How do you play freeze mage?

[patseguin]

I've been playing mech mage for some time and pretty bored with it plus I seem to get stuck at rank 12 or so. So, I am tryin freeze. What I the basic strategy of the deck meant to be? Particularly fireball and frostbolt? Are they meant to go face and not to minions? Also, what should I be looking for on initial hand?

[Taalyn]

It depends on which variant you play but your win condition is Alexstrasza and then one of the following:

Pyroblast
Frostbolt plus Ice Lance
Archmage Antonidas

You control the board until you can get your finishers. Some people play a Kezan Mystic because your opponent will likely have one and you can then steal it back. Your main combos are Frost Nova/Cone of Cold and Doomsayer. If you run Pyroblast or Archmage Antonisas then Frostbolt and Ice Lance are used to control the field. Mulligan for Mad Scientist and Loot Horarder plus Explosive Sheep if up against aggro.

[Ronduwil]

I've been playing mech mage for some time and pretty bored with it plus I seem to get stuck at rank 12 or so. So, I am tryin freeze. What I the basic strategy of the deck meant to be? Particularly fireball and frostbolt? Are they meant to go face and not to minions? Also, what should I be looking for on initial hand?

The idea is to board control until you get enough cards in hand to do a one-or-two-turn kill. Fireball and frost bolt ideally go to the face, but if you have enough burn without them you might need to use them on minions. If you get Antonidas to stick you effectively have infinite fireballs. Frost bolt, on the other hand, synergizes with ice lance for an 11-point, 4-mana, 3-card combo. If you have Alex in hand then you only need 15 points of face damage (assuming he doesn't healbot). If you keep track of the amount of face damage you're going to need you can make better decisions about how much damage you can afford to throw at minions. Ideally you'll have opportunities to use efficient removals like the frost nova/doomsayer combo.

Edit: "Board control" was a bad way to put it. The idea is to manage incoming damage. That means taking down minions that potentially have high impact and using mass removal to clear the board when the incoming damage is too much to manage. You will never have board presence as a Freeze Mage.

[patseguin]

Thanks guys. I am playing a deck I found online and I subbed out one of the loot hoarders for a healbot. Not sure if that was a good call or not.

It seems like none of the good cards I play ever last a turn. I always use doomsayer with a nova but 99.9% of the time, they destroy it or silence it. Same thing with Alexstraza. I plop it down and get the guy down to 15 and they just destroy it.

Here are the cards I am using:

2x ice lance
2x mirror image
2x frostbolt
2x doomsayer
1x loot hoarder
2x arcane intellect
2x frost nova
2x ice barrier
2x ice block
1x vaporize
2x acolyte of pain
1x soot spewer
2x fireball
1x antique healbot
1x azure drake
2x blizzard
1x flamestrike
1x alexstrasza
1x pyroblast

[muto]

mulligan for card draw

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks guys. I am playing a deck I found online and I subbed out one of the loot hoarders for a healbot. Not sure if that was a good call or not.

It seems like none of the good cards I play ever last a turn. I always use doomsayer with a nova but 99.9% of the time, they destroy it or silence it. Same thing with Alexstraza. I plop it down and get the guy down to 15 and they just destroy it.

Here are the cards I am using:

2x ice lance
2x mirror image
2x frostbolt
2x doomsayer
1x loot hoarder
2x arcane intellect
2x frost nova
2x ice barrier
2x ice block
1x vaporize
2x acolyte of pain
1x soot spewer
2x fireball
1x antique healbot
1x azure drake
2x blizzard
1x flamestrike
1x alexstrasza
1x pyroblast

-2 mirror images
-1 azure drake
-1 soot spewer
-1 vaporize
-1 antique healbot

+2 mad scientist
+1 emperor t
+1 antonidas
+1 bloodmage
+1 loot hoarder

[durrtygoodz]

You use Mad Scientists/Loot Hoarder early on to make trades, Acolyte is good against really slow decks or decks with shitty 1/1 or 2/1 minions where the Acolyte picks up a couple kills. You always get rid of secrets from your opening hand since playing them at 3 mana is bad value compared to getting them from Scientists. You control the game and plan your freezes and AoE carefully whilst trying to draw as much as possible. When you have a decent hand to kill your opponent with, you put down Emperor to set up huge damage.

