Hi, this deck is also my favorite one, I play the minion heavy Book of Specters build of Apx. It is so much fun. I think the best one to CC, obviously besides Mountain Giant, the 9 mana spot is quite sweet, there is almost no low-roll. 8 spot isn’t what it used to be (the same applies with Astromancer), there is the super low-roll of Hireek also. I CC 8 mana minion only when I need a taunt, because there the probability is higher. 10 drops are generally good targets. I CC 5, 6, 7 drops only when I really have nothing else I could do and sometimes I CC Voodoo doll removing a threat and creating 2 3 drops, great tempo
1) Each mana pool has its good and bad cards, it all depends on luck. I generally get screwed over while conjuring 4 mana minions, 5 and above usually grants me a positive outcome. Except when I get Hir'eek, the Bat. Screw that guy. Your giants and 9 drops (also 7 and 8 but a bit less imo) are probably the best costs to use your Conjurer's Calling on. 7 costs can get you an Archmage Antonidas and 8 costs can get you a Tirion Fordring (although 8 is pretty risky in general). Again, I advise not waiting all game to specifically hit those minions, there were numerous times I've conjured 5 cost minions and sometimes even lower. As mentioned, conjuring a Voodoo Doll is sometimes the right play (fe creating a bigger board against aggro).
2) As the guy above posted, I run the Book of Specters variant of this deck. That card has solohandedly won me games thanks to Turn 2 Book of Specters and Turn 3 Mountain Giant. And if you have Khadgar and a Conjurer's Calling you can expect your opponent to concede in the next 4 seconds. However there are several cards that stand out to me that I'd change: Doomsayer - I've tried running this card because I faced a lot of aggro, but overall I gathered that this card isn't worth the space in the deck. Against Zoolocks they sometimes end up benefiting from it because of their Scarab Egg. This card probably is at it's best against druids, as they either can't kill it and lose their board, or usually they do end up killing it and it absorbs 7 dmg. Usually after turn 2/3, and with somewhat of a board, Druids will have a way to kill your Doomsayer, and that means you spent your turn doing nothing which is really bad. Your list has lots of board clears which my variant doesn't have, so the Doomsayer is especially not necessary in it. Also, this card can sometimes be dead against control decks, I've had a number of games against warriors in fatigue where I had unused Doomsayer's in my hand that had no benefit if I played them then. In control, they are basically only good against, let's say, Acolyte of Pain's. In some cases I played Doomsayer when the opponent had an Acolyte of Pain on board and they drew 0 cards from him. Youthful Brewmaster - Huh!? What is he doing there!? Seriously though, I don't see any huge merit to playing this card. At it's best it can grant you another Ragnaros the Firelord from Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk and that's pretty much it. I myself don't think Youthful Brewmaster deserves any room in this deck (sorry brew!). I'd much rather have a Messenger Raven in my deck, which has a chance of netting me a Kalecgos or a Khadgar (or who knows, maybe infinite Messenger Raven's aren't bad too). If you were playing more dragons, I'd definitely incentivize running Firetree Witchdoctor in your deck. As a little fun fact, I am testing a Scarab Egg in my deck for early game (to not get destroyed by aggro, screw you druids, zoolocks and hunters). The Egg works well with Sunfury Protector which I'm running and most notably with Conjurer's Calling. You get two 2 cost minions and three 1-1's on the board. I am only testing this card though, might swap it later for something else. Arcane Intellect - As mentioned, I think that Book of Specters is just better for this deck. Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk - I tried running this card for a short while, stopped running it since a while ago. Not too sure if this is really that good - it needs to be built up and when you can play it, it doesn't have a tremendous impact. RNG can just screw you over as well.
The rest of the cards are fine for the deck you're running (Sunreaver Warmage is good in your deck as you have lots of big spells).
