Tempo Mage Deck List Guide – Boomsday – August 2018

Our Tempo Mage deck list guide for The Boomsday Project expansion features one of the top lists for this archetype. This Secret Tempo Mage guide includes Mulligan Strategy, Gameplay Tips, Card Substitutions, and Combos/Synergies!

Introduction to Tempo Mage

Tempo Mage is one of the old Hearthstone archetypes, which was present through the game’s history in many different forms. Funnily enough, the current version looks similar to the ones that were played back in the day, even before Blackrock Mountain. That adventure has added Flamewaker to the game, which in turn made a Tempo Mage lists based around it + a bunch of cheap spells a thing. Later, after Flamewaker has already rotated out, Blizzard has been pushing Secret synergies for the Mage, which revived it again during Year of the Mammoth. However, since most of those Secret synergies have rotated out, the Raven version of Tempo Mage is going back to its roots – aggressive deck built around lots and lots of burn cards.

Check out a Budget Version of Elemental Tempo Mage, also check out our Wild Secret Mage Deck Guide!

Update – The Boomsday Project

We’ve listed a popular version of Tempo Mage below, we’ll be updating the guide soon!

Deck List

Deck Import

Tempo Mage Mulligan Strategy & Guide

The deck’s mulligan is pretty similar in every matchup, so I’m not going to divide it into two sections like I usually do.

High Priority (Keep every time)

  • Mana Wyrm – One of the best 1-drops (if not THE best 1-drop) in the game right now, 1/3 alone is good enough against Aggro decks, and the card can really snowball out of control very quickly.
  • Fire Fly – Not as good as Mana Wyrm, obviously, but having a 1-drop is quite important anyway. The 1/2 body is good at dealing with token-heavy decks with are common in the current meta.
  • Arcanologist – Best 2-drop in this deck – 2/3 for 2 are solid stats and it fetches you a Secret on top of that.
  • Sorcerer's Apprentice – While it’s worse than Arcanologist by itself, the deck runs lots of cheap spells, which have great combo with Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Low Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

Tempo Mage Win Rates

Winrate stats are currently unavailable for this deck at the moment!

Tempo Mage Play Strategy

Vs Aggro

When it comes to the Aggro matchups, curve is most important. You really want to hard-mulligan for your 1-drops and 2-drops – the reason is that you can’t fall behind in those matchups. Tempo Mage is not a very board-based deck. Without AoE spells, it might have hard time coming back into the game after another deck, such as Odd Paladin, takes over the board.

Luckily for you, most of the aggressive decks right now are token-based – they flood the board with small, 1-2 health minions, and for that reason, cards like Arcane Missiles or Cinderstorm can actually get you lots of value. Clearing a few minions is great, especially if you’re the one with board control already.

Given that your deck is very low on minions, at one point it will be impossible to keep the board control. You will need to switch your game plan to burn damage. If you had a good start, it means that you should have dealt at least some damage already. Then, if you still have minions on the board, try to protect them with the spells. If you don’t – go face with your spells as much as possible, clear only the highest priority minions (or use cards like Missiles/Cindestorm to clear). At this point, it’s the matter of whether you can kill your opponent before he kills you – it heavily depends on how much health he has, what cards you draw etc.

With Ice Block gone, you no longer have a way to stall the game for an extra turn – remember about that. However, Primordial Glyph can still give you a way to buy an extra turn, or even clear the board. Ice Barrier might prevent lethal and buy you a turn, same goes for Frost Nova. Getting a Blizzard or Flamestrike can just clear the board and buy you even more time. Picking AoE from Glyph is usually the right choice in the fast matchups.

Vs Control

Games vs Control are very different from games against Aggro. This time around, you don’t have to worry about board control. I mean, you still kind of do in the early game – e.g. if Frostbolt on their 2-drop might protect your Mana Wyrm or Apprentice, that’s great. But the general game plan is actually quite the opposite – you want to deal as much face damage as possible with your early game minions and then finish the game with burn spells.

Mana Wyrm is, again, the best card you can have in the early game. Lots of decks might not have a way to deal with a 1 mana 3 health minion, and it can snowball out of control very quickly. If you follow it with 3 cheap spells, it’s a 1 mana 4/3 already, with a potential to grow further. If your opponent won’t find an answer, it can carry the game by itself. However, other minions are also good – especially Kirin Tor Mage, which not only has a solid body for the mana cost, but gives you a lot of tempo by playing a Secret for free. The best case scenario is going second, opening with a Mana Wyrm into Coin + Kirin Tor + Counterspell. Not only you have two strong minions on the board (on Turn 2!), but your opponent can’t remove them with spells OR proc the Counterspell with Coin.

