Iron Shaman
- Last updated Nov 21, 2014 (Naxx Launch)
- Edit
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Wild
- 15 Minions
- 14 Spells
- 1 Weapon
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 3140
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 10/15/2014 (Naxx Launch)
- modded
- Innkeeper Beta Test
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- 13
- 18
- 39
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Battle Tag:
modded#1309
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
589
Note:
I built this deck to work in the meta I'm facing. It may or may not be a good decklist for you, depending on what you are facing. Please adjust the decklist to suit your playstyle and opponents.
This deck is a bit weaker against Aggro than other Shamans. In exchange, it has a bit more of an edge against other Midrange decks that are popular at the moment, particularly Midrange Druid and Handlock.
Edit (2014-11-04): I dropped both Inventors for 1x Defender of Argus (too good of a card for Shaman) and 1x Bloodlust as an additional win-condition.
How to win with this deck:
2 for 1 your opponent as much as possible, making efficient trades and utilizing cheap removal, then either overwhelming your opponent or finishing them off with a colossal burst.
Watch your overload, plan out your future turns so that you don't lock yourself out of a great play unnecessarily (ie overloading on turn 5 and preventing a turn 6 Fire Elemental).
Your burst finishers are Doomhammer + Rockbiter Weapon and Windfury + anything. Don't be afraid to use your combo pieces early if it leaves you in an advantageous position, but if you can use the other pieces before Windfury then do so, as even though it requires board presence (the former combo does not, and Leeroy Jenkins is not in this deck) it has higher burst damage potential.
Cards:
Earth Shock: This card is sometimes used for its Silence, sometimes for its damage, and sometimes both. Notorious for slaying many Twilight Drakes, this card is extremely versatile.
Lightning Bolt: Although some have dropped this from their Shaman decks, I think this to be a huge mistake. It's early removal for minions like Undertaker and amazingly efficient especially when combined Spell Damage. You can also hit the face with it for extra burst damage.
Rockbiter Weapon: This card is another versatility gold mine in this deck. Early removal, minion pump, combo piece with Doomhammer and Windfury, this card does it all.
Flametongue Totem: This AoE pump synergizes well with Totemic Call, as well many of your other minions. Great for efficient trading or contributing to lethal burst damage.
Windfury: This card is a bursty win condition, it combos with any high damage minion (naturally or via pumps) for insanely efficient burst damage.
Feral Spirit: This is your early aggression stopper, as well as a way to gain precious board before your opponent in slower matchups. Just be wary of playing this on turn 6 versus a Priest, Cabal Shadow Priest will ruin your day.
Hex: This (broken) hard removal is the best in the game, removing painful minions such as Sylvanas Windrunner for only 3 mana and a Frog. Because it's a transformation, you don't have to worry about Deathrattles or Thaddius.
Lightning Storm: This is your AoE spell, the king of value. You can get it out early against aggro, and it's damage is high enough that with a little spell damage you can remove even pesky stealthed Gadgetzan Auctioneers.
Mana Tide Totem: The only non-cantrip card draw in this deck. Careful timing is required to get full value out of this guy, but who doesn't like drawing 2 cards every turn? At 3 life he can sometimes be pumped to eliminate opposing minions and still survive.
Unbound Elemental: This is the only non-situational 3 drop in this deck, being a 2/4 it will tend to trade well. With 7 Overload cards in this deck the chances of him staying a 2/4 are low.
Doomhammer: When facing opponent's with life gain, this weapon is your key to victory. Capable of good burst damage with Rockbiter Weapon, this card is awesome at plowing away at your opponent's life total.
Fire Elemental: The best 6 drop basic in the game. Normally players prefer health over attack, but who cares when the minion comes with a Lightning Bolt bundled in for only 2 stat points!
Bloodmage Thalnos: Spell Damage and card draw, the 2 things Shamans love most! And for only 2 mana!
Haunted Creeper: This minion not only synergizes insanely well with Flametongue Totem, but it's cheap and inefficient to remove. Shaman needs board presence, and this minions helps you keep it.
Dark Iron Dwarf: Popular in the even more popular ZooLock, this card finds a home away from home in Shaman. Thanks to Totemic Call, there's almost always a target for the pump, and a 4/4 is quite respectable.
Gnomish Inventor: A cantrip that leaves behind a minion that trades well. What more can you ask for when card draw is worth its weight in gold for Shamans.
Azure Drake: More Spell Damage! More cards! I think you know why this card is in here.
Loatheb: By disabling spells for a turn, this minion protects your board single-handedly for a turn. Board presence is everything, and a 5/5 body that also trades well makes this an must have in this deck.
Cards that almost made it:
Defender of Argus: Used in most Shaman decks, I dropped it to make room for the Dark Iron Dwarf (Gnomish Inventor's card draw means it has to stay), as they are bigger minions by themselves and only require one minion on the board to get full value.
Sludge Belcher: Whilst it's great against Aggro, the card itself is a bit slow, and this deck really doesn't need more 5 drops. It is amazing in some Shaman decks, just not this one.
Gadgetzan Auctioneer: Whilst this guy can draw you an absurd number of cards, he is a combo piece which makes him less reliable. Additionally, if you only draw one card off of him, he is strictly worse than an Azure Drake.
Leeroy Jenkins: This allows you to get value from Windfury from an empty board, but I felt that it was best to include as many consistent cards (that don't need to be held on to) as possible in this deck, meaning that Loatheb ended up taking our favorite chicken eater's place.
