Guide to Making Mage Cards

Welcome to the Guide to Making Mage Cards. Each class has different design philosophies for the way their cards are designed, and these philosophies are going to be important to know in order to design realistic and balanced cards for each class. This guide will go over Mage.

As the class name would suggest, Mage is all about magic. As such, a vast majority of their cards invoke magical elements in some way or another. The magic used in Mage seems to exist in just about any form, but it mostly focuses on the three specializations of Mages in World of Warcraft: Fire, Frost, and Arcane. In the basic set alone, Fireball, Frostbolt, and Arcane Explosion are examples of each of these specializations used.

These specializations are not just represented in spells though, but also minions. These can come in the form of elementals made of these particular element, as is the case on cards such as Bonfire Elemental, Animated Avalanche, or Mana Giant.

Alternatively, they can also exist as minions specializing in that particular form of magic, which can be seen on cards like Pyromaniac, Ras Frostwhisper, or Arcane Flakmage. Kirin Tor Tricaster appears to be combining all three specializations into one single card.

This does not mean that you are strictly limited to using fire, frost, or arcane on Mage cards, but they are frequently appearing elements in the Mage class. Typically, as long as your card looks vaguely magical, you can probably get away with using it in Mage.

Mages are also known for their ability to conjure things from thin air. Cards like Mirror Image, Ghastly Conjurer, Khadgar, and Occult Conjurer represent the aspect of conjuring minions. Any Elemental in the class can similarly be thought of as a "conjured" minion. Mage's strength in card draw and card generation may be an indirect way to show Mage's ability to conjure.

Their conjuring ability also has some hints of deception. Mirror Image and Occult Conjurer are aforementioned examples of this, although their theme of deception can similarly be viewed on cards like Kirin Tor Mage, Game Master, Rigged Faire Game, and Jandice Barov.

Oddly enough, their Secrets are not particularly secretive by flavor despite their ability to deceive the opponent. Instead, Mage Secrets appear to be themed on split-second reactions to enemy actions. This can be seen on Secrets like Counterspell, Spellbender, or Ice Barrier. This isn't to say that Mage Secrets have no secretive flavor aspects at all, but rather that the flavor is not necessary to create a Mage Secret. Explosive Runes and Rigged Faire Game are probably the most obvious examples of secretive Mage Secrets, although Flame Ward can also be considered an example of this as its flavored as a tomb trap which will catch raiders who don't notice it off-guard.

Although this theme is hard to discern, Mages also have a theme of knowledge which can be viewed on a number of Mage cards that depict books in their artwork. Cabalist's Tome appears to be a forbidden book of spells, Glacial Mysteries appears to be a mysterious book frozen in ice, and Book of Specters appears to a spooky spellbook.

This aspect of books can also be viewed on minions which are seen reading reading spellbooks such as Ethereal Arcanist or Lab Partner. Kabal Lackey appears to be holding spell scrolls for making potions, and Babbling Book appears to be a spellbook that has literally come to life.

A less obvious example of this knowledge theme is Stargazer Luna, who appears to be gazing at the stars and documenting her findings in outer space, and has created her own pocket galaxy appropriately titled Luna's Pocket Galaxy. Dalaran Aspirant also has knowledge in his soundbites saying "knowledge is power, and I know a lot" upon being summoned, and "I learn" when you trigger his Inspire effect, although there is otherwise nothing in the card visually to convey the knowledge theme in the card.

The main tribe of choice for Mages is Elementals, with it and Shaman being the two main Elemental classes and Mage having the second most class-specific Elemental minions in the game, just behind Shaman. As noted previously, Elementals in Mage largely consist of fire, frost, or arcane elementals. Lesser-used although still present tribes for Mage include Dragons and Mechs. Their Dragons mostly exist in Descent of Dragons, although they have some Dragons outside of this expansion as seen on Coldarra Drake, Kalecgos, Sindragosa, and Dragoncaller Alanna. In Goblins vs Gnomes, Mages also have access to Mechs and some Mech synergies as seen on Goblin Blastmage, Snowchugger, Soot Spewer, and Flame Leviathan.

Mages also have some occasional Beasts, although they don't have Beast synergy. Mage Beasts are often in the form of magical birds as seen on Raven Familiar, Vex Crow, and Messenger Raven. They do however have access to other types of Beasts as seen on Magic Dart Frog, Black Cat, and Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk.

For the most part, Mages have a relatively simple color scheme. Red, orange, blue, and purple are very frequent colors in Mage to represent their three spell specializations.

