Setup

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Go second if you win the roll. Scry advantage allows you to hold onto Forsaken Crypts/No threshold sites more confidently. Most starting hands are perfectly fine to use as is. Adtonitum starting is very risky cheese play; it's better to draw it later. I would'nt recommend it unless you pull all the One-Shot w/Kill Secure cards starting hand. Thunderstorms interfere with Phase Assassin/Nightgaunts early - pick one or the other for turn 3-5 agro. Hippogriffs, all uniques but Adtonitum always good. Hexham Haunt, Recurring Specter, Black Plague + Temple of Moloch is fun and forces limited opponet counter play.

Mulligans

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One-Shot w/Kill Secure - Adtonitum, Silver Bullet (Grapple Shot), Static Servant, Amethyst Core, City of Glass, Spore Spouts, Beacon/Tower/Ghost Town

Strength: Adtonitum deals 18 damage with Grapple Shot

Weakness: Infiltrate/opponets turn after casting Adtonitum

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Cannon Rush - Dark Tower, Gothic Tower, Lone Tower/Ghost Town/Beacon, Evil Presence, Headless Haunt, Castle Haunt, Amethyst Core

Strength: turn two 4-power charge minion, turn three 4-power charge minion

Weakness: bad rolls, early opponet Disenchant

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Minion Agro - Forsaken Crypt, Open Masoleum, Phase Assassin, Gibbous Nightgaunts, Bane of Aventis/Witherwing Hero

Strength: card advantage, constant board state pressure

Weakness: Earthquake, Poison Nova, AOE removal

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Magic dump - Lightning Bolt/Magic Missiles, Murder of Crows, Skeleton Mage, Merlin, Merlin's Tower, Orb of Baal Berith, Cloud City, Geistwood

Strength: 16 Lightning Bolt casts with 3x Skeleton Mage + Orb + 1 dead Skeleton Mage on Geistwood

Weakness: Undefended sites

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Anti-minion econ - Hexham Haunts, Recurring Specter, Black Plague, Poisonous Dagger, Temple of Moloch, Silver Bullet (Evil Presence), Toolbox (Teleport)

Strength: Hexham Haunts 2 damage per turn for 1 mana, Recurring Specter 1 for 1 mana - spark cannot be defended

Weakness: Dealing damage to enemy avatar, Teleport/Blink or tap to move needed

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Lightning control - Thunderstorm, Lightning Bolt, Black Plague + Recurring Specter, Displace, Manor at Daperyll Hill, Bane of Aventis, Toolbox/Silver Bullet (Disenchant)

Strength: Displace + Manor = free kill + 3 health

Weakness: Opponet healing

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9-Volt Battery - Poisonous Dagger, Ring of Morrigan, Blink/Gift of Raven, Murder of Crows, Arcane Barrage, Browse, Toolbox/Silver Bullet (Teleport, Zap!, Poisonous Dagger)

Strength: everything dies except adjacent voidwalk in the void - need to tap to play site and must take minion damage 1 turn

Weakness: Mana curve, need 6 or 7 sites minimum

Start

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Hang out on starting site for most of the game to defend your sites with spark. Play Assassins, Nightgaunts, Specters, Haunts, and Masoleums early and forward. Layer in Forsaken Crypts for Ghouls along the way. Hold onto your anti-minion spells and use them after their minions get in spark range. Hover at 5 sites with 1 Spore Spouts and Static Servant in hand, then start blasting.

You want pairs of 2 cost and 3 cost double air threshold spells to remove 4 power minion threats. After you play 6 sites/have 6 mana per turn, use Bullet/Toolbox to Teleport on enemy Avatars location and spark them each turn. Kill all enemy 4 or more power minions immediately, Lightning Bolt + Static Servant + Spouts. Don't waste Murder of Crows/Arcane Barrage/Browse until you can get a good spark off with it, like vs 6 power minion or wards. Hold onto Static Servant and Spore Spouts for Deaths Door kill secure. 7 mana needed for Silver Bullet > Toolbox > Grappleshot kill secure. If you end up drawing an Orb, these spells can go a long way. A triple cast of Murder of Crows (once off Orb) can spark for 6 and kill all their 3 power minions with 1 card. Pay 2 mana double Blink draw 2 spark for 2 feels very nice.

