Hearthstone

[UglyBastard]

Basic Mage is still one of the strongest decks in the game. Do note though that there is no single deck, not even Face Hunter or Patron Warrior that can win 100% of matches. Or even anywhere close. Everyone loses, a lot.

I hope you mean out of the basic decks (although the comparison with Hunter and Patron tells otherwise). Fully stocked Control Mage is OK, but nowhere near the level of the top tier decks. BASIC mage is literally shit, but still the best option out of the basic collection.

What your basic mage deck needs right now is 2 Ice Barriers. If you are going to craft something craft them both. They will increase the mage's longevity. Many mage games rely on the mage surviving to turn 7 even if it means taking quite a bit of damage, unleashing flamestrike and then going on the offensive with another flamestrike in hand to keep the board clear for your minions. Ice Barrier will help you with this. Water Elemental is one of the strongest minions for it's cost. Use it. It's also very helpful against weapon wielding classes. Other cheap cards to consider crafting are 2X Mana Wyrm and Unstable Portal.

Crafting Ice Barriers is a total fail. I would advise cvv strongly against it. Better get 1(!) Healbot (you are very likely to pull the second out of a pack sooner or later, crafting commons is extremely wasteful). Healbot is used in a plethora of decks and actually provides some board presence, so it's a better card that can also be more widely used. Ice Barrier is a zero tempo/card disadvantage play and does NOTHING in a deck with mostly basic cards.

It's only purpose is only to stall so you can set up your big play. If you have shitty basic minions that are already more likely to get destroyed by more valuable cards the last thing you want is to throw away another card to gain 8 life. This is how you lose games. ESPECIALLY if you don't have Scientist (which is the only redeeming quality that makes Ice Barrier borderline playable in anything that is not Freeze combo).
I'm aware that some old Grindermage decks played 1-2 copies, but his deck is VERY FAR AWAY from being such a thing and even then I don't think Barrier is that good in the deck.


Crafting 2 Annoyotrons was also a critical collection building mistake, but at least they are better than the basic 2 drops the game provides you with (not including Ooze).

General advice for cvv:
Don't craft commons if you can avoid it. NEVER EVER craft mediocre commons like Annoyotron unless it's the last thing you need for your Mechmage cancer deck or whatever. It's OK to craft A FEW ultra imba commons like Shredder at the start, but even then I would restrain myself and only go for 1 copy. The game floods you with commons, you will have them all rather soon.

 

[Metro]

Should have crafted two shredders instead!

More general advice: never listen to Andhaira.

 

[cvv]

A value pack for my mage I just opened - one Blizzard, one Pyroblast and some trash gold common (50 dust)

 

[Phage]

cvv try to just play arena until your soul is grinded to dust tbh

 

[Metro]

Good jerb on the Pyroblast. Don't think I opened one for about a year.

 

[Andhaira]

cvv First, put Metro on ignore if you want to gain some value from this thread. He has never crossed passed rank 15 I might add, while I got to rank 7 just last season (month)

Anyhow, UglyBastard is right in that you should not craft commons, or even rares for that matter BUT the simple fact of the matter is that the game now has 3 expansion 'packs' along with 2 adventures. The odds of you opening the commons you want right now are low, unless you only purchase classic packs with your gold, even then it will take time. So take my advice and craft the Ice Barriers, they are cheap (40 dust each) and they are beneficial to stuff like the annoyatrons because they are 'spells' and 'secrets', not minions like the 'tron. This means they have synergy with Mana Wyrn, Etheareal Arcanist, Kirin Tor Mage etc. Also, playing secrets gives you a psychological advantage over your enemy, who will never know exactly which secret you played, and could waste cards testing to discover which one and/or misplay due to it. Also, Healbot is horrible, don't bother crafting it if you intend to play mage most of the time. Barrier is much superior.

Pyroblast is excellent, Blizzard is good too. Add them to your deck immediately and use Pyroblast as a finisher.