You need to know the cards that you need in your hand in order to win a game. For example, against priest you really need Alextraza, or an Archmage with frostboltx2 icelancex2 that have been reduced by Emperor. Against decks such as zoo/handlock, you won't need Alextraza, the deck has enough burn spells after he's used his life taps.

Control the game, plan your cards, and know how to set up lethal. Takes some practice to know every matchup and how to win them but when you get comfortable it's quite easy to win a lot of favourable matchups (face hunter, zoo, handlock, druid).


Your deck list is really bad though. You need to make the changes that muto listed above.

[patseguin]

You use Mad Scientists/Loot Hoarder early on to make trades, Acolyte is good against really slow decks or decks with shitty 1/1 or 2/1 minions where the Acolyte picks up a couple kills. You always get rid of secrets from your opening hand since playing them at 3 mana is bad value compared to getting them from Scientists. You control the game and plan your freezes and AoE carefully whilst trying to draw as much as possible. When you have a decent hand to kill your opponent with, you put down Emperor to set up huge damage.

You need to know the cards that you need in your hand in order to win a game. For example, against priest you really need Alextraza, or an Archmage with frostboltx2 icelancex2 that have been reduced by Emperor. Against decks such as zoo/handlock, you won't need Alextraza, the deck has enough burn spells after he's used his life taps.

Control the game, plan your cards, and know how to set up lethal. Takes some practice to know every matchup and how to win them but when you get comfortable it's quite easy to win a lot of favourable matchups (face hunter, zoo, handlock, druid).


Your deck list is really bad though. You need to make the changes that muto listed above.

OK thanks. I didn't know my deck was bad. I found it from a site that has decks so I assumed it was good. I guess not though since I went from rank 12 to 19 so far with it. I made all the changes except for bloodmage which I can't craft yet. I substituted soot for it because it is similar +1 spell dmg. Is there something else I should sub?

I often find myself having to control the opponent minions with frost bolts. I try to save them for face but if I do that, he just gets a board full of minions and wipes me out. Doomsayer rarely works because almost everyone magically has just the right counter for it whether it be silence, enough dmg to destroy it, or whatever. I always nova then doomsayer but 90% of the time they have a card to take it out.

Usually by the time I get Alex down and reduce the player to 15, I am nearly dead. They destroy Alex and then have me in a turn or two. If I have ice block, I wait a turn and cast pyro which gets him down to 5 (unless he heals) but then if I don't draw spells I usually have no minions and have to get extremely lucky and still have a fireball left or frost bolt and lance.

[durrtygoodz]

Bloodmage Thalnos isn't super crucial to your win condition, if you want to substitute him go for a loot hoarder for the draw rather than a Soot Spewer for spell damage.

A big part of the deck is just knowing how much damage you're able to take and how much your opponent is able to do. If you're having trouble against aggressive decks in the first few turns try muliganing for scientists/doomsayer/loot hoarder, so at least you can play something and maybe make trades.

With doomsayer, it is weak to silences or getting fireballed etc, but it's still a great card. Don't be scared to put it down on turn 2 or 3, a hunter is much less likely to have an owl on turn 3 than he is on turn 6. If you're playing it without a freeze, worse case scenario is that it eats 7 dmg for you. Also it's amazing against mirror entity. You play it, end turn, boom his board is gone.

If you're not regularly able to play Alex enough then you're probably not aggressive enough with your control. A lot of players try to get too much value from AoE by waiting and killing 5-6 minions rather than 3 or even 2. Also, when you put Emperor in your deck you'll be able to play much differently. You can Emperor then on his turn he pops your block, then you Alextraza him and use your second block for 10 mana, then he pops that block then you kill him. Also Emperor will make a huge difference to your burn. The most damage you can do without Emperor is 18 (Frostbolt Frostbolt Lance Lance Fireball). With Emperor, you can potentially do 32 damage in one turn (Thalnos, Lancex2 Frostboltx2 Fireballx2).

check out some videos of freeze mage players, such as Hyped, and see how they are playing it.

