Mage Needs Buff

Playing mage these days is not a lot of fun. 

Cyclone has been refuted by recent power creep. 

Reno mage is solid value bet gets destroyed by aggro/deathrattle rogues. If you survive until turn 9 to unleash the zero mana dragons you are winning, but otherwise...not so much.

Chenvaala is just one card. 

Secret mage? Tempo mage? OTK/TTK mage? Exodia mage? Nope. Not. 

Quest mage? Not really. Some sidequests are decent. Reno is a good card. 

Secret mage? Looked promising but did not really deliver. At 3 mana they are slightly too expensive for an aggro deck.

So...maybe it is time for a new approach? Mech Mage? Murlocs? I tried dragons/reno and it can work. 

What do you guys think?

Highlander Mage is a perfectly fine deck, but the meta is not kind to it. Like flux said, a few changes to the meta could definitely help Mage, without any unnecessary buffs.

No need for buffs.

Some of the newest Mage cards are already OP, if not flawed entirely. Ancient Mysteries, Arcane Flakmage, Cloud Prince, Dragoncaster, Mana Cyclone itself.

What you actually need are the incoming nerfs, and possibly some new cards to fit the cards above.

Highlander mage is a good deck, it is just the wrong meta. Once the nerfs hit and different decks start being played mage might look a bit better.

Also, please no more secret mage, I don't want the deck to get any better than it already is in wild.

If any class needs a buff it's paladin. 

Mage isn't really in a bad spot.

Mage is fine. Getting tired of saying it, but tech for your meta. If you're getting rolled by a lot of deathrattle decks, tech in some silences and time your Zephrys properly. If you're getting rolled by aggro, pick up some standard anti-aggro tools (hell, we got some good ones this expansion). Highlander Mage is in a solid position in the meta right now, not top but certainly not poorly placed, and highlander decks are incredibly easy to tech.

As to the other mage archetypes you listed, Secret Mage has been abusively strong in Wild for some time now and is a strong indicator as to why the deck as it is there simply shouldn't see Standard play. Mage doesn't really have access to an OTK right now (and in fact, most decks don't), but Freeze Mage is actually back to being viable as an archetype for the first time in years, so you're kinda wrong there. Tempo Mage has never really existed, it was just a lazy name attached to a deck that had no real defining trait (if it was made today it'd have been termed Flamewalker Mage I suspect) - but regardless, so many of Mage's good cards (particularly evergreen ones) are either slow or reactionary that it would be bizarre if they had any kind of viable tempo-based archetype. And finally, Cyclone Mage was only viable so long as it was supported by Giants/CC cheese, and without that it's just another 'let's make a bunch of random cards and hope for the best' deck.

None of those decks really scream 'make me good' to me, or apparently to Blizzard. Though if you want to talk about other archetypes not existing, I'd be significantly more receptive - Mage feels almost as vulnerable as Priest is to complaints of a poor class identity...

So, is anybody experimenting with Mage decks other than Highlander in standard? Or did everybody already give up?

I experimented with lots of "fun" decks, for instance star aligners, hand-mage, dragon-reno, cyclone-chenvaala, mechathun otk to name a few.  But not to climb a ladder, just to play a fun game.

Is this what you wanted?

Quote From iWatchUSleep

If any class needs a buff it's paladin. 

Mage isn't really in a bad spot.

Yeah druid sucks too, swipe and starfall aren't enough removal for this meta where everyone is playing aggro-midrange, i wouldn't say unplayable, but some buffs would help a lot.

Eh...druids also have those annoying rush minions, bees, the cheap spell that can draw a card...and zephrys into a clear.  And decent taunts, armor and heal spells. So I think druid is at least as survivable as mage.

And according to the latest meta report, mage is at the bottom with Paladin. The bad guys are winning!

Mage is fine.  The only thing I would suggest for you would be to diversify your play style.  You mention Tempo, Exodia, Secret,etc...  The question is how are you building them?  I was dinking around with some secret mage builds and what I discovered was exactly the opposite of what you're saying... the only things that were able to outpace Secret Mage was Hunter's god awful Leper Gnome decks and occasionally Warlock Zoo. 

One thing that keeps people from being able to progress with a class is that they get stuck on the way that a deck has functioned in the past.  If you rely on taking the Tempo Mage builds from GvG and update it with new cards, it will not work.  The deck, almost as a whole, needs to be reworked but the theory on how it works remains the same.