 

[UglyBastard]

WHAT THE FUCK DUDE

Stop telling him to craft Ice Barriers!

This is seriously the most moronic advice I have ever read in this thread.

 

[cvv]

Yeah I fear I'm gonna have to craft even a common now and then since if I keep playing free and opening just one pack every few days I could wait for the most crucial ones forever. But I'm not gonna get the barrier tho. Right now saving up for that second Pyroblast instead seems a better idea.

 

[UglyBastard]

Crafting a second Pyroblast is even worse than crafting Ice Barriers.

>_<

 

[cvv]

Crafting a second Pyroblast is even worse than crafting Ice Barriers.

>_<

Ok I shouldn't craft commons, rares or epics so what? Am I supposed to save up for oranges? Dude with my play I would die of an old age before I saved up 1600 dust.

 

[Metro]

second Pyroblast

You don't run two Pyroblasts. And, yes, save for legendaries!

If you're dead set on eventually running Freeze mage, here are some deck lists: http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/deck-category/class/mage/?st=Freeze&s_id=&style_id=&t_id=&p_id=

And I've actually gotten as high as rank 5 in the past but don't bother going past 10 anymore because I don't play more than five or so hours a week. Phage can attest to my illustrious rank 13 atm.

Never mind I'd beat Andhaira 8 times out of 10.

 

[UglyBastard]

cvv

Crafting the second Pyroblast is bad because you won't put it ever to use.

Pyroblast is a 10 mana finisher card that clogs your hand until you can shoot your opponent's face for the win (if you have to use it on a minion you have most likely already lost).
It takes your whole turn to cast the Pyroblast, which means that you probably either kill your opponent with the blast or lose the game. You will almost never cast 2 Pyroblasts in a single game. As a 10 mana card you will have a good chance to draw your only Pyroblast when you need it, as you will see a lot of cards until you get to 10 mana.

Running double Pyroblast makes your deck worse because you are more likely to get it early instead of a card you could actually play and compete for the board and this can lose you a lot of games.

No competetive deck in the whole game has 2x Pyroblast for a good reason.


So it's not about crafting an Epic (crafting Epics is good, you won't pull many), it's about crafting a worthless epic that makes your deck worse when you put it in.

My general crafting advice would be:

1.) Prioritize very strong neutral cards, that can be used in more than one deck. Examples would be: Azure Drake, Shredder, Knife Juggler etc. Which one you choose depends on what kind of decks you want to play. Think what kind of deck you want to play, how competetetive you want to get etc. and choose accordingly. If you want to tryhard, your best bets are Huntard and Zoolock, so Knife Juggler should be a good option. If you want to play more value oriented decks like your Mage, go for Azures and so on.
2.) Prioritize cards with higher rarity, as you will most likely not pull exactly the cards you want. Commons should be avoided (a few are OK, but they should be uber powerful neutrals like Shredder then).
3.) If avoidable, don't craft them 2x, you will lose value down the line.
4.) If you have a few decent cards to stack your decks with, save 1600 dust and craft Dr. Boom. Then proceed to stuff him in every deck you own.

So for example, Andhairas great advice to craft 2x Ice Barrier violates basically every one of these golden rules:
It's not neutral. It's common. It's pretty bad (you can run it 1x if you have big problems with surviving, never 2x in non-Freeze). It's 2x. And last but not least, it's not Dr. Boom.

 

[Phage]

cvv craft nothing and play arena. for real. you will get tons of packs eventually, then when a deck looks fun you can fill in the blanks with your extra dust

 

[Metro]

cvv craft nothing and play arena. for real.

Honestly, this is the best advice for someone totally new. You learn the cards and it's not like you can get a bad pack since they're all mixed now. If you win like two or three games you basically break even compared to buying a pack for 100g -- you just don't have control over what pack you get.