The general rule when it comes to play Secrets is that your opponent is on Coin, you prefer to play the Explosive Runes – he will check for Counterspell with the Coin most of the time anyway. Counterspell is better when your opponent starts with no Coin (or has used it already) and you have a solid board, preferably right before a board clear. Let’s say that you face Cube Warlock and you’re going into his Turn 4. He has no Coin. It’s a perfect time to set up a Counterspell, since he will now no longer be able to Hellfire the board away.

Unlike versus Aggro, when you play against a slower deck, Arcane Missiles and Cinderstorm aren’t used for the board control – they are very efficient burn cards when played on the empty board. Arcane Missiles deals 3 damage for 1 mana, while Cinderstorm deals 5 for 3. They get even better if you have either Mana Wyrm or Sorcerer’s Apprentice on the board. Because you want to use them as burn, ideally you want to play them before other burn cards – later in the game your opponent might have a board and they might not even hit him.

MVP of the slower matchups is definitely Aluneth. Thanks to this card, instead of drawing 1 per turn, you draw 4 per turn, meaning that you will never really run out of cards. After you use Aluneth, you no longer have to be efficient. Hero Power? What is that? You play as many cards as you can as quickly as you can. Try to not burn any cards, but don’t worry if you do – burning one or two is pretty common when you draw so many. After Aluneth, try to close out the game as quickly as possible – use your extra resources to burn your opponent. Remember that you have limited time – not only your opponent is most likely building a board of his own already (and you have no Ice Block to stall for an extra turn), but you will get to fatigue really quickly. Even if you play Aluneth on Turn 6, very early into the game, it will take only about 5 turns to hit fatigue, so you don’t have much time.

Pyroblast is used as a finisher – if you get to Turn 10, 10 damage will often be enough to kill your opponent. It’s not an optimal card, but it’s useful in slow matchups just because so much burn you previously had has rotated out (Medivh's ValetFirelands Portal).

Tempo Mage Card Substitutions

For the most part, Tempo Mage is a rather inexpensive deck. The deck still works quite well when played on the budget, but there are some cards that you might not have.

  • Bloodmage Thalnos – At this point most of the players have this card already (since it’s one of the Classic staples), but it’s not necessary in this list. It adds some extra burn damage and cycle, but for the most part, you can replace it with just about anything.
  • Aluneth – I’d say that this is one of the most important cards in this deck. Without it, you will lose lots and lots of matches, especially slower ones. You run out of cards very quickly, and you will often end up a turn or two short of killing your opponent. Aluneth gives you that extra steam you need to finish the game.
  • Primordial Glyph – Pretty good, flexible spell. It can give you whatever you need in the given situation – e.g. board clear vs Aggro or more burn vs Control. Still, not necessary for the deck to function.
  • Pyroblast – Good finisher in slow matchups, but pretty bad against Aggro anyway – not necessary.

And here are the cards you can replace them with:

  • Vex Crow – I’m still not sure about this card – it’s hard to say whether the Vex Crow version of the deck is better or worse. But it’s still a viable substitute OR you can just run it in your deck instead of a Lifedrinker. When playing Vex Crow, however, you probably want to add some more cheap spells to the deck.
  • 2nd Fire Fly – It will be helpful against Aggro decks, a higher chance to get 1-drop means a lower chance to fall behind in the early game.
  • Black Cat – Yes, in this deck, without the Odd synergy. It’s not optimal, but it gives you Spell Damage + it’s a 3-drop, and this deck suffers from the lack of 3-drops. Playing a Secret (without Kirin Tor) or Arcane Intellect is often a very weak Turn 3 play, and this way you could at least put a minion on the board.
  • Mirror ImageBreath of Sindragosa – Solid cheap spells, can be used to protect your early minions, especially Mana Wyrm. If you run the Vex Crow build, those can also be combo’d with it to get random 2 mana minions.
  • Arcane Explosion – Mostly a tech card vs Paladins. It’s not a great card, but if you face a board full of 1/1’s, you’re going to be glad that you have it. The downside is that it’s a bad card vs slower decks.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

297 Comments

Discuss This Deck
  1. Darkestyle
    August 8, 2018 at 2:34 PM

    How do you adapt this deck to the new expansion since un’goro is gone?