And here's a better decklist:

http://gyazo.com/0585ece803f0245300b8f0229bb27f0c

[Solmyr13]

mulligan for card draw

- - - Updated - - -



-2 mirror images
-1 azure drake
-1 soot spewer
-1 vaporize
-1 antique healbot

+2 mad scientist
+1 emperor t
+1 antonidas
+1 bloodmage
+1 loot hoarder

Some quick things for Frost Mage:

Don't be afraid to take a big hit. If it's turn 5 and they have 9 damage on the board, playing Acolyte + Pinging it to draw a card ISN'T bad. You effectively have 46hp every game and 2 invul's. Use that and don't just panic. You're objective is to get past turn 10.

Frost Nova + Doomsayer is the best clear you have. Be smart with how you play it though and remember end game prematurely playing a Doomsayer even if their board is empty buys you a turn.

Don't just insta play Emperor. Emperor is almost insta-play in most decks; having a frostbolt and both Icelances in your hand means you can burst 11 damage for 1 mana later on in the game. That's absolutely stupid.

If you're playing a control warrior be prepared to never win, ever.

My deck list is:

2x Ice Lance
2x Frost Bolt
1x Blood Mage
2x Mad Scientist
2x Doomsayer
2x Loot Hoarder
2x Arcane Int
2x Frost Nova
2x Ice Barrier
2x Ice Block
2x Acolyte of Pyane
2x Fireball
1x Emperor
2x Blizzard
2x Flamestrike
1x Alex
1x Pyro

Try to save your coin if you can if you go second. There is almost no reason you would need to use it unless you have to turn 5 blizzard or turn 4 Nova + Doomsayer against rush. If you can get the Emperor + Frostbolt + 2x Icelance, turn 7 can be Anto + Coin + Frost + Ice lance + Ice Lance. That's 11 damage, a 5/7 creature and 4 fireballs. By that point you've won.

[muto]

Some quick things for Frost Mage:

Don't be afraid to take a big hit. If it's turn 5 and they have 9 damage on the board, playing Acolyte + Pinging it to draw a card ISN'T bad. You effectively have 46hp every game and 2 invul's. Use that and don't just panic. You're objective is to get past turn 10.

Frost Nova + Doomsayer is the best clear you have. Be smart with how you play it though and remember end game prematurely playing a Doomsayer even if their board is empty buys you a turn.

Don't just insta play Emperor. Emperor is almost insta-play in most decks; having a frostbolt and both Icelances in your hand means you can burst 11 damage for 1 mana later on in the game. That's absolutely stupid.

If you're playing a control warrior be prepared to never win, ever.

My deck list is:

2x Ice Lance
2x Frost Bolt
1x Blood Mage
2x Mad Scientist
2x Doomsayer
2x Loot Hoarder
2x Arcane Int
2x Frost Nova
2x Ice Barrier
2x Ice Block
2x Acolyte of Pyane
2x Fireball
1x Emperor
2x Blizzard
2x Flamestrike
1x Alex
1x Pyro

Try to save your coin if you can if you go second. There is almost no reason you would need to use it unless you have to turn 5 blizzard or turn 4 Nova + Doomsayer against rush. If you can get the Emperor + Frostbolt + 2x Icelance, turn 7 can be Anto + Coin + Frost + Ice lance + Ice Lance. That's 11 damage, a 5/7 creature and 4 fireballs. By that point you've won.

you should be playing Antonidas if you're playing Emperor. You don't need two Flamestrikes.

[Solmyr13]

you should be playing Antonidas if you're playing Emperor. You don't need two Flamestrikes.

Ty it is - 1 flamestike and plus anto. At work and it looked right.

[patseguin]

Should I be holding my frostbolts and lances until I can put down antonidas?

[muto]

Should I be holding my frostbolts and lances until I can put down antonidas?