Spell Synergies

As you can probably guess, spells are a pretty huge part of Mage's identity. The spells themselves are obviously a pretty big deal, but their minions also play into this by containing a lot of minions that work (either directly or indirectly) with casting spells. Some of their minions have recurring effects off of when you cast a spell, such as Mana Wyrm which gains +1 Attack, Flamewaker which deals 2 additional random damage, Cult Sorcerer which gives your C'Thun +1/+1 (as well as having Spell Damage +1), and Archmage Antonidas which gives you a Fireball, which in turn is a spell and can trigger his own effect.

These spell synergies can then be further split into more parameters based on the spells, such as Secret synergies or spells of a certain cost. Both of Mage's Quests, Open the Waygate and Raid the Sky Temple both use casting spells to fulfill their requirements. Learn Draconic similar is a Sidequest that wants you to cast spells.

Damage

For Mages, the name of the game isn't Hearthstone. It's Damage. Out of every class in the entire game, Mage has most cards that contain the word "damage" in its textbox (and Paladin has the fewest). Their theme of damaging minions is an obvious part of the Mage class even for new players which they learn during the tutorial. The Hero Power, Fireblast deals 1 damage, and is one of the simplest and also most immediately useful Hero Powers in the entire game.

Mage excels damage in all forms. Mages have a lot of access to single-target damage such as Frostbolt, Fireball, and Firelands Portal. In addition to this, they also excel in damaging AoE effects through cards like Arcane Missiles, Flamestrike, and Blizzard.

To compliment their ability to deal lots of damage with their spells, Mage also has access to a fair few amount of Spell Damage minions. Among them, some of the most notable are Lab Partner, Cult Sorcerer, Astromancer Solarian, and Cosmic Anomaly.

Going along with this Spell Damage includes some cards that interact with their Spell Damage. Arcane Blast gets a double bonus from Spell Damage (meaning that Spell Damage +1 will grant it 2 additional damage, Spell Damage +2 will grant it 4 additional damage, and so on). While they don't actually deal any damage, Cram Session and Unexpected Results get a bonus from Spell Damage. Ras Frostwhisper also gets a bonus added to his effect from Spell Damage despite not being a spell. You can take advantage of this mechanic to make some creative cards which use Spell Damage this way. Just... please don't make another "deal 0 damage to all enemy minions" card.

Some cards may also boost their Hero Power's damage as seen on Arcane Amplifier or Daring Fire-Eater, or use synergistic elements with it like Pyromaniac.

Secrets

Mages have access to 3-mana Secrets, which are the most expensive Secrets in the game. This also means that they are arguably the most powerful. Some of the most well-known examples of Mage Secrets across the entire playerbase include Mirror Image,Counterspell, Duplicate, and Ice Block.

As with any Secret class, Mages have access to a number of cards to support Secrets of which include Arcanologist or Ancient Mysteries to draw them, Kabal Lackey or Kirin Tor Mage to reduce their Cost and make them easier to play, Medivh's Valet or Cloud Prince to deal some additional damage out of playing Secrets, or Kabal Crystal Runner to be a low-cost or even free 5/5 minion after playing a few Secrets.

And this is just a few examples of how to use Mage Secrets. There are plenty of other ways too. Glacial Mysteries, while frequently hailed as one of the worst cards in the entire game, is a way to use Mage Secrets.

AoE

Mages have very strong AoE, and this AoE exists in a number of different forms. They can shoot a number of random missiles through Arcane Missiles, Greater Arcane Missiles or Cinderstorm.

In traditional AoE sense, they can also damage a whole line of targets with cards like Arcane Explosion, Flamestrike, or Twilight Flamecaller.

They also have access to Freezing AoE as seen on Frost Nova, Blizzard, or Cone of Cold. The latter of which combines this with its damage abilities.

Tribal Synergies

Mage's main tribe of choice is Elementals featuring the second-highest number of class specific Elemental minions of any class (only behind Shaman). As noted in the Flavor section, Mage Elementals are typically fire, frost, arcane, or some other embodiment of those three elements (some exceptions do exist though such as Confection Cyclone or Cloud Prince).

Direct Elemental synergy can be seen on cards like Steam Surger, Bonfire Elemental, Animated Avalanche, or Frost Lich Jaina. Some less direct synergy can be seen on cards like Confection Cyclone or Pyros.

Mage doesn't necessarily have a secondary tribe they get for support, although the closest thing to that would be Dragons. In Descent of Dragons, they got Dragon support through Arcane Breath, Dragoncaster, or Malygos, Aspect of Magic. They do however have a fair number of Dragons outside of this expansion, more so than other non-Dragon classes.