  2. TrungNguyen
    July 30, 2018 at 10:19 PM

    I love mage but this deck sucks!

  3. NerdyHiker
    July 22, 2018 at 8:07 AM

    I just got my hands on Leeroy.
    What would you replace for it?

    • EsciSpectre
      July 29, 2018 at 11:22 AM

      What cards are you missing?

      TBH, Leeroy isn’t a good fit in my opinion, while it’s true that this archetype does often struggle with a high tempo move on turn five, there are some very effective plays when you have the cards such as arcanologist/Kirin/secret, though having that play usually means they came in hand a turn or two later than optimal.

      Leeroy is typically used as a finisher in decks, and nearly all finishes with Tempo Mage come either very early with wyrm/apprentice/spell synergies, or later with pure burn reach often bypassing taunts.

      If I had to pick one card to swap it with it would be one of the 4 drops though.

  4. Spark
    July 20, 2018 at 11:35 PM

    Hi,
    I’ve just started playing hearthstone again after I first played years ago. Unfortunately I have no experience in how the economy, earning gold and dusting cards really work, so I dusted a whole lot of cards to build this deck. As I like playing it, I have a really hard time going up the ranks. I’m stuck at rank 18 for days now. Maybe it’s because of the lack of experience or that I don’t have Almuth since I cannot afford it. I see why the deck needs this card, so I wonder if there is any way to get this card faster then getrig stuck on ladder? I think it was pretty dumb to Dust nearly all of my collection but I had only a small percentage of the deck so I needed to craft a lot of them. Can some one please give me any advice on how I should go on from here? I’ve even considered switching to an elemental build, but that also would need some crafting which is just not possible given my dust count of 40 :(.
    Thanks guys and great article btw.

    • EsciSpectre
      July 29, 2018 at 12:03 PM

      I played the deck without Aluneth until somewhere between ranks 5-10, and even when I got it I didn’t really progress much faster. Is Aluneth all you are missing? It was my first month ever playing the game, so It took a while to understand the matchups and the makeups of opposing decks.

      The key things to learn are what removal spells can be played by your opponent and when, common taunts played (runes into tar creeper is nice, otherwise you are likely “wasting” a fireball on it), and also when to trade minion damage (or when to use spells on the minion(s) instead), and when to go face. This last point is highly matchup and situation dependent and takes lots of experience and skill to perfect.

      I also played a more aggro Vex Crow centered deck with cheaper spells like double Breath of Sindragosa and double mirror image with Antonidas instead of Aluneth, and I didn’t have pyroblast either. A very fun deck but high RNG and poor against a high druid meta (mainly because of plague).

      As far as getting value from your packs, keep in mind, you are guaranteed at least 1 legendary in your first ten packs of every set, so with all of your free packs you get just go through each set until you get a legendary then move on to the next set.

      I’ve typically gotten legendaries in the first 1-3 packs of each set for some reason. If you max out your daily gold which is around 50-100g for the daily quest, and up to 100g daily for wins (3 wins = 10 gold) you should get enough legendaries from the 4 newest sets pretty quickly that you could dust them for aluneth, or you could get lucky and get aluneth as your legendary from K&C). But I’d be careful about dusting just anything-I dusted everything for aluneth and had buyers remorse, because I didn’t see immediate payoff, and I had no cards to play any other archetype or class.

  5. Svadloun
    June 30, 2018 at 11:57 PM

    It lists fire fly as a mulligan priority and it is not in the deck list, ha ha. Apart of that very goood guide in my opinion.

  6. Truth
    May 27, 2018 at 11:27 PM

    THe worst deck i’ve ever played 7 times lost in row at rank 7

    • adgibson78
      June 17, 2018 at 6:22 PM

      Currently I have a 71% win rate with around 60 plays on this deck at rank 5 standard. Drawing Aluneth is nearly 100% winrate if they don’t have weapon removal, and the deck can beat most aggro decks even without Aluneth. Maybe it’s just not your play style?

  7. MightyFart
    May 16, 2018 at 5:26 PM

    Do you Stream or have a YouTube Channel, Stonekeep?

  8. Dusk
    May 14, 2018 at 5:30 AM

    Tempo mage, more like un-fun mage. Anyone who mains this deserves all the BMs they get. Stomping this deck is always so satisfying.

