Deck Guide: Elemental Mage - The Best Budget Deck with the New Expansion

The latest Hearthstone expansion, Perils in Paradise, and its 145 collectible cards have been out for a couple of weeks now. The meta has finally stabilized, and the results are clear: Elemental Mage, a relatively easy deck with only commons and rares, has soared! Its win rate has grown considerably in these two weeks.

That win rate is, as of August 6th, 2024, 59.57%, according to HS Replay, and it is the second-best winning deck in Hearthstone. So, we at Cards Realm decided to play the list and write a complete guide on it for all interested!

The name of this list is already quite self-explanatory, and its game plan is really straightforward: play Elemental minions turn after turn. Cards like Lamplighter and Overflow are better if you play Elemental minions before playing them, for instance.

To execute this game plan, this deck includes several Elementals: 25 out of its 30 cards. The other five cards are two copies of Synthesize and Flame Geyser, besides one Saloon Brewmaster. All of these cards, despite not being Elementals themselves, add Elementals to your hand.

Minions

Let's see all 26 minions in this deck, and what they do.

Tar Slime, Glacial Shard, and Fire Fly are your turn 1 options, and they're how you'll start playing Elementals turn after turn.

On turn 2, you can draw a card with Shale Spider, or even start dealing with the enemy board with Rolling Stone's Rush.

You also have Flame Revenant and Aqua Archivist on turn 2. Revenant grows your board, and Aqua discounts the cost of the next Elemental you play.

The last 2-mana minion you have is Saloon Brewmaster, but I don't recommend playing it on turn 2. Your focus is to always play an Elemental, so only play this card if you can summon another Elemental on that same turn.

Next, we have Lamplighter, which costs 3 mana, but I recommend you save it for your last turns, as it will deal more damage then.

The strongest card draw in this list is Unchained Gladiator, as it usually draws you two to three cards without further issues.

One Overflow Surger alone often fills your entire board.

To complete our 4-cost minions, we have Triplewick Trickster, which is a good way to deal with enemy minions, but you'll have to rely on your luck (RNG) a bit.

Finally, we have two great cards, and both cost five. Tainted Remnant is also a way to deal with the enemy board, and can even defeat the enemy hero. It also has good stats for its cost. As for Sleet Skater, it is more defensive, as it Freezes an enemy minion and gives you armor. Its Miniature gives you a 1/1 1-cost copy of itself, which adds even more value to your hand.

Spells

As we mentioned before, there are only two spells in this deck.

Flame Geyser deals two damage to an enemy, so it is useful to remove a small minion. It also creates a 1/2 Elemental in your hand.

The other spell is Synthesize, which mainly creates more Elementals for you to play: "a random 1, 2, and 3-Cost Elemental". That's 3 extra Elementals for you!

Overall, you'll deal damage bit by bit, but there's one specific card that can end the game quite easily: Lamplighter, which will easily deal over 8 damage. If you have both copies of it in hand and your opponent has less than 20 life points, you'll simply win the game.

Check out a video in which I managed to grab a win by dealing a lot of damage with Lamplighter:

Besides the two copies of Lamplighter, you also have Saloon Brewmaster, which lets you return one of them to your hand. This way, you'll be able to activate its Battlecry more than once, and thus potentially deal over 30 damage.

Your starting hand is quite straightforward: just focus on 1 and 2-cost minions. If you have at least one 1-cost minion, feel free to go after Lamplighter, but prioritize minions you'll play first, as you can only use Lamplighter in your final turns. So, you'll have a lot of time to draw it before the game ends.

Other options besides 1 and 2-cost Elementals are your two spells. As I mentioned before, Synthesize and Flame Geyser give you more low-cost minions to play, so they're great alternatives.

Aggro

This deck struggles a bit against faster decks. The only time I lost so far with Elemental Mage was when I faced a "zoo" list, which focused on playing as many minions as possible.

Even though we have cards that remove other minions, like Flame Geyser, Triplewick Trickster, and Tainted Remnant, they're not enough to deal with this type of deck. Some of these cards are a bit expensive, and thus give your opponent time to add more pressure to the game state, and Flame Geyser is quite weak in combat, as it only removes one minion at most.

Sleet Skater has the same issues: it is expensive and only deals with one minion. Gaining Armor with it can help, but many times you'll only get it when it's too late.

In these matches, I highly recommend you look for these removals when you mulligan, as well as at least one 1-cost minion. Your initial focus will be removing as many enemy minions as you can, even if in the end your opponent creates even more of them. Hopefully, you will have gained enough time to find a lethal play with Lamplighter.

Overflow Surger might be a good option if you want to summon the same Elementals again, but I only recommend using it if you played minions on turns 1, 2, and 3, preferably with Flame Revenant on the board.

Control

This match is a bit more standard, as you won't need to change your game style to win against slower lists.

Focus on playing minions every turn and dealing damage bit by bit. You won't have to deal with pressure and will have enough time to draw your Lamplighters. When they're already dealing eight or nine damage, use them and win the game.

As we saw, Elemental Mage is the best choice if you don't have many legendary cards in your collection. It is extremely efficient, and you'll be able to win many matches with it very easily.

Did you like this deck? Would you change anything in it? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below!

Thank you for reading. I hope you learned something about Elemental Mage today.

See you next time!