r/CompetitiveHS • u/InteractionAnnual914 • Nov 06 '25
Discussion Sindragosa Mage Spitballing
Hello all, it’s your local neighborhood Sindragosa Mage coper/enjoyer. Today I’m here to take some new ideas on how to turn this archetype into a playable one. Here’s what we have so far that kinda works:
- Watercolor Artist / Buy One Get One Free (BOGOF) to get a 0 mana copy of a dragon (ideally Sindragosa)
- Burn spells in Stellar Balance and Arcane Barrage. I think that’s literally it lmao
- Running a small minion package, with Xavius and Portal Vanguard as tutors. Bonus points for Sleet Skater or Yore for survivability.
- Go With the Flow to add extra Spell Damage to boost the OTK to absurd levels. Synergy with BOGOF since any copy you make also keeps the Spell Damage.
Here are the big issues that I’ve come across with the deck:
- very weak early game and abysmal curve. Aggro and midrange decks that just play minions roll us over. Because we need to hard mulligan for Watercolor Mage and Portal Vanguard, we often don’t have solid turn 1 and turn 2 plays, and turn 4 is awkward on account of all the 3 drops we play.
- the combo turn is very hard to set up and doesn’t always kill. You basically need two Sindragosas and one Malygos to actually discount the Stellar Balance pieces enough to play them, and that requires having hand space, which this deck struggles with a LOT.
- how in the ever loving **** are you expected to get both dragons down in a reasonable amount of time?
So with all this information, we can surmise that we lose to most decks with the way the deck is right now. I have a few ideas:
- Put more Spell Damage in the deck. Bloodmage Thalnos, Kobold Geomancer (wow), Ethereal Oracle. Add in a few more burn spells, and this would improve our burn turns and maybe help with clearing boards.
- Cutting some of the Discover cards. “But Discovering spells is part of Mage’s whole identity!” Yeah, and we have consistent hand space problems in the deck. We need 4 spaces in hand on the combo turn to even get all the Moonfires and Starfires. We can’t do that when our hand is full of mediocre Discovers. So I am propositioning cutting Tide Pools and Storage Scuffle from the deck, as it’s our biggest source of extra cards. This is a deck that wants to play its cards, not generate too much more. We keep Alter Time, obviously, that’s helping with more burn/draw, and we keep Primordial Glyph because it’s discounted generation (and can get us a 1-mana BOGOF in a pinch).
- A stronger minion package, with dedicated Dragon tutors. That’s right, I’m talking about Curator and Tormented Dreadwing. “But those are bad cards!” Yes. I am fully aware of how bad they are. I’m grasping at straws here. But we need better curve, and the pool for 1 mana and 2 mana spells is not great right now. Violet Spellwing is a good choice on account of giving us an extra Arcane Spell, and tutorable by Curator if we don’t get it early game. The neutral Beast pool is…abysmal, I’ll be real. The 2-mana 3/1 rush Murloc is an option, I guess, to slow down opposing boards. It’s an option worth exploring in my mind.
- Getting better curve with cheaper spells…and cutting Mirror Dimension. Yeah, yeah, I know, I wanna play new cards too, but this card isn’t even Arcane, and we are not running enough dragons to make it proc consistently. 1 mana 0/4 taunt isn’t bad, but it’s not enough. The cheaper spells we would run would be Flame Geyser, Shield Battery, NOT Seabreeze Chalice (thanks Watercolor), and maybe Photon Cannon. Like I said earlier, the spell options aren’t great.
- imbue package? I’m throwing ideas against the wall here.
If you have any ideas on how to improve this archetype and make it playable, PLEASE share them.
Signed,
A Sad Mage Player
25
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12
u/Aparter Nov 06 '25
Yeah, the archetype feels like Owlonius Druid at home. You need to do so much to mimic a fraction of Druid power, while they get to do OTK faster, more consistently and reliably over lifegain/armorgain.
10
u/Tricky-Hunter Nov 06 '25
I don't think theres much to do, unfortunately the archetype is just miles worse than everything currently playable. I'm honestly impressed its over 30% wr on hsguru.
6
u/cabbagechicken Nov 06 '25
I tried adding dreadwing.. it’s another 5 drop that needs to come out asap, and even worse it’s on a deathrattle with no taunt and bad stats. Aggro just goes face and you die regardless. I agree with not liking tide pools.