Deck Theory

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My attempt to bring Vel'koz to Sorcery Contested Realm. Vel'koz is a League of Legends glass cannon champion relying on speed, mid range CC control, and long range poke but he dies if anyone touches him or if he misses his projectiles. Spells cast by Vel'Koz that hit an enemy create a stack counter and at 3 counters True Damage is applied. This is somewhat mechanically similar to Sparkmage - his spark ability scales damage with air threshold spells cast. Random effects determined by die rolls will help bring back that feel of physical dexterity from League into Sorcery.

Q -> Lightning Bolt, Magic Missiles, Spectral Stalker (Mana regen swapped for health regen with ring)

W -> Murder of Crows, Thunderstorm, Skeleton Mage

E -> Disenchant, Black Plague, Displace

R -> Arcane Barrage, Adtonitum, Grappleshot, Zap!

Passive -> Poisonous Dagger, Sparkmage ability

Flash/Ghost -> Teleport, Blink

Twin Shadows -> Recurring Specter, Hexham Haunts

Good:

Avatars cannot burrow or submerge so you can always spark an enemy Avatar nearby (except when they are on The Void), which allows you to engage diagonally to help dodge projectiles + 2 step away magic damage spells. The spark is not magic damage (it is air damage) AND the spark cannot target your own Sparkmage, so enemy Avatars using Kythera Mechanism, Amulet of Niniane, Goswhit Helm, etc cannot prevent the spark damage in 1v1 on the same site. The best they can do is put a blocker on top of themselves to help randomize the spark.

Bad:

You're limited to 1 spark per turn. The spark requires tapping so he has to get nearby without tapping to move, which requires Blink or Teleport. Card draw is also difficult to obtain and if you use all your spells early, you cannot win and will run out of gas. Without Arc Lightning or Dagger, dealing 6+ damage to enemy minions is hard without 6 mana for double Murder of Crows cast.

Fun tricks

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Play Cloud City on your avatar. Then play 5 sites in front of your Cloud City like this.

[ ] [ ] [o] [ ] [ ]

[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

[x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

[ ] [ ] [x] [ ] [ ]

Don't play 6+ sites and shift the Cloud City left and right. This allows for significant board state advantage. It gives Sparkmage +1 movement, and creates a void sandwich that prevents most minions from attacking and spellcasting. You can camp in this position, gain card advantage, Orb it up with a Geistwood.

Poisionous Dagger and Ring of Morrigan are your best friends. Dagger gives Sparkmages ability lethal damage so only 1 damage from a spark will kill any minion. Ring with dagger gives the ring lethal damage as well. When you first play the ring and dagger, it doesn't activate lethal ping until you play an additional spell. For example: If you play dagger first then ring, ring doesnt trigger at all - if you play ring first then dagger, you do get 1 ring trigger but it executes before lethal is applied to bearer, so it only deals 1 damage.

You can draw for 2 infinitely with Pnakotic Manuscript, Recurring Specter, and Wild Hunt/Horen of Caerleon.. for 1 mana with Major City - Recurring Specter will die from 99% of cards you draw (Arcane Barrage 0 cost) then can be bounced back due to his passive ability. If you have Ring of Morrigan and Major City near Sparkmage, you can infinitely ping your Recurring Specters (you need both specters, you cant ping the same minion you cast with the ring) to gain +1 spark damage for 1 mana to "charge up" his spark - make sure to have 1 Teleport and zap zap.

Merlin's Tower can cast the spell underground and target burrowed units and is a spellcaster for the turn it enters play.

Use Recurring Specter and Black Plague to infinitely keep Black Plague in play, summoning the specter each turn to satisfy the damage proc of plague.