in b4 dont play shaman/threadworthy????


I like Shaman a lot. Awesome class cards imo. And it saddens me that it doesn't have its own thread. Thus here we are.


With LoE week 2 out I've been running both Trogg and Chow. Shaman needs good one drops to contend because if you fall behind at all, it is a very tough road back. I think it brings Stormforged Axe back into play too to run along with Totem Golem for 2 drops with overload. Helps to trade and maintain board presence in early turns.

I'm running the below totem-ish deck to some success. I really need to save up dust to make Boom or Al'Akir as I am finding games never progress to the point where I extract enough value out of KT, either I am behind and there's no value to recoup or I am ahead to the point where Bloodlust/Rockbiter is gg.





Discuss and tell me how bad this deck is.

I'd probably ditch the Stormforged Axes.

I posted this in the main thread, but this is what I'm running (Which has gotten me to rank 4 so far):



I'm actually not a fan of tunnel trogg. Simply not enough good overload cards to take advantage of having it around. I tried Stormforged axes, and found them usually to be too slow or more often playing against decks where I can't afford to be taking extra hits to the face. KT feels like a win more if you're ahead card, so I generally avoid it in all decks.

I'd probably run some spiders in your deck. Sticky minions that can take advantage of early flametounges for board control. I also don't really like Crackle, but thats more of a trying to lessen RNG

KTZ doesn't fit in that at all. Even the Thunder Bluff Valiants are probably too slow. You could use more activators for the Egg. I'd cut the chows for abusives. Cut both TBV for 2x Doomhammer, and swap out an Axe for a Creeper. Think that gives you better win conditions. Actually, you could still run 1 TBV, replace KTZ for it.

I'm a fan of Feral Spirits too. Trogg into coin Feral is insanely strong.

Edit: actually, keep Chow over Abusive, you do have enough activators.

Running Powermace even with just 2x Shredder + Healbot is shockingly super effective btw. I get the buff off almost every time I play it still. And it's a really great weapon since it has 3 vs 2 dmg.

If sticking with troggs, you probably should try Fireguard Destroyer and some lightning bolts

Playing Chow over Trogg is a legit blunder in any non-control deck. You'll straight up lose more games.

Like I said, I disagree. lolsamplesize and such, but I actually tried switching them out and immediately ran into situations where I needed the extra attack: Turn 1 trogg into opponents coin/Knife Juggler, had no turn 2 play, for instance. Or not being able to clear my opponents armorsmith, which in turn let him clear my flametounge totem. Or not being able to clear a turn 2 spider tank from mech mage. Or just simply having a bad draw and not being able to clear mad scientists or shielded minibot. Trogg is something you need to build a deck around. Not something you can just throw into any shaman deck and say it's better.

Saw this deck the other day when switching around streams on twitch. Looked interesting to me but I have zero shaman experience. Any general thoughts just by looking at it? Sorry for the quality I grabbed it from the stream.

iirc, thats fairly close to the top deck for shaman on hearthpwn right now. Apparently he got to rank 4 legend of something with it, so I'd assume it's good.

I'd be running it if I had unlocked the fireguards from blackrock already tbh

It's also a good example of a deck made to use the troggs, with 10 cards with overload.

doesnt seem terrible. bran makes a lot of sense in shaman, double scarab tuskarr drake fire and boom is a reasonable amount of battlecries. problem is shaman is stacked at 3 - the only mana spot they legit have no trouble filling (6 to an extent, too)

anyway, here's my thing about shamans. hopefully this doesnt come across as too much of a hater, and obv shaman "can" win. any class, and any near-competitive decks.

Alright:

Shamans have an odd mixture of weak overall removal, no natural card draw, and a ****ty hero power that makes the composite difficult to compete in a ladder where decks are super fine tuned.

What I mean is most classes have class cards (or ability) that enable draw. Warlock obv have hero power, paladins have lay on hands for a midrange, hunters typically are too fast to require anything beyond the quick shot cycle, warriors have acolytes or cycle with shield block, mages have AI, rogues sprint, priests have northshire, druids have ancient of lores.

Shamans have 4 options when they build a deck:

1. Not use any card draw and function as an aggro to mid-aggro (on the spectrum) and hope to curve well. This is the basis of mech shaman, which is certainly a competitive deck, although I would label it tier 2. (You see it sometimes, but not often, and although it can beat anything, on the whole there are flat out better decks to play, albeit its close)

2. Use mana tide totems. Mana tides are incredibly anti-tempo; a 0/3 for what sometimes amounts to just a weak cycle. Often times they define a win more card; if you own the board you get multiple draws, but then you dont necessarily need the card advantage. If you're behind, it gets slaughtered at the cost of 3 mana for a cycle, when something as silly as a novice engineer (never played outside reno freeze!) is legit better. The totems synergize with thunder bluff valiant, which is why this makes sense in a totem shaman. Sadly, that deck is probably tier 2.5

3. Use ancestral knowledge. As it turns out, 2 mana 2 overload is a lot like 4 mana, which puts this as the worst class draw card. Mages cheat out AI often with sorcerers; shamans never have the synergy like flamewaker to do that. brage in the patron deck way outpaced this, sprint with prep is considerably better, etc etc. This only really fits a malygos shaman or decks in general that can afford to use mana really inefficiently. If there was ANY synergy with other decks, maybe, but it's basically a late game only draw.

