A Deck of Ice and Fire – Learn to Play Freeze Mage

There are a lot of old decks, here's a guide to one of the oldest, if not the oldest, deck. Freeze Mage!

justjimmy

Published: Jun 25, 2015 06:50 pm

This article is over 9 years old and may contain outdated information

Introduction

General Strategy

Freeze Mage is famous for a couple of things:

1. Playing it feels like playing solitaire.

2. People claim there is 0 counter-play against it.

3. It instantly loses to Control Warrior (kind of true).

Unfortunately, this is kind of true. Sometimes you find yourself just playing against the clock to get Alexstrasza in time or put the Ice-block in time but often you feel safe stalling the game with a couple of heals (antique-healbot) and ice-block backing you up. The purpose of this deck is playing solitaire, you’re trying to get the right combination with your cards. One of the most important cards is Alexstrasza, it’s an 8/8 for 9, not very impressive stats, it’s the effect that makes it an absolute godsend to this deck. Its effect lets you set a characters HP to 15 and allows you to unleash your damage spells. The deck contains enough damage through spells to deal 36 damage, straight out. and that’s not even counting Alexstrasza, who usually deals around 13-15 damage depending on how much you’ve dealt to the opponent previously.

The main strategy of the deck is just to stall until you have the combo pieces needed to win the game, the combo pieces varies but most often it’s Alexstrasza + 15 damage. Often it’s fireball + frostbolt + ice-lance + ice-lance or fireball + fireball + frostbolt, but with the release of emperor-thaurissan it has enabled some other combos. Most notably it allowed pyroblast into the deck. Pyroblast was usually not run in the previous versions of the deck due to it costing 10 mana and not allowing you to play other damage card in the turn you play it. With Emperor-Thaurissan you can now cast Pyroblast together with a frostbolt and an ice-lance, if you’ve used Thaurissan of course.

The introduction of Thaurissan also led me to include one of my absolute favorite card, malygos. Malygos is a cool card. It’s not very flashy and could often not be combo’d the turn you used him, due to his high mana cost. Thaurissan helped out a lot in the way that it can reduce Malygos’ cost along with some other cards to allow for instant 17 damage combos (malygos + frostbolt + ice-lance) That costs 9 mana if their cost has been reduced by one, which is a very normal scenario given the decks draw engine and card advantage. Malygos allows for some insane combos with lethals that would otherwise not be possible.

So, you’ve basically understood the basics. In the early game set up ice-block and ice-barrier. Draw cards through loot-hoarder, arcane-intellect and acolyte-of-pain. Then reduce the cost of your cards using emperor-thaurissan for some lethals through alexstrazsa or through malygos. The deck concept is very simple, stall the game and then kill them in one or two turns. The hard part of this deck is using your resources in just the right way. I’ll cover that later.

Card Choices

So, right off the bat there are a couple of cards I do not run, one of the more obvious ones being archmage-antonidas and instead I run Malygos. Why you may ask? Well. They’re basically one of the win conditions in this deck, if we do not count in alexstrasza. archmage-antonidas‘s win condition is spawning infinite fireballs to deal around 12/13 damage just through spells, if you get the combo working, per turn. malygos is often used to deal massive damage in one turn with either ice-lances or frostbolts that have been reduced through Emperor-Thaurissan.

I personally run malygos instead of archmage-antonidas due to a couple of reasons. First of all I feel like Antonidas does not provide the burst damage that I like to use, instead it deals damage over a couple of turns and gives the opponent a chance to respond to archmage-antonidas and deal with it before getting to use its effect. Very rarely do I play malygos without having a lethal including him and even then the body is a lot better than Antonidas. A 4/12 is almost always better than a 5/7 due to its sheer ability to 2 for 1 or even, in some cases, 3 for 1.

So, in previous lists before Blackrock Mountain I used to run archmage-antonidas instead of malygos but after Blackrock it changed. Why? Well, there’s one card that was released in Blackrock that buffed this card beyond belief, I have already mentioned him but here’s all the reasons why Emperor-Thaurissan is such a good card.

Emperor-Thaurissan is definitely a card that everyone recognized as one of the best card in the expansion, if not the absolute best. This is due to the sheer amount of combos he produces. Combos that have previously not been possible (Malygos) is one of the bigger reasons that the card deserves the 2nd best card in the deck. It allows for some crazy stuff like fireball + fireball + frostbolt + frostbolt + ice-lance + ice-lance for a total of 26 damage. This only takes 8 mana if every card has been reduced by Emperor-Thaurissan. Even more, this allows for cheap board clears with blizzard, flamestrike and the frost-nova + doomsayer for very little mana and allow for setting up stuff like ice-block or ice-barrier for very cheap and maybe playing some card draw like loot-hoarder or [card]acolyte-of-pain too, allowing you to draw your combo pieces a lot faster and win the game.

