That's a really cool deck, nice to see cards like Lone Champion and Tinkmaster Overspark making their ways into a deck. Will try this out once I craft Baku.
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On the third day before Witchwood, Blizzard gave to me,
Might as well just make it a full control deck and lose Baku.
For example you have voodoo doll but voodoo doll doesn't need Baku. So if the only time you're realistically going to get value off ping pre-jaina is pinging Voodoo, what does Baku do?
Gaining an extra damage on ping + black cat, when you don't want to ping until you get Jaina as Mage, from turn 2 to 9 is kind of pointless.
If Baku stacked with Jaina I'd be all about that Baku life, but considering the entire point and goal of a Control Mage is to play Jaina on 9, thus destroying the Baku effect, ruins Baku.
It is a cool deck, though. Maybe lose Jaina and try to take more advantage of the upgraded hero power? I'd lower the curve and add in some hero power minions to accomplish that.
Also be wary of win rates in the first week of an expansion, especially with Mage and Hunter. Those two classes tend to do well against underdeveloped decks, so win rates aren't accurate early on.
Might as well just make it a full control deck and lose Baku.
For example you have voodoo doll but voodoo doll doesn't need Baku. So if the only time you're realistically going to get value off ping pre-jaina is pinging Voodoo, what does Baku do?
Gaining an extra damage on ping + black cat, when you don't want to ping until you get Jaina as Mage, from turn 2 to 9 is kind of pointless.
If Baku stacked with Jaina I'd be all about that Baku life, but considering the entire point and goal of a Control Mage is to play Jaina on 9, thus destroying the Baku effect, ruins Baku.
It is a cool deck, though. Maybe lose Jaina and try to take more advantage of the upgraded hero power? I'd lower the curve and add in some hero power minions to accomplish that.
Also be wary of win rates in the first week of an expansion, especially with Mage and Hunter. Those two classes tend to do well against underdeveloped decks, so win rates aren't accurate early on.
Not sure how Trump reasons, but I reason that the 2 mana ping is a good control weapon between your odd turns. it has helped me stay alive vs a lot of aggro decks until I reach Jaina and win the game because of life steal.
The problem with a full control deck nowadays is surviving long enough to play jaina. Once you play jaina and survive a turn you generally win the game. Baku's 2 damage helps you clear the enemy board much more consistently against aggro which (in meta without ice block) is pretty necessary.
So far my experience with this deck is 1 win and 5 losses. The five losses I couldn't hold off the aggro, and the 1 win was when the opponent DC'd.
Maybe there is some kind of tuning needed, but I'm having trouble getting excited at all.
Edit to add: I kind of can't get over the crappy even-numbered turns. Turn 2 is ok because the 2-damage hero power, but 4 and 6 are always inherently weak.
Might as well just make it a full control deck and lose Baku.
For example you have voodoo doll but voodoo doll doesn't need Baku. So if the only time you're realistically going to get value off ping pre-jaina is pinging Voodoo, what does Baku do?
Gaining an extra damage on ping + black cat, when you don't want to ping until you get Jaina as Mage, from turn 2 to 9 is kind of pointless.
If Baku stacked with Jaina I'd be all about that Baku life, but considering the entire point and goal of a Control Mage is to play Jaina on 9, thus destroying the Baku effect, ruins Baku.
It is a cool deck, though. Maybe lose Jaina and try to take more advantage of the upgraded hero power? I'd lower the curve and add in some hero power minions to accomplish that.
Also be wary of win rates in the first week of an expansion, especially with Mage and Hunter. Those two classes tend to do well against underdeveloped decks, so win rates aren't accurate early on.
Because it's just one card for a different and powerful win condition. You don't have to play it just because it's in your hand; if you're winning on board and need to apply pressure, stick with your regular hero power and elementals. But it's still a great play in certain matchups.
I, too, am enjoying this deck. I'm winning against every variety of aggro Paladin right now. It does feel a little bit lacking in control matchups, though. I felt better about the cubelock matchup with my Kobolds Big Spell Mage. Not having Polymorph really sucks. I'll be curious to see if this deck survives the refining process.
Same reason people run Deathstalker Rexxar in Hunter. Even though sometimes the Hunter hero power is better for ending the game.
Hunter is a class with no card draw and fully tempo based. Rexxar is the only way to win if plan A fails and Rexxar doesn't really up win % that much (probably more now due to an improved beast pool.)
Jaina is your win condition in this style of deck and the added 1 damage for a 2 mana 2 damage ability sucks. You're much better off drawing cards to hit Jaina and using your remaining mana for high impact sweepers. Either way you'll get owned by all combo and Control decks.