4. Or, what most decks, which is build around 2 azures and hope to eek out card draw in other ways (like neptulon or w/e). This caps the design space of a lot of decks, as you're shifting resources in ways that may not optimize other spaces (ie fewer tech cards)

~

the hero problem is a real problem. at the moment there is no direct synergy - yes, totem decks exist, but rogues use their weapon. paladins use their silver hand recruits. warlock tap op, warriors hunters and priests utilize their hero power in great ways to push their way to win, and then there was shaman. the randomness sucks, most of the totems suck, and lack of complimentary cards hurts.

It's about time someone started a shaman thread. I started the warlock thread 5 months and noted that warlock and shaman were the only classes without threads here.

Ended up trying the list I posted last night but dropped Brann for another shredder. If you don't draw those trogg's it's was insanely hard to keep any board vs all the secret paladins I found last night. Ended up going 2-7. Almost feel like dropping the fireguards for a zombie chow and maybe another 2/3 drop would be good but really didn't play it enough.

Today I got a shaman 3 win quest after rerolling so obviously blizzard wants me to try again.

Tried it again for the quest and didn't do well.

Could be a factor of me sucking with shaman, bad/lucky draws etc but it feels very weak vs anything that can flood the board and then buff up the minions. With how popular secret paladin and now zoo are it seems like it would be bad in the meta. Anytime the games went any distance the deck was extremely strong.

Again I'm a shaman noob and could be wrong.

Shaman takes some getting used to for sure. Typically you need to win the board early and if you don't you can't really come back easily. So you need to make sure you are thinking your mulligan and early turns through very carefully and planning your overload properly. ****ing up what you do on those first 1-4 turns can put you in a bad spot.

Minions are way more important than Rockbiter (not in this deck) or Bolt. So most often it is wrong to keep bolt if you have no other early game. You want those 1 and 2 drops (and sometimes FT if you have creeper) so you can start developing the board and keeping it.

I haven't played this version enough against Zoo, but old midrange style which has less 2 drops was probably close to even so it shouldn't be some crazy dog or anything.

Man, I generally love Shamans in HS and in WoW (manage to get to golden Shaman class, 1st golden class I did, before Naxx was released), but something seems pretty lacking in Shaman decks for reasons explained a few post back itt.

My best accomplishment with Shaman, and I guess overall in HS, was that I manage to make it to Rank 2 (non-legend) with a Bloodlust/Reincarnate/Feugen and Stalagg deck and beat a streamer in the process (this was before Blackrock Mountain I think).

As usual, I hope for the best for the class with regards to the new cards in play. Some of the new decks look promising, but I think, from observations, it suffers the general shaman problem of trying to top-deck, due to the lack of consistent shaman draw mechanisms, and hope to get lucky or they just get too overwhelmed against aggro decks with the overload to match tempo.

Top post on reddit sub is Reynads aggro Shaman. Will have to try it out.

Yes I was watching him play it last night, it was tearing up, he got to rank 5 on the ladder with it pretty quickly.

Seems like you'll win a ton with it, and need to be able to stomach a fair amount of games coming down to spell power totem/crackle rolls at the end.

I'm all about that totem RNG.

Just went 5-1 with Brannman after getting the shaman 5 win quest. Only loss was to a renolock that healed for 28. Not sure if it is really viable or if I just ran well but it was pretty fun to play.

How's that deck working out for you? Any chance to run it some more?

I stumbled upon that exact setup while looking for something shaman that wasn't aggro or expensive. I've gone 5-0 with it on the lower ranks (15ish) tonight, beating 2x paladin, 2x priest, and a zoolock. I find it tempos extremely well and has a lot of counterpunching capacity.

Also, I've only drawn brann once, he's been bottom decked so far. And each time it didn't matter, I was able to flood the board even better than in the mech aggro builds I've tried

Jeweled scarab works really well in this deck, it gives you a really good chance to draw a hex which is a lifesaver if it wrecks a big combo from your opponent

On top of the two already in the deck I've rarely found myself without it

Working on a midrange list. Don't have Fireguard Destroyers though
Here's what I've got right now:

1x Earthshock
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Trogg
1x Crackle
2x Haunted Creeper
2x Jeweled Scarab
2x Totem Golem
2x Flametongue Totem
2x Feral Spirit
1x Hex
1x Lightning Storm
2x Tuskar Totemic
2x Shredder
2x Defender of Argus
1x Bloodlust
2x Azure Drake
2x Fire Elemental
1x Dr. Boom

Brann is an interesting idea that I might try, cut an Argus I guess?

With 2 Feral Spirits I might cut both Arguses.

Nice thing about midrange right now is that nobody mulligans correctly.

I was messing around with Brann in my list and he was okay. Brann into Neptulon on 10 can get you right back in the game vs. control decks. I wasn't running scarabs, he should work well with those too.

If you do add Brann, I'd keep the feral spirits as you really want him to last a turn.