LBYS, a Freeze Mage expert, brings you a new brew of Freeze Mage which was originally inspired by the old Tiddler Mage (with some new twists of course).
Introduction
The meta has been changing a lot recently with the new cards coming out and a lot old decks are getting the help they need to be viable again. My name is “LBYS” and I love playing standard Freeze Mage and love the playstyle that those kind of decks have. I’ve been recently playing a lot of aggressive “freeze” mage on multiple servers this season as I wanted to see the decks potential after the release of the card Forgotten Torch. I recently got rank 1 legend on Asia (going 32-7) with my take on the deck. The deck is somewhat hard to get used to and I credit a lot of my success to playing Freeze Mage almost religiously.
The basic strategy is to get as much damage in during the early turns before your opponent stabilizes and then burn them with spells. The deck is great on quickly establishing the board while keeping your opponent off of it. Forgotten Torch is a great addition to the deck because you no longer have to stall until turn 10 to pull off a Pyroblast. Mage have the best damage spells in the game and can easily pull off 20 damage out of nowhere during the course of 2 or so turns. I would say this deck takes a decent amount of thought to pull off. You need to be greedy enough to get the amount of turns you need while making sure you have enough damage despite your opponent healing. If you are new to the deck, you can easily find yourself to be a couple damage off at the end of the game. There is a very fine line when you are supposed to transition from dealing damage to stalling for your burn to go over the top.
Interesting Card Choices:
Interesting Card Choices:- Mad Bomber
The deck needs a solid minion to play on two. Mad Bomber fits that perfectly and also has a battlecry that can deal with your opponents early Leper Gnomes because you need board control to deal your damage. I found myself a lot of the time playing Mad Bomber on turn 4 with a hero power to reduce the swingy RNG potential while dealing with implosions, Muster for Battles, etc which can turn the tides in favor of your opponent. The amount of times Mad Bomber has won me the game greatly outnumbers the times it has lost me the game. Very solid minion in a low curving meta. - Frost Nova
People don’t realize how strong this card is. Against most opponents, it completely stalls a full turn while protecting your minions so they can get in maximum damage. For 3 mana, it is incredible at giving you enough time that you need.
- Coldlight Oracle
An incredibly fast minion that can cycle through your deck since the deck can fall out of steam fairly fast if you can find your draw cards. Way faster than the other option which is Acolyte of Pain because that usually requires 2 extra mana for the hero power to be worth running instead.
- Arcane Golem
3 mana deal 4 damage most of the time with synergy with Frost Nova is decent. You want to run all the burn in the game and this counts. You want to play this before key taunt turns, etc or it will be a dead card.
Mulligans:
Fairly straight forward: Keep Arcane Missiles, Leper Gnome, Mana Wyrm, Mad Scientist, and Mad Bomber in every matchup. The early game is incredibly important to your eventual success that game. Sometimes Arcane Intellect and Coldlight Oracle are okay in slower matchups (handlock/renolock, warrior, priest, etc).
Top 3 Tips:
- Prioritize minions over spells. The longer the game goes on, the less impactful minions will be on the game.
- If you don’t think you are going to die the next turn, there is no reason to play ice block. There is an exception to where Loatheb can lose you the game on the spot.
- Make sure to realize your opponents outs. For example, if you have 7 damage in hand for next turn and your secret paladin opponent is at 7 health, you should consider hero powering over two turns to prevent Truesilver from healing him out of range.
Things to note: I have been freely playing Arcane Golem, Doomsayer, and Acolyte of Pain in the same deck slot. I used all of them on the climb trying to decide which one I like better. Pretty sure all work but depending on the daily ladder meta, one may be better than the rest. The deck is also based off the old school tiddler mage but it has quite a few differences.
Good luck giving this deck a go, hopefully it will serve you well as it has for LBYS. If you would like to see more of this deck, or more of what LBYS is up to you can find him on Twitter and Twitch. Thank you for reading!