Hearthpwn

Quote from Gl00my_bear »

I'm currently rank 4 and wonder how I can win against handlock? I run a slightly different version  (no doomhammer, gnomish) but still... the basics of midrange shaman are more ore less the same. Handlock seems just impossibru.

Shaman is INCREDIBLY favored against Handlock, to the point of most Warlocks being terrified of the match up. Mulligan for Earth Shock, Hex, BGH, and control his life total until you kill him with burst. 

Sorry, stopped checking on the thread so I did not respond sooner.  If you know you are against handlock you can keep cards like hex or bgh.  You should already always be keeping earth shock. I have even started keeping bgh against all warlock as long as I have some other good anti-zoo cards because of sea giant, void-caller -> mal-ganis, void terror shenanigans, though bgh is weak vs Maly-lock so may not be a good keep as that deck becomes more popular..  

Handlock is very predictable, so you want to play around their turns.  Off coin they prefer to tap on 2 and 3 for giant, but can also drake on 4.  This means cards like mana-tide on 3 can either force delay their giant or get crazy draw value.  With coin they need to drop something on 2 or 3 if not draking so cards like mana-tide or haunted creeper allow them an opportunity to get value out of dark bomb or owl on curve, so it's often better to totem as then they don't get efficient use out of their mana. On their 4 mana turn you can play something like mana-tide or creeper + totem and they can only owl or darkbomb it if they skip playing a threat, giving you more time to draw answers and develop your board.

Since you know what they will play on t4, you want to maneuver so as to have an answer.  4 bodies plus flametongue kills giants and drakes.   Ferals into flametongue kills giants, with a totem from t2 they also kill drake.  They can easily force an early hellfire, giving you two more draws to find an answer to a threat if you are currently without one.

The next thing you have to do is manage their life total.  It's often better to just use minions to clear things like ancient watchers or other more threatening minions rather than damage from hand because this minimizes your susceptibility to board clear and maximizes the amount of burst you have from hand, while getting value out of your chances to attack without putting them too low by just hitting face.  You really want to hold rockbiters for burst kill, and also one flametongue if you can.  With two bodies on board, al'akir + flametongue = 14 damage from hand.

Later in the game, drake+storm gives you a great response to their defensive power plays.  It kills all their taunt givers and heal bot, and will take out half of a giant letting you kill the rest from your board.

Throughout the game you generally want to totem agressively.  Since you aren't concerned with pressuring their life total from your board, you don't need to flood with high-threat minions.  Getting totems helps force them to use AoE inefficiently because of the threat of flametongue clearing and also increases the strength of your storms (spell power) and other minions which you trade into their small minions, with healing totem getting things out of coil or darkbomb range.

Loatheb is also a very strong card.  Something like loatheb+ferals late makes hellfire bad against ferals and helps guarantee you get value out of them.  Loatheb can also lock in a board and force them to taunt up, allowing for a spellpower lightning storm play to get high value killing watchers, taunt givers, &etc.

If you don't have optimal answers, handlock has little burst so cards like ferals, argus, taunt totems can delay while you draw and play cycle cards to find your hex/bgh, or they will have to run their giants into your taunts making them vulnerable to drake+storm or fire ellie plus storm.

Eventually you will either have some combination of windfury+rockbiter, flametongue(s) + board, or loatheb + board to kill them in one turn.  Even without windfury cards, if you're holding something like 2x flametongues + a fire ellie, assuming you have 3 things on board that's 11 damage from hand for 10 mana.  You have lots of combinations of cards from hand that easily add up to 10+ damage so all you need is a little bit of damage on the board and a gap in their taunts to hit them for 15+ in a turn.

what do you guys think about replacing something for kezan?

replace loatheb or BGH, these are tech card slots.  The meta better warrant kezan though.  Loatheb is an independently strong tech card and BGH gets value against a large majority of decks.  Kezan has limited applicability and typically needs to be drawn early, decreasing the likelihood it will be effective.  You could also try replacing gnomish inventor or mana tide totem but I think the amount of cycle in the deck is just right.  Swap them out and see whether or not it seems to affect your ability to have answers and threats.

This deck isn't really any different than midrange shaman decks were pre-BRM.  This deck has the same problem that they have all had.  Its too slow.  You get too far behind that by turn 4 or 5 when you actually have some minions to play, you've already lost.  If you took this to legend, you have more patience than I.  Its too inconsistent and loses to the majority of rush decks.  Its strong against control, but very weak against midrange and aggro decks.  With the meta being very aggro, this deck is not great right now.   

Too many buff cards, and not enough minions.  I'd suggest removing flametongue totems and an earth shock for some 1 and 2 drops.  

I'm not sure what the point of boiler plate shaman dismissal is.  

The meta isn't aggro.  Druid is 20%: favorable for shaman.  Warlock is 25%: 1/3handlock - favorable.  1/3 demon zoo cutting 1s and 2s for 6+ drops: even to favored.  1/3 fast zoo: disfavored.  15% warrior, combo or control: both highly favored.  The problem class is the 15-20% hunter, and every time they cut explosive for freezing and immediate damage for highmanes your win rate goes up significantly.  

The meta is midrange: handlock, druid, mid hunter, midrange zoo, combo warrior, and shaman isn't 'very weak' against mid-range - or, really, against aggro.  

