Dies to Removal

[deck]Mono Steel[/deck]

This thing is really good in low ladder. I was actually having a bit of trouble laddering with zem's face hunter and made the switch after some dude kicked my face in with mech mage.

The deck's main problem is the absence of silence effects. Mage doesn't have something like Earth Shock that's good enough to run, and while some people have started running polymorph, I feel that once you feel the need to play that card, the meta is way too hostile to mech mage anyway and you should just play a better deck.

The 1-ofs in the deck (except the legends) are the main flex slots. A second Gnome adds consistency, an extra Technician or Reaver adds power.

If you're seeing a ton of face hunter, Ice Block becomes a playable card. If you have an Ice Block up, you can just start going face and know that, after they pop it, you'll kill them on the swing back.

Wow a good number of the names in the deck tags bring up real mtg cards

Here's a list I like, based on some recent innovations in the ATLC.

[deck]Mech Mage[/deck]

I think I actually like going back to Harvest Golem over Tank. There's a fair number of weapons (at least in the 5-1 meta) and tank dies to all the relevant ones except Bow. It also holds up slightly better on the draw if you coin it vs. Hunter, but obviously that's not a make or break.

FWIW tempostorm agrees with you; note that it lines up poorly vs Belcher, Druid of the Claw and Piloted Shredder.