I messed around with Shaman for a while, and determined no matter what I messed with, I couldn't find anything that made the Solo Warrior matchup more winnable than just [Rolling Thunder]. The good Warrior opponents wouldn't leave themselves dead to it unless their hand was just that poor or more often than not, they would just land [The Horseman's Horrific Helm], which ends the game on the spot. I still liked the deck's concept of burn, and it made literally every other matchup a blast to play because they were so interactive and back and forth.

I don't normally revisit decks so quickly, but I played the Shaman at an RCQ and in talked to numerous other players that have played the deck. In fact, at that same RCQ I played against Stephen McArthur playing the same deck style with a bunch of changes he made to the Shaman Fire Aggro deck. During our match we talked out the deck a little bit, and he said the deck was awesome to play as long as they weren't Solo Warrior, but the deck could still be improved.

The problem was I couldn't really find any great Shaman cards I wanted to be playing that I hadn't already tried. I tried [Rolling Thunder], [Ancestral Recovery], [Blazing Elemental Totem], and even [Essence of Focus] in the deck. Some of the cards were solid, others not so much, but I couldn't get to a set 60 cards. Therefore, I moved on to a different project, giving time for that deck to grow in the back of my mind, which I recommend anytime you're struggling on a deck.

I moved on to a Mage burn deck that I had been working on similar to the article that Scott Landis was writing about on the mothership. His list was fine, but I felt like if you were going to be “burning” them, you might as well be going for the whole burn plan. Then it took me long enough to realize I could simply transfer the ally base from the Shaman deck to a version of the Mage variety, and have room for better draw power in [Mana Agate] or [Bottled Knowledge]. This led me to the current [Drazul the Molten] deck I'm working on here:

Hero: [Drazul the Molten]

Allies: 38

4 [Jadefire Scout]

4 [Rosalyne von Erantor]

4 [Waz'luk]

4 [Gerwixicks]

4 [Dagax the Butcher]

4 [Baxtan, Herald of the Flame]

2 [Kalam'ti]

4 [Sava'gin the Reckless]

4 [Edwin VanCleef]

4 [Cairne, Earthmother's Chosen]

Abilities: 12

4 [Flame Lance]

4 [Mana Agate]

4 [Ice Barrier]

Equipment: 2

2 [Miniature Voodoo Mask]

Locations: 4

4 [Kor'kron Vanguard]

Quests: 4

4 [If You're Not Against Us. . .]

Like the Shaman, the deck's plan is simple; kill them with a bunch of fire-based allies. However, one of the big issues with the Shaman deck was when the opposing Mage decks would just crush your early threats with removal from [Flame Lance] and [Ripple], you couldn't win. In this Mage version however you get the midrange Mage deck's best ability as your own: [Ice Barrier]. At this point, you know what it does, and in aggro it is even better if you are able to manage your threats effectively to the point where the opponent has to either deal with [Ice Barrier] or your allies. The other big thing like I said was the ability to actually draw cards. [Mana Agate] is essential to this deck because unlike my super aggressive builds of the Shaman deck which ended on three or four resources, the Mage generally ends at five because of [Edwin Vancleef]. The Shaman had twenty resources between the stash effects, quests, and locations. In this deck I only have sixteen, but because of the [Mana Agate]s again, I feel that this deck can easily utilize resources effectively to deal between 25 and 31 points of damage.

Another issue I had with the Shaman deck was that with [Rime and Freezin'] and [Essence of Focus] came the need for a specific class of allies. I've dealt with class matters before in draft and sealed, but when playing with Throne of the Tides I never thought I'd be building decks around that theme. Shaman pairs with the Mage class, and while the Mage cards tend to be sweet, their allies are much less so. The ability to just drop all the class matters cards, excluding [Baxtan, Herald of the Flame] because he's just good at the worst, and put in more consistent powerful cards like [Ice Barrier] and [Edwin VanCleef] greatly helps the deck. A smaller, but not unnoticed attribute of the Mage adds is the guaranteed damage from the hero flip!

