Pirate Mage Guide

Update 10.2

Patches The Pirate has been nerfed as of patch 10.2, it will, however remain in this deck, it now has no charge when pulled from the deck but it helps thin the deck synergies with the other pirates and that helps our aggro composition, so yeah, its a stay. Hurray!

Introduction to Tempo Pirate Mage

First off, Why?

1. Because maybe you have invested in the pirate package and are looking to expand dominion of the sees beyond the classic pirate warrior and tempo rouge.
2. Maybe you got Aluneth and are looking for a tempo mage deck without investing heavily on that 1 class.
3. With the previous point in mind maybe you want to invest dust in a neutral family that has versatility (murlocs aside) before crafting special cards for each individual hero. (you will find that the mage class cards in this list, aside from  Aluneth, are fairly budget)
4. Maybe you have a mage quest and have no good decks, but u’ve got pirates!
5. Maybe you want to topple the meta and for some reason you thing this is a good start.
6. Maybe you want a meme mage deck to break the regular tempo play standards. (As i did)

Whatever the reasons, and to quote Mr.Musk:

“Obviously, a flamethrower is a supper terrible idea… ”, ”Unless you like fun”

And this deck is just that. 

This deck was design with the idea of combining pirate tempo strategies that can augment the standard tempo mage deck, shaken, not stirred, to form a fast pace constant board presence to face the opponent’s minions in the early game while gathering your end game hand. 

Its a very strait forward tactic, go face or go home, thats the pirate way.

“Pirates are fun! Sooo fun!!”
-me

Tempo Pirate Mage Game Play Strategy

Be bold, people don’t expect your mage to play pirates, so it may influence on their initial draw and play around other, slower, archetypes. I wont lie, winning without  Aluneth on turn 6 is hard, since you can drop most of these cards so easily and you only have Arcane Intellect to replenish, its tough to get a good combo going, but even without Aluneth the game should be decided if you have enough board presence to drop your enemy’s health low enough for the final burst.

Strategy is to have early board presence and do as much damage to face as possible without loosing board control, you are looking for value trades and capitalize on any slow turn they have by going all out, play your secrets with Kabal Lackey when possible and focus on both, keeping your big burst spells in hand, and building your board.

Turn 6-7 you change strategy, as early game tempo is usually lost at this point you have for that your Corridor Creeper to cover you in the mid-game slope and the Bonemare /Corridor Creeper combo to defend with that big taunt and force a big trade on your opponent’s part.

All the while you are aiming to either draw Aluneth or just have your Fireballs  to finish the game by turns 8-9. 

Note:
Just keep in mind that pirates will fail mid-game and things will look bleak most of the time, but hopefully people will forget your deck is full of damage spells and play carelessly into a secret or let the board free for a face charge. The big minions you create play an important role in stoping the enemy from going straight to face, buying time for you to gather the mage burst cards, so go face when you feel you can, and let the enemy do the trade in.

TL;DR

Turn 8 win is the aim, we want to play turns 1-5 in board development and tempo plays to the face, turn 6 we expect Aluneth to refuel our hand, turn 8 we want a 0 cost Corridor Creeper as a target for Bonemare , and turn 9 is the final double Fireball burst.

Tempo Pirate Mage Mulligan Guide

We will always be looking to cover the early game with classic tempo gameplays, so Mana Wyrm ( into Primordial Glyph for turn 2 ), Southsea Deckhand (to draw Patches The Pirate asap), Kabal Lackey ( into Explosive Runes ; Avoid using Counterspell until the coin is out) and Arcanologist are keeps. Arcane Intellect for turn 3 if you have turns 1 or 2 are covered.

Aluneth is kind of a big deal in this deck, and a big percent of matches that i started with it on hand end up on a glorious win (to my opponents dismay i think), so we will need its draw power to combo nicely with the rest of the deck.

The Holy grail: Mana Wyrm , The Coin , Southsea Captain (drawing Patches The Pirate), Arcane Intellect ,Aluneth . 

Played in that order there is a guaranteed explosive turn 2 and 3 that is hard to recover for most opponents.

Other good keeps:

Golakka Crawler : The idea is to keep it if you think your opponent will use pirates, IE. Rogue may play a turn 1 . You can also use it on your Patches The Pirate, keep it if you have Southsea Deckhand already in hand, eat Patches The Pirate on turn 2 and enjoy. 