So, I’m talking about how you are supposed to use your combo to win the game from no board control. “But WindUpRabbit, the deck consists of 30 cards! How am I supposed to draw the right cards for a combo?” Worry not young Timmy, there’s a huge draw engine behind all the damage cards. The main ones are loot-hoarder, bloodmage-thalnos, acolyte-of-pain and arcane-intellect. These cards do not only allow you to keep some kind of early presence on board, but also fill your hand very quickly and allow you to always be able to either stall or dish out damage. One of the even more important card is mad-scientist. mad-scientist is the best card in the game, straight out. This card allows you to not only put a decent body on turn 2, it also allows you to PUT A 3 MANA SECRET IN PLAY. That’s incredibly good, as someone who has played Yu-Gi-Oh very competitively it’s basically that, you can not give a card an ability to draw cards and still have a decent body or not be cost expensive. That’s ridiculously good and honestly, it’s even better in Freeze Mage since you do not have to use 3 mana to set up an ice-block or ice-barrier and can instead use that mana to draw more cards. Not only that, it also thins out your deck! Amazing and can NOT be substituted for another card if you want to reach the high ranks with this deck.

So, other than that the deck contains mostly draw, such as loot-hoarder, bloodmage-thalnos, arcane-intellect and acolyte-of-pain to allow you to draw cards. Against control you HAVE to keep an eye on your hand limit and not play cards like acolyte-of-pain when the opponent has a possibility to make you burn cards. If you burn Alexstrazsa there’s a high chance that you lose.

Substitutions

Of course there are cards that can be substituted, especially in a deck where there are very many different win conditions that you can run. The “normal” deck-list runs archmage-antonidas and uses it combined with low cost spells such as frost-nova for a very high damage output with fireballs. I run the malygos version since I’m a huge fan of the card and it’s a lot better with the release of Thaurissan since it allows you to play malygos with spells, when before Blackrock Mountain this was not possible. This allows for malygos + frostbolt + ice-lance for 9 mana (if all have been reduced by emperor-thaurissan of course) for a total of 17 damage and if you have played alexstrasza before it kills them or sets them up next turn if they have healed previously.

Cards such as bloodmage-thalnos are very good but can be substituted for cards such as loot-hoarder if you do not have the sufficient collection. Unfortunately Doomsayers, ice-blocks can not be substituted since they fill a unique part.

Tech Choices

So, this deck is actually not tech heavy, most of the cards in the deck are very important and can not be cut such as Fireballs, Frostbolts and other damage spells and malygos fills the same purpose as archmage-antonidas since they both act as late-game heavy hitters. If you’re against a LOT of face hunter you can switch in another antique-healbot instead of malygos and try to win just due to out-sustaining the opponent with Alexstrasza.

pyroblast is a card that has been heavily debated about. Are you supposed to have it in your deck? Keep it out of it since it doesn’t allow you to use other cards? The last question was the most popular BEFORE Blackrock Mountain, Pyroblast doesn’t allow you to play other burst cards that turn. But with emperor-thaurissan the look on this card has changed since you can often get it reduced to 9 mana along with frostbolt and ice-lance. If you really dislike this card, feel free to remove it and add more survival (antique-healbot) or more draw (another loot-hoarder). I personally love this card due to it’s amazing animation and just due to its sheer ability to close out games.

Unfortunately, I can’t help much with Tech Choices since it’s a fairly linear deck to build and most cards are auto-include. You can play the deck almost any way you like and can customize it with your play, I run the basic version and do not tech too much since it makes the deck too focused on defeating one type of deck instead of laddering.

Match-ups and Mulligan

So one of the more popular reasons why Freeze Mage is not recommended right now is due to the amount of Patron Warriors on the higher parts of the ladder and I agree, it’s a problem but it’s definitely not unwinnable since Patron Warriors do not run many armor giving cards, more on that later on. My win-rate this month can be seen here.

Vs Hunter

So, Hunter is a very disliked class, how come you may ask? Well, it’s very fast, it’s annoying to play against and it’s infuriating to always play at sub 15 hp. This deck does an excellent job of keeping them off your face. In this match-up you need to mulligan for aggressive cards such as mad-scientist and it’s VERY important that you get some board presence, or they’ll just win the game off you not having any board. Using removal on high value minions such as knife-juggler is DEFINITELY ok, against Hunter you will not win just by burst and instead you should try to just outlast them with healing, ice-block or alexstrasza. The match-up is a 60/40 in your favor

Mulligan

Look for:

– Mad-Scientist

– Loot-Hoarder

– frostbolt

These cards are kept due to the sheer amount of board presence and value in the early game, these should always be tried to be kept. You do NOT want more than one frostbolt though since saving one for damage later is wise.

Rarely keep: (if you don’t want to mulligan your entire hand)

– ice-barrier

–antique-healbot

–acolyte-of-pain.

