Tempo Mage Asserts Itself in the Post-Nerf Meta
One of Hearthstone’s perennial archetypes, Tempo Mage is back and commanding respect in the post-nerf meta.
The Highlander Priest archetype crumbled when Blizzard nerfed Raza the Chained with the recent patch, allowing Cubelock to flourish for a short while. Control Warlock countered it initially, but Tempo Mage is hands-down the most popular counter, not to mention one of the most popular decks on the Standard ladder.
By Aluneth's Will
We’ll look at DacLue’s Copa America Tour Stop deck list so we have one reference point (and because his is similar to most on the standard ladder) but know that many variations of the deck exist, some featuring tech cards and some featuring an abundance of burn — even Pyroblast. Apxvoid’s list, complete with a Ghastly Conjurer and Fungalmancer, might be the most interesting of them all. Not a common inclusion, Fungalmancer will likely surprise your opponent for now, and its powerful battlecry allows for an extra push toward lethal or for more efficient trades. It will be a while until we have the data to suggest an optimal build, but for now this spin on the tried-and-true formula is doing well.
Minion (14)
Ability (15)
Weapon (1)
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Despite its struggle against Aggro Paladin and excruciating, draw-dependent mirror matches, a few new cards have allowed the deck to flourish against Control Warlock and push Big Spell Mage out of certain sections of the ladder entirely. Explosive Runes provides an amazing tempo swing and extra burn, but the new legendary Mage weapon Aluneth pulls the most weight, providing the card draw it always lacked. This made it suffer in the late game, dependent on key top-decks. Now, Aluneth keeps your hand full of cards, giving you freedom to adjust your line of play on the fly as the cards pour in.
These new additions round out an already great core set of cards designed to cheat their mana cost for maximum tempo. Two copies of both Kabal Lackey and Kirin Tor Mage allow you to play a secret for free, should you be so fortunate as to have one available. On curve, this is devastatingly powerful. Kabal Crystal Runner meanwhile fills the void left behind by pre-nerf Corridor Creeper, providing an often cheap or free minion capable of value trading or pushing damage. These possibilities for cheap swings should be carefully carried out; don't miss an opportunity to drop Mana Wyrm before casting spells or to cheat out a secret with Kabal Lackey. While Aluneth is active, spill your hand and avoid burning cards on an overdraw.
Secrets offer the potential for massive tempo swings, at best denying your opponent a turn at all. But at rank 5 and above, most opponents will play around those devastating consequences, testing Counterspell with The Coin and playing Plated Beetle into Explosive Runes. If your opponent has the coin and you have these two secrets to choose from, it is almost certainly correct to play Explosive Runes, denying the easy dodge by your opponent, perhaps forcing your opponent to mismanage mana, and setting up a valuable Counterspell play on consecutive turns.
More than Throwing Fireballs
Unfortunately, playing Tempo Mage optimally requires more thought than throwing Fireballs at the opponent’s face. Ideally, you will grab the board with Mana Wyrm on turn one, build that board and draw a secret with Arcanologist on turn two, and cheat out your secret with Kirin Tor Mage on turn three.
That’s the ideal first few turns, probably allowing you to remove enemy minions, push face damage, and deny tempo in the mid-game with Counterspell or Explosive Runes. The continual chip damage from minions after clearing the board is essential, too — allowing you to push for lethal damage earlier with the 50+ damage burn potential in the deck before finding additional resources via Primordial Glyph. With all of that at your disposal, don’t be afraid to use Frostbolt, Fireball, and Firelands Portal to clear minions and maintain control. This deck loses, after all, when it loses the board and takes too much damage before finding burn. As in all things Hearthstone, situational awareness is key. Consider your health and your opponent's, your hand and remaining cards, and your opponent’s next possible plays. Then decide to either push for lethal or grind out value trades. Experienced Zoolock players will feel at home here, as they will be accustomed to considering lines of play and committing to them in the mid- to late-game.
Our worst match-up in the current meta is Aggro Paladin. Against it you should mulligan for Mana Wyrm, bait any spell sans The Coin into your Counterspell, and do your best to keep the board from getting too wide. Controlling the board into turn five will make it much more likely for you to simply hit the Paladin hero with your minions once and burn them out over the next few turns — but doing so requires a great draw on your part and a bad draw on their's. It’s not in DacLue’s deck, but some players have chosen to include a copy or two of Ghastly Conjurer for added defense against decks with a wide board presence. A less common tech choice, Acidic Swamp Ooze can devastate opposing Tempo Mages and Cubelocks. I, like DacLue, opt for Pyroblast — because few things are more satisfying than top-decking a game-winning ten-mana spell.
