Greetings fellow HearthGhosts!!

I made rank 16 for the first time and I'm pretty proud of myself. Why? I created my own mech mage deck!! So what?! It's DIFFERENT!!

I've been playing HS since about last June. I am free-to-play, and I haven't spent a dime on the game. For me the challenge of rank is coming up with a deck that 1) is fun to play and 2) doesn't spend all of my dust to create.

So here's my version of mech mage, followed by why I think it's worth looking at:
Clockwork Gnome x2
Cogmaster x2
Leper Gnome x2
Frostbolt x1
Micro Machine x2
Snowchugger x1
Sorcerer's Apprentice x2
Harvest Golem x2
Spellslinger x2
Spider Tank x2
Tinkertown Technician x2
Fireball x2
Polymorph x1
Goblin Blastmage x1
Mechanical Yeti x 2
Piloted Shredder x2
Water Elemental x2
Ethereal Conjurer x1

1) This deck was cheap to build. Stats please? Sure
-6 basic cards slots (Frostbolt, Polymorph, Fireball, Water Elemental)
-23 common card slots
-1 rare card slot (Goblin Blastmage)
-Total crafting cost assuming you have NONE of the non-basic cards? 1020
So is that actually cheap when it comes to crafting a deck? You can find better decks for cheaper, just search "budget mech mage". I found another deck claiming to make rank 5 that cost 800, and one claiming to make rank 10 that coast 1200. So 1020 puts this deck in the "budget" category. And I just hit rank 16 for the first time, but I might be able to get higher with this deck.
I also want to note that most of these cards were pulled in packs at random, so I probably actually spent less than 300 to craft this. That is part of the reason you see some strange cards in there like Ethereal Conjurer. It's not a great card, but I pulled it for free and it turns out that getting a high attack on the board while discovering a spell works really really well for this deck.

2) It's fun to play! What makes a deck fun for me? Having multiple lines of play. This is typically a midrange deck. It plays control against agro decks, agro against control, and against another midrange you play whatever style you pull.
More than once playing this deck I used almost my full turn trying to decide what to play, if I should trade minions or go face, if I should use my hero power for "value" or play another creature, that sort of thing. I know you can find cheaper agro decks that will get your rank up higher, but agro isn't fun for me. You drop a minion, go face, end turn. I can only do that so many times before I get bored. It takes all the thought and style out of the game. So creating a pretty good deck that can be played very differently each time is really fun.

3) I MADE IT MYSELF!! That's not a reason for you to play the deck, obviously, because you didn't make it yourself. But face it, most of the time to win on ladder players have to use a carbon copy of a deck they found online. Even switching out one card, like say, Archmage Antonidas, can have a drastic impact on the deck. And AA cost about 600 gold more than my entire deck, for that one card!!


The reason I wanted to post this here is to hear back from others, and maybe raise some spirits (pun intended). Because I was in a serious losing streak. I was losing about 5 out of every 6 games. I was having trouble winning some games at rank 23. So I was feeling really discouraged. I have never played with a deck I've found online; I've always built my own. Losing so many games was making me consider looking up a deck, or taking a break from HS. So to somehow pull together a decent deck gave me a shot of confidence.

Thanks for reading!