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Mage Dungeon Run Class Guide

Last updated on Jan 04, 2018 at 14:09 by Kat 8 comments

This guide is designed to aid you in your Kobolds and Catacombs Dungeon Runs. It goes into great detail about Treasure rewards and Card Buckets to help you make the most optimal choices when forging your Dungeon Run deck.

Dungeon Run Class Guides
1 Druid Dungeon Run 2 Hunter Dungeon Run 3 Mage Dungeon Run 4 Paladin Dungeon Run 5 Priest Dungeon Run 6 Rogue Dungeon Run 7 Shaman Dungeon Run 8 Warlock Dungeon Run 9 Warrior Dungeon Run
TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE
1.

Introduction

As a Mage you will begin your Dungeon Run with a deck that consists of the following 10 cards:

Mage Cards Neutral Cards
  • Earthen Ring Farseer
  • Doomsayer
  • Chillwind Yeti
2.

Treasures

After defeating the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th boss of the dungeon run, you will either get to choose 1 of 3 random powerful Treasure cards that you can add to your deck, or 1 of 3 powerful passive effects that will benefit you for the duration of the Dungeon Run.

The tables below contain a list of all the possible Treasures and Passive effects available and give them a general rating as to how good they are for the Mage class. The comments give further details as to how and why the Treasures are good in addition to some of the Card Buckets that they have good synergies with.

2.1.

Treasure Cards

Treasure Rating Comments
Bag of Stuffing Excellent Having a full hand of cards provides you with a lot more options and helps you draw into other powerful Treasures. It is good in decks with a low Mana curve and works well alongside Khadgar's Scrying Orb and Boots of Haste.
Boots of Haste Excellent Boots of Haste is excellent for any deck and allows you to flood the board for quick wins. It is even more powerful in slower and is excellent in combination with minions from the Giant Army and Legendary buckets.
Portable Forge Excellent Accessing a Legendary weapon for just 1 Mana is incredibly powerful and have options to suit all decks. The card draw of Aluneth is great for aggressive decks, Woecleaver is great for slower decks with Legendary or Giant Army of buckets, and The Runespear is a great backup option for any Mage deck.
Wondrous Wand Excellent Wondrous Wand is an excellent Tempo tool that gains the most with card Buckets containing expensive cards such as Legendary, Giant Army, and Big Spells.
Bag of Coins Good Bag of Coins is a good tempo tool to rush out big minions from the Legendary bucket or for providing excellent synergy for minions from the Magical Friends bucket such as Flamewaker and Mana Wyrm.
Horn of Cenarius Good Horn of Cenarius provides a huge burst of tempo in any deck. This is especially powerful with the Legendary and Giant Army buckets.
Loyal Sidekick Good Loyal Sidekick is a powerful tempo tool that gains strength as you progress in your Dungeon Run, if played early it can win games very quickly by itself.
Party Portal Good The large number of spells for Mage makes Party Portal an easy way to flood the board for any deck.
Primordial Wand Good Primordial Wand is an incredibly powerful tool for the final bosses, allowing you turn any minion into a huge source of damage through Windfury and Attack Adaptations.
Shifting Hourglass Good Shifting Hourglass is a powerful Treasure against later bosses that allows you to take consecutive turns to allow your minions to attack for huge amounts of damage.
Wand of Disintegration Good Wand of Disintegration provides a cheap and powerful board clear that can help preserve your board when ahead, or allow you to get back into the game if you fall behind.
Archmage Staff Average Archmage Staff is a consistent source of Mage spells that works well in combination with the Magical Friends card bucket.
Amulet of Domination Average Amulet of Domination functions as a 2-Cost Mind Control, which is underwhelming compared to other Treasures. Although it also adds a minion to your dungeon deck, it is a negligible effect as any minion copied is likely to be of similar strength to the cards in your deck.
Blade of Quel'Delar Average Blade of Quel'Delar is a great removal tool for early-game tempo, but offers no real synergy for Mages.
Dr. Boom's Boombox Average Dr Boom's Boombox is great for contesting the board and works well with Captured Flag. However, it is fairly weak compared to other Treasures.
Embers of Ragnaros Average Embers of Ragnaros is a reasonable removal tool and source of burn damage, but it is greatly hindered by the randomness of the targets.
Golden Kobold Average Golden Kobold is weaker than it appears. As there are many poor Legendary minions available, replacing your hand with Legendary minions will not be very beneficial most of the time. As a result, Golden Kobold should mainly be considered purely based on the fact is a 6/6 minion for 3 Mana.
Gloves of Mugging Average Gloves of Mugging is a good tool for slowing down bosses, but as most bosses use fairly weak cards the cards stolen provide minimal value.
Greedy Pickaxe Average Greedy Pickaxe is an excellent source of Mana Crystals an reasonable removal tool if drawn early, however it is a very underwhelming card when drawn in the late-game.
Magic Mirror Average Magic Mirror is very similar in value Amulet of Domination. Although it loses the Mind Control effect, the fact it can target friendly minions allows you to fill your deck with additional copies of your most powerful minions.
Orb of Destruction Average Orb of Destruction is a good tool for slowing down opponents, but offers little value against final bosses which start with 2 additional Mana.
Portable Ice Wall Average Portable Ice Wall is a good defensive minion, but is incredibly vulnerable to hard removal.
THE CANDLE Average THE CANDLE is an efficient removal that can get multiple uses per game.
Vorpal Dagger Average Vorpal Dagger is a good removal tool for any type of deck that can be used protect your board.
Wax Rager Average Wax Rager is a resilient minion that offers a consistent 5 damage per turn.
Wish Average Wish is an excellent card at saving games that are otherwise lost, however most fights will be over before you reach 10 Mana to play it.
Aleatoric Cube Bad Although the permanent discount on cards is nice, shuffling both decks together dilutes the synergies within your deck in addition to potentially giving your other Treasure cards to your opponent.
Hilt of Quel'Delar Bad Hilt of Quel'Delar provides a small boost in tempo but is quite weak as far as Treasures go. It is only worth considering if you also have Blade of Quel'Delar and wish to assemble Quel'Delar.
Mask of Mimicry Bad Mask of Mimicry is a poor card overall. It will provide no real advantage most of the time and will lower the flexibility of your hand by making all of your minions the same. The only time it is truly useful is when it can be combined with powerful Treasure minions such as Loyal Sidekick, however this circumstances are incredibly rare and do not justify ever picking Mask of Mimicry.
Rod of Roasting Bad Rod of Roasting is a fun Treasure that comes down to luck. It is only worth considering as a fun combination with Potion of Vitality.
Scroll of Confusion Bad Scroll of Confusion will even out the board on average, but the randomness of the effect makes it incredibly volatile compared to board clears like THE CANDLE.
2.2.

