Mech Mage

Mech Mage is a type of mage deck focusing on Mech synergy. A midrange deck, it combines basic Mech synergies with spell synergy from the many Spare Parts generated.

Conceived with the advent of the Mech type with Goblins vs Gnomes, Mech Mage was a highly popular deck in its time, but the lack of Mechs in Standard format means Mech Mage is now mostly nonexistent in that format. This article focuses on the deck as it existed in Standard format; see the below section for notes on its current incarnation in Wild format.

Deck type
Mech Mage was a strong deck due to its combination of efficient minions and powerful yet easily-activated synergies. Its sticky minions combined with typical mage removal allowed it to dominate the board, especially against aggro decks, whose weaker and less efficient minions were outweighed by those of the Mech Mage.

The success of the deck was due in large part to some key mage synergies with Mechs. Firstly, the Spare Parts generated by Mechs like Clockwork Gnome and Tinkertown Technician were especially useful for mages due to cards like Mana Wyrm and Archmage Antonidas. Secondly, the mage-only cards Goblin Blastmage and Snowchugger offered excellent synergy with the deck, with the former providing powerful removal and the latter both a decent body and a way to repeatedly prevent weapon-wielding classes from clearing the board, offering a strong advantage against warriors, shamans, druids and rogues.

As with any Mech deck, Mechwarper was a key minion for early tempo, typically comboed with other cheap Mechs or protected by Annoy-o-Tron, and the deck usually mulliganed for these cards. Tinkertown Technician provided early synergy, while Goblin Blastmage was usually saved for removal, and was often combined with Time Rewinder for an additional activation of its Battlecry, providing strong removal capabilities.

Since the deck usually aimed to win before the late game, Archmage Antonidas was an optional win condition, even when included, but when drawn early could often provide a strong advantage, especially if coupled with a Finicky Cloakfield. Fel Reaver was another optional play, favoured by some and shunned by others: since fatigue damage was of little concern to the deck the Reaver was largely without downside, and was especially effective in the early game. Unstable Portal was likewise optional, although at least 1 copy was usually included, providing the chance of a strong early play as well as additional spell synergy, chiefly used for buffing Mana Wyrms.

Mirror Entity was another popular inclusion as a way to equalise tempo gains by the opponent, but chiefly intended to be put into play by Mad Scientist, providing excellent efficiency.

Key cards
Below are listed those cards specifically used in Mech Mage decks.

The following cards are key to the deck, featuring in almost every version.
 * Core

These cards were mainly used as alternatives to the above cards or to bulk out the deck, depending on which other cards were chosen.
 * Common

The following cards were commonly seen in Mech Mage decks, but often in different variants depending on the intended build, and were often chosen as tech cards depending on the current meta.
 * Optional

Wild format
Wild format Mech Mage mostly remains faithful to the deck's former existence prior to game formats, due to the inherent strength of the featured cards. New versions include aggro variants and more control variants, such as using N'Zoth for synergy with Piloted Shredder and Piloted Sky Golem. Other possibilities include the upgraded Psych-o-Tron and Corrupted Healbot.

History
Mech Mage was a highly successful deck from its conception at the start of Goblins vs Gnomes, and remained popular up until the introduction of game formats. With around 70% of the cards in the deck being from the Goblins vs Gnomes set, the deck did not survive the removal of these cards, and was relegated to Wild format.

Mech Mage notably saw few alterations from its arrival in December 2014 to its disappearance in April 2016. Gorillabot A-3 and Clockwork Knight were some of the only additions to the decks' tried and tested formula, which continued to achieve at least moderate success despite the introduction of numerous new cards to the game.