–doomsayer + frost-nova

These cards should only be kept if you have to mulligan your entire hand otherwise, they’re worth keeping because they are ok against the match-up but are not needed to win.

Never keep:

–alexstrasza

–ice-block

–emperor-thaurissan

High cost cards in general should NOT be kept against aggro since they add little to no early game.

These should be fairly straight forward, your goal is to get some board presence and draw enough cards to survive the early game and then seal the game when the opponent runs out of steam.

Against midrange hunter, a lot more prevalent nowadays you should play like you are against Face Hunter. Try not to take unnecessary face damage and avoid losing board presence. Make sure that you get value from your mad-scientist and if the opponent has a freezing-trap make sure to use something like antique-healbot to proc it and get value from the heal.

Vs Zoo

Zoo should be an easy match-up, they do not play any heals and you might often find yourself to have lethal with burst without using Alexstrasza due to the amount of tapping they do and they do usually not have the resources to deal enough damage to the opponent to pop the ice-block in time. Here it is also very important to keep an eye on your HP and their HP. Plan your moves to make sure you don’t screw up and accidentally put yourself in a bad position (getting your ice-block popped without follow-up or lethal on hand). Against Zoo you should easily be able to win unless you draw nothing in your opening hand and you get no draw/secrets/board in the early game. This all depends on your mulligan since it can make you lose the game or win it. Beware of mal’ganis and try to play around it since it absorbs a fireball[card] + ping.

Using [card]flamestrike at the right time can be key to winning, and trying to minimize the opponents deathrattles (nerubian-egg by using cards like blizzard can be key to getting his board as small as possible and trying not to take much damage. Of course combos like frost-nova + doomsayer can be good if the opponent does not have an ironbeak-owl.

Mulligan

Look for:

–mad-scientist

–doomsayer+frost-nova (not on their own though.)

–loot-hoarder

–arcane-intellect

Rarely keep:

–bloodmage-thalnos

–acolyte-of-pain

Never keep:

High cost minions/spells or damage spells, not going to be very specific since it’s most of the deck but if you want to see a bit more exact you can check the hunter section since it explains what cards should always be avoided at all times. Importance of keeping is in order.

Vs Handlock

Against Handlock you need to try to avoid getting their damage on board out of hand since they can easily pop your ice blocks fast. This is very important to avoid since it allows for the opponent to kill you before you can set up for lethal.

Most Handlocks run either one antique-healbot or two, that can be a problem if you only have exact 15 damage on your hand and if you don’t have the right amount of damage or stalling (frost-nova / blizzard / ice-block) then it might lead to a really big problem and a sticky situation.

Well, so how exactly do you deal with their giants? What I’ve been trying to do is try to bait them to believe that you have a mirror-entity by using cards like mad-scientist in the early game you can bait them into believing you’re a Tempo Mage, it’s a very good idea if you have the opportunity.

Mulligan

Look for:

–mad-scientist

–acolyte-of-pain

–arcane-intellect

–loot-hoarder

–bloodmage-thalnos

These cards are very good since they allow you to have some early pressure and draw potential for some sick emperor-thaurissan if you have a full hand and setting up for early secrets is incredibly important. Importance is in order.

Might keep:

–doomsayer+frost-nova (not on their own though.)

Never keep:

The rest of the cards in the deck, they’re not particularly good to keep since they add nothing to your opening.

Vs Control Warrior

So here, we have your kryptonite. Control Warrior build up a lot of armor, that’s part of their game plan. Survive until late game and use high cost legendaries to win. Sounds a bit like Freeze Mage right? Stalling cards then winning at late game, yeah it does sound like Freeze Mage. The difference lies in how they finish the game and how they stall. Freeze Mage stalls by using freeze and using cards to stop the opponent from attacking. Control Warrior does this by adding up armor to his health pool and surviving. So, if they both get to late game they should be able to have a fair match-up right? Well the main purpose of Freeze Mage is reducing their Health to 15 using alexstrasza and then bursting them down.

So here’s the main problem, Alexstrasza does NOT REMOVE THEIR ARMOR meaning they will have more than 30HP even after you play Alexstrasza. How you win in this match-up is using malygos with a lot of spells to remove their armor. How exactly do you get enough time to unleash your spells? Well, you need to be wise in this match-up with your key card, emperor-thaurissan. To win games against Control Warrior you NEED to play it at the right moment. The right moment is using it to reduce the cost of cheap spells and malygos to allow for a very high damage turn to reduce their armor after alexstrasza. Lucky for us, the most amount of healing a Control Warrior uses is alexstrasza.

Mulligan

Look for:

–mad-scientist

–arcane-intellect

–acolyte-of-pain

–loot-hoarder

These cards have bodies (most of them) and allows for you to remove their early game armor and draw cards. Again, putting secrets on the board ASAP is very important and allows you to safely play the early game without worries of them bursting you down quickly.

