Odd Mage

Wild Hearthstone has thousands of cards, and a wide variety of possible decks. This incredible deck diversity is sometimes lost when only looking at the few decks common in the highest ranks. Wednesday, the Wildest of Days is a series aiming to highlight a different off meta deck each week with an in depth guide into its strategy and gameplay. The decks are selected for having interesting synergies and using rarely seen cards.

Surprise! It's not Wednesday, but this series is getting a bonus article this week.

Magister Dawngrasp recently got buffed in three key ways: first of all, the cost was reduced to 7. Secondly, the hero power damage was increased to 2. Finally, Wildfire buffs now carry over when switching your hero. Therefore, costing 7, they could be a great addition to an old archetype: Odd Mage. The addition of Magister Dawngrasp has revitalized and refreshed the archetype, where Magister Dawngrasp acts as a powerful win condition. In addition to potentially replaying Wildfire and further buffing the hero power, it acts as a finisher by repeating spells that deal damage like Arcane Missiles, Cinderstorm, and Mask of C'Thun. With Brann Bronzebeard, this becomes potentially over 30 damage split between all enemies. Overall, Odd Mage has a low curve and is a tempo deck that uses the newly buffed Magister Dawngrasp as a fun and powerful win condition. If you like tempo decks or want to play with a deck that cares both about Magister Dawngrasp's hero power and battlecry, give this one a try!

Now, let's get into a guide on playing the deck. It's going to go through major overarching strategies to keep in mind, how to mulligan, gameplay tips on key synergies, and card choices.

Strategies

This is a tempo deck that uses cheap spells, tempo minions, and the upgraded hero power from Baku the Mooneater to try and take control of the board early. It can then push face damage, and, if necessary, use Mask of C'Thun, Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk, and Magister Dawngrasp, sometimes along with Brann Bronzebeard, to end games.

Tempo - Use your early game minions and spells as well as your hero power to try and gain board control. Minions like Firebrand are especially good at establishing a board while removing your opponent's. You can also use spells like Arcane Missiles and Cinderstorm along with Spell Damage minions to efficiently and cheaply remove opposing minions.

Finisher - Your 3 main finishers are Mask of C'thun, Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk, and Magister Dawngrasp. You can use Mask of C'thun to push for face damage, and then play Magister Dawngrasp (along with Brann Bronzebeard is a possibility) to deal even more face damage. You will also have a powerful, high damage hero power, especially if they replay a Wildfire. This hero power can provide face damage and acts as an inevitable win con as well. Finally, you can play Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk (potentially with Brann Bronzebeard) to summon Ragnaros the Firelord.

Odd Mage can sometimes win the board through tempo and win without needing any finishers. This was also the case for Odd Mage before Magister Dawngrasp. However, it feels significantly stronger now because if your early game tempo is stopped, you will have a powerful finisher.

Mulligans

Keep Wildfires.

Keep a Tour Guide.

Keep Violet Spellwings.

Keep a Lab Partner.

Keep a Firebrand.

Keep a Black Cat or Pyromaniac. If you have Tour Guide go for Pyromaniac, otherwise Black Cat is better.

Gameplay

The key to playing this deck is knowing when to transition from board control to all out going face. You can try to calculate how many turns you need for lethal, sometimes you should just go face with everything including a buffed hero power and be able to win in a few turns despite giving up board control in this time.

Below are gameplay tips regarding many of the synergies in this deck and how to use them effectively.

Spell Synergies

Lab Partner and Black Cat give you spell damage. This is going to be very useful with Arcane Missiles, including those from Violet Spellwing, and Cinderstorms.

You use these spells and minions to be able to remove opposing minions for a low mana cost while developing your own board. Against control or combo decks that play few minions, you can use these to push face damage.

To develop a 3/4 body and deal 4 damage split among enemy minions for a tempo swing, use any spell along with Firebrand.

Hero Power Synergy

Wildfire is the key card to upgrade your hero power even further from its already upgraded version from going Odd. After 2 Wildfires, you will have a 4 damage hero power.

Daring Fire-Eater is useful to increase the damage of your hero power for one turn, to either remove a minion or to give more face damage. You can use it with Brann Bronzebeard as well.

Tour Guide is great for tempo as it sets your 2 mana hero power to cost 0 for one use. This is also useful as a setup before playing Magister Dawngrasp to be able to use the powerful Arcane Burst hero power the turn you play Dawngrasp.

Finally, you can use Pyromaniac to draw cards. If you have control of the board and protect her, she can draw a card each turn. Keep in mind that you can use your hero power on one of your own minions if you really want to draw a card and don't have any enemy minions to use it on.

Finishers

Loatheb is very powerful to lock your opponent out of playing spells for a turn in the midgame. If you get to the lategame you can even use it with Brann Bronzebeard to make spells cost 10 more.

You can play Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk either by itself or with Brann to summon Ragnaros the Firelord.

Mask of C'Thun is good by itself, especially if you have some spell damage minions on the board.

After playing Mask of C'thun, you can play Magister Dawngrasp either by itself or with Brann to recast it and deal a ton of damage split between all enemies. They will also recast Wildfire or Cinderstorm, and either Arcane Missiles or Arcane Intellect. Overall, the maximum damage this does with Brann is 36, but if Dawngrasp casts the non-face damage options you will still benefit by having a more powerful hero power or more cards in hand which can be used to deal damage later. Magister Dawngrasp will have a high damage hero power that you can buff further if you use it to Honorably Kill minions. This is often useful to go face for a couple turns and provide lethal damage as well, as your opponent should already be at low hp after your tempo start and battlecry.

Card Choices

This section is going to go through the main packages of cards in the deck. Each package has cards that help the deck with a specific goal. When playing the deck, it's useful to know what purposes each card serves and what other cards in the deck have synergy with it or help achieve the same purpose. This section might also be useful if you're interested in the reasoning for why each card was included in the deck.

Spells

These are the spells in the deck. Violet Spellwing is technically not a spell but it's a body to play on turn 1 that gives you Arcane Missiles later. Since Magister Dawngrasp casts a spell from each spell school, you want to guarantee a powerful spell for Arcane, Fire, and Shadow. For Arcane, you are guaranteed an Arcane Missiles or Arcane Intellect for damage or card draw. For Fire, you will either buff Dawngrasp's hero power with Wildfire or deal damage with Cinderstorm. Finally, for Shadow you are guaranteed to deal damage with Mask of C'Thun. These spells are all good for tempo by themselves both for getting board control and pushing face damage.

Tempo Minions

These minions either give your spells extra damage or are generally good for getting a board while removing your opponent's.

Hero Power Synergy

These cards synergize with your hero power, which as an Odd Mage you want to be using often.

Finisher Package

These cards are your finishers to be used in the midgame or on turn 10 with Brann Bronzebeard to close out games if your early tempo didn't win yet.

Card Draw

These will all draw cards for you. Black Cat is in both the Tempo Minions and Card Draw categories, and is a powerful card that is the other main benefit of going Odd in addition to the upgraded hero power. Stargazer Luna is playable early on to draw a few cards or can be used later in the game to draw multiple cards in one turn.

Magister Dawngrasp is the perfect card for Odd Mage's late game. If you liked Odd Mage back when it was just tempo, consider giving this version a try. If you have a question or comment, or are wondering about a card substitution, post below.

What are your favorite wild decks? Which off meta decks have you been playing? Let us know in the comments below!