Synthesize
Random Elementals are not a very desirable resource. Though it does sound nice to curve out efficiently in the early game, we would rather do it with the cards we choose to put into our decks. Synthesize doesn’t have any particular synergies with the rest of the set, which makes it feel strangely isolated. The biggest issue for us is that it doesn’t further a specific game plan in any way. This is where it falls off compared to a card like Schooling.
Score: 1
Audio Splitter
Audio Splitter has a very specific use, which is to copy a desirable spell in your hand that you’re trying to build around. Though it initially strikes you as a card for a ‘Big-Spell’ deck, some deckbuilding manipulation can help you copy cheaper spells, such as Lightshow. The initial body is mediocre and the effect is slow, so even though it is a mech, we don’t think it’s a good fit for Mech Mage. The idea that we would use this card to copy Seafloor Gateway, then spend our time casting consecutive Gateways, is a bit optimistic.
Score: 2
Keyboard Soloist
This card reminds us that Guild Trader is gone. Instead, Mage gets a very underwhelming knock-off, one with our least favorite restriction in this set: the soloist restriction. Guild Trader only saw play in very specific decks that utilize an important finishing spell that scaled very well with spell damage. Lightshow is a strong candidate to potentially benefit from spell damage, but the fact Soloist requires our board to be empty, combined with its inflexibility as a non-tradeable card, cools our interest.
In fact, if we want spell damage to buff our Lightshows, we should look no further than Silvermoon Arcanist, unrestricted and 1 mana cheaper. We’re not sure why this card needs to be worse than every neutral spell damage source out there.
Score: 1
Cosmic Keyboard
Atiesh is no longer a weapon you equip by playing an 8-mana legendary War Golem. It is now a 2-mana weapon you can run two copies of. Medivh, you’re old news.
This instrument is extremely powerful, perhaps the strongest one of them all. Simply playing a 3-cost spell on turn 3 immediately gets back the initiative lost from spending mana on this weapon on turn 2, and then additional spells make sure that Cosmic Keyboard becomes a powerful enabler of a mid-game spike. Moreover, Cosmic Keyboard scales hard in the late game and should never be a bad draw. It turns your expensive spells, even the defensive ones, into threats. A Blizzard played with Cosmic Keyboard equipped, for example, is quite devastating.
A no-brainer. Almost every Mage deck, except the aggressive ones, wants this.
Score: 4
Rewind
Discovering a spell for 2 mana is normally a bad deal, but Rewind discovers spells from the highest quality pool of spells, the ones you intentionally put into your deck. This opens some room for exploitation, the first one obviously being Lightshow. However, there are other spells that opponents will likely get frustrated by repeatedly encountering, such as stalling tools in Solid Alibi. Rewind basically makes your deck far more consistent and can potentially warp Mage decks into keeping a smaller pool of the most powerful spells to repeatedly abuse. An innocuous looking card with significant ramifications.
Score: 3
Lightshow
The first Lightshow looks bad. A completely random Fel Barrage that costs 1 more mana is not a playable constructed card. The second copy is a playable constructed card, shooting three missiles. On the surface, this card doesn’t seem very good.
However, this card can become a very serious win condition once you start building around it, by copying it through multiple effects that Mage has received in this set. Rewind, Volume Up and Audio Splitter can all copy Lightshow quite reliably thanks to some smart deckbuilding. When you start calculating damage that subsequent Lightshows deal, especially with spell damage coming from a Silvermoon Arcanist or Aegwynn, Lightshow can just end games. A 4th Lightshow powered by Arcanist deals 20 damage. The 6th Lightshow deals 28.
Sounds farfetched? Add Rommath into the equation and Mage’s damage potential becomes absurd in the late game, since Rommath will repeat Lightshows for every copy of the spell you played, which turns it into Jace. If you’ve played 5 Lightshows in a game, Rommath will shoot 21 missiles for 42 damage.
Lightshow undoubtably needs to be built around aggressively, but if it is supported, the card can become a near-infinite source of damage. We’ll respect that.
Score: 3
Holotechnician
This card looks flashy initially, but it’s basically a much worse version of Professor Slate. Slate gave Poisonous to your spells, which meant that any kind of damage killed the target minion. Its ability also meant that your own minions were not negatively affected while it was on the board. Holotechnician carries a symmetrical ability.
In terms of application, it just seems very narrow. Shooting Star is the obvious choice to combo with it, but that’s just one card. You can run Spectral Trainee, but that’s an expensive combo. We really don’t want to rely on a turn 7 board clear that requires us to invest 3 cards. You can play Holotechnician and hero power a minion on turn 5, which makes it comparable to Vilespine Slayer. This is not the kind of card you’d expect to utilize often.
Score: 1
Volume Up
Possibly one the best draw engines in the format once released, Volume Up draws 3 spells (yes, notice it’s a soft tutor) for 4 mana. If you trigger its Finale ability, you get the choice to get another copy of one of those spells. That’s arguably better than drawing 4 different spells for 4 mana, since there is value in adding further redundancy to your game plan. Lightshow is a prime target for Volume Up’s Finale.