    • João
      May 16, 2018 at 10:09 AM

      BabyRage BabyRage

    • andrew
      May 20, 2018 at 6:27 PM

      “tempo mage, more like un-fun mage”
      SPEECH 100

  9. slim
    May 9, 2018 at 4:39 PM

    This deck is absolute garbage. I can’t even get out of rank 20 with it.

    • Brandon975
      May 12, 2018 at 12:42 PM

      And how you know that is this for the deck and not for you?

      • slim
        May 12, 2018 at 3:13 PM

        Because I played Secret Mage almost exclusively last season, and got to rank 10.

        The loss of Kabal Crystal Runner basically killed this deck. It has almost no board presence now, and relies way too much on spells. It gets countered HARD by odd and even aggro decks.

        Maybe there’s a viable Secret Mage deck out there, but this one isn’t it.

        • Steven
          May 13, 2018 at 1:22 AM

          You got to rank 10 at last season. How can you drop to rank 20 at this season? I think the lowest rank you can drop is rank 15.

          • slim
            May 13, 2018 at 12:48 PM

            You’re right, sorry. I hardly played last season (April) and dropped after that. I was rank 10 the season before that, in March.

    • KzK
      May 14, 2018 at 3:45 PM

      I just started playing hearthstone about 3 weeks ago and i think this deck is really satisfying as a newer player.

      I was previously playing a more mid range elemental deck and was stuck at rank 15 for a few days. Once i switched over to this deck I ran up the ladder to 5 in one day. Mostly stuck in the 4-5 range for a few days now but its mostly cause of my poor decision making and learning what to plan for against opposing decks.

      I put a couple of tweaks for my current deck, dropping fire fly and bloodmage for a ploymorph and berserker? (the 2 drop 2/3 that gets +3 atk when damaged). Might try testing playing around with putting an acidic worm for a weapon break and/or that 4 drop 4/3 silence dude instead of ploymorph just to give a few tech oriented options as well.

  10. Themistokles
    May 9, 2018 at 3:16 AM

    took out the firefly added leroy… so many sneaky lethals with molten reflection

  11. whitekatana
    April 28, 2018 at 10:43 AM

    I had to remove an Arcane Intellect for a Flamestrike.. Paladin is just too much right now and either way once you Aluneth your Arcane Intellect becomes a waste and it’s just not optimal you should only use this card if you have Sorcerer’s Apprentice in my opinion I’m stuck at rank 12

    • TrungNguyen
      July 18, 2018 at 12:54 AM

      Me 2! I got stuck at rank 12 with tempo mage but after playing heal zoolock, I got to rank 3!

  12. KingKong#11400
    April 27, 2018 at 6:37 AM

    Got from rank 3 to legend with only 3 losses with this deck. Is very strong right now because it beats paladin and cubelock.

  13. Kuahara
    April 20, 2018 at 9:56 PM

    Had most of the cards in this build. Built it exactly as shown and replaced the missing ones with the idea behind the suggested card. Won more games tonight than I’ve won in the last few weeks combined. Love this. Thanks 🙂

  14. Mars
    April 19, 2018 at 9:05 AM

    although I havn’t used this deck to climb ladder with, I have used it in friendly matches. took out the lifedrinkers, firefly, and second copy of AI. added: 2x secret keepers, 2x mirror entity… run-away games are very possible! When the cards line up, the ‘tempo’ you can build up, makes for an aggressive game. -if they don’t deal with your board things can get out of hand quick.

    consideration: ?take out pyroblast and throw in a’tony -seems reckless, but the amount of cheap spells in deck you can usually generate at least 1 fireball, plus his stat line alone makes him a soft taunt… you usually going to be in the drivers seat anyways, if not then you’ve ether already lost, or an extra fireball would be all that you need to close out the game.

    opinion: I think this deck is very much a paper, scissors, rock type.. in that CERTAIN, SPECIFIC DECKS, no matter what you do or how you do it, this deck won’t beat it (it’ll come down to the other deck/player, playing poorly, bad draws, etc.).. where as a whole, this deck performs quite well, in a straight forward, uncomplicated fashion. -this deck doesn’t require a ‘high skill cap’ to pilot well.

