Freeze mage is a deck which has been around since early alpha, even though some of its cards were nerfed the deck remained strong. The concept of the deck is to stop your opponent having a large consistent board presence though clear's or the freeze spells then taking advantage of the Mage's large arsenal of burst damage.

The Evolution of Freeze Mage

With each expansion releasing new cards to add to the card pool that the Mage can choose from. The Naxxramas expansion added in the Mad Scientist's, which replaced Novice Engineer's, Azure Drake's or Mirror Image's. The Goblins vs Gnomes expansion added more sustainability and clear in the form of Antique Healbot and Explosive Sheep. The Blackrock Mountain expansion saw the strongest addition since the decks conception, Emperor Thaurissan, giving the deck a greater win condition with cheaper Ice Lance's, Frostbolt's and Fireball's. Lastly the Grand Tournament has a surprising addition which seems to work well is Chillmaw the frost dragon whilst its a big taunt body if Alexstrasza is the hand it procs its deathrattle of 3 damage to all minions to the board which would destroy any Grim Patron board and most aggressive boards.

An example deck and general playing tips

The deck pictured is the deck that I currently play. The main win conditions that I am searching for are Alexstrasza to reduce the enemy health to 15 then finish off with some form of burst damage which usually comes in the form of 2 Fireball's and a Frostbolt. The other condition is using Archmage Antonidas and Frost Nova turn 10, to then hopefully create multiple Fireball's to win though shear burst and the inability to die from Ice Block. For the mulligan I am looking for the card draw such as Mad Scientist, Loot Hoarder and Acolyte of Pain.

Against aggressive match-ups it is acceptable to keep a Explosive Sheep or even a Frostbolt just to elevate some of that early pressure. Whilst more control match ups just keep the draw. Then using cycle cards such as Loot Hoarder, Acolyte of Pain, Arcane Intellect and Mad Scientist to find the clear or delay cards such as Explosive Sheep, Blizzard, Flamestrike, Chillmaw, Frost Nova and Doomsayer. Whilst the deck shown doesn't run Explosive Sheep or Chillmaw they can be added by replacing a Blizzard.

The main reason to add Explosive Sheep would be if you are facing a lot more aggressive decks or Paladin decks on ladder. With Chillmaw again potentially removing a Blizzard or maybe a Antique Healbot. The main survival in the deck comes from cards such as Antique Healbot, or the 2 sets of secret's Ice Barrier and Ice Block. Then winnning in the late game using the win conditions to defeat your opponent. Another win condition that the deck can use is including Malygos, combining this with Emperor Thaurissan on Frostbolt's and Ice Lance's burst for a incredible amount of 34 damage in one turn.

To add Malygos into the deck I would remove either Bloodmage Thalnos or potentially the Antique Healbot. Another card which also may be classed as a win condition is Pyroblast with the extra 10 damage being used to finish off any opponent that has managed to heal past all of the deck's damage. I personally don't have this in the deck as it's too slow for the amount of aggressive decks on ladder. With Emperor Thaurissan, rather than instantly playing him when you have 6 Mana sometimes its prudent to wait until you have multiple win condition cards or spells to combo with Archmage Antonidas but by turn 6 you most likely will have some of these pieces.

Bloodmage Thalnos is a interesting card to include into freeze Mage as whilst it is a cycle card it can also be very useful in increasing removal damage later in the game combining it with Blizzard for a 3 damage removal. Lastly Cone of Cold whilst this doesn't get much play I find it could be a good card to use its a cheaper form of Blizzard but with the 1 less damage and only freeze's 3 minions against board heavy decks Blizzard is better.

Playing against certain match ups

Aggro: Aggressive match-ups such as face Hunter, aggro Paladin and zoo is when you may want to use your burst cards to remove threats as you want to make them use all their cards from there hand. From there continue to control the board and use Alexstrasza and Archmage Antonidas to win the game, plus in this match up don't be afraid to use Alexstrasza on yourself as usually by the time you use Alexstrasza they have nothing to deal with this threat or if they use a lot of burst to deal with Alexstrasza this prolong's the game which is always better for the freeze Mage player.

Zoo can be annoying due to the Nerubian Egg's it can drop but this is sometimes ok as it just means a dead drop for a turn and they can be cleared. But the main thing to watch out for is aggro Paladin with Divine Favor with the ability to refill their hand. This is fine though as you can use your clear and some burst to remove any buffed minions. In the aggressive match-up using the coin to put a 2 Mana drop to contest the 1 Mana drop or if no 1 Mana drop then their 2 Mana drop is fine. As well using Doomsayer early just to deny drops as well is useful, since these match up's don't have many ways to answer the Doomsayer apart from Silence or from using some of their burst.

Mid-Range: The most important thing here is the 2 Mana draw card's during the mulligan as you want to get Bloodmage Thalnos, Loot Hoarder and Mad Scientist for turn 2. With turn 3 being either Arcane Intellect or a secret if drawn (never keep secrets). Due to the late game threats that opponent's drop the most important thing is to utilise draw spells early, with the freeze spells later couplied with the Doomsayer and area of effect spells.

