The minion-centric focus they are giving mage seems to pair very well with Spiteful Summoner, I like how consistent it looks. Mossy Horror is a tech choice against cubelock, you can replace it for whatever you want really.
I've built around Leyline Manipulator, as in order to use a neutral heavy minion deck there needs to be an upside:
While I agree with you that Leyline Manipulator's discount effect is gonna be insane value with additional cards (much value), I'm afraid that the deck cannot react to opponent's board immediately due to lacks of removal or at least taunt.
Beside, I don't like Dollmaster Dorian, most of the time you will just summon extra 1/1 Wisp , and it's really hard to play him and draw at the same turn. And also give the opponent the info of your drawn cards.
I wonder about Archmage Arugal value in those deck, since it'll probably be a premium target for any removal you'll have hard times getting more than 1 or 2 cards out of him at most.
Plus, like Chromaggus, if you play draw spells with this in play you'll flood your hand which can be dangerous since the elementals aren't really on the cheap side of the cards.
What is the point of running Dollmaster Dorian ? I thought it would be of interest in deathrattle heavy decks.
Still pretty sure it won't be viable unless some other deck keeps fast aggro decks in check. Cubelock is obviously another concern without poly since there is no way to deal with the Gul'dan turn.
Updated my list. With Bonfire Elemental being a staple, the risk of running Book of Specters becomes less worth it in a Spiteful list, so I brought arcane intellect back.
Glad to see so many ideas popping up, but i'm concerned with most of them being so passive. I think winning the value game should be the plan B of every control deck, not their primary strategy.
With that said, I liked the idea of using Mountain Giant and Gorgonzola, they make a lot of sense, gonna try adding them to my list now.
I think instead of trying to create “good” or “high value” decks more effort should be put into figuring out “how does this deck beat the best decks?” Particularly cube lock since it loses near nothing and can be reasonably expected to stay very powerful when WW comes out.
and I just don’t see how these decks can compete. Mid range minion decks without cheating minion mechanics just won’t be able to compete with cubelock or any other recruit deck. Especially without rush. It relies on building and maintaining a board and never losing it.
That’s the problem I see with elemental Mage, it’s about curving out well which is a problem when all the top decks are about cheating the curve. Any theoretical new deck that will beat Warlock will be cheating the curve in some form or another. And then destroy these elemental decks.
I think instead of trying to create “good” or “high value” decks more effort should be put into figuring out “how does this deck beat the best decks?” Particularly cube lock since it loses near nothing and can be reasonably expected to stay very powerful when WW comes out.
and I just don’t see how these decks can compete. Mid range minion decks without cheating minion mechanics just won’t be able to compete with cubelock or any other recruit deck. Especially without rush. It relies on building and maintaining a board and never losing it.
That’s the problem I see with elemental Mage, it’s about curving out well which is a problem when all the top decks are about cheating the curve. Any theoretical new deck that will beat Warlock will be cheating the curve in some form or another. And then destroy these elemental decks.
My thoughts exactly, which is why I think a Spiteful variant is the best approach, as you have Pyroblast to close games when dealing with the Trump wall becomes too troublesome. Spiteful Summoner is the queen of cheating curve btw lul.
While the deck has a lot of value/ card draw, I think the issues the deck have to deal against is early board present (against aggro paladin) and mid-late game swing (cubelock). In order to stabilize the board, i think Big spell is the way to go. So i come up with the idea of this deck.
-Big spell: i have run these (no fireland portal) in my deck since last month and they're more than enough to take down aggro paladin, occasionally control/cube warlock. Possibility that mage will get some new high cost spells for the deck as well, we'll see. Not to mention, the spell make it much easier to create Water Elemental with DK's ping.
Pyros is also a considerable good card. Even itself is bad body, there're many turn you do nothing with this kind of defensive deck (against control). So play any minion that can comeback later is very good.
Bonefire elemental x 1 for situational card draw due to small amount of elemental in the deck. Good thing is u can choose not to draw with him in fatigue game.
-Countess Ashmorepackage - I think this will be trend for some midrange / control decks
Swiftness messenger 2/6 rush is very good early board competitor. also after this card is drawn by Countess Ashmore, it will transform to a pseudo fireball which is very good to trade into big minion.