3) The deck isn't rubbish in ladder, but as you are climbing higher and higher you'll start to notice the problems with your deck's cards. Your early game is really poor and you have no way of building up early pressure against your opponent, whereas in other Giant Mages you can start pressuring your opponent greatly starting all the way from Turn 3. You will do pretty good against Control Warriors though, just make them use their removals and you're good. I'm only scared that Rogues will overwhelm you and Druids/Zoolocks will kill you before you can use your board clears, or at least almost kill you before then. Hunters with good openings fall into the same category too.
All in all, I played about ~300 games with Giant Mage and used only this deck to climb ladder this season. I'm currently Legend rank (not too high, sitting at like 3k). I've tried several cards in this deck already and deduced which is right for me and which is less useful. If I'm facing more Aggro decks than Control I tech in certain cards that help me against those matchups, and vice verca with Control. If you want to ask me anything then you can go ahead and msg me on hearthpwn or you can add me on battlenet (preferably). I play on EU btw. Tag is Matan#2372. Sorry for the longggg ass answer. Haven't written anything on this site for years, and this deck is something I can actually provide some slight insight on.
Hey guys,
I've been having a lot of fun playing Khadgar Giant mage. But I have a few questions regarding the deck.
1. What cost minions is the best to use Conjurer's Calling on? What is the best pool of minions. I'am a standard player.
2. Should I change something in the deck, for instance tech a card in the deck, and for which card would I have to replace it? I am playing at rank 5.
3. What do you guys think of this deck, is it powerful on high ranks or is it rubbish?
Decklist:
### Khadgar Giant
# Class: Mage
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (1) Daring Fire-Eater
# 1x (2) Acidic Swamp Ooze
# 2x (2) Doomsayer
# 1x (2) Khadgar
# 1x (2) Youthful Brewmaster
# 2x (3) Arcane Intellect
# 2x (3) Conjurer's Calling
# 2x (3) Messenger Raven
# 1x (4) Polymorph
# 2x (5) Blast Wave
# 2x (5) Sunreaver Warmage
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 2x (6) Blizzard
# 2x (7) Astromancer
# 2x (7) Flamestrike
# 1x (7) Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk
# 2x (8) Power of Creation
# 2x (12) Mountain Giant
#
AAECAf0EBk2fA4oHoIADqIcDlpoDDIoByQOrBOEH7AfD+AKmhwPNiQPnlQODlgPTmAOgmwMA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Hi, this deck is also my favorite one, I play the minion heavy Book of Specters build of Apx. It is so much fun. I think the best one to CC, obviously besides Mountain Giant, the 9 mana spot is quite sweet, there is almost no low-roll. 8 spot isn’t what it used to be (the same applies with Astromancer), there is the super low-roll of Hireek also. I CC 8 mana minion only when I need a taunt, because there the probability is higher. 10 drops are generally good targets. I CC 5, 6, 7 drops only when I really have nothing else I could do and sometimes I CC Voodoo doll removing a threat and creating 2 3 drops, great tempo
1) Each mana pool has its good and bad cards, it all depends on luck. I generally get screwed over while conjuring 4 mana minions, 5 and above usually grants me a positive outcome. Except when I get Hir'eek, the Bat. Screw that guy. Your giants and 9 drops (also 7 and 8 but a bit less imo) are probably the best costs to use your Conjurer's Calling on. 7 costs can get you an Archmage Antonidas and 8 costs can get you a Tirion Fordring (although 8 is pretty risky in general). Again, I advise not waiting all game to specifically hit those minions, there were numerous times I've conjured 5 cost minions and sometimes even lower. As mentioned, conjuring a Voodoo Doll is sometimes the right play (fe creating a bigger board against aggro).
