Rainbow Mage is Tier 0 RN

It isn’t the best deck.

Build any rainbow mage to play as an combo deck is a mistake.

It makes the deck unable to Win any matchup without Sif and it’s tools are far better than that.

You know you make a big promise here, right? You telling me you got a better sleeper version of tempo? rainbow mage. Please share, because rainbow was/is/will be a combo deck unless proven otherwise.

Here is the statistically average Rainbow Mage deck, by which I mean rounding all of the nearly 10k results to the nearest card:

name qty
(1)Arcane Artificer 1
(1)Discovery of Magic 2
(1)Flame Geyser 2
(1)Miracle Salesman 2
(2)Cryopreservation 1
(2)Frostbolt 1
(2)Hidden Objects 1
(2)Infinitize the Maxitude 1
(2)Kobold Miner 1
(2)Primordial Glyph 2
(2)Stargazing 1
(2)Void Scripture 2
(2)Watcher of the Sun 1
(3)Molten Rune 1
(3)Reverberations 2
(4)Reliquary Researcher 1
(5)Inquisitive Creation 2
(5)Sleet Skater 1
(5)Wisdom of Norgannon 2
(6)Blastmage Miner 1
(6)Puzzlemaster Khadgar 1
(6)Sif 1

About half of Rainbow Mages are running an Excavate package, which is why there’s one of every Excavate card in this list. Overall your list is six cards different from average, which I’ll admit is more than I thought.

I think this deck is complicated and situational.
Tier 0? That’s a bold claim.

Yes, it plays very differently from those including the Excavate package. Mostly though, it’s Khadgar. The card does so much on its own that it has the potential of changing the deck’s tier on its own.

Meta is everchanging and a lot of players have picked up Rainbow and tried to make it work lately, reason for my claim. It’s really hard to try and understand a deck’s power from such a large sample. Of course getting a 200 game sample is also unreliable but it makes it easier to create a conversation regarding the new version.

I guess I could understand for someone that doesn’t play Mage to find it weird that someone would suddenly claim it’s tiers above what it was, but it’s a completely different deck basically in an everchanging format.

I think, as you know, data will just tell you a story about a certain context in a certain timeframe; and in this case, conflating data from distinct items that are just categorized as the same thing.

Rainbow mage is gaining a lot of traction in the last few days for a couple reasons:

a) People have discovered that when facing a very big minion (such as in Handbuff pala or Warlock), Sleet Skater can both stall the upcoming damage and get you out of range of lethal from it in the next turn, giving you more time to find a 30 health burst combo.

b) Many decks that are top of the meta are either board dependent (hunter) or don’t pressure much until they assemble their wincon later on, which gives Rainbow Mage a very comfortable time to build a combo turn while disrupting and delaying their opponent’s.

The problem in all that is warrior. But I think, beyond data, it’s reasonable to conclude this deck could be somewhat meta-breaking. Far from tier 0 tho. Warrior is very, very prevalent in ladder.

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How is producing an average deck by rounding to the nearest card a reasonable thing to do???

Lol, decks are built around synergies, if you happen to exclude one card in a synergy due to a rounding error you will drop win rate potentially by a large margin.

This made me laugh. Thanks.

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Yep, seems like my shameless provocative title is getting backlash. xD
As you say with Warrior countering it; it obviously can’t be Tier 0.

But, I do think that as days go by this could be a low Tier 1 deck. It beats everything except Warrior and Hunter. (Hunter matchup not as bad as Warrior).
The Shaman matchup is tricky but I’ve won it more times than I have lost it. Some armor gain here and there and some “super-taunt minions” can slowly beat the Shaman.

It makes you able to look what people are working with on average.

It is slighty better as an observation method when you’re trying to understand what is happening to the world around you(what people are actually doing) rather than trying to determine what version is better.

I think your list in particular doesn’t seem very well optimized to face hunters. Watchers of the Sun may sometimes find you a board clear but most times it will just delay the inevitable. And I am not a fan of Audio Amplifier. I understand its purpose, but I think that and the watchers can be switched for more board control.

