability-mechanic ready, which means you can freeze, put up your secrets and can at best follow a T9 Alexstrasza to set up lethal-pressure.
However, while some games (e.g. vs. Rogue or Hunter) are decided rather quickly, other games (e.g. vs. Paladin or Shaman) can shift into late game value-wars, which will be looked on in the following Control-section.
vs. Control
These are for sure the hardest matchups for this deck. A Midrange Paladin with triple heal (Lay on Hands, Forbidden Healing, Ragnaros, Lightlord) or a Jade Druid are actual counters to us. The problem is that, due to their armor- or healing-mechanics, we can´t burst them down. However, as hard as we fight for board, we will eventually lose it to their immense Lategame Value. So one way we can go here, is to create Tempo and force them into suboptimal plays while we get maximum value out of our cards. This is the point where Medivh can shine.
Nevertheless there are also Control-matchups which heavily favor us. The Classic Freeze Mage for example stands barely any chance vs. this. We just do everything better (= faster!) than he does and your almost every time faster in popping his first ice block, which is key in this matchup.
vs. Specific Meta decks
Pirate Warrior
One could say this deck is made for (against) it! Sure, sometimes you don´t find the right answers fast enough and they rush you down in 4 turns with insane weapon-combos. But most of the times, they don´t. You have tons of answers for their threats while you´ll eventually starve them out. On the first 7 turns all you do is fighting for board control and clear everything they bring up (as long as they don´t have lethal next turn of course). Gluttonous Ooze is win here, it´s your most priority card to mulligan for. Use Medivh´s Valet to clear the Pirate Boss, search for Ice barriers, blizzards, frostbolts, pretty much everything which slows them and buys you time. Around turn 8 you should bring down your remaining secrets, ideally followed up by an Alexstrasza life gain (she brings life and death, you know). Once this happens it´s won, because they will run out of steam at this time.
Taunt Warrior is not that bad either. You can keep up in tempo quite well, which is important so they can´t stack up their armor all too easily. I haven´t faced many Taunt Warriors, but all of them lacked the patience (or the intellect - not sure) to wait with playing their Quest. With Justicar Trueheart gone you can easily burn through their armor in the end, especially since they somehow cannot keep that Sulfuras in their hand for more than 2-3 turns. We appreciate!
Quest Rogue
The gameplan is easy: you play for tempo and control board as long as their Quest is unfinished (you can trade their cheap minions rather easily). The turn when they play their Quest (around turn 4-5) is your turning point: from now on you´ll completely ignore board and just go face. At best you´ve already dealt 10-15 damage to them while you didn´t allow them to establish any board. So it will take them at least 3-4 turns to kill you. Enough time to deal another 15-20 damage. Sometimes though, they finish their quest on turn 3 and you just want to smash your head against your keyboard – well, can´t blame you. However, I´ve won 8 out of 10 games vs. them which felt pretty good.
Miracle Rogue is quite similar. You play for tempo and try to deal as much face-damage as possible early. This means you trade even less than vs. Quest Rogue, because they can´t buff their minios to 5/5´s. Besides bonus burst, Polymorph is quite useful vs. their big threats.
Murloc Paladin
This is a tough Matchup, in a sense that they never seem to run out of threats. It is still easier than midrange-control Paladin, because they mostly don´t run any heals. So if you survive long enough, you can come to that turning point, where you´re able to burst them down. To survive long enough however (at least turn 7-8), you´ll need to find extra board clears from your Books, Glyphs and Couriers. Especially Blizzard is recommended, in combo with Flamestrike you will be very likely to full board-clear. Keep Medivh´s Valent for Papa-murloc and beware of Finja! Finally remember one thing: Paladin relies on board to do anything. So fight for it!
However, the more control-based version is much harder to win. Like I wrote before, too much heal, too much board controls, too much value. You play for value you and actually got pretty good counters to their threats. It´s just, he has more threats than you can counter and will eventually out-value you. On my last stages before Legend I actually just hoped I won´t meet too many of them, and yeah: the Matchmaking-Jesus had mercy on me.
Jade Druid
2 x Earthen Scales + 2 x Feral Rage + few times Heropower = around 30 armor. So you can´t really burst him down, you can try to fight for board control as long as you can. But you will eventually lose board to his Jades and their lategame value, so you can type "gg" and go for next one. Luckly Jade Druids are barely seen on Ladder :)
Aggro Token Druid is more in your favor. You wanna start with Mana Wyrm and Arcanologist which let you trade their token minions quite well. However, they will spam their board and gain eventually control over it. You just try to delay this as good as you can. If they play Living Mana rather late (in this matchup past turn 5), you can probably ignore it and go for face / burn already. I´d say it´s rather 50:50 after all.
Enjoy!
*Note that the Match Up states also contain results from my Games with Classic Freeze Mage and Secret Mage, but it still reflects what I´ve experienced with the Control Mage.