@Cheeky_Hamster I get what you're saying, I just dont think going full yolo on the curve plan is the way to go when there are other options, which is the case for Mage.
Curving out is powerful but has a glaring weakness, losing your board = lose the game, which is why I like my curvy decks having multiple ways to close out games.
we can still get a win condition that enhances the curve game in the next releases, enough to make a 28 minion mage deck possible, but right now I dont think thats good enough.
The thing I love about Blizzard pushing this minion-heavy Elemental Mage archetype is that Lesser Ruby Spellstone is now playable and can make up for the mage spells that are cut. The Elemental package for Mage was not good enough to build a deck around in which Lesser Ruby Spellstone can synergize well and actually be useful.
Now, supposing Elemental Mage will become viable and Blizzard wants us to sacrifice Mage spells for it to be viable, if you manage to get the most value from Lesser Ruby Spellstones you get 6 random mage spells (which can be discounted by Leyline Manipulator) which could fill for (not replace) those spells.
Mage = spells and I also love top-decking Pyroblast and blasting it in the face when I have no minions on the board that some Big Priest has 3 Yseras & The Lich King on and win the game. I know it's not what Elemental Mage is about and of course it is not guaranteed, but you can shoot 2 mana Fireballs in your opponent's face instead of worrying about the burn damage you have to give up as Mage. Even Freezing Potion can come in handy when you need to stall the game long enough so that you can play Frost Lich Jaina against faster decks sometimes.
Lesser Ruby Spellstone is not essential for the deck but very helping in terms of easy removal or as a means to close the game. (Oh, you have a Voidlord blocking my way to victory? Luckily I got this random Polymorph) So, I would be very sad if Lesser Ruby Spellstone got discarded by Book of Specters in a game.
I'm really looking forward to trying Elemental Mage as I have tried it before with high hopes and seen it fail in the meta. Actually, Frost Lich Jaina was the first DK I crafted for this purpose.
I'm still really hoping for another odd spell to help synergize with Black Cat, but there's lots of card draw between that, Bonfire Elemental, and Servant of Kalimos. Maybe I should add Arcane Intellect, but it's already full of 3 mana drops.
There's still a few questionable cards in there, I know (looking at Ozruk mainly haha), but I think odd elemental mage is the way to go. Although you do miss out on a number of other good cards (Spellstone, Archmage Arugal, Polymorph, Fireball, Frostbolt to name a few lol).
It's still very much in theorycraft stage so please bear with me haha. I'm far from a good deck artist lol.
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Twitch name: Anatak15 NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
Imo I think people are looking to much into making Lesser Ruby Spellstone work. It simply isn't going to provide us with what we need consistently and requires several turns to set up which means it can very easily be a dead card. I also think that people are to focused on the elemental synergy that they're watering down their deck with weaker cards just to make sure we can activate elementals on time (ie Nightmare Amalgam and Shimmering Tempest of which both are very weak).
Instead I think we should focus on how we want to play the deck. Do we want a tempo mage that uses elemental synergy to burn them out or do we want slower grinder mage that uses elementals to gain advantage until we play Frost Lich Jania and win off of her. After looking at both I think a slower elemental mage has a better chance of working since Jania is just such a grindy win condition.
Here's my idea for the deck which is a slower grinder mage version which looks to play control game with curving elementals to survive along with a few spells until we can find and play Frost Lich Jania which is our sole win condition. By doing the math you can run about 8 spells in total and book of specters will on average draw us 2 cards the majority of the time (The average is like 2.2 cards I believe). This gives us a small amount to work with and so we gotta pick the best of the best spells such as Polymorph and Primordial Glyph of which glyph is a better spellstone almost factually while Polymorph is needed vs warlock and possibly other upcoming decks. We also round off our spells with 2 copies of Meteor but really any big aoe spell can go there I think Meteor is probably best for the up coming meta though since it can kill almost anything but it can be changed if need be. Then we come to the part that I haven't really seen tried out yet is a small Countess Ashmore package. Voodoo Doll and Pyros are nice deathrattles that both have solid benefits this deck can use while Muck Hunter offers a large midgame minion that can fight for the board while later on offer us things to ping with Jania for more water elementals. This gives the deck alot of draw potential which will allow us to quickly find Jania which is the goal of this deck. However Mountain Giant and Doomsayer seem like good fits for this deck and I'm gonna look into those.
