Spell schools were introduced to Hearthstone in Forged in the Barrens, but these tribes for spells were not used in any significant fashion during the expansion. Sure, a couple of new cards referenced spell schools, like Lady Anacondra, Bru'kan, and Tamsin Roame, but none of them caused meaningful choices to be made for the decks they were in.
Warlock used the exact same removal package whether Tamsin Roame was included or not. Shaman used the same damage spells with or without Bru'kan. Lady Anacondra had a deck built around her, but there were hardly any spell choices that depended on having that Nature tag as most Druid spells have it anyway.
There is one major obstacle for spell schools to become relevant in Hearthstone, especially in Standard format: there just aren’t that many spells available for each class! If we wanted to go for the Fire Mage, Frost Mage, and Arcane Mage fantasy, like in World of Warcraft, Mage would need a good chunk of additional spells, especially for each fresh rotation. Forged in the Barrens actually included some support for Frost Mage, but it was so meager that building an actual deck around it was simply impossible.
Despite this problem with spell school diversity, Hearthstone is now promoting spell schools a little more in United in Stormwind. We already covered Shadow Priest in another article, although it is an archetype that already existed well before spell schools, and adding the Shadow tag to its relevant spells is a minor nuance. Demon Hunter is getting its share of Fel magic with Jace Darkweaver as a build-around card. Mage is also getting their first actually buildable spell school archetype with Fire Mage being promoted with all United in Stormwind Mage spells being Fire spells and multiple minions having Fire spell synergies as well.
Fel Demon Hunter
Is Fel Demon Hunter even really a spell school archetype? Sure, Jace Darkweaver only recasts your Fel spells, but most attempts to build a Fel Demon Hunter will incorporate other spells and packages as well.
Not that there are lots of schools to choose from as a Demon Hunter, anyway. Out of the 32 spells that Demon Hunter has in Standard, 12 are Fel spells, 5 are Shadow spells, and 15 do not belong to any spell school. Unlike in World of Warcraft, where all magic has a type, most spells in Hearthstone are just chilling there with no affiliation.
Building around the Fel synergies can actually change the way Demon Hunter functions, at least to an extent. While building a deck around Jace Darkweaver, I even had to question whether I want Illidari Inquisitor in the deck or whether I use Taelan Fordring to always tutor for Jace Darkweaver. That does seem like an impossible dilemma given how strong the green devil is!
Another question when building a Fel Demon Hunter is what else do you put in the deck. The Fel spells give you some attack, some card draw, and some removal with Lifesteal, but they are hardly decisive on their own. They can get you over the finish line if you’re already close to it, but you need something more to get in reach. You can try to build the deck with Il'gynoth to make use of the Lifesteal effects, or you can build a midrange core with the likes of Battlefiend and Felfire Deadeye, or you can go for the trusty Deathrattle package, much like the current Hybrid OTK Demon Hunter that combines the Deathrattle early game with the Lifesteal OTK finisher. In the case of Fel, the finisher is Jace Darkweaver.
Here’s my attempt to build the Fel Demon Hunter deck with the Deathrattle early game:
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The Fel package is just a part of the deck and not necessarily the most important part, even. The deck brings the Fel spell school alive in Hearthstone to an extent, but Fel is still hardly the full identity of the deck.
Fire Mage
Mage is in a different position than Demon Hunter, one where the lore from World of Warcraft and the spell categorization in Hearthstone give the class more leeway to truly specialize in various forms of magic: out of the 38 Mage spells in Standard, 9 are Fire spells, 8 are Frost spells, 14 are Arcane spells, and only 7 have no affiliation.
United in Stormwind is heavily pushing the Fire Mage archetype: almost all new Mage cards belong to or support the spell school.
You will never run out of Fire spells when playing the deck thanks to Ignite. Ignite is the most exciting new spell for Mage, as it allows them to avoid fatigue and have an endless stream of direct damage spells at their disposal.
Fire Mage offers you multiple ways to build the deck. Because Sanctum Chandler is an Elemental and Grand Finale is a Fire spell, it is possible to combine Fire spells and Elementals into a synergistic package. Alternatively, you can try to go for plenty of card draw and build everything around Ignite: drawing your entire deck and then just setting things on fire endlessly.
I chose to go with the Ignite path for this theorycraft Fire Mage deck:
While there are other cards than Fire spells in the deck, including spells from other spell schools, Fire Mage is built around Fire spells in a way Fel Demon Hunter isn’t. Fire is everything for the deck. (Whether this will prove to be a good approach or whether you just jam Ignite into your No Minion Mage deck remains an open question.)
Will Spell Schools Play a Bigger Role in Hearthstone in the Future?
In World of Warcraft, the different spell schools provide a completely different play experience. Fire Mage, Frost Mage, and Arcane Mage share some core spells but are very different to play. Holy Priest and Shadow Priest are polar opposites.
Getting spell schools into Hearthstone has the potential to further diversify play experiences with various classes. Frost Mage from Forged in the Barrens never had a chance, there were simply not enough cards to build the archetype. Fire Mage in United in Stormwind can be a real deck, sufficient support now exists. However, getting that support required dedicating an entire expansion’s Mage cards to Fire. (Does this imply that we’re getting Arcane Mage in the next expansion? Possibly.)
Hearthstone’s relatively low card count is an issue for spell schools. Minion tribes can rely on support from Neutral cards, but spell schools cannot. If your class is basically just one spell school, like Druid with Nature, does the spell school add anything to the game? Hardly. Spell schools have potential, and I’m excited about Fire Mage in the upcoming expansion, but it will be difficult for the developers to maintain and balance multiple spell schools that essentially act as sub-classes in the game.
Therefore, I expect there to be only a limited number of relevant spell schools in the game at any given moment. If Fire Mage is the way to go, most Mages will play Fire. With the next expansion, most Mages might be Arcane. Or perhaps building around spell schools will be mostly for the memes, just like building decks around minion tribes has been in the recent expansions.
Be that as it may, we have Fire Mage now, so it’s time to get blasting!
Old Guardian
Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
