Control Mage Discussion
[removed]
Posted Apr 16, 2019, 3:51 AM UTC
1736
Dragon Package seems super questionable with only five activators and only Firetree as the payoff card. Why not just play better defensive minions, or else slot in a bigger dragon package with Roasters and Scaleworms? Also not really sure what Maly is supposed to do in this list, since the only spell damage synergy is Frostbolts and AoE. Surely something like Ysera or Onyxia would fit the deck much better.
9
[deleted]
1
I'm still not sold on malygos being the 3rd utility dragon. Ysera might be the better option. Something I have definitely been trying to figure out.
5
What about Jepetto, if you're going to run Maly and Alex?
2
Jepetto actually seems kinda spicy with conjurer's calling. Maybe astromancer and crowd roaster should be in this deck too.
1
I played this archetype for a while, trying to make it work, and I actually made a list I win a lot of games with. I haven't played many games against rogues, but I destroyed token druids, warriors and shamans. Still testing Piper, but it was always good, making sure I have Khadgar at all times, and Doomsayer is a great pickup, considering blizzards and frost novas. Also not sure about Malacrass, but I like filling my hand, as well as adding some extra value if need be. It's not an easy deck to play, so if you start losing some games in the beginning, don't bother too much.
Handmage
Class: Mage
Format: Standard
Year of the Dragon
2x (2) Book of Specters
2x (2) Doomsayer
1x (2) Khadgar
2x (3) Acolyte of Pain
2x (3) Conjurer's Calling
2x (3) Frost Nova
2x (4) Arcane Keysmith
2x (4) Witchwood Piper
2x (5) Rotten Applebaum
2x (5) Sunreaver Warmage
2x (6) Blizzard
2x (7) Astromancer
1x (7) Flamestrike
1x (8) Hex Lord Malacrass
2x (8) Power of Creation
1x (10) Kalecgos
2x (12) Mountain Giant
AAECAf0EBOwHr4cDlpoDip4DDYoByQPLBOEH+wy+7ALO7wKm8ALF8wLD+AKDlgPTmAOgmwMA
To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
2
I just cant imagine Book of Specters being optimal in this list with 9 spells... you are almost guaranteed to lose a card and not get the full draw, which just gets the question of why.
I gotta imagine AI or Pyromancer or really any draw would be better here (some lists are running loot hoarders and engineers already)
1
We can approximate the probabilities quite well using standard combinatorics - mulligan behaviour will alter things a bit, but the probabilities computed will still give us a rough idea of how good Book of Specters is in a deck with 9 spells. To account for mulligan behaviour, we should use a Monte Carlo method, but cba to code that...
For those who don't care about the calculation method, I'll present the results first.
Results
| Cards drawn | Probability |
|---|---|
| 0 | 0.01532567 |
| 1 | 0.16091954 |
| 2 | 0.459770115 |
| 3 | 0.363984674 |
Expected number of cards: 2.172414
2 mana to draw 2 is above curve (considering that Arcane Intellect sees play at 3 mana), and even in a deck with 9 spells, we'll often draw 3. Therefore results are significantly above the mana curve roughly 82% of the time.
Calculation method
We'll start with the observation that the probability a given card is the 5th card in my deck is the same as that card being the 17th card. This implies that the probability of a particular card being a spell or minion doesn't depend on how many cards I've drawn already. Sure, for a given game I might have drawn more spells, but on average over many games, the proportion of spells and minions in my deck will remain the same. (Note, this is not a rigorous or formal proof - ain't nobody got time for that).
Therefore we can treat the number of spells and minions in my deck as fixed for our purposes - we have 21 minions, and 8 spells (not including the Book of Specters already in our hand).
If (and only if) each outcome is equally probable, the probability of X happening, P(X), is equal to the number of outcomes where X happens, divided by the total number of outcomes. The denominator of this fraction is easy enough - it's 29C3 (where nCr is the number of ways of choosing r things from a set of size n, aka the binomial coefficient), because there are 29 other cards in the deck, and we draw any 3 of them.
The numerator is a little more tricky. Let X be the number of cards we draw (and keep) with Book of Specters. We therefore draw X minions, for which there are 21CX possible outcomes (we choose X cards from the 21 minions available to us), and 3 - X spells (so there are 8C(3-X) ways of doing that). To get the number of ways both can happen at once, multiply the two together.
Therefore our probability is simply P(X) = 21CX * 8C(3-X) / 29C3.
We can sanity check this easily enough - the sum of the probabilities (i.e. sum of P(X) for all X) should equal to 1, and the expected value (sum of X * P(X) for all X) should equal the ratio of minions multiplied by the number of cards drawn = 21/29 * 3 = 2.172414.
3
Yes, draw two for 2 is ahead of curve but you are discarding a spell... you've completely ignored the downside of the card.
Is it worth throwing a card away and putting you closer to fatigue for 1 mana of tempo? For some decks probably. I'm not convinced a midrangey control style deck benefits from this in any way over AI or Acolyte or etc.
The minion heavy decks benefit from this because you win by constantly controlling the board with bodies, this deck seems to sort of win by defense and controlling aggression... this is anti synergy with a card that can throw away your Flamestrike.