    “a fun and entertaining deck, with some polarizing match ups”

    ~Mars

    • Mars
      April 19, 2018 at 9:08 AM

      ### Witchwood
      # Class: Mage
      # Format: Standard
      # Year of the Raven
      #
      # 2x (1) Arcane Missiles
      # 2x (1) Mana Wyrm
      # 2x (1) Secretkeeper
      # 2x (2) Arcanologist
      # 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
      # 2x (2) Frostbolt
      # 2x (2) Primordial Glyph
      # 2x (2) Sorcerer’s Apprentice
      # 1x (3) Arcane Intellect
      # 2x (3) Cinderstorm
      # 2x (3) Counterspell
      # 2x (3) Explosive Runes
      # 2x (3) Kirin Tor Mage
      # 2x (3) Mirror Entity
      # 2x (4) Fireball
      # 1x (6) Aluneth
      # 1x (10) Pyroblast
      #
      AAECAf0EBKsE7QW/CKLTAg1xngHDAbsClQO0BOYElgXsBcHBApjEAo/TAvvsAgA=
      #
      # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

    • Mars
      April 19, 2018 at 9:11 AM

      another alternative:

      ### Witchwood
      # Class: Mage
      # Format: Standard
      # Year of the Raven
      #
      # 2x (1) Mana Wyrm
      # 2x (1) Mirror Image
      # 2x (1) Secretkeeper
      # 2x (2) Arcanologist
      # 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
      # 2x (2) Frostbolt
      # 2x (2) Primordial Glyph
      # 2x (2) Sorcerer’s Apprentice
      # 1x (3) Arcane Intellect
      # 2x (3) Cinderstorm
      # 2x (3) Counterspell
      # 2x (3) Explosive Runes
      # 2x (3) Kirin Tor Mage
      # 2x (3) Mirror Entity
      # 2x (4) Fireball
      # 1x (6) Aluneth
      # 1x (7) Archmage Antonidas
      #
      AAECAf0EBKsE7QW4CKLTAg1xngHDAbsClQPmBJYF7AW8CMHBApjEAo/TAvvsAgA=
      #
      # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

  15. Mzlich
    April 18, 2018 at 9:59 AM

    you guys shared a deck without guide at first and now you shared another one..I think first one was better..cheap spells+crow/archmage was better than this..I’ve won many games with those combos and oh this doesn’t include kirin tor crap which makes secrets cost 0? This deck completely sucks… this deck doesn’t follow a real strategy while past one had..this one looks you just combined some random cards..

    • Mzlich
      April 18, 2018 at 10:01 AM

      Note:sorry about kirin tor crap,I didn’t see it at first

      • Goshu
        April 25, 2018 at 2:15 PM

        Vex crow to pop auspice is the best combo of the other list

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      April 18, 2018 at 3:10 PM

      This is a highest win rate popular Tempo Mage build right now. We don’t just put in random decks because we feel like it. We analyze many different builds and include the ones that perform best (we tend to ignore builds that were played by literally a single player, because the results are usually skewed).

      Vex Crow might look powerful, but the card is just too slow in this deck. Sure, it’s good vs Control decks, but against Aggro you just can’t wait until Turn 6-7 to start comboing it with stuff, and you can’t drop it on Turn 4, because it’s just a 3/3 that will simply die. It’s still an option, but builds that run it have 1-2% lower win rate than this build.

      The deck list will change very often, since the meta is not stable yet. Maybe five days from now it will again look completely different.

  16. Flow
    April 17, 2018 at 10:53 AM

    I’ve been playing this deck with 2 alterations.

    I’ve taken out 1x Arcane Intellect and Archmage Antonidas.

    I have replaced them with 2x Mana Addict.

    The Mana Addicts add more options early game, and trust me, you’ll get some awesome early combo damage with these, just don’t go looking for it too much. They also add a nice 2-drop if you don’t have Arcanologist/Apprentice early game.

    Going second, things like Turn 1 Wyrm, Turn 2 Addict, Turn 3 Coin+2 Spells can seriously put decks on the back foot.

    I’m at Rank 5 currently, not been playing that much ranked though yet (started at 6).

    • Iome
      April 18, 2018 at 12:38 AM

      I’m using Curio Collector instead of Antonidas. Great combo with Aluneth and Arcane intelectual.

      Will try Mana addict, it sounds really good :).

  17. Teague
    April 14, 2018 at 7:13 PM

    This deck is far worse with the Vex crow package than without, this list has been working alot better for me as mage.

    AAECAf0EAr8IotMCDnG7ApUDvwOrBLQE5gSWBewFwcECmMQCj9MC++wCvfoCAA==

    • Tinchox
      April 14, 2018 at 8:42 PM

      whats the main difference between yours and the one from the post ?

      im noob, so be gentle plz.