One last thing I want to point out is how i think Book of Specters and Servant of Kalimos should be viewed. Book imo should be treated as a Tracking instead of an Arcane Intellect and we need to ask ourselves "is it alright to lose a spell for such cheap, and effective draw?" and I think the answer is a resounding yes even if it is only 2 mana draw 2 for the most part. Servant on the other hand has been played for over a year now and is shown to be really slow to the point I don't think any deck should run 2 after Bonfire Elemental was revealed. 1 copy might be alright to add some value (like I did) but 2 seems excessive and slows the deck down alot (drawing a card is alot better than discover will ever be). Any thoughts on this version of the deck?
Updated list to include doomsayers for better anti aggro capability.
To run Book of Specters, you should play a maximum of 04 more spells that you'd not care much if they got discarded, thats how I see it at least for now.
I think Primordial Glyph fits 02 spots for its amazing versatility, the other 02 is up for debate.
I like what you are saying and the justification for your decisions.
I do have a couple of questions though, how do you intend to grind out your opponent when you are giving them the early to mid-game. Surely you play catch up and then have to get lucky with Frost Lich Jaina?
I say this as Fire Fly, Pyros, and Tar Creeper are your 1-3 three slots which is alright, if you get all three in your hand but with only 5 cards to cover these slots you don't stand a good chance of curving out the beginning...
Then you don't have catch up until Muck Hunter and Meteor, the 5-6 slots.
I'm thinking that in order to have a grindy mage with this expansion, you need Baku the Mooneater...
Thinking about it more I'm going to include Doomsayer which will help us have a more consistent early game where you can then start curving elementals into the midgame. We also have Primordial Glyph and Book of Specters to play on two which both can help us have a solid turn 3 (discounted spell or drawing things like Tar Creeper). Other than that its possible that we need to include Plated Beetle in order to further help against aggro which even now is being done in mage deck to help them survive. Of course that does involve cutting some cards but I think things like Servant of Kalimos, Zola the Gorgon, and (possibly 1 or 2) Voodoo Doll could be removed in place of Doomsayer and Plated Beetle so I guess it would come down to which type of deck you would want to have a better match up against.
To run Book of Specters, you should play a maximum of 04 more spells that you'd not care much if they got discarded, thats how I see it at least for now.
I think Primordial Glyph fits 02 spots for its amazing versatility, the other 02 is up for debate.
If you do the math its actually safe to run about 6 spells other than the 2 book (so 8 in total) and you will still more than likely draw 2 cards. However yes running only 4 spells makes it much more likely to draw 3 cards but you do lose the flexibility of what spells you can run. So you might not include something like Polymorph which is crucial against warlock right now or maybe you lose out on larger aoe like Flamestrike. And as i said before I think Book of Specters should be treated like Tracking instead of Arcane Intellect and you simply got accept the fact you will discard usually 1 spell because the book is just so cost effective.
Archmage Arugal did it folks, time to begin crafting the best elemental mage possible! Heres my take:
The minion-centric focus they are giving mage seems to pair very well with Spiteful Summoner, I like how consistent it looks. Mossy Horror is a tech choice against cubelock, you can replace it for whatever you want really.
I came up with this
Woeden#1173 - NA
Here's my version:
While I agree with you that Leyline Manipulator's discount effect is gonna be insane value with additional cards (much value), I'm afraid that the deck cannot react to opponent's board immediately due to lacks of removal or at least taunt.
Beside, I don't like Dollmaster Dorian, most of the time you will just summon extra 1/1 Wisp , and it's really hard to play him and draw at the same turn. And also give the opponent the info of your drawn cards.
I wonder about Archmage Arugal value in those deck, since it'll probably be a premium target for any removal you'll have hard times getting more than 1 or 2 cards out of him at most.
Plus, like Chromaggus, if you play draw spells with this in play you'll flood your hand which can be dangerous since the elementals aren't really on the cheap side of the cards.
