Quick Brews: Combo Mage (with Open the Waygate Quest)

Introduction

In the Quick Brews series, I’ll make a single pre-release deck for each class and talk a bit about it. However, since it’s impossible to tell how the new meta will look like, those might not be the best lists or they might not even work at all. And so, I don’t recommend crafting the cards Day 1 – you should probably wait and see how the meta turns out!

Last brew from the first batch is Combo Mage. This is an interesting deck – Freeze Mage is rotating out, but if you liked that deck, don’t worry – this one might be a great replacement.

Combo Mage

Maybe let’s first talk about how the deck works. You play a 2 turns combo that gets activated by your Quest. After you finish the Quest, you play it + 2x Arcane Giant one turn and then Alexstrasza your opponent next turn and hit face with the Giants. It’s a very powerful combo, which is rather hard to counter. It can be countered in two ways: first is Taunts (but you’d need multiple, because a single one can be cleared by Fireball or Polymorph on the Giant’s turn) and second one is Armor. It means that, for example, Taunt Warrior might be a deck you can’t possibly beat – not only he would gain Armor to neutralize your 2 turns combo, but the Taunts might stand in your way. But that’s not really too different than the previous Freeze Mage vs Control Warrior matchup.

Besides the combo, the deck basically consists of two things – tools to stall the game and tools to complete your Quest. First ones are removal and Freezes, second ones are card draw and random spells generators. I’ve figured out that in order to accomplish the Quest quite consistently, you need to be able to generate around 10 spells in total from your deck alone. Remember, however, that the real number will likely be higher, because you can get other random spells generators from the ones you play. E.g. Primordial Glyph can give you another copy of itself or Cabalist’s Tome. Same goes for the stall/removal. Even though the deck doesn’t seem to run THAT much removal, the real numbers will be relatively higher, as you have a solid chance to get such spells from outside of your deck.

The reason why I’ve decided to go with Shimmering Tempest over Babbling Book is the curve. You always have a t1 play, which is the Quest. And yes, you could play Book instead on t1 and play Quest before you play your generated spell. But that’s not always possible. Having to play the Quest might break your curve. You also miss the opportunity to get activation from turn 2 Glyph into Glyph (or Glyph into Frostbolt for example if you have a target right away). However, one thing I don’t like about Tempest is that it can get countered. It can be Silenced, Priest can snatch it etc. So if those thing will be played in the meta, Book is a better choice.

Meteor is a flex spot. I’ve figured out that it combines the best of 2 worlds – single target removal and AoE. But depending on how the meta will look like, a second Polymorph or a Flamestrike might be the better choices.

One more “random generator” option is Burgly Bully. I’ve seen people theorycrafting with the card. And while it might be a nice addition, it’s doesn’t guarantee even a single spell from outside of your deck. The thing about this deck is that you have no minion curve. You mostly small minions, you draw cards, you play removals etc. So most of the time you’d be de facto losing on the board. When you drop Burgly Bully when you’re losing on the board, it rarely gives you a Coin at all – your opponent will just trade it with minions given that he knows exactly what kind of deck you’re playing. In a “Freeze Mage”-like version of this deck, Burgly Bully is probably too weak. It might be better in some more Midrange’y version if that’s possible to build.

The card that people weren’t really talking about, but I think is insane in such a deck is Arcanologist. Since you play only Ice Blocks, it has 100% chance to give you one. It’s a great on-curve play, a 2/3 that draws you a card + it gives you a turn 3 play if you didn’t have one already. The card is really powerful in Control Mage lists. The only problem is drawing 2 Ice Blocks early, then the card is just a vanilla 2/3. But that’s a pretty unlikely scenario. I thought about adding one more Secret, e.g. Mana Bind to make it even less likely, but then it a) dilutes the Secret pool and doesn’t guarantee Ice Block (it’s the Secret you really want to have up every game) and b) Mana Bind might be too easy to counter. It’s still a meta call, if people will play slower, useful spells in the meta, I think that Mana Bind will be a good choice. But if the meta will be full of small Paladin buffs and e.g. Rogue’s playing Envenom Weapon and Counterfeit Coin, then it’s not really worth it.

One interesting thing is that against the decks that will counter it with Taunts, this build can try to go for something a bit different – more of a classic Freeze Mage win condition. If you can get some extra burn (on top of 2x Fireball and 2x Frostbolt you already run in the deck) you can go for the Alexstrasza + burn instead of the Giants combo.

Overall I think that it will be a very interesting deck. I’m not 100% sure if it will be powerful enough, because it’s a bit easier to counter than Freeze Mage (because multiple Taunt minions can counter it), but it looks really cool. It will probably be one of the first decks I try after the launch.

P.S. Obligatory “Time Warp” scene from The Rocky Horror Picture Show 😀

Closing

Thanks for reading! Remember that those are still prototypes and they will first need to be tested on the ladder and optimized. I will test most of those decks on the first days of the expansion and I will write full guides for the ones that will turn out to be working properly.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!