Match ups have always been much more about deck and class specifics than midrange/control/aggro/combo.  Many aggressive strategies - backspace rogue, shockadin, face warrior, aggro mage, aggro shaman - have never been successful vs mid-shaman.  It's specifically unleash, explosive, and steady shot which make face hunter so disfavorable, not simply being a face deck.

It's better to build a different shaman list that isn't designed around windfury burst.  Look up hotform's bloodlust list, for example.

Do you think the nerubian egg version is weaker than this one? Personaly i run -1 earth shock, -1 big game hunter, -1 gnomish inventor and i added +2 nerubian egg and +1 defender of argus

i think this is the stronger version tho im not sure since i dont main shammy

Question: What about Bloodmage Thalnos as a draw source over Gnomish Inventor? I don't have Al'Akir the Windlord, but I do have Neptulon, so I'll replace him with that. My current shaman build uses 2 Crackle and 2 Lava Shock, so maybe I get more potential use out of Thalnos, but I'm thinking of ways I can creep those cards into this build. I don't have Big Game Hunter, so I'm going to try 1 Crackle in its place.

 crackle and lavashock will never do better than 1 for 1.  Thalnos can do more than 1 for 1 with storm but other than that doesn't do more than cycle.  I prefer to run cards that are likely to develop significant card advantage, and gnomish draws and often can 2 for 1 with its body, but you can try other strategies.

Yep. I ran Bloodmage Thalnos for about five games. Noticed he just ended up dying before I could benefit from the extra spell power, so I threw him out.

that rly good deck for shaman\ but i removed 1 earth shock from deck and add lava shock -that looks pretty nice

Hey i was trying out this new method of playing where i alternate between all 9 of my decks (win or lose) just to spice things up a bit.  I reached legend one time (lol with hunter) so i am not too bad at this game.  But i have NEVER played shaman, and NEVER tried to ladder with it. 

I was wondering if you could go more in-depth on basic strategies and win conditions.  I do not see the win condition in this deck with out blood lust (i never see win condition in shaman with out bloodlust) but i know there is one.  

Also, i swapped doom hammer for harrison because i don't have it.  Is that an okay swap, or is doom hammer NEEEDED? 

Thanks!

doomhammer and al'akir are your combo finishers, with rockbiter or flametongue.  Otherwise you finish from board like mid-hunter and highmanes with fire ellies, loatheb, or destroyers with flametongue or rockbiter for additional reach.  You can also just attrition some decks out of the game by grinding out their minions.  So you win either by burst from hand or board dominance.

I consider doomhammer optimal because burst is necessary to be competitive but you can replace it with neptulon or another 5.

Awesome advice.  thanks for the thorough response.  Quick question: can rockbitter be used to clear early game ? 

What is general mulligan strategy for aggro ? and what is general mulligan vs control?  I know you have it up there but for some reason i can't make sense of it all.  Usually for every deck there are 3 or 4 cards you're looking for and then tech options (like you mentioned possibly keeping hex).  What are the MAIN 3 or 4 cards I'm digging for ? 

And, based on your opinion, is face hunter REALLY hard to beat ? i see you are 4-0 but i also saw you say you got nice draws. 

and last but not least should i craft doom hammer ? 

EDIT:  why don't you run shredders to even out curve after playing fireguard ?

 Yes use rockbiter as removal early game and for trading minions up (2/3 into belcher, 1/x into x/4s, etc). 

for the most part you keep (1x) shock, chow, rockbiter, and creeper vs everything.  Flametongue, ferals, hex are mu and hand dependent.  4 drops only on coin and only vs control/midrange.  In general you need to ask yourself how your hand responds to your opponents early game.

I tested running shredders and destroyers but did not like it.  Whenever i drop gnomish i feel like i lose card advantage much more easily.  I could see replacing loatheb with shredder for smoother curve.

I think one doomhammer is a good crafting priority but it depends on your collection and goals.  there are guides to how to approach crafting so i'd look at those for guidance.  Epics are good value to craft as you'll get rares eventually from packs and they are often more impact per dust than legendaries.

Thanks for posting. I've been dying to play Shaman, but there just doesn't seem to be a lot of decent decks out there. I will definitely give yours a test run. Thanks!

Why only running 1 +7 atk minion giving free value to a tech card like Big Game Hunter. I couldn't try the deck at it's full potential because I don't have Al'Akir the Windlord and Doomhammer but after I got those two, I'll cut Gnomish Inventor off to have room for Ragnaros the Firelord.

because dr. boom is op.  The boom bots synergize with flametongue and offer a third AoE in the deck, the card gives you a board on its own when played after a wipe, bgh is always a live option w/ flametongue and large minions or destroyers 1/4 times, when they do have bgh you can often swing tempo back with storm or fire ellie subsequently,. and half the time they won't have it.

you don't run two copies because you have 4 other 1 mana plays and you can't dilute the draw density of the deck with too many 1s without negatively impacting your curve vs non-aggro.  Chow's strength relative to shock or rockbiter is that it is always good on t1.  ES and rockbiter, however, are incredibly powerful cards in the late game relative to their cost, which offers a large boost to your tempo.  In comparison, chow  is often tempo negative because of the heal.  You want to see your other cards twice; you often only want to see chow once