Activating Finale shouldn’t be difficult. You play Volume Up on turn 4 and you’re happy. Mage should have efficient ways to fill the curve later in the game to make sure it connects. The Finale ability does mean that Volume Up isn’t the best way to dig for answers at the start of the turn. This is the only way we can knock the card.
Volume Up boosts Mage’s consistency across the board. A small package of spells alongside Rewind means you can replay a single spell multiple times during the course of the game. If you like your Solid Alibi, then this is a huge enabler for Mage’s stalling capabilities. Hard to see a Mage deck that skips this card. Even Aggressive Mage decks could decide to tame their aggression and pivot to the late game. This is a deck-defining card.
Score: 4
Infinitize the Maxitude
Discovering a random spell for 2 mana, as we noted before during our discussion of Rewind, is not a good deal at initial glance. The problem is that this legendary spell’s effect is far less appealing than Rewind’s. There is no consistency boost, no synergy (beyond a Casino Mage’s Rommath) that makes us really want to play it.
The potential of “infinite value” is nice, but the cost is steep and there is no build up to a win condition. It’s just infinite and inefficient value. We need to constantly spend 2 mana on a weak discover effect, while also needing to activate Finale to keep this chain going. Discover cards with Finale need to be particularly good, as the discovered cards cannot be used on the same turn we find them.
There’s a small chance a super grindy Mage deck runs this card. It’s got vibes of Control Priest running Svalna. Priest would certainly love this card. Perhaps it makes a decent combination with Cosmic Keyword, but we’d much rather utilize the new tools Mage got to finish games, rather than waste our time chasing infinites.
Score: 1
DJ Manastorm
This card has terrific flavor. A perfect representation of Millhouse Manastorm. Just wait until we get to 10 mana! The important thing though, is that this card can absolutely end any game once you hit turn 11. It becomes extremely easy for the Mage to set up a burst damage combo that starts with a turn 10 Manastorm/Blizzard or even Manastorm/Alibi and is followed by a barrage of Pyroblasts.
A turn 11 OTK is good, but is it good enough? It’s good if the Mage has a strong enough win condition against aggressive decks, where Manastorm is not going to be relevant. The issue is that Manastorm warps our deck to become greedy, and we must be careful about that.
Another thing to consider is Bonelord Frostwhisper. Yes, Mr. Bonelord has proven to be a bait card so far. He fooled many of us. But Mr. Bonelord hasn’t met a 10-drop as perfectly synergistic as Mr. Manastorm. A dead Bonelord on turn 6 can absolutely mean a dead opponent as early as turn 7. The best part though, is that this deck can run Bonelord, but not depend on it (unlike the flopping Chad Rogue, for example). If the matchup is slow, then we can chill until turn 10. A deck that can run Bonelord but doesn’t depend on it is exactly what we can envision see success.
Not a sure thing, but we’re going respect a mana manipulator as big as this one.
Score: 3
Final Thoughts
Festival of Legends Set Rank: 5th
Overall Power Ranking: 8th
Mage will be going through major upheaval in rotation and none of its prominent archetypes throughout March of the Lich King should be recognizable. This Mage set is spicy though and offers the class exciting new ways to win Hearthstone games.
The standout, all-around cards here are Cosmic Keyboard and Volume Up. Cosmic Keyboard offers so much potential board development for such little mana that we can see every non-Aggressive Mage deck utilizing it. You don’t have to go all-in on “big” spells to take advantage of it. It helps you maintain board presence while doing things that might not be related to the board, such as drawing cards.
Volume Up might be the best card in the Mage set, a huge consistency boost for the class that opens new deckbuilding possibilities. We’re obsessed with the idea of running a relatively small package of 8 spells + 2 copies of Volume Up to consistently duplicate key pieces of our win condition or our survivability.
When it comes to late game win conditions, Lightshow is an infinitely scaling nuke that can get copied by Volume Up, Rewind and Audio Splitter. Add Aegwynn, Vexallus and Rommath, and you’re looking at a deck with Phylactery levels of damage that’s impossible to outlast even for a Blood DK. DJ Manastorm coupled with Bonelord and Pyroblasts could be another late game pathway that’s quite difficult to outlast. Manastorm might be the card that finally puts Bonelord in a competitive deck.
The only question is whether these shells can survive the early game, but cards like Solid Alibi and Blizzard are available to repeatedly copy and cast to stall out an opponent’s aggression. The idea of playing 3-4 Solid Alibi’s against an aggressive deck throughout the game is quite delicious, or gross, depending on your perspective.
On the aggressive side, current day’s Frost Mage will have to adjust to the loss of Dungeoneer, but the Skeleton package is sticking around alongside Frozen Touch. Mech Mage is getting a major boost in power thanks to Core set updates, bringing in a lot of powerful mechs to the format.
The Mage set might be the most thought-provoking in the expansion. Building optimized decks for the class early on might be difficult, but if Jaina figures things out, the potential is high.
thank you for the information