With mid-range Paladin keeping Explosive Sheep is very good to remove the threat of the Muster for Battle, Quartermaster combo. But mid-range Paladin and Shaman are incredible annoying with both having heals with most Paladin's running at least Lay on Hands and with Shamans most likely having the new heal card Healing Wave which has the potential to heal 14 health. So using Archmage Antonidas to gain multiple Fireball's is critical here.

Druid: This can be a annoying match-up due to the Keepers of the Grove but if 1 Silence can get baited early on a Mad Scientist that's always good, so play the Mad Scientist over the Loot Hoarder as most to nearly all Mage decks run Mad Scientist. The main advice here is to drop your card draw creatures early to stop them from gaining that little bit of armor as well to contest any creatures they may ramp out. The win condition for this match up is mainly going to be Archmage Antonidas for the extra fireballs due to the Ancient of Lore heal but if there is no taunts or answers on the board then playing Alexstrasza turn 9 usually means victory as they can heal but not stop the 8 damage from Alexstrasza.

In this match up typically you don't want to use too much burn on creeps but if they do ramp a creature out feel free to use a Fireball or Frostbolt to gain value. Plus remember the Force of Nature/ Savage Roar combo dealing 14 damage if you don't have Ice Block on yet.

Mage: Tempo Mage can be very annoying if the machine gun Flamewaker's or Mana Wyrm get going from the amount of spells tempo Mage use. So remember they most likely will have the same amount of burst you do and Unstable Portal potentially tipping the odds with some crazy RNG. The plan here is remove the threats before they get going even sacrificing some of the burst such as a Frostbolt or a Fireball, as these decks don't generally run heals so hitting with Alexstrasza and then using the 15 damage combo. 1 advantage is that these decks run Mirror Entity so whenever using the Doomsayer Frost Nova combo make sure to play Doomsayer first as this card could be copied and you then get to keep the freeze spell. If Doomsayer doesn't get copied then watch out for Counterspell maybe using the coin if you have it to proc the Counterspell.

Priest: Again a nice match up as they like to play the slow game, this match up can be annoying as they can use their Shadow Word: Pain's on Doomsayers but with this match up just delay the game though clear with the AOE removal and again try to gain as much value from Archmage Antonidas. By turn 6 hopefully most 2 attack minions will have been played and so the value from Cabal Shadow Priest is lessened. With the new dragon Priest the odds have improved as not many of them run Shadow word: Pain and so Frost Nova and Doomsayer is much more effective, but some variations are using 2 Shadow Word: Death's which can be annoying if used on Emperor Thaurissan, Archmage Antonidas and Alexstrasza.

Rogue: This is quite a nice match up as they have to use either burst to kill Doomsayers or lose their board presence or they just can't burst you down as the Ice Barrior which is an extra 16 health essentially and having Antique Healbot means they just don't have enough damage, with themselves only running a few heals such as Earthen Ring Farseer or potentially 1 Antique Healbot the Alexstrasza combo is more effective here, as well their burst comes around turn 7/8 it usually means they are too slow at killing you.

Control Warrior: This is one of the least favored match ups due to the fact that they normally stack so much Armor there like a raid boss and with the new addition of Justicar Trueheart which adds even more armor to stack. The only hope is if they don't have an answer for Archmage Antonidas and so you get a large amount of fireballs, but generally this match-up just has too many threats for your removal to deal with. However the Malygos variation of this deck has a much better chance to get more burst for the hopeful win.

Grim Patron Warrior: This match up is a little better as rather than stacking armor they try to cycle cards to draw into their combos, but with some of them now running Shield Blocks for the card draw and extra amour the match up has gotten harder, but this is a winnable match up with the Ice Block's and Ice Barrior's, to delay then using AOE clears. Plus if you are able to remove the 2 sets of Grim Patron and Frothing Berserker then winning though fatigue is a genuine possibility. Killing the Amorsmith's early is also crucial to this match up to deny more armor.

Warlock: The Demon style deck which is played is an ok match up, the Nerubian Egg's can be pesky but do stop a lot of tempo when played. Popping them turn 6 is best here to go into a turn 7 Flamestrike. The problem with these decks are the Antique Healbots to heal out of lethal range and Mal'Ganis being the worst as this negates damage done to face until it is dealt with. Using the Archmage Antonidas Frost Nova combo is critical here to gain enough Fireball's to deal with the heals and the Mal'Ganis. One new card that has come out the expansion and may be very troublesome for freeze Mage is Dreadsteed, as this deck does not run Silence then the Dreadsteed will remain forever. But this deck seems slow so using the same techniques of Archmage Antonidas could be effective. But this deck does run a Twisting Nether which can be answer to Archmage Antonidas.

I hope you enjoyed reading this guide and that you have a new deck that you want to play or some helpful tips to improve if you already play the deck. Any questions about this deck feel free to message me.

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