Al'Akir the Windlord: Whilst this guy is a great legendary, I just can't justify adding him. He's versatile, but IMHO he's the least reliable win condition since being an 8 mana minion will lock you out of most combos when you're overloaded. Sure he helps in Aggro matchups, but this deck wasn't designed with Aggro matchups in mind.
To the reader:
If you found this deck helpful in any way or have any questions, please leave a comment below!
Haha, I'm using a deck very, very similar to this one. Atm I'm rank 13, and you? What is your results against hunters with this deck? Bloodlust and Windfury are helping you in this match up? Because while I'm dominating Warriors, zoos, handlock and managing to do well against priests I'm doing really poor against hunters.
Hunter is an unfavored matchup, though certainly winnable. If you want to beat hunters more consistantly, you need to run 2x defender of argus and fit in Alexstrasza.
Not so hot in the hunter infested ranks, but if you're seeing more Handlock or Combo Druid this deck dominates.
It depends on the matchup, always mulligan for removal and taunts in the aggro mu. Against midrange you want pumps and midgame plays, same with the control mu except more emphasis on doomhammer and less on lightning storm. GL HF!
I like the look of this and especially the Dark Iron Dwarves, an underplayed card outside of zoo which effectively give you a 1-turn Flametongue Totem (which is sometimes all those things live).
Shaman seems to have the most difficulty vs Priest and Dwarves are an excellent addition that are more or less priest-proof (except for Auchenai/Circle combo)
Anyway, this deck looks good.
I needed a deck for my Shaman Dominance daily. 5-1 with this one. Thanks. I didn't really read the description of how to play it, just use spells early to maintain board parity / control until I eventually got the board full and kicked some ass.
Edit: 2 of the games I won by earthshocking their taunt then rockbiter/windfury on Loatheb. He makes for a big boy in a pinch
That's definitely one of the ways that shaman consistently wins by, glad you had success with the deck!
Strongest Matchups for sure are Druid and HandLock. They go out of their way to slam down big threats that we remove quite easily.
I've been having a ton of luck against mages and hunters too. There are a lot of cards in the deck to take care of early mage moves and minions and enough big minions to force mages to burn their high damage spells.
Hunters can be a bit tougher, but I have been doing ok against them.
Great deck!! nice to have a shammy deck that works in the current meta! tyty
This deck is great fun!
However every one of my wins so far has been down to the subbed Blood Lust, which is just amazing in a mid-range control deck like this; overwhelming them with number of creatures on the board, spell damage and card draw..
Best time I've had playing Shaman so far, thanks modded!
What did you drop to fit in Bloodlust?
Glad you're liking the deck!
I only just crafted a 2nd Azure, so added that just now.
Currently looking like this - http://i.imgur.com/FXVLnti.jpg
Was playing around with KT, Sylvanas and Sludge before, but this feels pretty stable. As you can see I don't have the 2nd Feral Spirit and Bloodmage, only due to not having them in my collection.
Let me know what you think.. I don't have that much experience as Shaman.
That's a Control Shaman, not midrange. From a Shaman's perspective, since the core is so large, our decks are not similar at all. They're entirely different archetypes.
I will say that I don't like running a ton of weapons in Shaman due to the lack of healing outside of Alextrasza.
Tested for 4 games now, 4 wins against a zoomurloclock, hunter, freeze mage and midrange shammy. seems fun!
My only change is dropping one gnomish for a bloodlust, I feel as if though its needed for me to wombo people some times and we already have metric shit ton of card draw.
So I've now gone about 11-2 and climbed to rank 10 from rank 16 with this deck, it really does rip up handlocks. The board control you can get is just insane. I ended up switching out the bloodlust a few times for a few different cards. Tried out a TBK and a leeroy however I've settled on adding in a stormforged axe and taking out one gnomish. Seems to work for me against the zoolocks (especially if they drop undertaker, its brilliant) and weirdly enough against hunter. Kept me on the board enough to keep value and get a rockbiter+windfury finish.
All around a really good deck, I think that the -1 gnomish +bloodlust, axe or TBK is the only change I would make. Thanks for sharing man!
Edit: 14-2 and rank 9! Thanks modded!
My first five plays in casual were 4 losses and 1 win. This seems to have a weak early game vs. the likes of hunter. While there are several ways to make the Windfury combo, the game seems to very much depend on it. I found that I needed Doomhammer or the Rockbiter Weapons for clearing the opponent's board, so I never got to win by that combo.
I state early on that this deck was teched against midrange decks, making it weaker towards aggro. In the aggro matchups, you will expend burst pieces as removal.
In general, Shaman doesn't do very well versus Hunter, though you can improve the matchup (or any aggro matchup) by adding back in Defender of Argus and dropping either Gnomish Inventor or Dark Iron Dwarf.
I've actually won all three of my games against Hunter so far with this deck.. Although I did stick a Defender and Blood Lust in..
And both of those cards help in that matchup! :D
Glad to hear that you adapted the deck to fit you, that makes me so happy!
i like the dark iron dwarf idea it actually has alot of synergy with shaman. but personally i would drop both gnomish inventors for either 2 argus or 1 argus and 1 doom hammer or al akir. with 2 azure drakes and a mana tide i feel like thats enough draw for shaman if you are consistatly hero powering and protecting the manatide