Aggro Freeze Mage: Through Many Trials

Freeze Mage was presumed to be heavily weakened after the recent Hall of Fame transitions that pushed out Ice Lance and also the recent Standard rotation that took away Emperor Thaurissan from the deck. With much lower burst potential in the Classsic set we needed a lot of help from Journey To Un’goro and seemingly we got enough to keep the archetype alive. Though you cannot burst people down from almost full HP like you were able to, you have access to a lot of burn as well as board control to keep pressuring your opponent and close out the game.

Let’s head straight into the decklist take a look at the card choices in the deck and how to play the deck.

Card Choices

Mana Wyrm: One of the best early game minions in the entire game, Mana Wyrm left unchecked can snowball you to victory with heavy amounts of damage in the early game each turn. It is not only good for applying pressure against your opponents but it also trades favorably in many situations against aggressive decks and can go two-for-one if buffed up through cheap spells.

Arcanologist: It is one of the cards that helped keep the archetype alive. With Mad Scientist being one of the strongest additions to the deck in the past, being able to draw a secret to ensure you have your secrets up in time while also developing a 2/3 on board make the card a solid pick. While you do not have the ability to automatically play the secret you draw like Mad Scientist allowed you to, it is still a strong card nonetheless as it fishes out specific cards out of your deck.

Frostbolt: A basic burn spell with a frost effect attached that allows you to not only push for face damage and close out the game, but it can also serve as a stalling mechanism to keep your health total reasonably high as you draw tools to stabilize on board against big minions or weapons.

medivhs-valet: Removal/burn damage on a stick if you secret up! Ice Block is the best secret to make Medivh’s Valet work and since the secret does not get triggered until you take lethal damage, you have enough time to draw out the card and get value out of it.

Primordial Glyph: Being able to draw our removals or additional burn at discounted mana costs can give you a massive edge. Being able to play something like a Flamestrike as early as turn 4 to wipe out an aggressive board or getting that extra bit of burn to push more than 20 damage in one turn late in the game can make your plays unpredictable and there’s not much your opponent can do to play around it.

Arcane Intellect: Bread and butter card draw for Mages that efficiently draws you 2 cards for 3 mana. It helps you cycle through your deck quickly to find your removals and burn damage in time.

Counterspell: Teched in to counter quest decks for the most part but any high value spell that you block is good enough. Even if a deck like Quest Rogue or Quest Mage senses it’s a Counterspell, they might have to hold off from playing their Quest reward on a desired turn. If you do not get too much value out of the card you can replace it with a copy of a Ice Barrier.

Ice Block: A very annoying secret to get past and it buys you an extra turn even if your opponent triggers the secret. With Primordial Glyph you can also get more copies of the card and stall out the game until you get to your win condition.

Gluttonous Ooze: Gluttonous Ooze is a tech card to counter weapon decks in the current meta. It is marginally better than Acidic Swamp Ooze as it allows you to regain some health while also removign a weapon. If you do not have access to the card you can always replace it with Acidic Swamp Ooze without investing any dust for the card.

Kabal Courier: A very interesting inclusion in the deck that allows you to draw removals, card generation tools or even further burn to seal out the game.

Volcanic Potion: A very efficient early game AoE spell that can handily deal with aggressive decks. Since you do not have too much early game, Volcanic Potion’s effect of damaging your own minions is hardly a detriment to your deck.

Fireball: A very flexible burn spell that can also serve as removal in the mid game or lategame to take out high priority threats very easily. Ideally you want to save the card to follow up after Alexstrasza to burn down your opponent but do not hesitate when it comes to using it as a removal spell.

Polymorph: A hard removal spell that helps you take out sticky minions that your burn minions might not effectively be able to deal with. With plenty of fast decks in the current meta, we only run one copy of the card.

Meteor: A very powerful AoE spell that can take out big targets for just 6 mana and in emergency situations it can serve as a good AoE tool as well to deal 3 damage to 3 minions.

Firelands Portal: A great removal and burn spell that also generates tempo on board. It is a very good card to play after playing Medivh, The Guardian to generate multiple high value bodies on the board.

medivh-the-guardian: It is an alternate win condition that steps away from your burn damage win condition and allows you to establish substantial board presence with your high value cost spells. Anything that costs 6 or more is good enough to play once you have the weapon equipped.

Alexstrasza: It is one of your win conditions. Even though you have 38 burn damage in your deck, excluding draws that you might get from other cards, Alexstrasza is a good card to ensure you are able to burn through your opponent’s health pool even if they heal themselves back up after you chip down some of their health total.

Pyroblast: A finisher spell that can close out the game and it also works great with Medivh, The Guardian.

Gameplay

The goal of the deck is to cycle through your deck using your card draw and burn down your opponent slowly. You have access to more than 30 burn in the deck and you can generate further burn through pseudo card draw through cards like Primordial Glyph and Kabal Courier.

Against slower decks you can play Medivh, The Guardian and establish massive board presence through cards like Firelands Portal and other expensive AoE spells. Even if your opponent starts healing up you can use Alexstrasza to shut down their health pool. Against decks that run no healing at all you can save exactly 15 burst damage across the turns and follow up with damage after playing Alexstrasza. You can use up some part of your burn spells to control the board as you put together your win condition.

You have access to tech cards like Counterspell and Gluttonous Ooze which you can replace for other cards depending on what you are facing quite easily.

Conclusion

This is not a pure Aggro Mage or a Freeze Mage and it falls somewhere in between with an okay amount of early game as well as late game win conditions that can help you out against control decks. Hope you guys like the deck and be sure to leave a comment below if you have any queries regarding the deck. Full credit to Theo for this awesome deck (https://twitter.com/TheoHS_), he finished #13 last season with the deck which is quite impressive! He has

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