by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

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[DKMR]Kisstafer here to bring you the deck of the week. The deck we showcase this week is a mage deck crafted by [MG]Realz. This week we’re going to go over Freeze Mage which used to be the most dominant deck in the game, but fell out of favor since Pyroblast & freeze spells were nerfed. Though a shadow of it’s former self, freeze mage actually has good matchups against many of the decks that are currently popular in the metagame, namely; Miracle rogue, Handlock, and Zoo. The major weakness of freeze mage is the fact that is reliant on drawing key spells at the right time, such as blizzard, flamestrike, or ice block.

Additionally, many of it’s spells have heavy mana costs such as Pyroblast, making it difficult to get it out of the Mage’s hand. It can also be countered by including many healing spells, but those are not common in the current metagame. The deck relies on being passive at the start, removing threats and stalling the game out by using the freeze mechanic.

Come late game, this deck sets up ice block and then spends all of it’s remaining mana throwing fireballs and frost bolts at the opposing players face until someone dies. Now we will go over the cards in the deck and why they’re in there.

The Deck

2x Ice Lance: This card is the softener, it’s low enough mana cost that you can play frostbolt + double ice lance to deal a lot of damage in the same turn you cast ice block, so that you can finish them with the 10 mana pyroblast the turn after.

2x Mirror Image: This card is in the deck to preserve HP on early turns and on turns where they may not have enough minions out to make a full on freeze spell worth it.

1x Shieldbearer: Shieldbearer is similar to Mirror Images, it’s here to add extra life-protecting decoys for low mana. Part of the problem of the deck is having too many cards and not enough mana to play them all, being able to protect your life for such a small mana investment is strong.

2x Frostbolt: This card is your early-game single target removal and also counts as extra burn to their face in the late game. Try to save at least one to use on their face with ice lance!

1x Bloodmage Thalnos: This guy does everything. They have to waste mana or damage killing him which protects HP and slows the opponent down, he cycles a card which helps draw into key spells (ice block), and he boosts the damage of all the spells.

2x Doomsayer: Doomsayer combos extremely well with the freeze mechanic, often allowing a mage to clear an entire board by dropping him at the same time as they use freeze. He can also be used early on as a board wipe when the opponent only has 1 or two minions out and can’t come up with the damage needed to kill him. He also has the ability to skip the enemies entire turn if you drop him on an empty board, they simply won’t play their minions which buys you an extra mana crystal on it’s own for only 2 mana.

2x Arcane Intellect: This card is in the deck because it relies on drawing certain cards like ice block, so having the draw power helps make it more consistent.

2x Frost Nova: This card is your primary stall card, for 3 mana you can save a lot of HP by preventing all of their minions from attacking for a turn. It frees up the rest of your mana to set up an ice block; prepare to spend the rest of the game using burn spells on your opponent’s face. It can also be used to set up a value flamestrike.

2x Ice Barrier: This card is in the deck to fill a similar function to mirror images and shield bearer, it’s a way to protect life totals while the enemy has a small number of attackers on the field that doesn’t warrant a precious freeze spell.

2x Ice Block: This is the card that lets the mage kill the opponent. It allows the mage to ignore any creatures on the board. By being invulnerable to death, it let’s the mage spend all of their last couple turns worth of mana focused solely on killing the opponent without having to worry about dying.

1x Coldlight Oracle: This guy’s in the deck to allow the mage to draw into his key spells, and it happens a lot where the extra draws your opponent sees don’t matter that much because the mage can keep his board frozen or utilize flamestrike. The same rules of card advantage don’t apply to this deck.

2x Fireball: This is your heavy hitting damage spell, try as best you can to save this for using on the opponents face instead of their minions unless you have no other option.

1x Polymorph: This is in the deck so that if your opponent has a large creature that you would have to spend a lot of resources freezing every turn you can just polymorph it and forget about it; this is key for ragnaros who deals damage despite being frozen.

2x Azure Drake: This sets up a board presence that slows the opponent down without sacrificing the mage’s hand size, they have to sacrifice 4 damage to kill it that could have been used on your face. Also, against even slower decks it allows the mage to take an offensive stance, especially if mage can freeze their minions while using a drake to hit their face.

