Turtle Mage Deck Guide
by hsdecktech - 4 years ago show comments
This month, I made my Standard legend climb with a fun new combo-control deck made possible by Scholomance Academy: Turtle Mage a.k.a. “Shudderwock” Mage! (Yes, I am aware that Tortollan comes from “tortoise,” not “turtle,” but the deck also likes to “turtle up” with the combo, so “Turtle Mage” seems like the better name).
Cowabunga!
During my climb–and in seeing peoples’ comments on the deck–it became clear to me that: 1) people are generally not particularly aware of this deck; and 2) even many of those who are aware of it, don’t understand it. I really hope not to see a bunch of mirrors and counters for the deck, but I really do enjoy the deck, and I already wrapped up my Legend climb anyway. So, I decided to make a quick guide.
The Deck
[wcp_deck id=”31515″]
This is the list I took to Legend. It’s a riff off of the list that Killinallday and Eddie brought in week one of Grandmasters, but with some changes for my own style and based on what I was seeing on my climb. If you compare the two lists, you can see some alternative inclusions. There are also plenty of ideas in the thread where I first saw the deck idea introduced outside of the Korean community. And finally, I’ve seen some people play with adding the Quest for Questing Explorer, Licensed Adventurer, and Sky Gen’ral Kragg, but I think that version is inferior as the main benefit of that–the card draw–can actually be a detriment, as it means you could draw your combo pieces without having Sphere to protect you, as will be discussed further, below.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, the main goal of the deck is the following soft lock:
- Play Tortollan Pilgrim and get a Potion of Illusions with its effect. This gives you a 1-mana 1/1 Pilgrim in your hand.
- Play the 1/1 Pilgrim to get another Potion of Illusions–now you have two 1-mana 1/1 Pilgrims in hand.
- Play a 1/1 Pilgrim to get an AoE freeze effect. That leaves your opponent’s board frozen, gives you a few Pilgrims on the board, and leaves you with a Pilgrim in hand. Because your opponent’s board is frozen, they have limited options. Because you have a Pilgrim in hand, you can repeat the process through the end of the game.
You win by either chipping them down with Pilgrims, pings, and whatever else you have and/or by adding Nightblade into the mix for an additional 3 damage each time you play a copy–usually ending the game in the next couple turns, if not with an immediate concession.
You only run 3 distinct spells so that your Pilgrim consistently gets the same options offered to it, to make sure the combo works. For the same reason, it’s very important to not draw those key spells, which is why most builds run little to no card draw. Instead, you use Sphere of Sapience to help you find the cards you want and–even more importantly–avoid the cards you don’t want. Polkelt is also very good for getting to your Pilgrims before you get to your spells, but keep in mind that if you Polkelt without Sphere, you are inherently putting yourself on a clock for how many turns you can go before drawing your spells, so you usually don’t just jam Polkelt on 4.
The cheap-spells-and-Firebrand package is something that Killin/Eddie came up with, at least as far as I know, and it is very good for fighting for the early board, and for winning the tempo matchups (more below). Manasaber helps you get to your Tortollan turns a bit faster. The rest of the deck is mostly just stall, and a few tech cards. Elekk in particular is a card that most decks don’t run; it probably doesn’t really deserve a slot, but it has saved me a few times when my deck hated on me and gave me my spells before my turtles, and it’s an okay body in the tempo matchups.
Tech cards like Acidic Swamp Ooze and Boompistol Bully make their ways into some lists, and are the types of things you can consider, depending on what you’re seeing/expecting in your meta. Astromancer Solarium is a common inclusion and can sub for Jandice if you don’t have her. Animated Broomstick has been in some lists, and was in mine for a bit, but I ended up wanting other stuff over it (for now, anyway).
General Play Loops and Tips
So, the general combo is outlined above, but that doesn’t give you the whole story. If they keep playing minions, then you run your little 1/1s into their minions to clear board space and then do your combo again. If they stop playing things, then you just continually chip at them until they die with your dinky little guys. Usually, Pilgrim isn’t the card you want tons of copies of; you’re just playing two per turn on most turns once you get your lock (one to freeze the board and one to copy two Pilgrims and whatever else you want to copy).
