16 July 2025
General Battlemage Strategy Tips
In this article, I will go over some general tips for playing Battlemage, offer my second deck list in the series, and go over some of the recent rules changes and how they will affect me and my preparation going into Cornerstone Season.
Battlemage 101 – Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
At its best, Battlemage feels like Avatar of Earth with Sorcerer stapled to it. It’s faster and more explosive than Sorcerer, whilst being a more consistent Avatar of Earth as it has built-in card draw and the fixed three power.
Battlemage is resilient against minion removal and control because it can always fall back on its own power. Other Avatars that utilise Grapple Shot need to stick a minion on the board or have the mana to play both in a single turn.
Battlemage also has an incredible number of viable builds. Each element brings something to the table to help leverage its ability, demonstrated by my five diverse deck builds explored in this series.
Lance tokens are especially powerful for Battlemage. Battlemage in general can leverage the power of weapons and armour Artifacts. So much so, that there are Battlemage builds that eschew minions altogether and go all in on the Voltron style.
Weaknesses:
Battlemage must consider its deckbuilding carefully to ensure it can use its ability effectively and perform optimally. You need minions, movement spells, minion removal, and then have to find room for your fun additions. Difficult choices need to be made in deck building Battlemage.
A slow Battlemage is a losing Battlemage. You need movement effects to be able to maneuver around the board effectively.
Battlemage can feel weak if the opponent isn’t playing minions and some of your cards might be ineffective – for example, Shrink and Pollimorph.
Battlemage gets weaker the longer the game goes on. If the opponent can stabilise, play large threats, and whittle down your life, then you are at a disadvantage in the late game.
Battlemage is weak on Death’s Door. It becomes more difficult to use your ability, and being on the opponent’s side of the board leaves you vulnerable. Screaming Skull is a staple Battlemage card, but is possibly the worst card to draw whilst on Death’s Door.
Overall, the resource you’re trying to leverage is your life, which is convenient for your opponent as it’s also the resource they’re working to deplete. Battlemage needs to get into the firing line and trade life for board control.
Further Considerations:
Is Battlemage a combo deck?
Battlemage can sometimes feel like a combo deck. You need to draw your cards in the right order and combination to achieve victory. Battlemage needs to have a plan to move around the board, deal with minions whilst attacking the opponent’s life, all whilst preserving their own life total.
Battlemage cannot afford to dead cards.
Battlemage cannot afford dead draws. By this I mean cards you’re unable to play or can’t afford to play. Getting your threshold requirements efficiently is important to be able to execute your game plan. I’ll often talk about ‘greedy’ mana bases. Decks that have lots of double-threshold cards in two (or more) elements can be described as greedy because you’re at a higher probability of not drawing the sites you need in order to play the cards you’ve put in your deck.
One site can shut down all your plans.
Certain sites can completely shut down your game. Perilous Bridge, Gnome Hollows, and Free City can all singlehandedly do so. Perilous Bridge and Gnome Hollows are especially rough as they can shut down your Grapple Shot. Grapple Shot is probably the most used Battlemage spell as it’s a powerful movement spell, minion removal, and damage spell all in one.
You need to have a plan to deal with powerful minions.
Minions with four or more power are more difficult to deal with. Battlemage can always tap to deal with anything three or lower. Much like a picnic, a single Brown Bears is enough to ruin your day. This is where you hard removal options come into play such as Pollimorph and Disintegrate. Two underused options I especially like using are Iron Shackles and Sacred Scarabs.
Charge minions change the tempo of the game.
Charge minions pull double duty against Battlemage because they deal immediate damage and if you have to strike them to remove them, they’ve done their damage twice. Beware decks that have a charge minion strategy as you might have to change your entire game plan to cater to the aggressive tempo of the game. Against such a deck, it might be prudent to leave more minions to block or even keep your Battlemage back entirely.
Airborne minions are difficult to interact with.