Oddly enough I faced way too many mages and almost none pirate warriors recently. I will have to play the deck more and see if Counterspell is any good. It may be really strong agaist other mages and not so great against other classes. And once in 100 years it counters a rogue's quest :P
And currently I'm trying to reach rank 10, I cannot break rank 12 today :P
I added counterspell instead of the ooze because I dont have it and I tried Harrison Jones but honestly weapons have not been much of an issue for me. Ice barrier is really not that great I find im dead by the time I used it or even using it especially vs quest rogue I found myself many times with barrier in hand and it having no effect due to all the 5-5 minions. I am thinking of replacing it I just dont know what to add yet.
Just speaking from my experience with this deck (about 100 matches so far, currently rank 4):
I find it extremely important to have barrier when I'm dancing on the edge of death. If you're careful and sometimes a little lucky, you can often cheat death even after your second block pops by using the barrier (or even 3rd or 4th with additional glyph/courier blocks).
Doing this helps give you the wiggle room in your health total that you need in order to stabilize (Making it still possible to survive for another turn despite the fact your opponent still has a board presence.
Furthermore, the following turn you can Alex yourself and get out of reach of lethal with a combination of having nearly 20 health and the tempo swing (using Medivh + Fireland Portal) and regaining the board control. The armor can also help in fatigue situations.
idk just my thoughts on it
Eheheh... "This is totally legit, since I´m a intellectual I..." nice work mr. Intellectual, "an" before "i" please.
No idea what you´re talking about mate ... :)
I pulled the trigger on this deck and was really excited to climb ladder with something not cheap and viable for the first time. I had a strong start and was at a 65+% winrate @20 ish wins and you know how this goes with blizzard matchmaking to ensure we all linger at 50% so suddenly my easy games have now turned into a nonstop crush my face fest against decks and games with opponents constantly having perfect answers to my plays.
Ive read the guide above over and over but I guess im just not getting the overall theme of how to run the deck. Fireballs are to be saved for face? Alex for self heal? Even taunt/pir wars have been shitting on me and the deck brought me from 16 back to 19 over the past days on nonstop tilt.
I hit rank 11 with secret mage last season with a cheap deck and now here I am getting crushed with a crazy expensive deck.
Hey, well - first of all this is clearly no deck you should play when you are on a tilt, because this deck requires a lot of decision-making and we all know we don´t do our best decision while tilting x)
The theme depends on the match up which makes it quite difficult sometimes. In mostgames you have to save frost bolts and fireballs for face for example, but vs, full aggro (pirate warrior or token druid) you need to invest everything you can to stay alive and use alexs for life, like u said anyways ;)
gl furthermore!
I only have one primordial glyph, right now I am using a volcanic potion but I was curious if anybody had a better suggestion. I'm at rank 14 and play NA.
It's a really really good card, and impossible to replace, however I would consider adding another secret such as counterspell. It's similarly costed, and counters an action of your opponent... and sometimes a big one if you time it right (spikeridge steed, rogue/mage quests, etc)
It's also reinforces value of Arcanologist, assuring a draw even when you were unlucky enough to draw both blocks and a barrier naked.
Other than a counterspell or spellbender, I would say volcanic potion is good enough to merit use in this deck.
Is this still viable with the new season?
I've laddered with token druid till rank 6, but I've hit the hardest of walls going back to 8, so I'm getting frustrated a bit. It feels like it's so unbelievably dependend on good draws, much more than good plays. Either you stomp with mad early board (or mana treants without the opponent having an AoE) or you fail horribly.
This one looks like fun. I guess at least rank 5 should be doable as a semi talented HS player, right? How about legend with the current meta? Those priests could be hard..
9-8 so far. Still around rank 8 with a short stop at 7.
Since I'm not a very experienced mage player I guess I do some missplays. Still, it's a tough competition right now.
9-8 knowing you did some missplays and where to improve is not that bad ;)
I can share the experience that there are more Priests around right now, but also less midrange-control Paladins!
Great burn mage deck that I can actually afford!
Great deck, I changed Blizzard with Volcanic Potion.
Why?
Propably of many token druids and other aggro decks. Both spells do 2 damage and Volcanic Potion can be used a lot quicker.
I have a question: In my version I run 2 block, 2 barrier (added a barrier for pyro while I save dust). I never know what secret is better to play, like is it better to play block first or barrier first and it what situations. Can someone help me please?
In most cases it doesn´t matter, but there are few scenarios where it DOES matter:
- when you wanna play Mediv´s Valet next turn and he has any chance to attack your hero next turn, you obviously go with ice bock, so your secret doesn´t get popped.
- when you are at very low health, holding both secrets in hand, and you are 100% sure your opponent can´t deal more than 8 dmg next turn, you go with ice barrier, ´cause it can give you 2-3 turns instead of 1! this actually happens a lot vs. aggro match (like Pirate Warrior or Token Druid) when they are only top-decking in the end.
I haven't played the deck a lot yet (5 - 1) but these are my thoughts on it. If the other guy has minions I would play the barrier first unless I was planning to play a valet the next turn. That way you get a little extra health and don't feel as pressured. I like to wait on the blocks that way my opponent has to play around the secret once I play it or they over commit thinking that they will beat me down before I draw a block.
I'd say that it's better to play Ice Block first, because it cannot be popped that easly = you can get value off your Medivh's Valet.