Arcane Flakmage
Arcane Flakmage is a 2 Mana Cost Rare Mage Minion card from the Saviors of Uldum set!
Card Text
After you play a Secret, deal 2 damage to all enemy minions.
Flavor Text
Ancient pandaren proverb: He who is without secrets lacks flak.- Mana Cost: 2
- Attack: 3
- Health: 2
- Crafting Cost: 100 / 800 (Golden)
- Arcane Dust Gained: 20 / 100 (Golden)
- Rarity: Rare
- Class: Mage
- Card Type: Minion
- Set: Saviors of Uldum
- Mechanics: Damage Enemy Minions, Secret
For context, I only play mage decks in wild.
At first i was really hyped for this card, like 5/5 hyped, as aggro decks are the worst enemy of secret mage (Odd Paladin, i’m looking at you).
But after thinking about it a little, i’m really not so sure anymore. First, “after you play a secret” is harder to triger than “if you control a secret”. Cards like Mad Scientist will not help to see the full power of Arcane Flakmage.
Best case scenario, you can play it on turn 3 with Kabal Lackey. Most of the time it will be on turn 5 and 2 domages will probably be too little. Odd Paladin have Never Surrender and Murloc Shaman have Coldlight seer.
The new revealed secret, Flame Ward, is very good (4/5 or 5/5) and will probably do a better job as an AOE.
The body, 3/2, is really not that good for wild, 2/3 is way better.
There is already a 2 mana minion with secret synergy to consider : Sunreaver Spy. While not as flashy, maybe more powerfull.
An AOE effect seems strong but in fact doesn’t really feat in the Wild Secret Mage gameplay, which is finish your opponent with burst spells. It was also why Medivh’s Valet was so good and Cloud Prince will probably be OK.
So, all in all, i rate Arcane Flakmage 2/5 for wild and 3/5 in standard (but maybe i’m wrong ans this card is busted).
What are you thinking blizzard? This is ridiculous. The cost should be 3.
Starfall’s effect on a 2 mana 3/2 seems really good. This probably carries a new secret archetype. 4/5
Yay… more Mage clears. 4/5
I hate secrets, i hate secrets from mages, i ahet secrets from hunter, secrets from paladin are annoying, rogue secrets were hot garbage, and i am glad mage is getting secret suport because that means less broken cards.
People may be rating this too highly imo, for 2 reasons. 1, we haven’t seen new secrets for mage, and secret mage kind of sucks right now… 2, the health is too low, if it was like, a 2/3 as Orasha claimed then the card would have more reliability. This is ideally best against token and murloc decks, which already have lots of early turn plays that puts them on the board immediately. Because of this, if you play it on curve then it will either survive but not counter exactly what it needs to counter, like control decks or something, or it will die to tokens before its effect is triggered. Now, I like the thought of turn five where you play this + secret, I think that’s where it can really shine, as long as you can survive those 2-3 turns which is doable but sometimes won’t work out, I’m imagining something like turn 3 Kirin Tor Mage into a secret, arcane keysmith turn 4 and then turn 5 the power play, if you’re still alive.
That’s just an ambitious idea, and its probably so long that it will annoy people, but if people read this, please tell me if I’m wrong…
If we see strong secrets come into mage, I think that this card can be considered very powerful.
Intristing thoughts. I guess you have here some good points.
I can also image plays against aggro like
1: coin + doomsayer
2: this 3-5: one secret that kills everything and gives value for free
Actually token druids and murloc shamans would lose to that.
Also i think starfall isn’t a bad card and this is starfall with a free secret and flexibility.
You don’t have to play flamestrike cause this is flamestrik on turn 8 and even playing this on turn 2 isn’t that bad. Good body and your opp HAS to remove it even for negative trades if he wanna play minions.
Because i totally agree with your points i would rate this 3.5/5
Medhiv’s Valet 2.0.
Instant 5 Stars, no questions asked.
The thing is… if your opponent kills it…
and they will… it’s really bad. On turn 5, it’s either too late, or you’re just being ineffective dealing 2 to all enemy minions.
I don’t think secret mage will work without a god tier 1 drop revealed
If this was a 2/3 I’d be more optimistic as it would be more likely to survive being dropped on t2 to curve into a secret on t3. In Wild it may be worth experimenting with since you have this + Kabal Lackey and a Secret as a pretty sweet turn 3 play. In standard, I’m not really sure whether this does enough or is sticky to really make your opponent worry. The main fast decks either go super tall with mechs or have a ton of direct damage through weapons and burn spells. Maybe if Zoo or Token druid see a real resurgence then this becomes better but I’m not too hype.
I’m actually pretty bearish about this one. You want to use it against token decks, but they’ll be able to answer this T2 and by T5 they’ve probably buffed themselves out of range, or have some other reach play to kill you. This card can be good on T5 to clean out damaged minions that value traded against you, (and reborn minions and the like), but I’m having a hard time imagining Mage playing a deck that goes for the board like that. And against decks that don’t really tussle for the board, or play only tall minions, it’ll be a Bloodfen Raptor most of the time.
in terms of powerlevel this expansion goes completely out of the universe
2 damage AoE plus a 3/2 body plus a mage Secret for 5 mana and 2 cards? Sounds pretty strong, honestly; I expect a Secret Mage deck would be a tempo deck, and this is great tempo. Will the deck itself be any good, though? A great card will see no play if you can only play it in a terrible deck, which Secret Mage might be. 3/5
Look out it’s a token killer could pull secrets from magic trick so that end of combos not bad. At 5 Mana for a mage that’s still able to halt a few token/murloc decks.
Blizzard has officially lost their mind. This card is busted.
This can do more than 2 damage with multiple secrets. I play secret Mage in wild and this going to be great with Kirin Tor Mage and that 1 mana play a free secret dude.
broken
Needs to be comboed to be worth it.
IMO a balanced card to play on T5 you can clean swarms if not buffed yet. Weak to play on curve I guess…
On T5 it’s to late 2 damage against a board is to weak. On curve it’s a decent 2 drop, and if it survives you win the game if your agressive.
R.I.P Murlocks and tokens if they don’t have an answer for this right away. I don’t think this card is good enough though, it’s really hard to keep it on board with 2 health and playing it for 5 with a secret isn’t worth it at all.