What is the point of running Dollmaster Dorian ? I thought it would be of interest in deathrattle heavy decks.
My version at the moment (might be same as some previous one, but no intention to claim someone else's work as mine here):
Still pretty sure it won't be viable unless some other deck keeps fast aggro decks in check. Cubelock is obviously another concern without poly since there is no way to deal with the Gul'dan turn.
Updated my list. With Bonfire Elemental being a staple, the risk of running Book of Specters becomes less worth it in a Spiteful list, so I brought arcane intellect back.
Glad to see so many ideas popping up, but i'm concerned with most of them being so passive. I think winning the value game should be the plan B of every control deck, not their primary strategy.
With that said, I liked the idea of using Mountain Giant and Gorgonzola, they make a lot of sense, gonna try adding them to my list now.
I think instead of trying to create “good” or “high value” decks more effort should be put into figuring out “how does this deck beat the best decks?” Particularly cube lock since it loses near nothing and can be reasonably expected to stay very powerful when WW comes out.
and I just don’t see how these decks can compete. Mid range minion decks without cheating minion mechanics just won’t be able to compete with cubelock or any other recruit deck. Especially without rush. It relies on building and maintaining a board and never losing it.
That’s the problem I see with elemental Mage, it’s about curving out well which is a problem when all the top decks are about cheating the curve. Any theoretical new deck that will beat Warlock will be cheating the curve in some form or another. And then destroy these elemental decks.
While the deck has a lot of value/ card draw, I think the issues the deck have to deal against is early board present (against aggro paladin) and mid-late game swing (cubelock). In order to stabilize the board, i think Big spell is the way to go. So i come up with the idea of this deck.
-Big spell: i have run these (no fireland portal) in my deck since last month and they're more than enough to take down aggro paladin, occasionally control/cube warlock. Possibility that mage will get some new high cost spells for the deck as well, we'll see. Not to mention, the spell make it much easier to create Water Elemental with DK's ping.
-Elemental of the deck:
Arcane Artificer Arcane Tyrant which synergy with the big spell.
Tar Creeper for some stall.
Pyros is also a considerable good card. Even itself is bad body, there're many turn you do nothing with this kind of defensive deck (against control). So play any minion that can comeback later is very good.
Bonefire elemental x 1 for situational card draw due to small amount of elemental in the deck. Good thing is u can choose not to draw with him in fatigue game.
-Countess Ashmore package - I think this will be trend for some midrange / control decks
Swiftness messenger 2/6 rush is very good early board competitor. also after this card is drawn by Countess Ashmore, it will transform to a pseudo fireball which is very good to trade into big minion.
Voodoo Doll well, pre-DK 5 mana kill any minion, post-DK extra Water Elemental
Rotten Applebaum very good stall
@Cheeky_Hamster I get what you're saying, I just dont think going full yolo on the curve plan is the way to go when there are other options, which is the case for Mage.
Curving out is powerful but has a glaring weakness, losing your board = lose the game, which is why I like my curvy decks having multiple ways to close out games.
we can still get a win condition that enhances the curve game in the next releases, enough to make a 28 minion mage deck possible, but right now I dont think thats good enough.
The thing I love about Blizzard pushing this minion-heavy Elemental Mage archetype is that Lesser Ruby Spellstone is now playable and can make up for the mage spells that are cut. The Elemental package for Mage was not good enough to build a deck around in which Lesser Ruby Spellstone can synergize well and actually be useful.
Now, supposing Elemental Mage will become viable and Blizzard wants us to sacrifice Mage spells for it to be viable, if you manage to get the most value from Lesser Ruby Spellstones you get 6 random mage spells (which can be discounted by Leyline Manipulator) which could fill for (not replace) those spells.
Mage = spells and I also love top-decking Pyroblast and blasting it in the face when I have no minions on the board that some Big Priest has 3 Yseras & The Lich King on and win the game. I know it's not what Elemental Mage is about and of course it is not guaranteed, but you can shoot 2 mana Fireballs in your opponent's face instead of worrying about the burn damage you have to give up as Mage. Even Freezing Potion can come in handy when you need to stall the game long enough so that you can play Frost Lich Jaina against faster decks sometimes.
