May 21, 2021
Decklist
2x Ice Lance
2x Magic Trick
2x Ray of Frost
1x Evocation
2x Frostbolt
2x Runed Orb
2x Flamewaker
It has been quite a while since I've piloted a combo deck in Wild, but I can honestly say that this is up there with some of the most powerful and fluid combo decks out there. The concept of the deck is quite simple; you essentially play out one or two Sorcerer's Apprentices, which allow you to cast (almost) all of your spells for free, and then you play out at least one Flamewaker, followed by an avalanche of spells to kill your opponent in one turn. As long as you can effectively get to turn 6-8 without dying, you have a good chance of winning the game!
The first thing that drew me to this deck was honestly how easy it was to make it. Sometimes in order to build a tier 1 Wild deck, you need to craft a ton of Epic and Legendary cards, and sometimes you go broke just by making one deck. This deck only requires 2 Legendary cards total, which in terms of Wild decks is, well, wild! With only 4 Epic cards and 18 common cards in the deck, this has to be one of the cheapest tier 1 Wild decks you could make. That alone is a major pull to making this deck, as sometimes cost itself is a barrier to building a deck for most players.
The neat thing about this deck is that almost every card in it serves a distinct purpose to winning the game. The main combo piece is essentially Flamewaker, as this is the card that will effectively kill your opponent. Then you have your mana reducers, such as Sorcerer's Apprentice and Incanter's Flow, which allow you to play the cards in your deck for free. Next, you have your card advantage spells, such as Evocation, Research Project, Arcane Intellect, Stargazer Luna, and Refreshing Spring Water, which all work together to allow you to fill your hand effectively and find your combo pieces. Refreshing Spring Water pulls double duty in this deck along with Conjure Mana Biscuit as they are the deck's ramp spells. When used with the mana reducers, this can lead to plenty of free mana and additional spells for your combo. The last essential part of the deck is the cards that keep you alive in the early game, like the freezing spells Ice Lance and Ray of Frost, along with damage spells like Frostbolt and Runed Orb. Used all together, the deck performs magnificently, keeping you safe in the early game from annoying attackers, while cheapening your deck and finding all the pieces needed for a quick and easy kill in the late game.
This deck performs extremely well against most of the Meta. Like all combo decks, when you are not able to find your combo pieces, such as when both Flamewakers in your deck are magically the last two cards in your deck, your deck will suffer. However, when the deck performs as it should, which with all the card advantage in the deck is not a difficult thing to do, the deck is nearly unstoppable.
When paired up against the aggro decks in the format, such as Pirate Warrior and Aggro Druid, if the opposing deck cannot go wide enough to get around the removal or quick enough to finish you before turn 7, then the game is most likely yours. Aggro decks are definitely one of the tough matchups for this combo deck, leading to most of the losses overall for the deck.
Tempo Mage is very efficient against the Midrange decks such as Handbuff Paladin because usually by the time they are able to play their creatures they are already dead. The best matchups for Tempo Mage usually end up being Midrange decks along with the ramp decks in the format, as the opponent is usually dead before they are able to set up for a win.
The biggest weakness to the deck is definitely the Secret Mage deck, which utilizes its effective creatures and Secret efficiently to close out the game before Temp Mage can go off. The best way to beat this deck is to find your combo pieces as quickly as possible and pray that they cannot kill you in time for you to have a Hail Mary turn to kill them first.
Some of the most interesting matchups are the mirror matches, alongside the matchups against the deck's sister, Mozaki Mage. In both of these matchups, both players are essentially just trying to combo off first, which sometimes is what the game comes down to. It gets interesting when both players start utilizing Magic Trick and Primordial Glyph in order to find Secrets because an effective Ice Block or even a Counterspell sometimes is enough to completely flip a game. So be very careful playing into your opponent's secrets, the worst thing that can happen to this deck is to combo off only to have your opponent survive and kill you on the crack-back.
Overall, I would say that this deck deserves an average of 8 out to 10, which varies based upon expertise with the deck. In the hands of a brand new player, the deck can definitely feel like a 7 out of 10, because the deck is sometimes difficult to play and it can sometimes feel like you just can't win. However, in the hands of a player who knows the game and the meta and has played the deck quite a bit, the deck can feel like a 9 out of 10, sometimes almost unbeatable, and can definitely get you win-streaks that can take you right to Diamond League. My advice with the deck would be not to get discouraged if at the beginning you flounder a little bit and can't seem to get the combo going, take some time to really get to know the deck, and in time you will be rewarded with a fun experience and a new outlook on how to play the game that we all love.
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