Note that if u do it without a broom or enough mana (3 + 1 + 4 + 1 for freeze (and 1 more if ur tortollan is used)), you might be in trouble if the elekk sucks in additional spells or got sapped/silenced.

The fun part about this deck is looking at your hand and thinking two turns ahead every turn.

Against Priest, boompistol isn’t the best against Illucia, considering it can still be played for 8 mana (3 + 5), destroying at least 2 of your 1-cost tortollans. So the best thing you can do against priest is still having an 8-cost Tortollan, otherwise playing 2 boom pistol works too (try to have broom). Note that opponent minions must be used to your advantage, so sometimes NOVA is better than Blizzard.

Against warrior, it is a good strategy to have a full hand. A better strategy would be to spam 1-cost 1-1 khartut defenders (heals 3 per death, whereas bombs deal 5 and is limited in quantity.

Malygos and Raz style is an interesting twist, no doubt. With those 2, you can go without crocolisk. However, Malygos is played at 9 cost, so u can only play 1 just a tortollan . It has a chance of being removed and if it did get removed, your option left is to deal 1 dmg per Raz. I’d prefer a stable OG style instead. Against mirror, boompistol and crocolisk are more dependent as well. No doubt Malygos and Raz combination is satisfying tho!

highly recommend running 1-2 copies of boompistol (depending on how popular this deck is)

Boompistol is your way to win your own matchup. Whoever has the coin usually win in this case). It works very well against rogue who runs flik to counter you, too (they can’t play a 12-costs flik)

Against Priests with the legendary that swap hand and deck, make sure 1 of your tortollan is 8-cost. This way, they can’t ruin your combo. Of course, if galakrond gives them a 2nd copy, it’d be ruined anyway. To solve this, make sure your opponent’s board is constantly full (nova instead of blizzard).

do also note 2 mechanics rather unique to this deck.
1) Lorekeeper changes your deck to highest cost -> lowest. However, if a card get shuffled into your deck, lorekeeper’s effect will be undone (another reason why we suck against bomb warrior). This is why I don’t run solarian in my deck, it shuffles and ruin the lorekeeper order if u play it after playing lorekeeper. The deck is RNG-heavy enough as well. It’s a decent card but you should only play it as a last resort.

2) Sphere of sapience is possibly the best legendary for the deck. It increased my win rate whenever I have it on turn 1. It inserts the card you draw to the BOTTOM of the deck. However, if you’ve drawn 1 potion already, try not to insert whatever card you’ve drawn to the bottom as you might draw your 2nd potion doing so.

Actually, tortollan is a 10/10 must-keep in any match ups for me. There’d be games where u would last until turn 8/9/10 without drawing tortollan is just devastating. Another weakness of this deck is card draws.

Even in aggro match ups, you can rely on your other cards to survive until turn 8 (then play tortollan for a 1/1 copy or blizzard [if you have to survive and have another tortollan in hand/potion in hand]).

Against aggro, they have limited potential for damage. your best bet would be to make many copies of khartut defender using the combo (while freezing and hero power-ing/trading your khartut for health). I’d run mine with doomsayers as it goes well with frost nova and good against aggro decks too.

Worst match up will probably be against bomb warrior for obvious reason. It’s not impossible but your win rate can be as low as 10%. Make sure to focus on surviving (ie. khartut spams).

Additional tip: The thing about tortollan mage is the unreliability of drawing 2x potion. This means that your game might end on turn 1 if you drew both at the start, even after mulligan. A way to save this is an elekk in your deck. I like to run mine with a broom, so I could elekk -> broom -> potion -> charge the elekk to make him die, tortollan comes back with potion now. Running an elekk can also save u from drawing your entire deck, as you can simply shuffle spells into your deck forever. There are games where my crocolisk died and I had to burn my opponent with 1-1 minions, hero power, or let him draw to death.

my deck code: ### Altnnoying
# Class: Mage
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Phoenix
#
# 1x (1) Animated Broomstick
# 1x (1) Sphere of Sapience
# 2x (1) Wand Thief
# 1x (2) Acidic Swamp Ooze
# 2x (2) Doomsayer
# 2x (2) Wandmaker
# 1x (3) Educated Elekk
# 2x (3) Firebrand
# 2x (3) Frost Nova
# 2x (3) Overconfident Orc
# 1x (4) Lorekeeper Polkelt
# 1x (4) Maiev Shadowsong
# 2x (4) Potion of Illusion
# 2x (5) Boompistol Bully
# 1x (5) Jandice Barov
# 2x (6) Blizzard
# 2x (6) Khartut Defender
# 1x (8) Pit Crocolisk
# 2x (8) Tortollan Pilgrim
#
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#
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