1
The discards only matter in games which go to fatigue. Otherwise, a card has the same chance of being discarded as being in the bottom 3 cards of the deck.
2
5 dragons seems a little low to proc doctor, have you thought about subbing in a few more?
1
Personally I prefer Thijs version.
I tried the Dragon package from Day 1 but found it really underwhelming.
1
Is there a list of Thijs version?
1
https://imgur.com/a/lqRsSSX List of his decks. Looks like it may be this one. AAECAf0ECMUEuAi8CKCAA8KZA9aZA5aaA4qeAwtNigHJA6sEywSKB+EH7AeDlgPTmAOfmwMA#
1
Format: Standard ((unknown))
Class: Mage (Jaina Proudmoore)
Total Dust: 11920
Deck Code: AAECAf0ECMUEuAi8CKCAA8KZA9aZA5aaA4qeAwtNigHJA6sEywSKB+EH7AeDlgPTmAOfmwMA
^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Comment/PM ^with ^a ^deck ^code ^and ^I'll ^decode ^it. ^If ^you ^don't ^want ^me ^to ^reply ^to ^you, ^include ^"###" ^anywhere ^in ^your ^message. ^About.
1
I've tried adding x2 Applebaum and another ooze
- Malygos
- Firetree docs (which I do like as cards)
1
At this point I feel like the package of Conjurer's calling + Khadgar + Giants + maybe creation is strong enough to experiment with putting in different decks. This one looks strong
1
Actually, Khadgar himself might not be core. You have two giants and four CCs but only one Khadgar. How often do you face a board that can handle two or three 12-drops but not four?
3
That’s a good point but I think his synergies and swing potential are too strong to be left out. I often find myself wishing for more khadgars, but messenger raven has proven itself unworthy
2
This is where I'm at right now. I think everyone is rolling Khadgar because it's new and fun, but im not honestly sold it's a good card for a control deck... maybe a minion flood or minion heavy deck, but two extra bodies one turn just dont seem good enough for this.
To sort of anecdotally test this, how many times do you choose a khadgar from a Raven? I dont think I've ever chosen him even in decks that made use of him.
I think this card will fall out of meta soon.
1
I’m not sold on PoC tbh, not when you can magic trick or mana cyclone into more conjurers and use them to target big bois late game. I’ve found the mana cyclone + khadgar list with Antonidas to be incredibly strong vs control match ups.
2
Do you have a list?
1
I added the x1 frost elemental for single target freeze, relatively high cost (6), and ability to be cheated out for conjurer with evocation if I need to fill board early.
### Custom Mage
# Class: Mage
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (0) Elemental Evocation
# 2x (1) Magic Trick
# 2x (1) Ray of Frost
# 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
# 2x (2) Frostbolt
# 1x (2) Khadgar
# 2x (2) Mana Cyclone
# 2x (3) Arcane Intellect
# 2x (3) Conjurer's Calling
# 2x (3) Frost Nova
# 2x (5) Blast Wave
# 1x (5) Zilliax
# 2x (6) Blizzard
# 1x (6) Frost Elemental
# 1x (7) Archmage Antonidas
# 1x (7) Astromancer
# 1x (7) Tunnel Blaster
# 1x (10) Kalecgos
# 2x (12) Mountain Giant
#
AAECAf0ECIAE7QW4CMP4AqCAA5aaA4qeA4GgAwvJA6sEywSWBeEHpocDyIcDg5YDn5sD4psD/50DAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
1
I'd pass on creation. We can just call the other 5 cards the Khadgar package. (Even if he is a shit wizard.)
2
The shit wizard package.
1
I find it a bit weird that you talk about getting run over by aggro, but this list actually removes pretty much all the early game and taunts from the previous lists, only adding Frostbolt and Frost Nova (which I'm just not buying as a good inclusion).
I agree with a bunch of folks that this list is trying to do to many thing. I imagine it's working because the meta is still very much in flux, but there's not way this is an optimized list.
My feeling is you either go all in on Control with spells and taunts, or all in on Dragons with Book of Specters and more dragon synergy.
1
Check out the khadgar mage that fateos posted here recently, it has a similar goal to your deck but drops the dragon package for more draw. I've played 30ish games with his version on hearthstonetopdecks (slightly different than the one here on Reddit, but I think the Reddit one is more recent)
1
How are you finding that version? I was tempted to craft it but would take most of my dust and worried it wouldn't compete for long - but if it's owning warrs and token druids that's enough for me
1
Whats the role of Malygos here? There aren't any cheap spells except for Frostbolt, and there aren't any ways to discount or clone Malygos either.
1
[deleted]
-13
People have been running similar lists. I don’t get the inclusion of Malygos, and power of creation underwhelms me, but looks good otherwise.
When running high cost aoe and double PoC, kalegos stock goes way up IMO
Edit: malygos seems underwhelming. Kalegos feels right.
Not Kalecgos, Malygos
I agree with Malygos feeling weird. Obviously I misread and cannot type
Honestly with this archetype I don't see the need to include kalcegos either. I always get him off raven if I really need him and he doesn't really play into the win con.