2x Blizzard: This is the mage’s main freeze spell, it can clear the board against aggro decks and it buffers minions’ HP so they all get cleaned up by flamestrike. It is really good at buying an extra turn while taking very little damage. It is so good in this deck because freeze mage is limited by the amount of mana they have, so freezing their board essentially buys an extra mana crystal as long as they can’t burst you down.

1x Flamestrike: This is the hammer that you drop on the opponent’s board after continuously freezing their minions all game, killing them all in one decisive blow and setting up for the turn 8-10 offensive posture.

1x Archmage Antonidas: Similar to Azure Drake, Antonidas is a threat that must be responded to, so opponents have to spend 7 damage or a significant amount of mana killing him which slows them down a lot. If you draw a fireball or two off of him you seal your ability to finish opponents with ease, as long as you can stay alive.

1x Alexztrasza: Alexztrasza helps a lot when facing decks that run healing and decks that you have to spend all game on the back foot in a defensive posture, because she cut’s them to 15 and then has to be dealt with as well. She is extremely strong when played behind an ice block, because the following turn you can then fireball them + ice block again and then set up for a pyroblast finish. In some cases she can even be used to heal yourself back to 15 if you can clear their board but run out of ice blocks.

1x Pyroblast: Since being nerfed to 10 mana it is only feasible to have enough HP to get off one good pyroblast in a match, but at 10 damage it is an excellent game ender. It works extremely well when coupled with Alextrasza or Ice Block.

Mulligans

With this deck you want to search for card draw like Arcane Intellect and for your life-preserving cards like Mirror Images and Ice Barrier to play early on while drawing into all of your mid game stalling power. Against fast decks you really want cards like doomsayer + frost nova combos, blizzard, frost bolt, Mirror images/shieldbearer, and Ice Barrier to stall the game and preserve your HP. Against slower decks you just want your card draw and late game cards that are ‘must-draws’ like Azure Drake, Alextrasza, and Ice block.

The Game Plan

The game plan with this deck is pretty simple. You want to stall with freeze and life gain spells + set up Ice Block and then burn them down with all your damage spells. You want to “buy” yourself extra mana crystals by using cards like Mirror Images and Ice barrier and freeze spells that let you stay alive long enough to see extra turns. Once you have the ice block set up, and a lot of mana at your disposal, the game becomes extremely easy to end because you can cast almost all your damage spells in the same turn and burst them down from very high life totals.

If you have ice block up going in to turn 10, that means you have 20 mana to spend (2 turns) on pure burn without the fear of dying. With even a mediocre hand a mage can come up with 30 damage with 20 mana pretty easily. This deck is limited by the amount of mana it has more than the cards in it’s hand, so normal rules of card advantage don’t apply making it a very unique deck to play. You could be losing all game long, but if you get the Ice Block set up and have enough burn to kill them, all of their minions and advantages don’t actually matter because at the end of the game they are the one who died first. The hard part of this deck is knowing which cards to use in order to stall for the absolute longest time possible without dying, while still being able to kill them in the end.

Alternate card choices

1x Acolyte of Pain: This card can be used instead of Coldlight Oracle if there are decks that you don’t want to give free draws to, like burn Hunter, miracle Rogue or combo Druid.

1x Loot Hoarder: This card can be used instead of Shield Bearer, if he is played early on loot hoarder has the potential to slow down the incoming damage just as much with the benefit of having the much needed card draw. The downside of adding him is he can be a much worse draw late game, not having the valuable taunt mechanic.

1x Cone of Cold: This card can be subbed in for Polymorph if the metagame doesn’t use many big creatures; it adds another answer for several small minions and adds more stall to the deck, making it easier to reach the late game.

Final Thoughts

This is a strange deck that bypasses normal gameplay rules that apply to other decks and we recommend you try it out!
Create the deck on Hearthstats.net and then keep track of your wins and losses. Be sure to try it in a tournament as well! Let us know how you’re doing with it.

[DKMR]Kisstafer streams weekdays http://www.twitch.tv/kisstafer. You can find all of DKMR’s streamers on their website with the days that they stream!

Written by [DKMR]Kisstafer

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