Not necessarily. If you you're playing against Face Hunter or Zoo use them on Knife Juggle/Dire Wolf Alpha/Dark Iron Dwarf/Animal Companion/etc... If you're playing against Warrior then yeah, you want to combo them with Antonidas in order to have a chance against all that armor.

[Solmyr13]

Should I be holding my frostbolts and lances until I can put down antonidas?

If you can yes. But if they're playing rush at all you need to use them. Ice lances are usually not very useful on their own tbh unless it's a hero with a weapon so I do rec. trying to hold them but use frostbolts if you need too.

[patseguin]

I had mixed results last night. For whatever reason, I seemed to get mage opponents like 80% of the time. I had face hunters and had 0 chance against them. My problem is that I can't seem to establish board control. I assume in early game I should be putting down minions and destroy theirs as fast as possible? Most minions I put down just get killed instantly. Every time I play nova and doomsayer they seem to h ave some counter or a way to kill it. I've been pretty much just trying to play minions to control the board, using fireballs to face, and saving frostbolts and lances for antonidas when possible. I guess my main problem with the deck is figuring out how to control the board with the minimal amount of minions plus their low health just gets them killed so I really never establish much.

[lordsphinx]

I had mixed results last night. For whatever reason, I seemed to get mage opponents like 80% of the time. I had face hunters and had 0 chance against them. My problem is that I can't seem to establish board control. I assume in early game I should be putting down minions and destroy theirs as fast as possible? Most minions I put down just get killed instantly. Every time I play nova and doomsayer they seem to h ave some counter or a way to kill it. I've been pretty much just trying to play minions to control the board, using fireballs to face, and saving frostbolts and lances for antonidas when possible. I guess my main problem with the deck is figuring out how to control the board with the minimal amount of minions plus their low health just gets them killed so I really never establish much.

Your goal is not to control the board, and that's why you are struggling. You are never toing to get and keep board control with this deck. Early game, your goal is to draw as many cards as possible, get your ice barriers up, and try to keep their minions frozen with Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, and Blizzard. If you're facing a ton of agro, then you can get rid of Flamestrike altogether and replace with Explosive Sheep. Other than that, all you're trying to do is draw into your kill combos while not dying. Don't worry about maintaining board control.

Edit:

Not necessarily. If you you're playing against Face Hunter or Zoo use them on Knife Juggle/Dire Wolf Alpha/Dark Iron Dwarf/Animal Companion/etc... If you're playing against Warrior then yeah, you want to combo them with Antonidas in order to have a chance against all that armor.

This too. The closest you need to get to clearing the board is to do your best to deal with troublesome minions. Examples are things like Juggler and Dire Wolf, but from other classes you have things like Whirling Zap-o-matic from Shaman or Shade of Naxxaramus from Druid. These cards can get out of control quickly. When I say you don’t need to worry about board control, it means don’t work your tail off to get rid of a Haunted Creeper or Mirror Images.

Another tip I just thought of BTW, remember that your plan to win should include Alexstraza’ing your opponent down to 15. That means that 2 Fireballs to the face bringing him to 18 are completely wasted. You shouldn’t worry about his life total until you draw into Alex. The only exception to this is against Warlock, where they will often tap themselves into lethal by turn 6 or 7. In those match-ups, feel free to go face before Alex’ing, because you may not even need to.

[patseguin]

Your goal is not to control the board, and that's why you are struggling. You are never toing to get and keep board control with this deck. Early game, your goal is to draw as many cards as possible, get your ice barriers up, and try to keep their minions frozen with Frost Nova, Cone of Cold, and Blizzard. If you're facing a ton of agro, then you can get rid of Flamestrike altogether and replace with Explosive Sheep. Other than that, all you're trying to do is draw into your kill combos while not dying. Don't worry about maintaining board control.

Edit:


This too. The closest you need to get to clearing the board is to do your best to deal with troublesome minions. Examples are things like Juggler and Dire Wolf, but from other classes you have things like Whirling Zap-o-matic from Shaman or Shade of Naxxaramus from Druid. These cards can get out of control quickly. When I say you don’t need to worry about board control, it means don’t work your tail off to get rid of a Haunted Creeper or Mirror Images.