      • Teague
        April 14, 2018 at 9:44 PM

        Hi, no problem if you’re new, the Tempo mage list that is here on the website uses Vex crow as one of its main ways to win, and really depends on it to help build the board. To do this u have to maintain the board until turn 5 in which you can play Crow and a spell. But by the time turn 5 comes, against most decks currently it is too late and you wont have enough time to recover regardless of how many two drops Vex Crow creates. The list I’m using in high legend rn is the one I posted and its far more consistent and fares much better against many of the decks being played rn, mostly because of the inclusion of Black cat for spell damage to boost the many cheap spells in the deck, arcane explosion being one that wins me many games, dealing 1/2 to the whole board is actually really powerful with the large amount of paladin and hunters. By dropping the spells they run for more flexible spells like cinderstorm, which can be used to deal 5 to the board to help maintain it, or used as damage to the opponent.

        Sorry for long reply I just took my Adderall lol. You can add me if u want I’m on hearthstone quite a lot RiSEn#1871

        • Ultimatecookie82
          April 15, 2018 at 10:10 AM

          Hi. Can you explain to me how you play your deck. imma try yours cause the one on this page is absolutely trash.

    • vuka94
      April 15, 2018 at 11:55 AM

      I will try this one 🙂

    • Devinat1
      April 16, 2018 at 7:32 PM

      Thanks very much for this deck Teague! I have one 7 games in a row getting me from rank 15 to 12 after just starting to play it.
      It would be great if you could post a tutorial on how to use your version of your deck since it seems very promising.

      For this deck, should you keep the blackcat or arcane explosion in your hand?

      Why not include archmage antonidis? I have this legendary so it would be great if it could be put into use but I’m not sure if it would be to the deck’s determent.

    • mattthr
      April 17, 2018 at 6:05 AM

      This is the list I’ve been running most since the expansion dropped and I’m inclined to agree with you. However, I’ve tried replacing the crows with one Cinderstorm and one Mirror Entity. With just three Secrets and so much card draw, I sometimes found I’d run out of secrets before getting the Arcanologists. Mirror Entity is a nasty surprise for players who are expecting just the Runes and the Counterspell.

      I’ve kept Pyroblast, but I’m not sold on that, either. Antonidas plus a couple of cheap spells is your win condition, not a single ten-damage blowout. Another Cinderstorm might go better.

    • vuka94
      April 17, 2018 at 9:14 AM

      Ok bro, deck is full tested now. Good deck, if u read this commend use this deck instead of one in guide since guide is not good right now to be honest. In current meta u will run on lot of ,,upgrade power,, agro hunter and paladin so focus on arcane explosion + black cat a lot. Aslo u will need other cheap spells, try to control board and wait for pyroblast to close the game. Use alluneth only if u must! It will drain u to fatigue real quick so I allways consider playing some other way until I’m cornered. Good luck dear Mage players. Sry for bad eng

  18. Goshi
    April 14, 2018 at 1:33 PM

    There are 3 things that im missin – archmage and the glyphs. There is no way that im crafting archmage but i was wondering if its worth crafting the glyphs (or even 1 of them) im asking bcs i think that after the rotation of ice block, mage might will be a little bit weaker so nobody gonna see any potential in it (i kno that a sigle card doesnt make the deck but…its the freaking ice block)

    • Window Sill
      April 18, 2018 at 9:03 AM

      Well, unfortunately those are core cards, and this deck wouldn’t even be tier 2 without them.

  19. TrungNguyen
    April 14, 2018 at 12:53 AM

    I don’t understand! What am I doing wrong? I’m literally stuck at rank 19 with this deck! I lose so much! The only card that i don’t have is antonidas! Help me, please!

    • Pancake
      April 14, 2018 at 2:16 PM

      Briefly: play minions on curve and fight for board till turn 5 then close eyes and push every spell in face… Depending if you are playing against control or tempo decks…

    • Rainheart
      April 14, 2018 at 9:16 PM

      That Antonidas is the core card. You need him to generate as many Fireball as possible. Use those Fireball and Pyroblast to finish the game fast.

