Classic Freeze Mage Deck

Classic Freeze Mage Deck Mulligan Guide

Freeze Mage is a combo deck reliant upon drawing through its deck in order to burn down opponents. It is important to use your mulligan to find key card draw tools and defensive tools where relevant.

• General Mulligan (keep regardless of what your opponent is playing) — Arcane Intellect, Loot Hoarder.
• Mulligan against Aggro (also keep if you think you are playing against an aggressive deck) — Doomsayer, Frostbolt.
• Mulligan against Control (also keep if you think you are playing against a slow deck) — Acolyte of Pain.

Additional Mulligan Considerations

Against non-control decks, if you are already keeping a copy of Doomsayer in your opening hand, you can additionally keep a copy of Frost Nova to pair with it. When doing this, you may also opt to keep a copy of Acolyte of Pain to ensure you have some card draw, as you will be less likely to mulligan into your other card draw if you are already keeping 2 cards.

Classic Freeze Mage Deck Strategy

In the early game, your aim is to draw as many cards as possible through the use of cards like Arcane Intellect and Loot Hoarder. If you have Mana to spare, you can make use of proactive defensive cards like Ice Barrier and Mirror Image to help fill out your Mana curve.

As you start to draw your cards, your opponent will naturally start to populate the board to build up pressure. As this happens, it is important not to overreact as doing so will slow down your strategy. If your opponent plays a high-priority threat, such as a minion buffed by Blessing of Might, you can commit a single Fireblast or Frostbolt, otherwise you should prioritise continuing your early-game plan, knowing that minions can be dealt with later in the game.

As you go into the mid game, you should continue using your card draw whenever you have spare Mana to to do. If your opponent's board is getting out of control, which is usually at around 15 damage if you are nearly full Health or 10 damage if you are under 20 Health, you can make use of Freeze effects like Frost Nova and Blizzard to slow down the game.

If you wish to clear the board to save on Freezes, or to simply slow your opponent down, from Turn 7 onward you can use Flamestrike to clear your opponent's board if the minions are not too big. Alternatively, you can pair one of your Freeze effects with a Doomsayer to clear the board at the start of your next turn, however, do note that this can be countered by removal or Silence effects, which are common in the Classic format.

In addition to pairing Doomsayer with Freeze effects, it can often be proactively used if you opponent does not have the 7 damage required to kill it, forcing your opponent to play passively on their next turn and giving you initiative. For example, if your Zoo Warlock opponent plays a Flame Imp on Turn 1, a Turn 2 Doomsayer can slow them down greatly as the only way they can deal with it efficiently without using an Ironbeak Owl, would be to commit exactly 2 Abusive Sergeants.

Similar to Doomsayer, Acolyte of Pain is also a powerful minion that can be used in multiple situations. The card is most commonly used on Turn 5 onward, as it can be paired with the Fireblast Hero Power to draw a card while allowing the minion to survive for more card draw. However, if opponents only have 1 and 2-Attack minions on board, playing an early Acolyte of Pain allows you to trade with it, saving yourself Mana from your Hero Power while simultaneously slowing your opponent's advances.

When you finally reach the late game, you are ideally looking to play Alexstrasza when possible, but the way you use the card will depend greatly on the matchup. Against Aggro decks that aim to deal a set amount of damage like Face Hunter, you will usually want to use Alexstrasza on yourself after an Ice Block has been triggered, for a huge tempo swing as you heal yourself. In non-Aggro matchups, Alexstrasza should be used on your opponent, ideally while you have an Ice Block in play, to set your opponent's Health to 15.

To close out games, you should look to assemble a combination of burst-damage spells after Alexstrasza has been played. As a general rule, you should try to constantly keep track of how much damage you have in hand to ensure you know when you can win the game. Common examples to remember as a baseline are the fact the combination of 2x Fireball and Frostbolt for 15 damage, and Fireball, Frostbolt, Bloodmage Thalnos, and 2x Ice Lance for 21 damage. Against, Aggro you will have likely used a lot of your damage simply to survive until late game, in which case you can simply attack your opponent directly with Alexstrasza to make up any damage as they will likely not be able to deal with it.

The only matchup that is difficult to close out using the combination of Alexstrasza and burn damage spells is against Control Warrior as their use of the Armor mechanic allows them to greatly exceed 30 effective Health. Although the matchup is heavily unfavoured, you can help streamline the matchup by using spare Mana throughout the game on burn damage that will only remove Armor, this is due to the Armor still being intact after Alexstrasza has been used. To aid with this, the deck uses Pyroblast to help shred through the excessive amounts of Armor.

Classic Freeze Mage Deck Card Swaps

Archmage Antonidas can be used as an alternative to Pyroblast, functioning as a slower but stronger way to fight against Control Warriors.

Novice Engineers can be used in place of Azure Drakes. This swap allows you to streamline your card draw process at the expense of the ability to slow opponents down that Azure Drakes offer.

A copy of Cone of Cold can be included over a copy of Azure Drake or Pyroblast as an additional Freeze tool to slow down Aggrgo decks.

Changelog