Passive Treasures

Treasure Rating Comments
Cloak of Invisibility Excellent Cloak of Invisibility removes the ability for bosses to remove your minions outside of AoE effects, this is especially powerful alongside Magical Friends which contains many minions with powerful effects if they are able to survive.
Captured Flag Good Captured Flag provides a good boost in tempo, but the high number of spells in Mage deck reduces the overall value. It it works best with the Elementals bucket due to the high number of minions it contains
Crystal Gem Good Crystal Gem provides a strong boost in early-game tempo, allowing you to explode onto the board faster, which is great for any deck.
Khadgar's Scrying Orb Good Khadgar's Scrying Orb is good due to the high number of spells Mages use. It works best with buckets that use cheap spells such as Arcane, Chaos, and Frost.
Robe of the Magi Good Robe of the Magi is especially powerful for Mages due to the high number of spells. It works best alonside Arcane buckets, turning Arcane Missiles and Arcane Explosion into huge sources of damage.
Battle Totem Average Mage does not gain a huge boost to Battlecry effects due to using a large number of spells. Battle Totem is only worth considering if have already acquired multiple Elementals buckets.
Justicar's Ring Average Justicar's Ring makes the Mage Hero Power a reasonable removal tool and it has excellent synergy with the Hero Power card bucket.
Mysterious Tome Average Mysterious Tome offers a good boost to early-game tempo, but it is largely unpredictable due to offering Secrest from all classes.
Small Backpacks Average Small Backpacks is a good choice to provide additional fuel for aggressive decks, but it pales in comparison to Bag of Stuffing.
Glyph of Warding Bad As bosses get most of their value from their Hero Powers, increasing the cost of their minions has minimal effect.
Potion of Vitality Bad Potion of Vitality offers no real value as should aim to be in control of all encounters and therefore take minimal damage to your Hero. It is only worth considering as a fun combination with Rod of Roasting.
Scepter of Summoning Bad Scepter of Summoning is fairly poor due to Mage minions being generally cheap. However it is a good choice if you have the Giant Army or Legendary card buckets.
Totem of the Dead Bad Mage has access to very few Deathrattle minions to benefit from Totem of the Dead.
3.