Another tip I just thought of BTW, remember that your plan to win should include Alexstraza’ing your opponent down to 15. That means that 2 Fireballs to the face bringing him to 18 are completely wasted. You shouldn’t worry about his life total until you draw into Alex. The only exception to this is against Warlock, where they will often tap themselves into lethal by turn 6 or 7. In those match-ups, feel free to go face before Alex’ing, because you may not even need to.

Thanks man, that helps a lot. I will start playing without worrying so much about board control. If I start concentrating on collecting cards, building up barrier, and drawing alex I should start doing better? Just a side note, my deck doesn't have cone of cold. Should it?

[lordsphinx]

Thanks man, that helps a lot. I will start playing without worrying so much about board control. If I start concentrating on collecting cards, building up barrier, and drawing alex I should start doing better? Just a side note, my deck doesn't have cone of cold. Should it?

Some decks run CoC, some don't. Personally I do.

Here are a few more tips while Freeze Mage is on the brain:

- Your card draw isn’t there to help replenish your hand, like an Ancient of Lore or Northshire Cleric. Your card draw is there to help you dig HARD for your win condition. If you have 8 cards in hand and an arcane intellect, You can use that Arcane intellect to draw you two more cards bringing you to 9. Unless you’re in danger of overdrawing, you should never have the thought “I don’t need more cards right now”.
- Don’t try to save your freezes for maximum value. You should have 2 Frost Novas, 1 Cone of Cold, and 2 Blizzards (That’s what I’m running at least). That’s 5 turns of little to no damage coming for your face. It’s turn 4 and your opponent has a Leok and a Huffer on board? Cone of Cold is fuckin BOSS. You don’t need to hit 3 minions with it to be effective. I was playing last night, and this sequence of events actually happened. I only remember because I was thinking “Damn, that’s how every game should go!!” See below; “The Freeze Mage Dream”.
o Turn 1, Coin + Mad Scientist (Drew Ice Block)
o Turn 2, Mad Scientist (Drew Ice Barrier)
o Turn 3, Arcane Intellect
o Turn 4, Cone of Cold
o Turn 5, Frost Nova + Doomsayer (Got Hunter’s Marked and UTH)
o Turn 6, Blizzard
o Turn 7, Blizzard (Only hit 1 minion)
o Turn 8, Frost Nova + Doomsayer (Huck Funters, this one cleared the board)
o Turn 9, Alexstraza (followed by Hunter popping Ice Block)
o Turn 10, Bloodmage + Fireball + Frostbolt + Ice Lance = Dead Hunter
- Try to pay attention to how much damage you have in hand. There have been times when I click end turn, only to realize that I had lethal in hand, or I had lethal the next turn with an Ice Block up.
- Along the same lines as the first tip, be careful with Acolyte of Pain. I’ve dropped an Acolyte and a Loot Hoarder before on the same turn, and had my opponent mill two of my cards (One of them was Alex).

My Decklist for your Reference:

2x Ice Lance
1x Bloodmage Thalnos
2x Doomsayer
2x Explosive Sheep
2x Frostbolt
1x Loot Hoarder
2x Mad Scientist
2x Acolyte of Pain
2x Arcane Intellect
2x Frost Nova
2x Ice Block
2x Ice Barrier
1x Cone of Cold
2x Fireball
2x Blizzard
1x Emperor Thaurissan
1x Archmade Antonidas
1x Alexstraza

[Solmyr13]

Thanks man, that helps a lot. I will start playing without worrying so much about board control. If I start concentrating on collecting cards, building up barrier, and drawing alex I should start doing better? Just a side note, my deck doesn't have cone of cold. Should it?

Yeah remember controlling is good but you CAN take damage. If you suddenly took 10 damage in one turn as long as he can't continuously do it you're okay. You have 46 effective health with armor. I've won PLENTY of games with less than 5 HP left.

[patseguin]

Should I ONLY use fireball to face after alex? I've had a few games where I held onto them but bad RNG made alex never drop.