It’s nonsense is what it is.

No one looks at an average deck for any useful information. If you care about what cards make the most appearances per class or archetype there are much better visualizations or statistics for that.

Producing an average deck and thinking you’ve done something useful is like taking a machine, let’s say a gun, and trying to assemble one by averaging the parts over all different makes of that gun type. Even if you assemble a coherent thing, as soon as you pick it up it will fall apart.

My list changed based on my experience. I played 4 versions of this and I just found that to suit my matchup spread. Simply, I don’t face too much hunter to incorporate Zilliax which I had in my other versions.

Versions:

17 - 3 List

blue lady

Class: Mage

Format: Standard

Year of the Pegasus

2x (1) Arcane Artificer

2x (1) Discovery of Magic

2x (1) Flame Geyser

2x (1) Miracle Salesman

2x (2) Dryscale Deputy

1x (2) Infinitize the Maxitude

2x (2) Primordial Glyph

2x (2) Stargazing

2x (2) Void Scripture

2x (2) Watcher of the Sun

2x (3) Reverberations

2x (5) Inquisitive Creation

2x (5) Sleet Skater

2x (5) Wisdom of Norgannon

1x (6) Puzzlemaster Khadgar

1x (6) Sif

1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000

1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000

1x (4) Ticking Module

1x (5) Perfect Module

AAECAY0WBOv0BdH4BcekBuPPBg2t7QXs9gXe+AW//gXY/gXxgAaFjgaDlQbrmAbymwaynga0pwaG5gYAAQP2swbHpAb3swbHpAbu3gbHpAYAAA==

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

2 - 1 Clearance List

rainbow 2

Class: Mage

Format: Standard

Year of the Pegasus

2x (1) Arcane Artificer

2x (1) Discovery of Magic

2x (1) Flame Geyser

2x (1) Miracle Salesman

1x (1) Soulfreeze

1x (2) Frostbolt

1x (2) Infinitize the Maxitude

1x (2) Stargazing

2x (2) Void Scripture

2x (2) Watcher of the Sun

2x (3) Clearance Promoter

1x (3) Molten Rune

2x (3) Reverberations

2x (5) Inquisitive Creation

2x (5) Sleet Skater

2x (5) Wisdom of Norgannon

1x (6) Puzzlemaster Khadgar

1x (6) Sif

1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000

1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000

1x (4) Ticking Module

1x (5) Perfect Module

AAECAY0WCOv0BdH4Bcv+BfKbBsSiBsekBuPPBoXmBgut7QXs9gXe+AW//gXY/gXxgAaFjgaDlQaynga0pwbVqAYAAQP2swbHpAb3swbHpAbo3gbHpAYAAA==

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

OP version 7 - 4 (as of now after playing more)

rainbo 3

Class: Mage

Format: Standard

Year of the Pegasus

2x (1) Arcane Artificer

2x (1) Discovery of Magic

2x (1) Flame Geyser

2x (1) Miracle Salesman

1x (2) Audio Amplifier

2x (2) Frostbolt

1x (2) Infinitize the Maxitude

2x (2) Primordial Glyph

2x (2) Stargazing

2x (2) Void Scripture

2x (2) Watcher of the Sun

2x (3) Reverberations

2x (5) Inquisitive Creation

2x (5) Sleet Skater

2x (5) Wisdom of Norgannon

1x (6) Puzzlemaster Khadgar

1x (6) Sif

AAECAY0WBMbHBev0BdH4BePPBg2t7QXs9gXe+AW//gXY/gXxgAaFjgaDlQbymwaynga0pwaF5gaG5gYAAA==