[Akumo of Thunder Bluff]'s hero flip is awesome, and I generally use it in combination with [Dagax the Butcher] for five damage, or for [Gerwixicks] to set up a large Assault for my hero. Again I managed to find something I didn't like about it, and it was the heavy upfront of an investment as an aggro deck in the hero flip. What I mean by that is, your opponent knows what your plan is at all times with the flip. They know exactly throughout the game that the most (in general) the flip will deal to them is five from [Dagax the Butcher], and they will do everything in their power to ensure that it does not happen. To ensure this they will generally let you hit the first time with [Dagax the Butcher], but upon readying the Goblin with the hero flip, he would simply get hit by [Hammer of Justice], [Shadow Word: Despair], or [Flame Lance]. Thus, not only did you waste a valued resource in the hero flip, but also three resources went to waste. In the Shaman and this Mage deck, you cannot bet wasting resources! The Mage hero flip on [Drazul the Molten] is much more consistent, and in my mind reliable. I like some stability in my life, and if that means I have to pay three resources to ensure my opponent is dead rather than hoping they have nothing, then I'll do it each time.

* short aside about using resources efficiently! I cannot begin to explain how important it is to plan out at least two or three turns in advance, when you will be exhausting [Kor'kron Vanguard]s for resources or Assault so you can use the rest of your resources before that, and be sure you don't need to be playing a Stash effect on those turns. I spend more time during most of my games on turns 1-2 figuring out my resources and my plan for the game (which you generally should be doing during your mulligan), rather than actually doing math to kill my opponent or deducing what their hand contains. The resources in this deck and where you will spend them each turn is extremely intricate because of all the cards can be used for a single resource. There are 28 in total in this deck. Not only is this a method for success for this aggro deck, it is a way to become better at playing in general. The decisions in this deck are amplified because there are fewer of them, and games are not expected to go past turn 6 very frequently, and thus few cards will be seen. Therefore, I recommend using each resource you're given each turns, unless a different play is clearly better.

That said about the Mage hero flips, I'm not completely sure if this is the best hero flip for the deck. It is completely possible that [Zumix of Kezan] is still better as a consistent form of card advantage. I love drawing cards, but passing up four guaranteed damage is very difficult for me to accept, and I feel that doing nothing to apply pressure to your opponent on turn 4 is not a road to success in any way in the speedy Core format. I want to, at best, be playing [Edwin VanCleef] and at the worst playing [Sava'gin the Reckless] and doing something with my last resource on turn 4 in this deck, not flipping my hero. Despite that, I have not personally played this deck with both heroes, so I recommend that if you want to change anything to fit your own play style, the hero is my first bet for change, and then after that you could look to add some number of [Overload]s.

The reason I chose to forgo [Overload] is because I want all my cards to do something when they hit the board. With the exception of the on-cost allies who are there to just push damage through on the early turns and set up aggression for the deck thought the game, each card does something the second you play it. [Overload] is not that card as it causes you to hold open resources to fight your opponent's plays, and they could easily play around it, by not playing an ally. [Overload] is no [Nether Fracture], and [Miniature Voodoo Mask] is not [The Natural Order]. Both are just acceptable alternatives to insane cards that one existed, but even then I'm not to fond of the Mask recently.

Originally right when the cards came out everyone was playing their deck from before Crown of the Heavens, updated with the best options in that set. No one was playing decks without equipment, or learned how to play around the Mask effectively yet by spreading out your equipment and abilities among many different cards. Now people are playing around the Mask, and while the card is still excellent, and one of the best generic answers ever, I don't want to draw the card to frequently, but sometimes you need it to beat the random [Rejuvenation] decks and [Ice Barrier]s or [Power Word: Barrier]s among other cards.

This deck is nothing new or off the wall, but I still find it exciting. Mage is one of my favorite go-to classes for an aggro deck each set because of the powerful abilities they have access to along with all the powerful allies. I could see a deck of this working as a Monster deck as well, as Kyle McGinty, Jonathon Hudson-Edrosa, Adrian Gallardo and I have been discussing. Using [Bottled Knowledge] to discard [Gilblin Deathscrounger] and a way to bring him back into play seems sweet with [Monstrous Frostbolt Volley]. We haven't actually put together the deck to test it out yet, but it seems like a very synergistic aggro deck which I'm all for considering a quarter of all my decks I have build right now are running around with [Gerwixicks] in them.

Let me know what you think of this version of aggro in the forums, and your thoughts about Mage aggro in general!

-Corey