Lesser Ruby Spellstone is not essential for the deck but very helping in terms of easy removal or as a means to close the game. (Oh, you have a Voidlord blocking my way to victory? Luckily I got this random Polymorph) So, I would be very sad if Lesser Ruby Spellstone got discarded by Book of Specters in a game.
I'm really looking forward to trying Elemental Mage as I have tried it before with high hopes and seen it fail in the meta. Actually, Frost Lich Jaina was the first DK I crafted for this purpose.
Has anyone else tried the odd version of this deck?
I'm still really hoping for another odd spell to help synergize with Black Cat, but there's lots of card draw between that, Bonfire Elemental, and Servant of Kalimos. Maybe I should add Arcane Intellect, but it's already full of 3 mana drops.
There's still a few questionable cards in there, I know (looking at Ozruk mainly haha), but I think odd elemental mage is the way to go. Although you do miss out on a number of other good cards (Spellstone, Archmage Arugal, Polymorph, Fireball, Frostbolt to name a few lol).
It's still very much in theorycraft stage so please bear with me haha. I'm far from a good deck artist lol.
Twitch name: Anatak15
NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
Why does everybody in this thread sleep on Ice Walker ? i could see it being very good n curve or turn 4 QQ
actually,even off curve,i got it through Servant of Kalimos and it saved me against a bunch of 8/8 and above jades from a jade druid
Imo I think people are looking to much into making Lesser Ruby Spellstone work. It simply isn't going to provide us with what we need consistently and requires several turns to set up which means it can very easily be a dead card. I also think that people are to focused on the elemental synergy that they're watering down their deck with weaker cards just to make sure we can activate elementals on time (ie Nightmare Amalgam and Shimmering Tempest of which both are very weak).
Instead I think we should focus on how we want to play the deck. Do we want a tempo mage that uses elemental synergy to burn them out or do we want slower grinder mage that uses elementals to gain advantage until we play Frost Lich Jania and win off of her. After looking at both I think a slower elemental mage has a better chance of working since Jania is just such a grindy win condition.
Here's my idea for the deck which is a slower grinder mage version which looks to play control game with curving elementals to survive along with a few spells until we can find and play Frost Lich Jania which is our sole win condition. By doing the math you can run about 8 spells in total and book of specters will on average draw us 2 cards the majority of the time (The average is like 2.2 cards I believe). This gives us a small amount to work with and so we gotta pick the best of the best spells such as Polymorph and Primordial Glyph of which glyph is a better spellstone almost factually while Polymorph is needed vs warlock and possibly other upcoming decks. We also round off our spells with 2 copies of Meteor but really any big aoe spell can go there I think Meteor is probably best for the up coming meta though since it can kill almost anything but it can be changed if need be. Then we come to the part that I haven't really seen tried out yet is a small Countess Ashmore package. Voodoo Doll and Pyros are nice deathrattles that both have solid benefits this deck can use while Muck Hunter offers a large midgame minion that can fight for the board while later on offer us things to ping with Jania for more water elementals. This gives the deck alot of draw potential which will allow us to quickly find Jania which is the goal of this deck. However Mountain Giant and Doomsayer seem like good fits for this deck and I'm gonna look into those.
One last thing I want to point out is how i think Book of Specters and Servant of Kalimos should be viewed. Book imo should be treated as a Tracking instead of an Arcane Intellect and we need to ask ourselves "is it alright to lose a spell for such cheap, and effective draw?" and I think the answer is a resounding yes even if it is only 2 mana draw 2 for the most part. Servant on the other hand has been played for over a year now and is shown to be really slow to the point I don't think any deck should run 2 after Bonfire Elemental was revealed. 1 copy might be alright to add some value (like I did) but 2 seems excessive and slows the deck down alot (drawing a card is alot better than discover will ever be). Any thoughts on this version of the deck?
Updated list to include doomsayers for better anti aggro capability.
To run Book of Specters, you should play a maximum of 04 more spells that you'd not care much if they got discarded, thats how I see it at least for now.
I think Primordial Glyph fits 02 spots for its amazing versatility, the other 02 is up for debate.
Any Thoughts?