Hearthpwn

wont be nearly as good unfortunately.  The good news is that the MVP card of this deck (the spellstone) is also amazing in aggro secret hunter which is much easier to build

at first glance I thought "no way we want raven, and we cant possibly run 0 freezes!" however, I actually think this could be very powerful in the right meta and I think its really cool that your big spell mage draft came out so differently than mine and both seem viable.  let me know what you think about this.  I explain my reasoning for card choices in the post, but if there's one thing i've learned about pre update deckbuilding its that your lists are never as set in stone as you thin they are lol. 

hey Orange, would you say that the new mage one drop might be able to accomplish alexstraza's job in control lists that are closer to the fatigue mage end of the spectrum than the burn mage end?  (i.e., use alex for heal not burn 90% of the time).  ive been finding in this meta its hard to find time to play alex after getting your block popped unless you can force them to choose between killing your doomsayer or popping you and the idea of being able to heal 6-8 with something along the lines of 1 drop plus blizzard plus frostbolt instead of using alex and having to tank whatever is on the board seems very appealing.  Its certainly possible that you might want both in the deck for even more healing ability but jaina plus the new one drop alone seems like a lot of sustain.  I think it also makes a lot of sense to run those over mana wrym because they conform a lot better to your gameplan when drawn later on as opposed to mana wrym who, while being much better on t1, is generally a dead card in the lategame.  

more on topic: ive been running a greedier list thats very similar to yours (glaring difference is firelands portals instead of mana wrym) and im wondering how well medivh has been performing without portals.  Have you played around with something like lich king in that spot?  thanks in advance for any response, i really enjoy getting pro insight on my favorite deck archetype.  

how furious I imagine a lot of their most dedicated players would feel about this makes me hope it will be retroactive.  

It would almost ruin the game for me to see 500 something on my mage with over 3k ranked wins.

Heres the link to my reddit post, id prefer if people commented there to keep the discussion all in one place.  Thanks!

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/63revp/twas_the_night_before_expansionan_indepth_review/

Hey there, thanks for the feedback.  

King mosh &deathwing.  The main reason we want both is for effect redundancy.  I actually think that mosh is the stronger of the two in this list because of his flexibility to be a third execute+ a big body or a full clear without deathwings downside when paired with whirlwind.  

Tar lord.  Right now running one to complement curator as another turn 7 play seems like the correct move.  I agree completely that he has glaring weaknesses but I think his raw power vs aggro and faster midrange decks compensates for this.  Two primordial drakes crowding the top of our curve seems really slow and id be more included to add an alley armorsmith in exchange for tar lord and replace deathwing with a second drake if deathwing proves to be overkill.  Id encourage you to check out my reddit post where I pretty exhaustively cover my thoughts on the expansion if you want to discuss more :P

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/63revp/twas_the_night_before_expansionan_indepth_review/

went here from your reddit post.  The only gripe I have is I think that 2x naga corsair or x2 hydra is almost certainly better than 1 of each.  itll be interesting to see what one ends up stronger.  My gut feeling is that hydra creates too many potential "dead" draws in addition to leroy in your early turns.  Its also a pretty flacid topdeck when youre looking for lethal.  

I expect hydra wont see play in fully refined full aggro lists but instead in some incarnation of dragon warrior (obviously no dragons but a heavier tempo deck that doesnt run out of steam quickly and utilizes hydra to eat removal for their finishers).  Theres just so many games where a polymorph or an execute or a hex rots in your hand all game vs pirate warrior since their early minions almost all get wiped up with AOE easily.  I can honestly see myself praying that pirate warrior drops this on 5 since they cant often afford to "spend 5 mana, eat a removal without getting any value out of the card first".  

i ended up cutting flametounge for double jade cheif.  Without bloodlust like i added in my pure ele deck I think you dont get enough value out of extra face damage from flametounge and since you have jade claws and jade lightning you dont rely on it as hard to trade up.  Also being able to pump jades up to 8/8 seems FAR stronger against slower decks.  

Heres my take on the quest.  Slightly different than his but id be happy to discuss any of the differences.  

I love the deck but im not sure about elise.  What if we just ran spellbreaker in that slot?  Silence seems good this expansion and silencing the 4/8 on curve is massive tempo.  

Yea im not sure about a lot of the card choices although i like the idea.  Heres my take on a curator version 

really cool idea and a nice list.  Ive played a good amount of handbuff pally so hopefully I can offer some good suggestions.  Pheonix is a card ive considered weak in other decks but I think has a lot of merit in handbuff pally since the body will often be strong and paladin lacks out of hand removal so nice inclusion on that.  

A couple things really jump out to me though. 

No Grimestreet enforcer??  That has always been the single strongest card in handbuff pally vs non-aggro decks in my experience.  He also pairs well with the 1/2 elemental generators like igneous elemental.  I would reccomend dropping the servants of kalimos for them as I sort of expect servants to be lackluster outside of maybe shaman who can discover kalimos (even then I think theyre too slow though).  

I also think that we can find better options than sunwalker and/or grimstreet protector.  Ive always found ivory knight to be a flexible card in handbuff pally since we dont naturally run spells and the new paladin legendary seems powerful so what about dropping both protectors and one sunwalker for two knights and the new legendary?

I think that stonehill doesnt fit alongside rat for a couple of reasons (and think that rat is definitely the stronger of the two like I said above).  

The two issues with adding it are value in the deck and speed of completing the quest.  I think having two extra two drops just makes the curve really low and will hurt our win% against midrange and control decks.  Aggainst aggro (besides being extremely favored already) we already spend our early turns reacting and removing and I really dont see two more taunts helping very often.  

In terms of completing our quest more quickly I think that accolyte actually helps us more than playing two extra cheap taunts.  I expect that draw will limit our ability to complete the quest more than mana restictions will so I want accolyte to dig through our deck faster.  I guess what i'm trying to say is we want to be playing one taunt every turn more than we want to be able to throw down an extra cheap taunt alongside another.  accolyte also doesnt cause the same value problem as sentry since it brings you to your value cards more quickly.  

yea id personally rather run tar creepers over igneous elementals and maybe cut servants for something else.  I would really like to see mirror image in this list to improve mana wrym and apprentice.  

yea i can definitely see devolve being a good swap potentially since its so good with maelstrom portal.  Im not sure the deck needs the value generators like elise and servant honestly.  If the build wants to go slower i think adding more jades is the way to handle it.  Yeah im definitely excited to try this and rag warrior out especially.