Mage has one card in the entire game that supports Mechs, Goblin Blastmage way back in Goblins vs Gnomes which is also where every Mech minion for the class is (which is a bit ironic considering Mech Mage used to be a popular archetype around this time). Should their be a third expansion to heavily use Mechs, Mage is a possible candidate for a class to use them.

Card Draw

Mages have access to some strong card draw. Arcane Intellect is arguably the most well known example of card draw for the class. Mages have quite a lot of ways to draw cards through cards like Cram Session, Aluneth, or Stargazer Luna.

In addition to their ability to draw cards, they also have access to synergies from drawing cards. The most direct examples of this are Curio Collector or Archmage Arugal. Some more unorthodox methods of taking advantage of their card drawing abilities include Deck of Wonders of Flame Leviathan.

Card Generation

In addition to their ability to get cards naturally from their decks, Mages are also pretty good in their abilities to generate spells from thin air. This is probably the most controversial part of the class. Many of their spell generation is limited specifically to Mage spells. Babbling Book, Shimmering Tempest, Mana Cyclone, and Evocation can add one (or more) random Mage spells to your hand. Some more specific spells can be generated through Violet Spellwing, Ghastly Conjurer, Archmage Antonidas, or Rhonin.

In a similar vein, the Twinspell cards Ray of Frost and Conjurer's Calling effectively regenerate themselves.

Not only do Mages like to generate random spells, but they also have lots of ways to Discover them as well through cards like Magic Trick, Wand Thief, Primordial Glyph, or Kalecgos.

Spells aren't the only thing that Mage is able to generate, but they can also generate minions too. These minions can be fixed or otherwise dependent on various factors as seen on Confection Cyclone, Flame Geyser, Archmage Arugal, or Potion of Illusion. Or they can also be completely random like Unstable Portal, Astral Rift, Dune Sculptor, or Toki, Time-Tinker.

This card generation also extends to summoning minions like Mirror Image, Khadgar, Power of Creation, or Frost Lich Jaina.

Freeze

Mages specialize in ice magic, and ice magic has the ability to freeze things did in their tracks. As such, Mages have a lot of Freeze effects and ways to use them. Mages can Freeze a single target at a time as seen on Freezing Potion or Frostbolt, have AoE Freeze effects like Frost Nova or Blizzard, or have minions that Freeze things they damage like Water Elemental or Snowchugger.

Mages have cards which interact with Frozen minions, such as Ice Lance or Ray of Frost which deals damage to Frozen characters, Icicle or Coldwraith which draws a card if a minion on the board is Frozen, can use Snap Freeze or Shatter to destroy Frozen minions, or have Cryomancer to get a +2/+2 buff an enemy is Frozen.

Healing

Mages are meant to be able about damage, not healing. They'd rather be dishing out the damage, not repairing it. Mage has some limited access to Armor in the form of Ice Barrier or Arcane Artificer. Frost Lich Jaina grants Lifesteal to every Elemental you control for the rest of the game, although this card is not particularly well liked.

Hard Removal

While Mages excel with flying colors in the realm of dealing damage to their enemies, they are not good at outright destroying them. If there's a large threat in the way, the Mage needs to be able to deal enough damage to destroy it instead of outright killing it effortlessly. Shatter and Snap Freeze can only destroy Frozen minions meaning that you'll need to use an extra resource to make them applicable targets, and then you're killing targets that aren't very threatening right away because they're Frozen. Vaporize has the ability to destroy hypothetically any minion that attacks into it, although this is unreliable because it's based on your opponent's actions and your opponent may be able to suicide a small minion into the Secret to mitigate its effect. Conjurer's Calling can unconditionally destroy any minion, but it then summon two minions of the same Cost for the owner of that minion meaning that you'll typically want to use it on your own minions.

Taunt

Mage is one of two classes in the entire game with no class-specific Taunt minions (the other being Rogue). Their only way to generate any Taunt minions on the board is with Mirror Image (and by association, Ghastly Conjurer). Otherwise, they need to use Neutral cards if they wish to use Taunt minions.

Despite Mage's lack of any Taunt minions or healing, Mage still has the ability to play defensively pretty well. It just does it in a different way than classes that use healing or Taunts.

• Ice Sculptor is a unique way to use the Freeze mechanic by allowing it to summon a copy of any minion, as long as it's Frozen first. The minion summoned will also be Frozen meaning it will miss its next attack, but this can useful for summoning a copy of a Taunt minion or a minion with a strong recurring effect.