Any deck with Baku is better without Baku. Try it. Take out Baku, cat, whatever random odd cost stuff you're putting in. Put in more draw, Blizzard and Doomsayer. Guarantee your winrate against Aggro goes up.
Control Mage does not want to ping unless it's for Jaina. It never has. Ping is only used when you don't draw well and with the amount of draw Mage has the odds of that are minimal. You think it's great when you turn 2 ping a 2 health minion but Doomsayer would have been a 10x better play.
There's nothing wrong with playing Baku decks for fun but it's low Tier 3, possibly tier 4.
It's great, but Shudderwock means tempo/aggro or bust right now so play it with a low curve and be very aggressive. Consider multiple 1drops and 1drop spells despite the lack of Vex Crow; also consider Explosive Rune and Cinderstorm as ultimately they can do damage to face and are cost-effective.
In tournaments I can see people banning Shaman and using FLJ + Voodoo Dolls in a Baku deck. That will be extremely strong!
Baku Mage is probably a tempo deck tho...you don't have frostbolt and fireball to control the board, so you better focus on Wyrm and black cat.
Maybe there will be some interesting odd-mana cards in coming expansions, but this strikes me as very implausible -- tempo mage without any burn!
Frostbolt, Fireball, Pyroblast... out. Mage secrets are still allowed by not Arcanologist which is the card that made Secret-based tempo decks playable -- before that, they had a nasty habit of going card dry around turn 6. Speaking of that -- no Aluneth.
Overall I like the theories here but after some playing I am writing off Odd Mage as 'maybe next expansion'. Black Cat and the boosted hero power just don't have enough value to balance the downside of the deck-building constraint.
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So far it's the deck I've had the best win rate with. What are your experiences with it?
I'm trying out Trump's variant of it; https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1074308-odd-mage
That's a really cool deck, nice to see cards like Lone Champion and Tinkmaster Overspark making their ways into a deck. Will try this out once I craft Baku.
On the third day before Witchwood, Blizzard gave to me,
three Handlock decks,
two Molten Giants
and a winstreak to Legend Rank #3
Disclaimer: This is a fictional poem and this didn't actually happen to me.
What's the point of running Jaina in a Baku deck?
Might as well just make it a full control deck and lose Baku.
For example you have voodoo doll but voodoo doll doesn't need Baku. So if the only time you're realistically going to get value off ping pre-jaina is pinging Voodoo, what does Baku do?
Gaining an extra damage on ping + black cat, when you don't want to ping until you get Jaina as Mage, from turn 2 to 9 is kind of pointless.
If Baku stacked with Jaina I'd be all about that Baku life, but considering the entire point and goal of a Control Mage is to play Jaina on 9, thus destroying the Baku effect, ruins Baku.
It is a cool deck, though. Maybe lose Jaina and try to take more advantage of the upgraded hero power? I'd lower the curve and add in some hero power minions to accomplish that.
Also be wary of win rates in the first week of an expansion, especially with Mage and Hunter. Those two classes tend to do well against underdeveloped decks, so win rates aren't accurate early on.
The problem with a full control deck nowadays is surviving long enough to play jaina. Once you play jaina and survive a turn you generally win the game. Baku's 2 damage helps you clear the enemy board much more consistently against aggro which (in meta without ice block) is pretty necessary.
Be sure to check out the new class creation contest by Asylum Rhapsody! If you like my class be sure to give it a like!
http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/fan-creations/183880-asylums-gauntlet-class-creation-competition-3?page=2#c30
So far my experience with this deck is 1 win and 5 losses. The five losses I couldn't hold off the aggro, and the 1 win was when the opponent DC'd.
Maybe there is some kind of tuning needed, but I'm having trouble getting excited at all.
Edit to add: I kind of can't get over the crappy even-numbered turns. Turn 2 is ok because the 2-damage hero power, but 4 and 6 are always inherently weak.
Same reason people run Deathstalker Rexxar in Hunter. Even though sometimes the Hunter hero power is better for ending the game.
Baku Mage is probably a tempo deck tho...you don't have frostbolt and fireball to control the board, so you better focus on Wyrm and black cat.
Nope it is weak and will not make it to the meta tiers.
It's great, but Shudderwock means tempo/aggro or bust right now so play it with a low curve and be very aggressive. Consider multiple 1drops and 1drop spells despite the lack of Vex Crow; also consider Explosive Rune and Cinderstorm as ultimately they can do damage to face and are cost-effective.
In tournaments I can see people banning Shaman and using FLJ + Voodoo Dolls in a Baku deck. That will be extremely strong!