Might keep:

–doomsayer+frost-nova (not on their own though.)

–emperor-thaurissan only keep this if you have enough spells and malygos to play it on turn 6 without worries.

Never look for:

Rest of the cards since they add nothing to the early game and will probably be drawn later.

Vs Patron Warrior

Patron Warrior is better to play against than Control Warrior since it doesn’t allow the Warrior to run too much armor givers, unfortunately this is slowly changing. More and more Patron Warriors run shield-block and shield-slam as an engine nowadays, instead of cards such as gnomish-inventor.

Again, this deck should play played against like you play against Control Warrior. Getting value from emperor-thaurissan is key to remove their armor after alexstrasza. Again, this should otherwise be a fairly straight forward match-up, use flamestrike when you have to clear the patrons. Make sure they will not get any value from frothing-berserker by keeping their board clear so they do not get too buffed up (clearing ice-block means you lose).

Mulligan:

Look for:

–mad-scientist

–arcane-intellect

–acolyte-of-pain

–loot-hoarder

Might keep:

–doomsayer+frost-nova (not on their own though.)

–emperor-thaurissan only keep this if you have enough spells and malygos to play it on turn 6 without worries.

Never keep:

Rest of the cards since they add nothing to the early game and will probably be drawn later.

Again, same as Control Warrior here.

Vs Other Classes

The rest of the classes are almost non-existent on the ladder and should be approached on the same way as match-ups play out the same way.

Always keep:

–mad-scientist

–arcane-intellect

–loot-hoarder

Sometimes keep:

–bloodmage-thalnos

–doomsayer+frost-nova (not on their own though.)

Never keep:

Any other card, since they don’t help your early game.

That’s about it for the mulligans, unfortunately there’s not too much against the other classes since they usually play out the same as the rest of the decks. Just beware of healing and try to bait it out fast.

Ladder Experiences

I’ve played a bit over 200 games in 20 days with the deck and has so far found it to be the perfect deck for laddering since it allows most games to be winnable and the deck is VERY enjoyable to play. I reached rank 2 this season, not trying too hard to ladder to legend with it. I’ve reached legend with the deck the last season, where I played Tempo Mage half of the way and Freeze from 5 to legend. There are countless pro players who not only enjoy playing the deck, they also use it when they need to have a high winrate to grind.

If you want to ladder from 20 – 5 quickly I can not recommend this deck since games take a very long time to play. Using it from 5 – Legend will definitely work though, since it maintains a high winrate. It is used in tournaments due to you being able to counterpick the opponent decks, and it’s a deck that can have a very, very high win-rate against some decks that lack healing.

Nowadays you can bluff the first couple of rounds when they don’t know if it’s Tempo or not, most don’t expect Freeze Mage. There’s one mayor problem though, when your opponents know they will tech in kezan-mystic and when you do, you automatically lose against them.

Asking the Pros

So, I was at Dreamhack Summer in Jönköping the previous weekend and there, I met a couple of pros such as Archon Purple, TempoStorm Gaara, Archon Amaz and TempoStorm Reynad. I asked them about their opinion on Freeze Mage, their answer was very different.

Question: What do you think about Freeze Mage in this meta?

Archon Amaz: “I think Freeze Mage is OK in this meta, as long as the Patron Warriors don’t run armor cards such as shield-block and shield-slam or Kezan-Mystic.”

TempoStorm Gaara: “I think Freeze Mage is borderline OP since it has a decent match-up against Patron Warrior and most don’t run Kezan-Mystics, but as soon as they start to run kezan-mystic it’s worthless.

Archon Purple: “It’s ok, not better than Tempo Mage”.

TempoStorm Reynad: “Sure, if you’re good with the deck you can play the deck, but as soon as they start running kezan-mystic you need to stop playing it.

They all answer almost the same thing, the deck is not bad in itself, kezan-mystic makes the deck bad. I run it in tournaments because I’m very comfortable with the deck and it’s definitely an OK deck if you want a deck to stay competitive a very long time, it’s been in the meta since Beta and will probably stay there until the end of the game itself.

Closing

So, that rounds up my guide, I hope you’ll enjoy using a solitaire deck to climb and pray to god that Warriors get nerfed the next patch. If you play enough in a season you can be certain that you’ll get a high ranking, as long as you’re skilled enough and you take enough time and effort to climb and may the mad-scientist secrets be ever in your favor.

Hope you enjoyed the guide and if you want to contact me on any social media feel free, I’ll paste them in the end of this guide.

Twitter: @WindUpRabbitHS

Youtube: WindUpRabbitHS (Will be uploading Freeze Mage at the start of the next season).

Reddit: Brawlers9901

Feel free to ask questions in the comment section and I’ll answer do my best to answer them!

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Author

justjimmy