Southsea Captain : i’d keep him if you have no other pirates in hand and specially if you have the coin, a free 2/2 Patches The Pirate in turn 2 is as strong an entry as it gets. if this happens, mulligan the other pirates since Patches The Pirate is taken care of.

Corridor Creeper : keep if you see that you have a nice play curve in hand already and/or expect yourself and the enemy to feed minions to your cause. It has a strong synergy withBonemare as a turn 7 drop.

Aluneth : As silly as it is keeping a 6 mana card on the first hand, this one in particular can turn the game for you.

Arcane Intellect : Yes, using 3 mana for a 2 card draw may make it a slow game, but a full hand is the best route to synergies and ultimately a win, specially if you already mulligan away bigger cards.

Good Combos and Synergies to consider

Aluneth and Southsea Deckhand :

Having a 1 drop charge wile aluneth is out is an unexpected sight, it fun and it clears your hand for more draw, hopefully clears some minions and feeds your creeper. 3X bonus.

Aluneth and Naga Corsair:

Smacking the face of your enemy with Aluneth is even more fun! Naga Corsair allows you to break and stop the weapon from over drawing and buys you time to play your big combos right. its a very situational pick, but its got good stats and so far it has not failed me even as another board minion while Aluneth is not out.

Bonemare and a 0 manaCorridor Creeper :

Your board runs the risk of being cleared before turn-7 comes around due to the many AOE cards available to all classes, so you might wanna save that 0 mana Corridor Creeper and buff it out to have a strong turn 7 that is hard to kill (except for priests).

General replacements

This deck obviously requires you to have some important cards in there to work the aggro/tempo capability of pirates:

Southsea Captain : a must craft card for anyone interested in pirates, else why would you choose this deck?

Patches The Pirate: It just gives the whole pirate mage experience a big bang.

Aluneth: Another must craft for mage players, helps you gather the finishing hand faster than any other class is able to do.

Primordial Glyph : Really helps you overcome the lack of spells to control or turn the match.

If you are the proprietor of these epic and legendary cards the rest are easy fills.

1x Patches The Pirate > 1x Mana Wyrm – This way you will have a 1 cost minion that is hard to clear on the first turns.

Patches The Pirate will soon rotate out (aside from being nerfed in patch 10.2) and if u still dont have it, its normal to hesitate in its crafting, he is, unfortunately, the best entry play for the pirates but since we are running it with half mage tempo you should not see much a difference.

2x Primordial Glyph > 1x Cobalt Scalebane 1xBonemare – If you will not have the ability to choose a spell that helps your deck, then we will need to go for a different strategy with a bigger treat and buff for your small minions with a Cobalt Scalebane , and the extra oportunity to draw Bonemare when we need it the most.

1x Leeroy Jenkins > 1xWolfrider – There is no other card like Leeroy Jenkins, but for the sake of Wolfrider‘s charge for 3 damage its a fair budget trade.

2x Corridor Creeper > 2x Kabal Crystal Runner – Corridor has a much better tempo but this way you will not loose out on the Bonemare combo if you played your cards right by turn 7.

1x Aluneth & 1x Naga Corsair > 2x Medivh's Valet –  If you must, this will be the change, it goes for a slower game, so its not as effective a change, but if Aluneth is the only one you are missing then this will help you clear the board a bit.

Hopefully you will not need the whole budged side of this deck, but if you’re missing cards now you know how to change them.

Note that with all these changes its only play value is to have a kick out of using a mage that runs 4 pirates and is a more aggro version of an otherwise tempo play style, but i refer back to my intro, its a cheap way of playing an aggro style mage without investing much in the class, and its just for fun. 

After all these changes the dust total is 2020. (Thats a lovely sight)

Final thoughts

I believe that the addition of pirates on a mage deck bring it a little closer to the aggro/tempo decks that are so commonly seen on the latter, breaking free from the conditional secret mage combo synergies that mage is build for, opting for a more neutral aggro/tempo that, as a mage player, is refreshing.

Since this involves more neutral cards than any other mage decks I’ve seen in standard i believe this will be accesible to a greater following, bringing mage to people who otherwise wouldn’t play it class religiously.

As a final note, i know the new upcoming expansion will remove many cards in this list (Rotation of Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan  and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan ) from standard, so this is your last chance to make Patches The Pirate shoot from the cannon of a class that you would not expect to use pirates at all, and i will see what the next expansion brings o update this list with, new pirates maybe?

Good Luck and Have Fun.