 

[Metro]

Also on Euro server you can probably average 10 wins an arena run~

 

[cvv]

Ok so it's 3AM now and I've just finished my first arena - 5 wins in a row, 3 crushing losses.

Got a Priest, constructed the deck quite carefully after reading up on the Heartharena, consulted with some Codexers, so thx guys.

Losses were partly due to my noob sucking no doubt. Still, the first one was some insane Shaman who completely overwhelmed me with buffs and drawing power. Clearly a better player but also a much better deck. Remaining two losses were to paladins - zero chance. All those divine shields and blessings of kings and secrets and weapons...fuck this.

Anyway 5 wins is way more than I expected for my first run. I believe with HearthArena, Codex and some luck I can probably do 3 or more wins consistently. And yeah, Arena by far the best experience, fuck Ranked.

 

[Metro]

Five wins is good for a new player. Even the streamers/pros who play 50+ hours a week probably don't average more than 7-8 wins or so. Three wins gets you a pack, 30 gold, and 20 more gold/dust which, while it doesn't allow you to sustain arena entries, it does give you a fair equivalent as opposed to just buying a pack. Plus arena is more fun and often more fair for a newer player.

 

[hivemind]

And yeah, Arena by far the best experience, fuck Ranked.

Congratulations your autism results came in today and you are negative.

 

[cvv]

The obvious question is tho - for someone playing almost exclusively Arena like Kripp what's even the point of getting the packs, gold and dust? You're not playing Ranked anyways so why building up your own decks? For tournaments and shit?

 

[Andhaira]

WHAT THE FUCK DUDE

Stop telling him to craft Ice Barriers!

This is seriously the most moronic advice I have ever read in this thread.

Why not craft them? They are an excellent choice for a basic or mostly basic mage deck and they are cheap to craft; waiting to open one in a pack means he could be waiting for a long time, considering he mostly plays to do his dailiies. The most moronic advice would actually be telling him to craft healbot, even though he is not playing Warlock.

 

[UglyBastard]

You almost got me to write an extensive response with your retarded Ice Barrier trolling.

If you are actually serious, you are just fucking bad.

 

[cvv]

The starting phase for the new players is fucking idiotic. In order to unlock all the basic cards we're forced to slog through like 15 practice matches with retarded AI - for each class. That's 130 most boring matches ever. Why, in the fuck? Can't we just get the basic packs and go on playing the game with humans?

Other options is playing Arena, my 8 matches got me 7 levels for my priest yesterday, but that'd be a very slow way to level up all the classes. Or you can play Casual with humans but without even the basic cards it's not fun. You're constantly matched against much more stacked opponents and losses get you pitiful XP. Plus the bonus XP for wins against humans is pitiful too.

Aight a few more Warlock matches and the agony is over.

 

[cvv]

So I probably suck more than I was led to believe after yesterdays 5-3. Much worse run today, 2-3 with a mage. First loss to paladin, got completely roflstomped again - I can't even begin to understand how to deal with paladins in Arena. 3 matches, 3 times got my face shat on. Hello I'm a paladin concede now and save time plox thx. Fuuuuuuck.

Second and third losses to a rogue and a mage. Even battles, lost to combination of a bit worse draw and noob retardery. 2 very satisfying wins against tough rogues tho.

Anyway, got a pack and 50 gold so I broke even. Lesson learned - HearthArena is not enough to not suck in Arena.

 

[hivemind]

You could try playing on the NA sever.

This is a showcase of typical high skilled NA plays

 

[Andhaira]

You almost got me to write an extensive response with your retarded Ice Barrier trolling.

If you are actually serious, you are just fucking bad.

No you are, for recommending Healbot for a basic mage deck. Ice Barriers are an excellent addition for a basic mage without other secrets, especially one who has Pyroblast, because they will allow him to get to 10 mana to actually play it. Not to mention be able to spam fireballs/blizzard/flamestrike to clear the board and then be able to play a minion to regain board presence.