Hearthpwn

Thijs needed to thoughtsteal Al'Akir and Hex to even make the comeback. I dont think the outcome of the game means as much as the fact that a shaman deck was actually dominating against a priest where it normally struggles.

Yeah, this is still a tournament deck. Running it on ladder will requires changes unless youre extremely high in legend, as its vulnerable to aggro decks since it only has one copy of Lightning Storm and Feral Spirits.

indeed unless you are playing a lot against control, running 1 lightning storm is too unreliable since shamans lack card draw. Against zoo and the like, if you dont have it when you need it you lose, and with just 1 copy you might get flooded again. On the other hand 1 feral spirit can work, but i rather run 2. In a control vs control setup, theres so much board clear that maybe a beefy minion is preferred over another feral spirit.

Ive been playing with a different control shaman deck of Kolento's, with +2 Lightning Bolts, +1 Feral Spirits, +1 Bloodmage Thalnos and -1 Mana Tide totem, - 1 Ancestral Spirit, and -2 Undertakers. Kolento played that in the VGVN #2 tournament he won.

I think for ladder, you can cut either 2 Lightning Bolts or 1 Lightning Storm, but you cant do both like in this deck outside of tournaments.

Quote from AbsoluteZero111 »

Yeah, this is still a tournament deck. Running it on ladder will requires changes unless youre extremely high in legend, as its vulnerable to aggro decks since it only has one copy of Lightning Storm and Feral Spirits.

I've never understood this. I see this comment in almost every "tournament" deck. Someone always says that that particular tourney deck doesn't do well in an aggro deck. OK...so using that logic, and with the assumption that the tourney players are very, very good...why wouldn't they run aggro decks to easily beat all the tourney decks they are facing (since apparently, just about all tourney decks suck vs aggro decks)?

Its a tournament deck precisely because you expect to ban your weakest matchup. The original deck was exceptionally weak to aggro because not only did Kolento cut a Lightning Storm and both Lightning Bolts, but also one Feral Spirits. He has added the second Feral Spirits back in, which helps a lot.

As for why people dont just run a bunch of aggro decks in tournaments, its pretty obvious. They will be easily countered by the rest of their lineup. Not only that, but aggro only works as a surprise the first time. Once it becomes clear youre running zoolock instead of handlock, people will mulligan accordingly. And even if they lose, they can follow it up with a counter. Tempo priest for example, is a good deck to fight for the board starting turn 1, especially since it runs undertakers of its own. Freeze mage is another good matchup against zoolock with all their stall cards. You can lose games and still win the match, so you can get away with playing greedy decks. You cant have that mindset on ladder if you want to climb to high legend. Aggro must always be accounted for.