While this would be good in Secret Mage decks, I find it's more realistic to expect it to thrive in control mage decks. Aggressive mage decks are losing arcane blast and more importantly flamewaker. Then again, maybe control mage won't be able to thrive with Jade Golems.
2/3 2 drop tutor? I'm sold and I don't even like mage secrets.
As someone who's spent more than one evening trying out Secret Mage, this card has me insanely excited. Between not wanting to topdeck secrets later in the game AND making Kabal Lackey and Kirin Tor more consistent... I'm pretty sold on this being great. Secret Mage is probably still sort of bad, but I imagine we're looking at the new form of Tempo Mage.
Between this and the Legendary they revealed I think I'm actually going to playing a lot more Mage in this set. :)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
Secret Mage didn't take off with the other cards they threw at it, so they unleash a Drakonid Operative style OP-as-hell card to try and save the archetype.
This card is amazing, but its 3amazing5me and its starting to confuse me...
Notice some of the secret cards are really aggresive? I'm talking about cards like Kabal Lackey. I kept running out of targets for my secret synergy stuff because I was spitting them out so fast. This is great on curve, but I feel like its one of those "too aggresive" cards again and because of it I fear it won't actually make it too much better. Drawing out your secret is great for your deck, but is it actually helping you?
To rephrase:
Its almost like the secret synergy cards are splitting themselves into different categories. Medivh's Valet and Kabal Crystal Runner feel more Midrangey Tempo as support. Lackey and this feel like Aggro Counter auto-includes, so altogether its almost like Secret Mage is turning into a larger archetype made up of weaker sub-archetypes.
Hopefully it ends up being run a lot though in constructed because its a really great card to me tempo wise
On the other hand this is probably the greatest Arena minion i've ever seen for Mage besides Mad Scientist.
What i personally feel is that this card compensates quite a lot for the loss of Ice lance.
What freeze mages currently wants, is to Alex the opponent, and then deal 15 damage the following turn. This has become an issue, since Ice Lance is moved to the Hall Of Fame.
But this card changes it.
Freeze mage ALWAYS would like more draw in their decks, and this is not only a draw, but also a draw that compliments the attricion phase of the Freeze mage match. The chance you get to draw one of your burn spells or Alextrasa get higher, and you get atleast another turn with this card to find the cards you need.
Since it also has a premium body, it allows to slow down the aggro matchups by about a turn, which is also crucial to winning as a Freeze mage.
All in all. This card may be broken as hell. And if there is released anymore freeze mage cards, then i can assure you, it will be a top tier deck again.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I want a new title, but Flux won't let me have one,
This card easily fits in several Mage strategies and can easily find a home in both wild and standard. His stats are great as well as I'd argue a 2/3 in mage is generally more helpful than a 3/2. Great stuff all around and naturally makes me wonder if we'll see more serious secret use as a result or if it just means Freeze mage is even more reliable.
It's alright, whenever is it so important to just get another secret? A normal draw would in most cases be better i think but i guess it could fill a niche role, at least it got alright stats.
Any deck that relies on a secret (ie freeze Mage and ice block) will like this card. It makes the drawing more reliable due to the risk that I've block is at the bottom of your deck. That said it is a significantly worse version of Mad Scientist (which is a good thing because that was a pretty damned broken card).
2/3 for 2, draw a card? Awesome! I mean, there'd probably need to be at least 2-3 secrets worth playing in a mage deck (that doesn't include Reno) to make this worthwhile, but as long as it gets the draw it's above curve. Should be fantastic in arena.
I understand that this makes secret mage pretty good (not enough to be better than wild freeze or mech mage though), but what secrets would you even play?!? It's already been determined that even a god-tier secret mage hand without this card does nothing, so unless they add new secrets that actually promote your own tempo rather than hindering the opponent's, this card is still bad.
This is almost Mad Scientist levels of strong. It's so flexible too. Freeze/Control Mage? Guaranteed tutor of an Ice Block. Tempo Mage? Free deck thinning and a guaranteed play on turn 3. Secret Mage? Guaranteed target for Kirin Tor Mage and makes it much easier to activate your Medivh's Valets. Great card.
Pretty good card but the secrets are just so expensive in mage so I just cannot see secret mage being a viable archetype... For Tempomage it's not enough tempo. Maybe for control it can work...