Card Buckets

After you defeat each boss, you will be offered a choice of 3 different card buckets that you can add to your deck. Each bucket contains 3 cards that fit a certain theme and will help shape your deck in different ways.

The table below contains a list of all the possible Mage card buckets and gives a general rating as to how good each card bucket is on average. The comments section contains further details of each bucket and when to choose them.

Bucket Rating Comments
Fire Excellent Fire is an excellent bucket for any deck and contains the most powerful removal spells like Fireball, Firelands Portal, and Flamestrike.
Magical Friends Excellent Magical Friends contains most Mage minions, and has excellent minions like Mana Wyrm, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Flamewaker, and Azure Drake. It is even more powerful if you have the Cloak of Invisibility Treasure to protect your minions.
Arcane Average Arcane contains most of the Mage utility spells, in particularly you should look out for Arcane Missiles, Arcane Intellect, and Polymorph.
Big Spells Average Big Spells contains all Mage spells that cost 5 or More Mana in addition to Spiteful Summoner, Dragoncaller Alanna, and Grand Archivist. As it can be hard to get enough big spells to synergise with the minions, this bucket should only be picked for its high-value spells like Flamestrike and Meteor.
Chaos Average Chaos contains all of the cards that generates random Mage spells in addition to the Open the Waygate Quest. It is not recommended to pick up the Quest unless you plan on fully committing to Chaos. Most of the card choices are reasonable with Primordial Glyph and Unstable Portal being exceptionally powerful.
Defense Average Defense contains all Mages defensive tools such as Frost Nova, Blizzard, and Doomsayer in addition to Antique Healbot and Sludge Belcher. This bucket is good if you wish to play a Control Mage and is excellent in combination with Giant Army buckets.
Elementals Average Elementals is the only real alternative bucket to Magical Friends for early-game minions. It contains most Elementals in the game, including Ragnaros the Firelord and Baron Geddon, and Frost Lich Jaina. You must be willing to pick many Elementals buckets throughout your Dungeon Run to ensure you are able to consistently get Elemental synergy.
Frost Average Frost contains all Mage Freeze effects and is rather underwhelming due to how weak Freezing effects are. However it has the potential to offer Frostbolt and Water Elemental which are both excellent choices.
Giant Army Average Giant Army can be a potentially strong bucket, especially if you pick up the Scepter of Summoning Treasure. Giant Army requires full commitment to a control strategy and works well in combination with Defense buckets.
Heroic Power Average Heroic Power offers a range of ways to empower the Mage Hero Power in addition to multiple Inspire minions, which work well with the Justicar's Ring Treasure. Fallen Hero and Frost Lich Jaina are also good choices from the bucket that can be used in any deck.
Legendary Average The Legendary bucket can potentially offer any Legendary minions and has very high variance as a result. As most Legendary minions have a high Mana Cost, it can be an excellent choice if you have picked up the Scepter of Summoning Treasure.
Lost Secrets Bad Lost Secrets contains all Mage Secrets in addition to minions like Mad Scientist, Arcanologist, and Kabal Crystal Runner. The bucket is only worth considering if Mad Scientist is offered alongside a reasonable Secret like Mirror Entity or Counterspell.
Unique Bad The Unique bucket will offer you Reno Jackson, Kazakus, and Inkmaster Solia in addition to random cards you do not already have in your deck. This bucket is generally not worth it as effects of the unique minions generally do not outweigh the potential value you can get from having many copies of other powerful minions you can pick up in your Dungeon Run.
4.

Changelog

  • 04 Jan. 2018: Treasure cards and Passive Treasures have been separated for clarity and readability.
  • 01 Jan. 2018: Golden Kobold, Mask of Mimicry, and Magic Mirror Treasures added.
  • 17 Dec. 2017: Guide added.
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