by stormraige23 - 1 year ago     show comments

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Do you like random cards?! What about cards that didn’t start in your deck? What about casting them all again?! Then boy do I have a deck for you.

Chaos Mage is just that… unbelievably chaotic! These cards were revealed by Kranich and you should watch the reveal video here immediately because its delightful. These cards are definitely fun…  but… ARE THEY GOOD ENOUGH?!

Let’s take a quick look at the cards we have already that are based around creating new spells.

The new cards revolve around casting cards that didn’t start in your deck. It’s a little less random and a little more unpredictable. Random back in the day was TRULY random, but with the advent of the incredible discover mechanic it’s a lot more like counting cards than playing the slots. Kalecgos is a powerful late game card that allows an immediately powerful big spell, but it is so late that it often doesn’t matter. In a slower meta I can see this seeing a lot of play and based on the cards we’ve seen so far I’m anticipating a slower meta. Ethereal Conjurer used to be an elite level card, but with modern day power creep it isn’t that great and the same can absolutely be said for the once great Babbling Book. Runed Orb and Suspicious Alchemist are already stables in mage because they are absolute CHONKERS of a card.

Playability: B

Energy Shaper is an all time fun card. Random cards, and an immediate Deck of Lunacy (well sort of…) on a body? Yes please. If you have a number of 3 cost spells in your deck your can get some incredible cards such as: Nourish, Siphone Soul, Brawl, Command of Neptulon, Sprint, and Metamorphosis just to name a few. 4 cost cards (upgraded to 6) don’t have as good of a pool. There are some winners like Blizzard, but also some low rolls like Glaciate, and Proving Grounds. The real winner is actually putting five cost spells in your deck to upgrade them to 7. At 7 you get winners like: Scales of Onyxia, Frostwyrm’s Fury, and Elekk Mount. There’s not a single low roll. Now the negative is that there’s only three spells that cost 5 in mage. Arcane Overflow isn’t bad, but you’re not running Deep Breath or Refreshing Spring Water unless its a very spell heavy deck. With all that said this is likely still beneficial even if you are not running a specific chaos deck which is typically a sign of a great card.

Playability: A

Vast Wisdom is such an interesting card. Discovering two cards is fine, but the pool of 3 cost cards is pretty weak. Then swapping those costs doesn’t allow for the busted nature of cards like Rune of the Archmage so I’m not sure its an effect you care much about. It also doesn’t have a spell school and feels like it belongs with the arcane cards… but that’s a different argument. To top it all off it costs 3. Most discover abilities cost 1. Naturally it makes sense to bump this up from that since you get two whole cards, but at 3 mana? Gross. So if the swapping isn’t a massive reward and the cost is this high? It’s one you likely avoid.

Playability: D+

Prismatic elemental is beautiful. Just a beautiful fun card. Would I run this card no matter what just because of the art? Yes. Is it also incredible? Yes. A body, a free card, and a discount. It’s wonderful. LOOK AT IT!!!

Playability: S

Grand Magister Runmath is a delightful payoff card. It is rune of archmage on a stick… but less random in some ways and more in others. The only problem is that there really isn’t enough generation for this to be an absolute finisher. It will probably clear the board, but with a card of this nature that runs off of awkward enough requirements I’d like something just a touch more threatening. If this card read “target enemies if possible” then it would REALLY go all the way to the top. As is… the majority of the things it can do can also just backfire and hit your own face/minions… which while maybe not GOOD is incredible.

Playability: A

What deck could this possibly fit into right now? Let’s take a look.

Grand Magister Frozen Touch OF PAIN:

The goal of this deck is to push face damage and then use your big ender of Grand Magister to recast all of your frozen touches one last time in a late game finish.

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There’s enough early game presence and board building to infuse those frozen touches a number of times. The theory is that you hard mulligan for a frozen touch and use the minions to generate more infuse. Then you’ve got Commander Sivara and Grand Magister Runmath to bring it back several more times. Ignite also allows for several recasts. Now… bad news? Runmath doesn’t guarantee casts at your opponent so… if your luck is like mine you probably just smash your own face, but at least it’s a great way to go out. Is it good enough to compete with Denathrius? No I don’t think so, but if you’re looking for something new to try this is it.

Quest Chaos Mage

The quest is still not too bad and if you’re able to complete it then your frozen touches are slamming for five. Maybe I just like frozen touch too much… but let’s throw in all of the chaos package cards for a total of 7 cards. Let’s take a look at what this might look like.

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There’s enough damaging spells that once the quest is completed you can likely finish off your opponent, but in case they don’t die immediately you can always wait until turn 9 to slam down Grand Magister. Now you need to be careful with when you play energy shaper so you don’t lose valuable pieces, but come on how fun does this look?!

Final Thoughts: The Chaos Mage is exactly what I love about mage and I like the variety that they’ve given us with some early game board swaps rather than just late game bombs like Rune of the Archmage. These are all great cards (maybe even Vast Wisdom) and they will likely slide into a lot of different mage decks. There aren’t enough cards to be its own archetype, but that doesn’t matter these cards are great and I can’t wait to play them.