Battlemage can struggle to interact with Airborne minions. They can get away with attacking for free without recourse. Because of this, they can change the tempo of the game more drastically than charge minions. Saving your Grapple Shot to take down the opponent’s Gyre Hippogriffs instead of using it aggressively might be the prudent strategy against opponents utilising airborne strategies.
Deck List Two: Fire-Air Battlemage
Fire and Air is a dangerous combination: Charge minions, Airborne minions, powerful removal spells, and crazy maneuverability. Fire and Air is my preferred elemental combination for Battlemage, and this list was looking good to be my Cornerstone contender:
https://curiosa.io/decks/cmctpwjep00bjle04pxcw777g?tab=view
However…
Sorcery has Changed
Last week was a wild ride – rules changes, the reveal of the Collection mechanic, and more cards spoiled for Gothic. Wow. If this is a taste of how things will be going into Gothic, then I’m excited. There’s so much to wrap my head around. Overall, I am positive on these changes. The rules changes iron out issues and get rid of some weird quirks.
Here are the changes that impact my Battlemage the most and will impact my deck builds and testing going into Cornerstone Season.
Immobile:
Now Immobile minions cannot move, but they can attack. This is a big nerf to Earth decks using Quagmire to slow down the opponent and get into the late game. This also impacts Battlemage decks using Entangle Terrain.
Free City:
In short, if Battlemage attacks a Free City and the opponent defends with their Free City, they will also lose life. This is a huge nerf for Free City. It’s still useful as a tool to take out small minions, but it’s no longer a free and eternal roadblock.
Strike Damage on Sites:
Firstly, this means that Daperyll Vampire gains you life when they strike sites. This is an insane buff, and I fear that the Vampires will soon become the most hated and most played minion in the game.
Grim Guisarme and Mask of Mayhem’s doubling effect occur when striking sites. In the previous article, I talked about using Grim Guisarme to smash down Archimago quickly. Now, this tech is even stronger.
Lances break on sites:
I believe this is quite a significant nerf for Battlemage. It’s nice to be able to get that extra one point of damage when attacking a site, but the real strength of Lances was them being a removal spell that could be used at the appropriate time. Now the minion or Battlemage carrying a Lance can’t keep it in hand and wait to use it later.
Avatars can be Airborne:
Over the weekend, I put this to the test, bringing my Flying Ponies Fire-Air Battlemage. The tech is that while Battlemage is being carried by a War Horse or Fine Courser, then you play Power of Flight on your mount, thus giving the Battlemage Airborne as long as he’s in the saddle. This can be used to buy a turn of safety in dangerous territory or provide crazy mobility to the Battlemage.
Overall with these changes, I think Battlemage got a significant power bump. Battlemage may now be a strong meta choice and its popularity might skyrocket. The chances of that Rainbow Foil Battlemage being won have just increased.
Battlemage Flying Pony Club
With the changes listed above, I went and changed up my Fire-Air Battlemage to try out the new tech and in particular Power of Flight. The first change I made was to remove any card that required two Fire threshold. This meant that I lost Hamlet’s Ablaze. This makes me weaker to Gnome Hollows. To counter this, I added Blink to supplement my mobility options.
I also lost Firebreathing – a card that I found incredibly strong and versatile but often difficult to cast with two Fire threshold. Being able to do four damage to something nearby is incredibly useful, and with more Daperyll Vampires around being able to deal four damage is so important.
Here is the list:
https://curiosa.io/decks/cmcy55oxv00arle046woeewkg
Testing the Pony Club
I had a good weekend of testing. Firstly step was to try it on TTS, Tabletop Simulator. It’s immensely valuable to have someone to play against where you can stop the game, discuss lines, maybe go back a few steps in the turn and see how different lines of play might go. This means you can get so much more out of your time and be able to see the game from the opponent’s point of view. Having a testing team or partner going into Cornerstone Season will allow you to get much more out of your practice time.