  20. TrungNguyen
    April 13, 2018 at 8:41 PM

    I have enough dust to craft 1 legendary! Which one should i craft? Antonidas or Anuleth

    • Thorkild Kappel
      April 14, 2018 at 5:05 AM

      in my opinion I think you should craft aluneth because when you have no more cards and it often happens with this deck, you are no more stuck if you draw aluneth. antonidas is also very good but I still think aluneth is a key to winning with this deck

    • buky
      April 14, 2018 at 10:08 AM

      Anuleth

    • Smur
      April 16, 2018 at 9:11 AM

      aluneth no brainer

  21. MisterFrost
    April 13, 2018 at 12:14 PM

    As of 13th of April, I took this deck from Rank 18 to Rank 5 with only one loss. The RNG is so strong, I snowballed everything: from Dude Paladins to Cubelocks. It definitely needs some refining, which I am working on at the moment, but the idea of using cheap spells to fuel Vex Crow against aggro/midrange decks or keep them against slow/control decks to get Fireballs off Uncle Tony is wicked.

  22. Duddledin
    April 13, 2018 at 10:16 AM

    Vex Crow is strong, and fun! And it will only get better with upcoming expansions 🙂

  23. DestinyXXX
    April 5, 2018 at 12:45 AM

    The deck is brainless to play and simply disgusting. Shame on everyone who plays it; it just ruins the meta and the game for others.

    • MilesTegF
      April 5, 2018 at 11:58 AM

      Not really, i have played both using it and against it and it can totally be beated by many other decks.

      If you get a very lucky draw, this deck is amazingly strong, but just as well u can get a bad draw and for example, get a lot of secrets and no minions that uses secrets, or get a lot of minions and no secrets. or you can get no aluneth/arcane intellect and be against a control deck (you get great turns 1-5 and then run out of cards and terrible turns from that point until you die). Also, no other deck suffers as much as this one from a destroy weapon play from your oponent.

      Last season i prefered ranking with spiteful priest. Its a lot more consistent and less draw dependant (even tho can sometimes have a similar problem to this deck if you dont draw any dragons)

      • DestinyXXX
        April 5, 2018 at 5:02 PM

        I didn’t say that’s strong. I said that’s disgusting to play against. I perfectly know that Paladin wrecks it and sometimes you can lose even against cubelock if some weird things happen (cube on the mistress, early skull, etc.).

        • DestinyXXX
          April 5, 2018 at 5:03 PM

          I’d never play it too, of course.

        • CthuluSaurusRex
          June 2, 2018 at 7:48 AM

          Hi, I’m new and I’m curious about why you think this is disgusting to play against. I’ve been thinking about building a budget version, and I don’t see why you are so upset with the deck. As far as I can tell, it seems fair and interesting, so what am I missing?

          • DestinyXXX
            June 2, 2018 at 5:06 PM

            After KOFT (before the rotation) I played only Raza, Fatigue DMH Warrior, Jade and Cube (when KnC was released). Play those decks and you’ll understand why I think Secret Mage was disgusting (it still is nowadays) both to play and to play against (jade druid was the only deck with a positive winrate vs secret mage).

        • CthuluSaurusRex
          June 9, 2018 at 6:00 PM

          So is it just that it’s powerful, or are you also upset that it shuts down games because the other player can’t do anything. If it’s the second one, then why are other control decks fine?

      • Beaten
        April 16, 2018 at 9:11 AM

        Beaten

    • Chukky1123
      April 14, 2018 at 5:55 AM

      OTK are disgusting no strategy just wait wait wait wait … pew pew … done … ye

    • Venderhill
      April 16, 2018 at 5:34 PM

      Why are you here?

  24. Miro741
    March 20, 2018 at 12:41 AM

    I cannot figure out how to play with this deck against Big Priest. I lose almost 100% on rank 7. Thanks for advice.

    • GlosuuLang
      March 28, 2018 at 6:09 AM

      If the Big Priest plays Barnes on 3/4 and gets an Obsidian Statue, it’s basically game over for you, unless you can Primordial Glyph into a Polymorph. The Obsidian Statue constantly being revived kills your minions and heals the Priest, so you won’t have enough burn to kill him. This scenario should only be like 20% of the time you face Big Priest, though. If he doesn’t have Barnes, you should deal enough damage to have lethal before Turn 6, because then he will drop a Shadow Essence. You can also kill at Turn 7 with burn spells. Alternatively set a Counterspell on Turn 5 so Shadow Essence will get countered. If Barnes rolls into Ysera, ignore the minions and go face.

