I think I might have found the best deck in Wild. Okay, not really and I don’t normally go in for hyperbole, but in preparation for this week’s article I only lost two games. Granted, a busy schedule this week means that my sample size was smaller than normal, but 14 wins out of 16 games is hard to argue with.
I also have a slight confession to make. Tempo Mage won the vote last week, but I didn’t really like any of the lists I found and have actually been playing Secret Mage instead. In fairness, it’s still kind of a tempo deck. Curving out is very important and a well-timed Counterspell or Duplicate can decide a game. Getting a three-mana Mountain Giant from Mirror Image is pretty insane too, although it somewhat relies on a mistake from your opponent. Luckily I’m playing ladder, not HCT, so mistakes are common.
Alright, I hear you say, you went 14-2. But the ladder reset recently and you probably played against a bunch of noobs and bad decks. After all, every previous week I’ve written about the variety of decks in the format and how some of them are just plain bad. Honestly, though, looking back over my spreadsheet, the only weird deck was Pirate Rogue. There were a surprising number of Zoo players (3-0 against that deck), considering the fact that it’s a long way from being a top deck, but at least it’s a “real” deck. Unlike Pirate Rogue.
The trouble with doing so well in such a small sample size is that I don’t really know what the deck’s bad match-ups are. But this is Hearthstone and there must be some. It’s not like Secret Mage was even played at the recent Wild tournament hosted by Blizzard and I trust the professionals over my own limited experience. The question is: what decks did I not play against this week that are usually common in wild?
[deck]63741[/deck]
More thorough investigation was needed. Since this article was already delayed from its usual day of the week, I decided to play some more games and gather more data. Luckily, this deck is super fun to play. Winning is also fun, so that helps.
And winning is what I continued to do with this deck. I finally had to peel myself away from it and finish writing this article after winning on one life against a Pirate Warrior. That made 30 games for the week and 24 wins. I have never climbed ladder this fast before. I even had a winning record against Pirate Warrior (four wins, two losses). I changed one card from the list I started with as a nod to the aggro match-ups, but in the two games I played against Warrior after that I never drew my Arcane Blast anyway.
Honestly, I’m sort of at a loss for words at this point. I’m not a comfortable bragger but an 87% win rate makes me feel like that’s what I’m doing. There must be bad match-ups, but I struggled to find them. My only negative record were against Reno/Dragon Priest (with a question mark, because I never saw a Reno played) and Quest Rogue. I only faced each of those decks once, though, so it’s tough to draw conclusions. Quest Rogue did seems fairly hopeless, though a well-timed Counterspell can potentially trip them up if you have enough pressure on the board. Otherwise they can probably play around it quite easily by waiting to have enough mana to cast it without Preparation.
In terms of wrapping up this week, I not only recommend you play this deck, I urge you to. Not because it’s fun to play (although it is); not because it climbs ladder quickly (although it does). I urge you to play it in order to find out what its weaknesses are. I want to know more about it because I almost don’t believe my own findings. Never have I played a deck with this sort of win rate over an extended period of time. I found a few lists around the internet but couldn’t find a single pro playing it. It leaves me wondering if the deck is a huge sleeper or if me a handful of other people just got lucky. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that I got that lucky 24 times out of 30 games.
I found the deck fairly easy to play. As long as you pay attention to what your opponent is doing, it’s usually quite easy to have the secret you need when you need it. Sequencing can be quite important, but beyond that you just want to play on-curve wherever possible. Trade when needed, go face when you have the opportunity: fundamentals are what matter with Secret Mage.