As mentioned above, you only need to keep one of your key cards in your hand at the end of each turn in order to get the loop going again for the next turn. Hand space can become an issue if you’re not careful, so I will often just through some junk out after I’ve done my duplications for the turn, and then just run those extra guys into enemy minions the following turn. Keep in mind that each turn you play a Pilgrim for a Potion, you get all the minions on the board added to your hand (plus the Pilgrim, but the Pilgrim just left your hand, so it is just replacing itself), that means that you just add the number of guys on the board to the number in your hand and make sure it’s not more than 10. If it is more than 10, then you get the cards added in the order they were played. Of course, if you played Polkelt, you should either know for sure or have a good idea of your next card, and might decide you’re okay with burning it.
If you Polkelt, you know that your next two cards are Pilgrims (or they are in hand already), so you can afford to play the first one for just a naked freeze with no copy if you need to–sometimes that one turn is enough to buy you a game. Likewise, sometimes you have to make the same play if you have a Potion in your hand, and hope they don’t kill the Pilgrim on their turn.
Conversely, sometimes (either because a Doomsayer just went off at the start of your turn or just based on the normal flow of the game) there’s not much pressure on you and you can just drop a Pilgrim on turn 8 just to copy itself and get the combo train rolling next turn.
Jandice serves three roles: 1) she is a backup combo finisher if you somehow have an issue with your Nightblade, as she helps you out-value pretty much any deck out there (and, since you run no draw, they have the pressure to win before Fatigue takes them, not you); 2) she is just a strong mid-game play that can put your opponent off their plan, or confuse them as to your’s–this often results in them clearing her up instead of hitting you in the face, which buys you at least a turn or two; and, 3) she’s great for going aggro in the tempo matchups.
Finally, keep in mind that in some matchups and circumstances, you’d rather pick Frost Nova over Blizzard with your Pilgrim. You do this if your opponent has a full board–or is on the road to getting there–and you don’t need to attack through taunts (you usually don’t need to, because you have your combo finisher, but sometimes it’s right to attack through taunts to speed up the kill so as to give your opponent fewer turns to find a solution, or their own finisher, and/or give yourself fewer turns to accidentally draw your spells and break your own combo).
Specific Matchups
This deck doesn’t really see enough play to get much advanced stats on it. So, going off what stats we have, my experience, and what I’ve seen others say, here are my impressions on the matchups (if it’s not on here, I didn’t play against it):
Favored: Libram Paladin, Pure Paladin, Survival Druid, Recruit Warrior, Highlander Mage, Galakrond Warlock, Hand Warlock.
All these decks tend to be midrangey decks that rely on winning through the board. That means that they tend to give you time to set up your combo (unless they get a highroll) and then don’t really have any answer to it. In these matchups, you can mostly just execute your normal game plan of playing early stuff to disrupt and get in the way, getting to your turtle turns, and then waiting for the win.
If I’m on the Coin, I will keep Pilgrim against Warrior and Mage. I would also keep it if I knew I was going against a slow Warlock, but you can’t assume that on the ladder, so you mulligan for Zoolock instead. Against Paladin and Druid I tend to keep Frost Nova and other early plays, since those are the decks that can sometimes just highroll and win on turn 5 if you’re not careful. I tend to keep Sphere against Druid, Warrior, and Mage, but not Paladin or Warlock (which you have to assume will go aggro on you). Once you get the lock against these decks, they have very limited tools against you (maybe a Truesilver swing, a Zephrys, or some Soulfires), so just try to keep in mind what those exact breakpoints are and try to play around them if you can. For instance, I will sometimes delay doing damage for a few turns so that I can gain a bit of life (through copying Farseers or Khartut Defenders) so they don’t topdeck me out of a won game.
About even: Malygos Druid, Duel Paladin, Bomb Warrior, Highlander Hunter, Tempo Mage, Priests, Zoolock, Midrange Demon Hunter, Quest Lock, the mirror.
These decks tend to be the decks that have the ability to sometimes go under you and beat you down before you get your combo going, that can continue to burst you down after you get the combo going, and/or that have some disruption that can ruin your combo.