As long as Aggro Paladin is around, especially the Murloc variant, Tempo Mage won't wreak havoc like Apxvoid would like it to. But it has helped alleviate concern the community had about the power level of Cubelock. As it turns out, Voidlord does very little to stop the burn spells going over the top of it.
I suppose Mages have the flood of Warlocks to thank, who try the other easy way out.^^
I think it's trying to communicate
İs this the new salt thread location?
Even tempo mage w/ flamewa
nker wasn't so cancerous like mage nowadays.Can i replace The legendary Weapon? Aluneth
Aluneth is pretty important to draw the cards you need. This decks main focus is speed. It can also be dangerous and mill you however.
It is very strong, but in the best case you won't even need it. I tried different versions myself, and the deck is certainly capable to win a decent number of games without the weapon. It only provides massive card draw for the games you can't win fast enough, but even then, you are oftentimes just looking for another burst spell, since the deck is rather weak at reclaiming the board once you fall behind.
So, technically you could replace it with just another source of card draw like a second copy of Arcane Intellect or even add an Acolyte of Pain. Of course, your odds won't be as good to close games out as with Aluneth, but for a lot of games, some replacement will work out just fine. If you have all the remaining 29 cards, just give it a try.
The deck runs well whitout Aluneth, you can add another arcane intelect... But the weapon puts the deck in another lvl
<snip>I also think that MAGE in general needs to go.One of the worst classes since Freeze mage,mech mage,(some rng fiest mage),tempo mage,exodia mage,and now this disgusting deck.
On the games i've played against secret mages the last days after the nerfs,i haven't seen any of them trade into my minions.They all just go face.
So why should we only call hunter "face hunter" and not call mage "Face mage"??
Salty Cubelock player detected
LOL, "tempo". All minions are 3 mana or less (Kabal Crystal Runner is not 6 mana). Only 5 cards are 4 mana or more, mainly meant for face damage.
Please, call it what it is. It's aggro for mage. It has insane tempo, but it's aggro. Don't sugar-coat it, don't pretend it's "tempo" because you might make a trade in the "first few turns" (exact quote), it's aggro. The entire writeup is basically "make obvious trades and go face otherwise". It could have been simply "make sure you are alive and have a working internet, and make the obvious play".
It's fine for decks like these to exist, but call it what it is. Brainless aggro for mage.
All tempo decks play like this against control, that doesn't necessarily make them brainless.
This deck is much slower than any aggro. It does nothing but trade when facing paladins.
It’s a tempo deck. Tempo mage will never be able to kill you by turn 5. Usually turn 7-10. Aggro is faster so tempo deck will have problem facing aggro. We normally have an aggro meta here in hearthstone so it rare for tempo deck to see play.
They should make an article about what 'tempo' in a TCG means. Might get rid of posts like this in the future.^^
Just like cubelocks spam "I greet you" after playing voidlords...
Hmm interesting, indeed.
I thought you were one of the decent people in the playerbase until that last sentence. A deck or archetype cannot be "toxic" - a player, however, can be. And it doesn't matter what deck he/she plays, because douchebags can be anywhere.
Why are you comparing yourself as personality with a deck as archetype? So you are a nice guy the properly use emotes, and tempomage archetype are a toxic fag? Do you really think that this is mage spamming emotes at you and not the player who is playing this archetype?
And do you think that tempo mage is a truly aggro deck? You misunderstand aggro and tempo... Aggro are face hunter, murloc pal, pirate war, aggroshaman. And tempo are temporogue, dragon war...
Just stop playing cancerous cubelock and feel the difference of other archetypes and classes...
The MM is already fairly rigged that when you play with Secret Mage, you face around 25% of paladins and around 25% of mirrors, then around 15% of Hunters and only like 35% combined of priests/rogues/warlocks.
When I play warlock the stats are considerably different - I face about 30% priests, 20% rogues, 30% paladins and only 20% of combined mages/mirrors/hunters.
Rarely you see shaman these days.
At some point I maintain same 55% winrate with any deck around rank 5, be it warlock, mage or spiteful priest. But I strongly feel that it is because opponent class distribution is rigged. Otherwise if I would meet my mage's opponents as warlock I would have 70% winrate, or if I would meet my warlock's opponents as mage I would have around 65%+ winrate.
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I don't know if it is good or bad, but feels like MM balances some card imbalance issues and in the end we have no OP-beat-them-all deck in the ladder atm.