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

First day of expansion List 3 - 0

sif but 1 new card

Class: Mage

Format: Standard

Year of the Pegasus

2x (1) Discovery of Magic

2x (1) Flame Geyser

2x (1) Miracle Salesman

1x (2) Audio Amplifier

2x (2) Cryopreservation

2x (2) Hidden Objects

1x (2) Infinitize the Maxitude

2x (2) Kobold Miner

1x (2) Stargazing

2x (2) Void Scripture

1x (3) Molten Rune

2x (3) Reverberations

2x (4) Reliquary Researcher

2x (5) Inquisitive Creation

2x (5) Wisdom of Norgannon

2x (6) Blastmage Miner

1x (6) Puzzlemaster Khadgar

1x (6) Sif

AAECAf0EBsbHBev0BdH4Bcv+BfKbBuPPBgzs9gW//gXY/gXxgAbKgwaVhwaFjgaDlQbzmwaznAayngaxoAYAAA==

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

I think the 17 - 3 List was just a lucky win streak and was the main deck I played.
Clearance List is theohs’ deck.
And the OP version is from d0nkey where someone went 14-6 with it in top 50 Legend.

It’s probably the 17 - 3 List is better for Diamond and this one is more optimized for a pocket meta.

Not bold pure lunacy for me, data from 30 games equals tier 0 deck yikes.
I though this topic was a parody at first.

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True I should have played 10000 games just to post a thread about it. Get your little party elsewhere. The parody here is your attempt at making conversation.

We get it. You both hate Khadgar and Rainbow, don’t derail the thread coming here trying to ‘point and laugh’ at me with your friend.

Well the average Rainbow Mage already runs Khadgar. You’re not particularly clever to realize that it’s good.

What it does is it contextualizes the statistics I was providing earlier, regarding average winrate. Approximately 55% of the decks classified as “Rainbow Mage” by d0nkey.top are running the Excavate package. So if non-Excavate Rainbow Mage performs significantly better than Excavate Rainbow Mage, that could explain the disparity without contradicting the numbers. It’s also a way of measuring how “unique” a particular decklist is.

I would tend to agree with you that, outside of those two contexts, not very useful.

I’m not a big fan of this term when used this way, with the “my.” It usually just means “the decks that I was randomly matched against.” Your matchup spread is actually just the same as the deck popularity at your rank/MMR, plus random variance. Hunter is a real deck, and a popular one, and if you’re not running into it… like I said at the very beginning, a lucky win streak.

If you don’t understand the average deck you not understand the metagame and can’t improve over it.

People thinking that they can ignore other players during the deckbuilding process are mediocre at best.

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The core issue here though is that the “average decklist” is actually a strong indicator that TWO different deck archetypes are being combined in the data collection under a single archetype label. It’s hard to know exactly how good each separate archetype is (non-Excavate and Excavate versions of Rainbow Mage) when we’re looking at an average of the two.

I kinda agree with your point generally. And AT LEAST one of the two archetypes is Tier 4, the other one is about 45% by weight so it’s probably not that much higher. Maybe Tier 3.

This is sorta off-topic, but why does this statement describe…basically every deck right now? Except for Whizbang decks, I feel like this is true about everything I’ve played in the last week.

Yes, don’t you know that you aren’t a metabreaker or a trailblazer until you get at least 10000 games with that deck? Better call your friends and family to play your list and bump those numbers up. Also start streaming to get that exposure.

/s

Is there something magical about large sample sizes that makes a decklist good? It was surely good in its first game. Figuring out whether or not it’s good is what takes time. Saying “it’s a small sample size and you’re not that guy” is worthless commentary because literally every great deck started with a sample size of 0 games and from one dude in the shower or on the toilet. It’s just smothering creativity and reeks of a lack of that quality.

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Do you talk like this in real life? How old are you to be making conversation like this.
There was no reason for this inclusion.

I did face Hunter. I just didn’t like the Zilliax include since it only seemed useful against Hunter and no other deck. Rather than having a useless card in my hand I preferred the other version. You correlating that to me having a ‘lucky win streak’ is absurd.

Meta is everchanging that’s why. One day something is good and the next it isn’t … or it’s better.