I think I must�ve had to answer this question over a dozen times in Stuttgart. I guess I�ve made quite a name for it by playing it successfully in Milano, London and San Diego. However, each and every time I got asked, I had to disappoint: I wasn�t playing Daspien that day. Even though I tested it a lot and was impressed by the boosts it had gotten in Servants, how could I be deluded into abandoning my faithful deck for the apparently �suicidal� (as has more than once been remarked) Tomb Mage Control deck?

It was a dreary Saturday night, around 2 AM, when my teammate Christian and I were slinging some of our test decks against each other in between two Release Celebration tournaments. Daspien had a good time and most of the matchups were in his advantage. However, I grow more and more concerned about facing the mirror match, be it blue or red, as I thought that I couldn�t be the only one recognizing the strength of the class. I didn�t expect it to be an omnipresent deck at the tournament, but I did assume there was a reasonable chance of high numbers at the top tables after say round 3. So, not only did I feel I had to be prepared for anything during the first few rounds, I needed to have a plan to make the mirror match anything more than 50/50ish in order to ensure I had the best chance of 5-0ing the Constructed part. I had trouble finding a solution which did both things, not diminishing the overall deck strength and improving the mirror match in a significant way.

At one moment, Chris and I wanted to try out the blue side of Rogue, and as he proxied it up, I needed something to do. I then remembered that I always wanted to try out solo Mage with the new Invisibility as an answer versus untargetables (hereafter: unties). As Tomb of Ice was a fine answer against unties as well, I chose the traitor Mage, and of course I first went FOR THE HORDE! Here�s the list as I threw it together in like 5 minutes:

Bad Mr. Frosty

Vor�na the Wretched

Allies
3x Shadala
3x Silea Dawnwalker

Abilities
4x Invisibility
4x Frost Nova
4x Tomb of Ice
4x Fizzle
4x Nether Fracture
4x Frostbolt
4x Metalmorph
3x Invocation

Equipment
3x Essence Gatherer
2x Blade of Wizardry
2x Voidfire Wand
3x Bringer of Death

Quests
4x Solanian�s Belongings
4x Counterattack!
4x Forces of Jaedenar
2x Swift Discipline

Side Deck
3x Hardpacked Snowball
3x Hypnotic Blade
4x Vexmaster Nar�jo

The deck name (as is the title of the article) is of course a throwback to the great Clayfighter character Bad Mr. Frosty. He�s such a cool dude, slinging Snowballs everywhere or turning into a big one himself. Beside that, it gives haters an easy way to flame on the deck - oh, are you playing that BAAAAAAAAAAD Mr. Frosty deck, uhhhhuhuh ( stupid thuggish laugh)!

I did not expect much of the deck except for being able to hold on for some time and then fizzling out. However, as I played it against Chris� Rotun, I was pleasantly surprised. Vor�na completely dominated the Rogue. This was not in absolute numbers of wins and losses, mind you, because I ended up misplaying a lot and the Rogue was able to win a few games because of it. It had more to do with the feel of the deck, how it played, and how it won. It didn�t matter you played no real win conditions except for the Voidfire Wands; at one moment you just have control, counters in hand, and it doesn�t matter how you win. You just win.

Daspien fared little better than his blue brother and sister, even though the reach of his flip could sometimes seal the game away just in time. It felt good. I had a deck that at the very least could win at the top tables. Now I had to try it out against all those other matchups, and after some testing, a few decisions were taken. First went out the Bringers of Death. The card only worked well against Rogue, because in all other matchups I had the Blades of Wizardry, Ice Tombs, and the like that I really wanted to keep in play. I also felt the Hypnotic Blades in the side deck were really bad because they were meant for the control matchup; however, game 1 against control normally takes quite some time and if you lose it, you want a way to win quickly. In the case you won game 1, you should already be in the driver�s seat with all the counters and stalling out the board.

After a while, I decided to concede taking control matchups in account. I expected it to be the least played deck type. Furthermore, I expected it to be a good matchup already, and in the case it wasn�t a good matchup, I hoped the control decks would be taken out by the Rogues early in the tournament. Conceding to the control matchup meant I could get the Vexmasters main deck, which hugely improved the aggressive matchups, against which this deck naturally had some problems. However, those problems were not as big as I expected - even before I added Vexmasters, it often came down to the die roll, and if the deck heavily relied on equipment like Gorebelly Twig, I had quite a big advantage and was favored to win if they didn�t drew the stone cold nuts. The Vexmasters just added some more early power play to this.

It�s the main reason why I decided to go on with this deck. As frail it may look, the matchup against aggressive decks is far from bad. It�s funny because every time I looked at my decklist, I couldn�t think of any way to beat aggro, but then during testing, it still did. Obviously it didn�t win every game, and if the aggressive deck started out really well while on the play there was little you could do if you did not get some Vexmasters or a Tomb plan going. The games you were winning more than made up for it, though. It�s hard to feel better in this card game when seeing an opponent topdecking while you just refreshed two Nether Fractures in your hand with an Invocation and you have a Solanian�s Belongings backup to do it all again. Or you could just stick the Voidfire Wand as soon as you drew it. I think no class can ever gain this kind of control except for the Mage - try it out and see what I mean.