I also participated in a three-round Win a Box tournament. I took the Flying Ponies Battlemage.
Round one was against Earth-Fire-Air Archimago. Turn two, my opponent drops a Gnome Hollows in spot eight on the Grid, and I felt my chances of winning drop massively. This one site was going to be a major problem. Fortunately, I had the most powerful card in the game – War Horse.
War Horse is nuts. It feels like playing a Blink that then burns the opponent for two damage until removed. The mobility it provides is incredible. However, because of the Gnome Hollows, I had an interesting decision point: do I use the War Horse aggressively to get damage in, or do I leave the War Horse back to carry my Battlemage around and forgo damage? I figured that since I had five other horses to draw into, the damage was more important. And that decision decided the game for me. The consistent damage provided significant pressure and kept them on the back foot. It took 34 damage to get them to Death’s Door.
The takeaway from this match is that mobility spells are essential. This list almost feels like there’s too many between Blink, Power of Flight, six Ponies, and Whirling Blades, but they never felt dead. Movement is step one in the requirement to win with Battlemage, after all.
Round two was against Waveshaper. Turn one, Forge, Lance token. Turn two Ring of Morrigan, and I felt strongly favoured. Two Lugbog Cats were played early, but the Lance and Ring gave me plenty of options to deal with them effectively for free. Combined with Airborne minions to outmanuevre their high-powered water, I felt strongly in the driver’s seat.
Mester Stoor Worm I think is an underrated card and almost turned the tide against me. Seven power is massive, and its ability provides incredible board control if it cannot attack sites. Updraft Ridge allowed me to play minions away from its breath attack, and then as the board got clogged with Pirate Ships and Tufted Turtles, allowed my Gyre Hippogriffs to attack the one undefended site to get my opponent to Door. At that point, Ring of Morrigan and Whirling Blades made the win inevitable.
Third round was against Avatar of Air with Earth. This deck plays big beefy minions such as Dalcean Phalanx and Pudge Butcher and then uses all the mobility of Air to get around their innate limitations. The last time I played against this deck, I got destroyed.
But I won the dice roll, so I got to be the attacking player, giving me an immense advantage. Turn two, my opponent played a Perilous Bridge on spot eight, which might otherwise stop all my offence. But fortunately, a turn two War Horse, then turn three Ruby Core, Blink on the War Horse to carry both of us over the Perilous Bridge gave me a massive tempo advantage to carry the game.
The lesson here is the importance of being the attacking player. In Sorcery, it’s incredibly hard to turn the tempo, especially in Battlemage. Cards like Ruby Core and Philosopher’s Stone played early can be incredibly powerful. However, when drawn late game they are incredibly frustrating. Having a single Core or Stone in the deck gives you about a 20% chance to see it before turn four in a game (between three mulligans, four draws). This means that one in five games, you have this massive boost. Currently, I like the high roll that a single copy can provide. With Highland Princess to fetch it, I prefer Ruby Core over Philosopher’s Stone in this deck to provide threshold fixing. In decks that are more evenly split between two elements, I prefer Philosopher’s Stone as playing War Horse for a single mana is incredible value.
Overall, it was a 3-0 showing for Battlemage. I felt like I was in the driver’s seat for all my games. The contribution of winning the dice roll and being on the play cannot be understated, though. It’s such a power boost for aggressive decks. War Horse was insane every game and it makes me reluctant to not include Fire in my Battlemage lists.
In Conclusion:
There’s so much to think about, and I’m glad that I have time on my side. Gen Con is two weeks away and there are some Cornerstone events starting this weekend, so some players are having to scramble to react to the rules changes and adapt their strategies accordingly.
I’m seeing an uptick in events and excitement for Cornerstone Season. So if you haven’t read part one, which outlines my goals and plans for Cornerstone Season, then please give it a read:
There are three more Battlemage decks to go over, so the next part of this series will go through the remaining three and I will give my verdict on my preferred list.
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