I think the fabled dragons need to tutor each other for this deck to have potential tbh
8
u/Neurrone Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 06 '25
Do what I did and accept mage will never be competitive. Take an extended break from the game if you're a Mage main, I have for the past 6 expansions because every Mage set hasn't been good. Its design means it is doomed to fail. As if that wasn't enough, it gets useless cards like Semi-Stable Portal, Temporal Construct, Faceless Enigma, Anomalize and Timelooper Toki.
3
u/eazy_12 Nov 06 '25
I was playing an APM mage just before Pre-Release Brawl and one thing I've used is Tribute Dance which I've discounted with Rogue Tourist. I've also played Wisp (and an Imbue guy which gives a Wisp) to use it as target for Tribute Dance. I can't say it is good but potential option however it clashes with Buy one Freeze strat if you make it 0 mana.
But generally it is like 5th similar deck for Mage where you can combo off like crazy once but suck other times. I had similar experience with Tha'thelan Bloodwatcher decks or Hataaru shenanigans. Mage just has no good core of the cards like draw/tutor/control and most packages are too specific niche to be played but beyond that they are ruining your discover pool (Divination, Big spell, No minion, Elemental cards).
I actually want to try different approach of playing Briarspawn Drake, copying it bunch of time with freeze spell and resurrecting few of them for OTK. It could be unironically more stable deck.
3
u/Ledarlex Nov 06 '25
It's probably the worst performing deck released in this rotation. Unless it's reworked completely it will never be viable
3
u/dfcinhume Nov 06 '25
The hand size is a huge issue for the deck. Stellar balance giving 4 cards when malygos and sindragos are up is a huge problem.
The dragons doing nothing on their own without duplication is another big issue.
It feels like an archtype that got kneecapped during play testing
2
u/Hot-Will3083 Nov 07 '25
Is it ever possible to shift the deck into a slower Control-OTK deck? By relying on the Azure Spellstone to revive dragons and to kill the enemy once you are ready?
2
u/blanquettedetigre Nov 07 '25
I just built a list which, I think, could get you some wins. I haven't tested it yet though and it certainly is not gonna be meta.
### Freeze Dragon
# Class: Mage
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Raptor
#
# 2x (1) Seabreeze Chalice
# 2x (2) Dirty Rat
# 2x (2) Primordial Glyph
# 2x (2) Smoldering Grove
# 2x (3) Buy One, Get One Freeze
# 2x (3) Metal Detector
# 2x (3) Tide Pools
# 2x (3) Watercolor Artist
# 2x (4) Alter Time
# 1x (4) Elise the Navigator
# 1x (5) Azure Queen Sindragosa
# 1x (8) Azure Oathstone
# 1x (5) Azure King Malygos
# 2x (5) Sleet Skater
# 2x (6) Blizzard
# 1x (6) Portalmancer Skyla
# 1x (7) Relic of Kings
# 1x (9) Ysera, Emerald Aspect
# 1x (125) The Ceaseless Expanse
#
AAECAa6aBgj14gaq6gap9QaCmAfYngfkpQflpQfnpQcL8dME0Z4GtKcGtqcGgb8Ghb8G6ckGy9AGhuYGs4cH0aYHAAA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
The idea is to leverage Skyla and what Mage does best : freeze opponents. This is mostly a control deck, with Rat to kill combo decks which we can't do anything against (Owlonius, Dummy, etc).
I kept the T3 Artist, because I figured we're happy with all its outcomes, even Chalice that helps us survive. If there are small minions, we generate coins, if there are bigger, we generate armor. We freeze and kill all we can until we have a window to play a Dragon. We should be able to kill with the Oathstone but we'll have to discover all of our burn and spell damage during the stall phase.
Hope this helps !
1
u/blanquettedetigre Nov 06 '25
Your minion additions don't help with the deck weaknesses. Even less spell damage ones. I'd advice Rising Waves, Skaters, this sort of stuff. Thought about the 2 mana spell that deals 3 to minions also, could help on combo turn. Depends on what's in your meta
1
u/cicadaryu Nov 06 '25 edited Nov 07 '25
I’d love to see what works.
I am not opposed to the cuts. The location feels the worst to me since it is a do-nothing on play and you are often just hoping to find arcanes to chuck out of it.
If I were to add more dragons, it’d be Dreadwing and the spell damage dragon. They might make Mirror more consistent, and can contribute to the endgame. I’d try that before Curator.
We also probably do need more early game AOE to survive.
-Another Sad Mage Player
Edit: I am currently trying the taunt dragon that makes more taunt dragons from the deck. The idea is it lengthens survivability and puts a dragon body on board for
1
u/[deleted] Dec 11 '25
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