Secret Mage is already an archetype, but it lacks the consistency of a Tier 1 deck. The Arcanologist shores up its weak point instead of having to run more secrets.
While this would be good in Secret Mage decks, I find it's more realistic to expect it to thrive in control mage decks. Aggressive mage decks are losing arcane blast and more importantly flamewaker. Then again, maybe control mage won't be able to thrive with Jade Golems.
Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
MTG/Hearthstone biases to avoid
Reframing negative Hearthstone experiences to improve at the game
Who's the Beatdown?
a control version of mad scientist, i like it a lot, mad scientist was bad aggro design, this is more reasonable
Aggro secret burst mage says hi
Oops...
Secret Mage didn't take off with the other cards they threw at it, so they unleash a Drakonid Operative style OP-as-hell card to try and save the archetype.
2/3 draw a card for 2 is crazy as hell.
This card is amazing, but its 3amazing5me and its starting to confuse me...
Notice some of the secret cards are really aggresive? I'm talking about cards like Kabal Lackey. I kept running out of targets for my secret synergy stuff because I was spitting them out so fast. This is great on curve, but I feel like its one of those "too aggresive" cards again and because of it I fear it won't actually make it too much better. Drawing out your secret is great for your deck, but is it actually helping you?
To rephrase:
Its almost like the secret synergy cards are splitting themselves into different categories. Medivh's Valet and Kabal Crystal Runner feel more Midrangey Tempo as support. Lackey and this feel like Aggro Counter auto-includes, so altogether its almost like Secret Mage is turning into a larger archetype made up of weaker sub-archetypes.
Hopefully it ends up being run a lot though in constructed because its a really great card to me tempo wise
On the other hand this is probably the greatest Arena minion i've ever seen for Mage besides Mad Scientist.
I think that this is a good card for it's purpose. You may not want to play with secrets in every mage deck, but it's a card draw.
What i personally feel is that this card compensates quite a lot for the loss of Ice lance.
What freeze mages currently wants, is to Alex the opponent, and then deal 15 damage the following turn. This has become an issue, since Ice Lance is moved to the Hall Of Fame.
But this card changes it.
Freeze mage ALWAYS would like more draw in their decks, and this is not only a draw, but also a draw that compliments the attricion phase of the Freeze mage match. The chance you get to draw one of your burn spells or Alextrasa get higher, and you get atleast another turn with this card to find the cards you need.
Since it also has a premium body, it allows to slow down the aggro matchups by about a turn, which is also crucial to winning as a Freeze mage.
All in all. This card may be broken as hell. And if there is released anymore freeze mage cards, then i can assure you, it will be a top tier deck again.
I want a new title, but Flux won't let me have one,
This card will help get out arcane giant and kabal Krystal runner super quick.
Very good to potentially meta defining.
This card easily fits in several Mage strategies and can easily find a home in both wild and standard. His stats are great as well as I'd argue a 2/3 in mage is generally more helpful than a 3/2. Great stuff all around and naturally makes me wonder if we'll see more serious secret use as a result or if it just means Freeze mage is even more reliable.
2/3 for 2, draw a card? Awesome! I mean, there'd probably need to be at least 2-3 secrets worth playing in a mage deck (that doesn't include Reno) to make this worthwhile, but as long as it gets the draw it's above curve. Should be fantastic in arena.
I understand that this makes secret mage pretty good (not enough to be better than wild freeze or mech mage though), but what secrets would you even play?!? It's already been determined that even a god-tier secret mage hand without this card does nothing, so unless they add new secrets that actually promote your own tempo rather than hindering the opponent's, this card is still bad.
This is almost Mad Scientist levels of strong. It's so flexible too. Freeze/Control Mage? Guaranteed tutor of an Ice Block. Tempo Mage? Free deck thinning and a guaranteed play on turn 3. Secret Mage? Guaranteed target for Kirin Tor Mage and makes it much easier to activate your Medivh's Valets. Great card.
Look, Ma, another OP mage common!
"Nerf Paper," said Rock.
Probably best for my wild Echo of Medivh/Arcane Giants/Crystal Runner deck
Very useful card
Secret mage inc!
Probably auto include in every mage deck. Assuming that there are secrets worth including in every playable archetype.