  25. Taylor Olson
    March 11, 2018 at 8:06 PM

    Do you guys think there is ever a time when you can play aluneth but shouldn’t? If you already have some good cards to play when aluneth is in ur hand should you play aluneth or something else first?

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      March 19, 2018 at 5:16 AM

      It heavily depends on the matchup and situation, but there are definitely many times when you have Aluneth but shouldn’t play it.

      One of those situations is when you have a strong tempo turn – e.g. you can do something like Kirin Tor Mage + Counterspell + Kabal Crystal Runner. It puts 9 attack on the board and Counterspell, which makes it very hard for your opponent to AoE that board down. Keeping up the tempo and aggression is often more necessary than getting that card draw going.

      Also, when you’re playing against another fast deck, and you stare at something you really need to clear (e.g. Murloc Warleader vs Murloc Paladin) – then playing Aluneth and just dying is not really a good play.

      Overall, you want to play Aluneth as soon as you can, but not if you a) can make a really strong tempo turn and b) you absolutely have to clear something on the board and you won’t be able to if you play Aluneth.

      It’s really on a case-to-case basis, but I probably skip playing Aluneth around 1/3 of time I can play it. Remember that playing it is a big tempo loss immediately, even though you catch up pretty quickly, you still might be giving your opponent an opening you don’t want to give.

      • Taylor Olson
        April 10, 2018 at 10:09 AM

        ok that makes sense thx, too bad this deck will be gone soon

  26. Sven
    March 9, 2018 at 5:43 AM

    Haha my score is like 2wins-8loses on rank 19 xD

    • Taylor
      March 11, 2018 at 8:04 PM

      Read the guide, do what is says and play smart and you can get to legend with this deck. Your losses are probably not the decks fault.

      • ZableFahr
        March 12, 2018 at 6:04 AM

        Agree. Reached Legend with it today (went from 6 in one session with 28w-3l, tho I was VERY lucky with insane draws and great match ups; henceforth I climb to Legend every season) this Deck is too strong currently, and as soon as Ice Block will be moved to the Hall of Fame I guarantee that it will be replaced with Ice Barrier and/or Mirror Entity and the winrate will only drop down a very Little bit.

        • Apolliis
          March 18, 2018 at 2:53 AM

          Yes, but whenthat happens it loses valet, and the kabak dude. Basically neutering its burn and one mana tempo. I doubt there will be the same success in witchwood.

  27. Taylor Olson
    March 5, 2018 at 5:31 PM

    Why does it seem that weapon removal tech cards are overlooked by everyone? Weapons show up 12 times in the top 6 meta decks. Cubelock has Skull of the Man’ari, the paladinshave rallying blade, unidentified maul and vinecleaver, hunter has Rhok’delar, candleshot and eaglehorn bow. With this in mind should i be using a Harrison jones or an acidic swamp ooze? Also what is the reason for the lack of weapon removal? It seems like a big oversight.

    • Taylor Olson
      March 5, 2018 at 7:16 PM

      lol somehow forgot to mention Aluneth. That makes 13 weapons in the top 6 decks.

    • Macaroon
      March 9, 2018 at 3:25 PM

      It’s left out because you’re trying to burn/tempo your opponent and you usually don’t care about weapons, they slow the game down too much for how aggressive this deck is. Also the warlock one isn’t that big of a deal since you finish your opponent with spells rather than weapon so voidlords won’t be game ending. It might be decent to run a silence though.

  28. Patrik
    February 28, 2018 at 10:21 AM

    Why dont nerf this shit ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I deleted my secret mage 1 year ago cause that was too easy and strong .. and noo they dont change it to something good and balanced .. just go and kill the game with this shit … 75 % win rate???? Where are the developers????

    • Patrik
      February 28, 2018 at 10:39 AM

      One more thing : everybody knows every card of this lame deck and every move but only can beat that if you have ultra luck … I think this is a really wrong way ….

    • Taylor Olson
      March 5, 2018 at 8:36 PM

      Look at winrates man, this is strong but not op.

  29. Heinkel
    February 28, 2018 at 8:06 AM

    This incarnate all that’s wrong with this game.
    I hope will be destroyed soon cause is ruining gaming experience. Is pretty stupid, go face with all your direct damage and put opponent to 0. The fuck is that?! Strategy?
    Prove me wrong. Prove me that is a strategic deck.

    • Ghost
      March 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM

      This deck is beatable lol I am 2-0 against it with Cubelock. Calm down.