Against the ones that can disrupt you (and in the mirror), you’re mostly just trying to get your combo off as soon as possible, so you can dodge their disruption. The mirror is literally just a straight race, unless one or both of you run Boompistol, in which case I guess it’s just about who can get the *full* lock out first. The Priest matchup comes down, almost entirely, to when and how they use Illucia. Likewise, Duel Paladin primarily comes down to whether they Duel! out a key minion (luckily, the odds of that are low and you have redundancies), and then only secondarily comes down to if they can pressure you. Against Bomb Warrior, you can’t rely on Polkelt because, well, they can shuffle your deck whenever they want. The Bombs can also make you miss on your combo, so keep that in mind and give yourself some cushion if you can.
Against the slower deck that have burn over the top (like Malygos Druid and Questlock), you just have to try to keep your life high–and save a life-gainer to prevent a two-turn lethal, if you can.
Against the medium-fast decks (Zoolock, Midrange/Soul Demon Hunter, Highlander hunter), you’re just the straight control deck; you keep your early stuff, disrupt as much as you can, and try to live until you get to your combo. Once you combo against Zoo, they basically only have Soulfire, so you’re pretty safe. Against Demon Hunter, you still need to watch out for weapons and Kayne, but they’re also slower, so you should usually have more life by the time you stabilize, and hopefully can get some life-gainers going. Highlander Hunter has just Brann and Zephrys as late burst, so try to play around those two if you can.
Unfavored: Stealth/Face Rogue, Aggro Demon Hunter, Totem Shaman.
The easiest way to beat this deck is to just kill them before they get to turns 8-10. These are the decks that have a solid shot at doing that. In these ones, you don’t worry about the combo and just play as a midrangey deck. Wandmaker, Wand Thief, and Firebrand are your most important cards. You play aggressively for the board and use your spells fairly liberally. You play Elekk, Jandice, and Nightblade as tempo cards if that’s offered to you–and games usually end shortly after you stick a Jandice or Nightblade. Relying on Khartut to save you can be dangerous because of Sap/Kayne/Devolving Missiles, so try not to put all your eggs into that basket unless/until it’s safe. You usually win these matchups by attacking more than locking them out, so even a tempo Pilgrim just to Blizzard them is a decent play, though, if you’re getting to 8 mana in those games, it usually means you already won.
Mega-bad: Face Hunter.
This matchup is nigh unwinnable. They have early damage, damage that doesn’t care about our soft lock, and damage (Gnomes) that punishes us if we have to try to lock with Blizzard. It’s almost just scoop as soon as you see the sidequest on 1, but the game will only last 6 turns anyway, so you might as well try.
Tech Counters
If you hate this deck, and want to hurt it, there are some things you can do without switching entirely to one of those archetypes that breaks it. Those include Bombs and Boompistol Bully, as discussed above. Illucia’s not a tech card, since all Priests just run it anyway, but you play her as a tech card in this matchup–specifically after the combo turn, to waste all the combo pieces (ideally, while also killing the ones on the board to fully disrupt). Demon Hunter has a couple solid counters, too, to solidify the matchup: Mana Burn stalls the combo and Glide can just stop it in its tracks. Rogues can revert to playing Flik Skyshiv again (you hit the Turtle), though the combo is less important in those matchups anyway, as noted above. And any deck can add Living Dragonbreath to make the soft lock not work; that’s particularly good in stuff like Druid where you can build up a big board and just hit the unsuspecting Mage for 30 in one turn–because if you don’t finish this deck in one turn, it can find ways to kill the ‘breath (including just playing two Blizzard-Pilgrims).
Conclusion
Alright, that’s all. The deck takes some practice to learn, so don’t get discouraged if you can’t figure it out right away. This is also one of those decks which is much easier with a deck tracker to make sure you know what’s left in your deck. It reminds me a lot of Holy Wrath Paladin, which I loved, so it’s no surprise I love this deck as well. If you enjoyed that deck, or Shudderwock Shaman, then you should enjoy this one as well. I hope this introductory guide helps you figure out how to get into it. Happy climbing!