Hearthstone – Effective Strategy Against Antonidas and Timewarp Mage

Cards to consider adding vs aggro decks:

• 1 Blizzard - I would highly recommend you put these in, due to the fact that they both freeze all your opponent's minions, AND do 2 damage to all of them, killing a large number of aggro creatures and stalling others.

• 2 Vaporize - If you're keeping the board clear of smaller minions, this'll help you take care of bigger minions if used properly.

• 1 Arcane Missiles - Can 2 for 1 against aggro rush decks, assist in taking down 2 toughness or greater minions. Cons - Based on RNG.

• 2 Mirror Image AND/OR 2 Ice Barrier AND/OR 2 Frost Nova - One of the biggest counters to an aggro deck is stalling it out, especially in a Mage deck where you can pull a turn 7 flamestrike. These 3 cards are all excellent for stalling, as Mirror Image basically prevents 2 creatures from doing damage, even charge creatures, Ice Barrier, being a secret, can cause your opponent to play abnormally, such as playing a smaller minion than they would have because they're afraid of Mirror Entity. In addition, it basically heals you 8, even if you're at full health, which is pretty solid vs an aggro deck. Frost Nova is likely the weakest at stalling an aggro deck, due to not effecting charge minions at all, but is more relevant typically late game, due to effecting all of your opponents minions out currently.

• 2 Cone of Cold - While Arcane Explosion is generally considered a bad card, Cone of Cold is relevant at times, due to the fact that those minions it doesn't kill with it's 1 damage will still be frozen for a turn, making it still a relevant card in the late game.

Cards to change out:

• 1 Gadgetzan Auctioneer -> 1 Acolyte of Pain - Gadgetzan Auctioneer isn't necessarily guaranteed to draw you a card when you play it, and is a high costing 5 drop, with not very high toughness. Alternatively, Acolyte of Pain is almost always guaranteed to draw you a card, unless silenced or straight up destroyed, and, when combined with your hero power, will be able to trade for 2 toughness or less creatures well.

• 1 Argent Squire -> 1 Mana Wyrm - Mana Wyrm is one of the best 1 drop minions in the game, very often 2 for 1's, or at the very least, trades up. Argent Squire CAN 2 for 1, but only against 1 toughness creatures. In addition, it doesn't have ANY impact late game, whereas a mana wyrm can.

Cards to consider taking out:

• 1 Sunfury Protector - While not the worst card, this is the kind of card that doesn't really do anything unless you have other cards to go with it. In this case, those other cards happen to be minions. When combined with a Chillwind Yeti, or better yet, a boulderfist ogre, it can be very powerful, but without one of those, it doesn't necessarily do much. If you still like the synergy of it with minions such as these, I would recommend replacing it with Defender of Argus, as you're almost never going to be playing Sunfury Protector before turn 5 or so anyways, and Defender of Argus is more relevant with minions such as Acolyte of Pain and Mana Wyrm

• 1 Azure Drake AND/OR 2 Boulderfist Ogres - If Aggro decks are really your only weakness, I would consider removing some of these more expensive creatures. Boulderfist Ogre is particularly useless against aggro decks, because they will just proceed to ignore your ogre, since they likely have you far lower at the point you play it than you do them, and you can only use it to kill one minion of theirs a turn.

There are a few tips you need to know in order to beat Handlock, first if you play shaman, there are some key cards for this match-up and hopefully they are excellent for other match-ups too:

• Play with Hex x2 to remove those nasty giants/drakes/ancient watcher, that will help you to keep tempo against those strong minions.
• Play with Earth Schock x2 to go through the taunts when you want to go for face and finish your opponent, AND to explode the Twilight Drakes, whatever hp amount he has, this spell will kill him (the drake is a 4/X, after silence it is a 4/1 and then there is the 1 damage).

For the neutral cards : - The Black Knight, free removal of any taunted creature - Ironbeak Owl, for the silence on boosted giants, annoying taunts - Big Game Hunter, can kill any giant and Alexstrasza - Deathrattle or divine shield minions to keep something on board after the Hellfire/Shadowflame (with cards like Harvest Golem, Nerubian Egg, Cairne Bloodhoof, Sylvanas,..)

Now for the tips with every class :

If you dealt with ancient watchers/drakes/mountain giants from early game you will still have to deal with the molten giants when his HPs get low, and dealing with those on board will often result in you losing the game. So, the best way to deal with them is to prevent him from playing them. Molten giant costs 20mana at start, and the cost is reduced by one for each HP the hero is missing. You need to keep track of that, as if he is at 14hp or less he can play Molten x 2 (4mana x 2) and sunfury protector (2mana) for example.

Therefore you need to keep him at 15+ hp, and then burst him to 0 in one turn, that is the best scenario. Let's take the example of the shaman again :

• Doomhammer + Rockbiter Weapon ( (2 + 3) * 2 = 10dmg ) + anything to deal the 5 remaining (Lightning bolt, minions on board, lava burst)
• Doomhammer + (Rockbiter Weapon weapon x 2) = (2 + 3 + 3) * 2 = 16dmg
• Al'Akir + Rockbiter Weapon weapon = (3 + 3) * 2 = 12dmg + lightning bolt/lava burst/minions
• having Wrath of Air Totem (spell dmg totem) up : Lava Burst x 2 + Lightning Bolt = 16dmg

And of course there are a lot of other combos.

To end, let's talk about the easiest match-up against Handlock: Hunter, both hero powers go in the same direction, which is making the Warlock lose health. Strong removal with Freezing Trap making them harder to play and losing tempo, Hunter's Mark to remove someone, and Kill Command for high damage. And the best, Hunter has a lot of burst options to remove those 15 last hit points. Thanks to all this options, when you look at Handlock players' statistics and trackers, they usually have around 35% winrate only against Hunter.