2) As the guy above posted, I run the Book of Specters variant of this deck. That card has solohandedly won me games thanks to Turn 2 Book of Specters and Turn 3 Mountain Giant. And if you have Khadgar and a Conjurer's Calling you can expect your opponent to concede in the next 4 seconds. However there are several cards that stand out to me that I'd change:
Doomsayer - I've tried running this card because I faced a lot of aggro, but overall I gathered that this card isn't worth the space in the deck. Against Zoolocks they sometimes end up benefiting from it because of their Scarab Egg. This card probably is at it's best against druids, as they either can't kill it and lose their board, or usually they do end up killing it and it absorbs 7 dmg. Usually after turn 2/3, and with somewhat of a board, Druids will have a way to kill your Doomsayer, and that means you spent your turn doing nothing which is really bad. Your list has lots of board clears which my variant doesn't have, so the Doomsayer is especially not necessary in it. Also, this card can sometimes be dead against control decks, I've had a number of games against warriors in fatigue where I had unused Doomsayer's in my hand that had no benefit if I played them then. In control, they are basically only good against, let's say, Acolyte of Pain's. In some cases I played Doomsayer when the opponent had an Acolyte of Pain on board and they drew 0 cards from him.
Youthful Brewmaster - Huh!? What is he doing there!? Seriously though, I don't see any huge merit to playing this card. At it's best it can grant you another Ragnaros the Firelord from Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk and that's pretty much it. I myself don't think Youthful Brewmaster deserves any room in this deck (sorry brew!). I'd much rather have a Messenger Raven in my deck, which has a chance of netting me a Kalecgos or a Khadgar (or who knows, maybe infinite Messenger Raven's aren't bad too). If you were playing more dragons, I'd definitely incentivize running Firetree Witchdoctor in your deck. As a little fun fact, I am testing a Scarab Egg in my deck for early game (to not get destroyed by aggro, screw you druids, zoolocks and hunters). The Egg works well with Sunfury Protector which I'm running and most notably with Conjurer's Calling. You get two 2 cost minions and three 1-1's on the board. I am only testing this card though, might swap it later for something else.
Arcane Intellect - As mentioned, I think that Book of Specters is just better for this deck.
Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk - I tried running this card for a short while, stopped running it since a while ago. Not too sure if this is really that good - it needs to be built up and when you can play it, it doesn't have a tremendous impact. RNG can just screw you over as well.
The rest of the cards are fine for the deck you're running (Sunreaver Warmage is good in your deck as you have lots of big spells).
3) The deck isn't rubbish in ladder, but as you are climbing higher and higher you'll start to notice the problems with your deck's cards. Your early game is really poor and you have no way of building up early pressure against your opponent, whereas in other Giant Mages you can start pressuring your opponent greatly starting all the way from Turn 3. You will do pretty good against Control Warriors though, just make them use their removals and you're good. I'm only scared that Rogues will overwhelm you and Druids/Zoolocks will kill you before you can use your board clears, or at least almost kill you before then. Hunters with good openings fall into the same category too.
All in all, I played about ~300 games with Giant Mage and used only this deck to climb ladder this season. I'm currently Legend rank (not too high, sitting at like 3k). I've tried several cards in this deck already and deduced which is right for me and which is less useful. If I'm facing more Aggro decks than Control I tech in certain cards that help me against those matchups, and vice verca with Control. If you want to ask me anything then you can go ahead and msg me on hearthpwn or you can add me on battlenet (preferably). I play on EU btw. Tag is Matan#2372. Sorry for the longggg ass answer. Haven't written anything on this site for years, and this deck is something I can actually provide some slight insight on.
Conjurer's Calling needs a nerf: max minion mana cost off summon 6 or 8, or something.
What?
Rogue have 0 manas draw 3 cards, 2 manas draw the entire deck and can do + 20 damage from hand.
Warrior have infinite stall, resources and removal + hero card.
And you want to nerf the poor mage? Really?
i like mana Cyclone freeze version more.
Why, so we can see twice as many Warriors as we already see? No thanks.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
This deck only beats warriors and lose vs everything else. I saw many of them at rank 5 but as soon i got legend they disappeared.
I would very much consider changing Doomsayer for double Rabble Bouncer. As it has great synergy with conjurers call.
Yes of course... (rank 5 to legend stats).