In the end Forces of Jaedenar was cut, as the abilities I played required timing of their own and playing a quest that required additional timing proved to be too much trouble. In the meanwhile, I fell in love with all the tricks you can do with Swift Discipline and maxed out on them. The last cards added were Xanata the Lightsworn. I had very little testing with them, however, the games I played Xanata she proved her worth. The problem with running her the full 4 times was that she still provided dissynergy with a Tomb of Ice/Invisibility gameplan (just like, in principle, Vexmaster does), as your opponents allies can still attack your ally and thus evade staying cool forever. 8 of those allies seemed to be a bit too much, so I settled on 2 Xanata and added an extra Fizzle and Blade of Wizardry, which were good cards in almost every matchup.

This is the list I played in Stuttgart and as you might know already from the German or English coverage articles:

Bad Mr. Frosty Stuttgart Version

Hero: Vor�na the Wretched

Allies
4x Vexmaster Nar�jo
2x Xanata the Lightsworn
3x Shadala
3x Silea Dawnwalker

Abilities
4x Invisibility
4x Frost Nova
3x Frost Bolt
4x Tomb of Ice
3x Invocation
4x Fizzle
3x Nether Fracture
4x Metalmorph

Equipment
4x Blade of Wizardry
3x Essence Gatherer

Quests
4x Solanian�s Belongings
4x Counterattack!
4x Swift Discipline

Side Deck
4x Spellsteal
3x Voidfire Wand
1x Silea Dawnwalker
1x Nether Fracture
1x Frostbolt

The most difficult choice was putting the Voidfire Wands in the side deck. They have had a spot in the main deck for a long time. However, too often in this deck they provided the certain win when I gained control, they did too little when I was still fighting for safe ground. This also marks the main difference between this deck and the deck Laurent Pagorek eventually won the tournament with: when you gain control, you don�t need a finisher. Just a few of your allies will do the trick. You�ve never imagined Silea Dawnwalker being a great beatstick until you�ve played her in here! Even still, I�ve had some games where the Wand delivered a win I would have had much more trouble to get without it.

It ended up being a side deck card which would get sided in against almost any matchup, for which you take out the cards you don�t need that specific matchup. I think it�s a valid side deck strategy, focusing more on what�s going out then on what�s going in, but I�m still unsure whether it was correct to apply to the Voidfire Wand. If you want to play this deck and don�t expect an aggro heavy metagame, I�d definitely put Xanata in the sidedeck and cut a Swift Discipline to put the three Voidfires main. The card may be just too good to merely fill a sidedeck spot. I do want to emphasize though, again, that it fills a different, less substantial role in comparison to Wand in the Runetusk deck. And I want to emphasize that regarding the Darkmoon Faire tournament, putting Xanata maindeck over the Wand may still have been the correct choice as it is valid to assume a heavy presence of aggressive decks in a new environment. This is true especially given all the hype currently on traitor Druids.

I hope I�ve been able to give an interesting look into my decision procedure as to why I chose the frail traitor Mage deck as the deck to run in Stuttgart while knowing that aggression is preferable in an undefined metagame. Even though I haven�t tested as much as I would�ve liked (though that may always be the case no matter how much I test), I felt I had a good grasp on what might see play in Stuttgart and knew this deck had a lot of good matchups. You should have an advantage against most control decks as you can counter their card draw utilities, kill their bombs with Blade of Wizardry and refill cheaply with Invocation. Beside that, Spellsteal in the side deck can totally wreck most of them and you win a lot quicker with access to 3 Voidfire Wands.

I already explained a lot about the aggro matchup: you have trouble with an ally focused build, of which you only have the slightly outdated Shadowfiend aggro deck left (as far as I know), and you cannot beat their nuts if you are on the draw (don�t you just love it when you can, fully justified, make these kind of remarks because it�s a card game article?). However, as soon as they divert their attention and complement their allies with weapons and (ongoing) abilities, your chances grow significantly, because you have cheap answers and thus more time to trap their board in ice. Of course, it is just as important to know what answers your opponent may pack: you don�t want to run out Tomb of Ice on turn 2 for example against a Druid unless you have multiples, or such a bad hand that you have to gamble, but you want to have Fizzle backup for their Natural Order.

Most importantly, Vor�na is a control deck that beats Rogue consistently. For me, that was what made me run the deck, and where I may have made one of two errors: overestimating the strength of the Rogue myself, or overestimating the ability of people to find out about the strength of the Rogue. Truth be told, the presence of Rogue decks in Stuttgart was underwhelming to say the least, in my opinion. And sadly, Omedus still reared his ugly face. Both Henry, the other Team TCGon.nl member running the deck, and myself encountered the aggressive matchup and failed to turn it around. More on that in the next article where I�ll bring to you my tournament experience. Until then, stay pink and stay cool!

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