Good Ol' Freeze Combo Mage - AoO

Played around 20 games in diamond rank, and its been pretty neat. Actually managed to climb upwards with this, so take it for what it's worth.

So here's a few answers to some questions before we move on to guides;

What's this all about?

- Incanter's Flow can do some really broken things with Frost Nova and Archmage Antonidas. Ideally, you'd be discounting all your cards as early as possible but the key spells to discount is Frost Nova and Frostbolt.

What am I going to do with discounted Frost Nova and/or Frostbolt?

- Here's the thing. Alexstrasza + Frost Nova = if your opponent can't heal, they're dead. No need for setups with Doomsayer turn 8, no sir. Just plug your girl Alex down and freeze their board all in the same turn.

- Frostbolt at 1 or 0 mana...hmmm. Need I say more?

Okay, there's plenty of decks that can heal, like alot. So even Alex + frost nova doesn't guarantee anything.

- That's what Archmage Antonidas is for. Against decks like warrior or quest warlock, the healing can reach really obscene levels. But no matter what they do, a bunch of discounted cards + antonidas = lots of fireballs. Even at worst, you can easily manage out 3 fireballs with this one card. And with your deck geared up with at least 28 burn already + an Alex, that's plenty burn for most occasions.

On to guides:

Mulligans:

- Always mulligan hard for Incanter's Flow. I mean hard. Throw everything away. Nothing is more important than this card early. The only exception is against hyper aggro like dhunters and hunters, then mulligan for Ancient Mysteries and Doomsayer.

Some general strategies:

- Stall with Doomsayer or Frost Nova + Doomsayer. If its not 1 mana, then frost nova is exclusively used with doomsayers. Otherwise, save it for Alex.

- Play Starscryer, but be very aware of hand space. Its easy to forget that its a deathrattle, not battlecry.

- If you've got a 0 mana secret, weight very carefully when you play it. There's plenty of highlander decks out there that would love to eat it up. Especially Ice Barrier. Losing this against highlander hunter = death. Also, its easy fodder for Antonidas.

- Apexis Blast is mostly burn and removing minions. Its not a minionless mage deck, don't expect to get additional value off it.

- Magic Trick is mostly for freeze and draw. Nothing else.

Against Aggro

- Hunters are possibly your greatest challenge, mostly because they can burn you out very fast with a 2 damage hp. Don't expect any frost nova + doomsayer strats against hunters. There's plenty of stuff to remove a lone doomsayer like Rotnest Drake. Instead, look at doomsayer as 7 more health. Play on 4, or 3. Doesn't matter. As long as it buys you time and health.

- Dhunters are little more straight forward. They need board more than hunters to do anything and they can't reliably get rid of doomsayers. You can tank the early damage easily, then freeze their board over and over around turn 5 to prevent Glaivebound Adept from appearing. 2x ice barrier is more than enough to stall out the early turns.

- Needless to say, both hunters and dhunters can't spring out damage out of nowhere. So count the damage before you play Alex.

Against midrange/value/control

- You're very favored against rogues and mages. A little less against priest, questlock

- Against questlock, always be aware of how many plot twist they've played, and if they have drawn their Aranasi Broodmothers. The key is to Alex only after you are assured there's no more, or only 1, broodmother left and they've played both plot twists (questlock will not hesitate to play this, so no worries). That way they will certainly waste one Nether Breath at your Alex along with 1 or both Mo'arg Artificer to heal back.

Oh, and since you're not really playing any cards and they would want to draw fast, means they will play out their cards ineffectively.

- Against priest. Well. 90% of the time you're not really playing any cards so be aware of your hand space. Your opponent will likewise proceed to waste cards to free up handspace. Like questlock, you really need as many fireballs from Antonidas as possible. So save up.

- If priest plays Thoughtsteal, be prepared to laugh evilly. You've earned it. There's so much reactive cards in your deck, thoughtsteal clogs up their hand even further.

- Against warrior. Doomsayers don't do anything to them because of Warmaul Challenger, so play them as strategically as possible, like denying their combo plans like Battle Rage or Armorsmith turns. Or play them when you somehow managed to freeze their board at full. Then there's literally nothing they can do.

Replacement cards

- Apexis Blast is only really here because I've been in too many situations where Pyroblast is just too slow. But its probably the most replaceable card here. Replace this with more draw like Novice Engineer is a good idea. But from my own experience, you tend to run out of burn more often than key cards like frost nova.

- The Amazing Reno is mostly for moments when you really need to clear the board to survive like mountseller turns with druid or removing key minions like Malygos and Kalecgos. If you really really don't want to buy the adventure just for him, then I'd recommend changing this for Zephrys the Great. Its highrolling, but in most cases I find myself waiting until the thin end of my deck before Reno gets out, so its an able replacement that does more or less the same thing.

Is it the best mage deck? No. But its lots of fun, and it can actually rake up wins around diamond rank, so there's that too.

Thoughts, comments and questions are very welcomed.