YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!! No one expects the true demon lord! (shut up Jaraxxus).

Introduction

Greetings lovely humans!

I am Steef (formerly known as Showin) and today I bring you a deck that has taken me from rank 5 to top 10 EU... with Illidan Stormrage... !

{Watch me play on Twitch at: http://www.twitch.tv/steef_plays!!}

This deck is slightly different to the now standard mech mage making use of Unstable Portal and Mana Wyrm in place of Mad Scientist and Mirror Entity. Win through tempo and finish with spell burst in standard mech mage style!

Deck Breakdown:

Many of the cards are standard so here I'll explain a few of the odder choices.

Mana Wyrm- theres lot's of hunters about and these guys are just fantastic at taking out all the creatures with 1hp. Very often they'll trade two for one and can win you games on their own if they go big and can't be dealt with.

Unstable Portal - turn 1 mana wyrm , turn 2 portal - nuff said. Besides that they function well as a tempo boost, trigger Archmage Antonidas and can sometimes win you games with a legendary pull.

Kezan Mystic - teched in for Mechanical Yeti for the hunter and mage match ups. Feel free to trade out again if these match ups are less prominent.

Azure Drake - Little bit of card draw, spell damage, solid body. Used to run one arcane intellect but found drake to be a better choice.

Illidan Stormrage! - Originally I put him in at rank 1 before hitting legend for the lolz in place of The Black Knight but he has actually performed very well and has stayed in the deck ever since. He works well as an additional threat that must be dealt with instantly, so dropping him on turn 6 is fine as it protects your other minions for a turn, and if that nasty Big Game Hunter fellow is around Dr. Boom gets free reign.

He combos very well with a hand full of useless spare parts and works sensationally with unstable portal since you can drop him turn 8 and portal into a <3 drop for a lot of board presence.

And against druid the ultimate hello combo is available on turn 8 of Illidan into annoytron into hero emote. "Hello brother..." "HEllo! Hello! Hello!" "Hello"

Questions:

Why only one Tinkertown Technician and one Cogmaster? - Frankly getting Cogmaster late game is very weak so 1 suffices since there is Mana Wyrm to take it's place. Tinkertown Technician is a one of also because having a hand full of Goblin Blastmage and TTTs with no mechs isn't great. But feel free to experiment.

Why did you take out the secrets/mad scientist? - Firstly everyone knows exactly what the secret is so can play around it. Secondly having a secret in hand sucks. Lastly Kezan Mystic has grown more common.

Does Illidan actually work? Like really? - Yes! At least he has done for me, who knows I may be the luckiest guy ever with him but here's a couple of highlight shots: http://imgur.com/a/a2pXt

Mulligans:

Basically go for a good curve. Keep portal only if you have mana wyrm in hand otherwise go for mechs.

Detailed class specific mulligan guide to follow if this gets a bunch of upvotes.