Hearthpwn

Hi! Sipiwi94 here.  

The new expansion is out and it changed everything - also in wild. People are playing a lot of different stuff to test it out, so it will be hard to describe the matchups for this deck. Well, this deck is not entirely my creation. Farfain build the core of the deck and after Un'goro I figured it would be good because of 1 card. Volcano is SO strong when you don't have minions on the board. It works as a board clear or a single target removal (that also kills small units) and 2 overload is nothing. 

How does this deck work?

Well just like other control decks this deck wants to win by drawing out the game until your opponent has nothing in his hand (or deck). This gets tricky when the other decks try to kill you before they have no cards left, but the deck has a lot of taunts and some great healing too. 

Depending on the matchup this deck has to be played differently making it very entertaining and hard to play. Cards like Healing Wave (can be used on minion or your face), Ancestral Spirit (can be used on minions to survive or White Eyes for value), Hex and Devolve (can be used on small minions to survive, saved for big deathrattles, used to deny Anyfin Can Happen). These are some examples of the many decisions that make me love this deck!

Tricky things to be aware of

Ancestral Spirit is a card that can give you SO much value. If this card didn't have a drawback all shaman decks would play it. The drawback is that you have to overextend a lot of value into 1 minion. This is vulnerable to effects like Hex , Polymorph , Entomb. When you are playing against these cards it is very important to test if they have the cards and bait them out. Use Sludge Belcher , White Eyes and sometimes even Sylvanas to test before you use your Ancestral Spirit.

Reincarnate is a combo piece that wins the control matchups.

• You can use it on turn 10 with Kel'Thuzad to get a board that is almost impossible to clear.
• It is a 2-mana Mind control with Sylvanas Windrunner and it summons a random legendary with Sneed's Old Shredder .
• It can turn the 1/1 from Barnes into its original form
• It also has the option of denying the overextending mentioned when I talked about Ancestral Spirit .
• You can use it on your opponent's Deathlord , which is a very popular card.  

Against most non-control decks this deck has to risk something to win the game. At some point you have to board clear with low hp and hope he can't burst you, and then heal/taunt up the following turn. Or you might have to taunt and hope he has no removal. Or you might have to board clear and hope he doesn't have a lot of new minions in hand. This is normal when you are playing a control deck and if the deck is good (like this one ;P) then it will work out in your favor most of the times. 
Keep in mind that you can't play every game save from the beginning  and until the end!

Matchups

To be fair the ladder is a big mess. There are too many decks to describe them here. What I can do is to give you some knowledge about how to approach different archtypes and if the matchups are good or bad.

Aggro

This matchup is favoured in my opinion. It is not as favoured as "normal" control shamans vs aggro because this deck has more dead cards - Reincarnate 

When this matchup goes in our favour we get a board clear - Volcano , Lightning Storm or Devolve + Maelstrom Portal and follow it up by a taunt wall or Healing Wave . This happens often enough to make the matchup favoured.

When you lose this matchup it is because of bad draws that lead to the aggro player snowballing out of control. It can also happen if the aggro player is able to refill the board right after a board clear. 

There are different aggro decks out there with some subtle differences. Aggro warriors and rogues don't deal with taunts very well. Aggro shamans have burst to deal with taunts making the game harder.

Mulligan: Devolve Maelstrom Portal Lightning Storm Healing Wave.
If you have coin you can consider keeping Volcano

Control

Against control decks you want to win by value. An important thing is to figure out how greedy your opponent's deck is. If it is very greedy you want to get as many 10/10 taunts in your deck as possible. Don't think too much about fatigue because of the amount of cards you can shuffle in your deck.

Against Priest (only reno), Mage, and Shaman you have to bait out their transform spells before going all in with your biggest stuff.

Mulligan: Ancestral Knowledge Far Sight Barnes. 5-drops and Hex could also be considered.

OTK decks

This is the worst matchup for sure. You can't really pressure enough to consistently win, but it is your way to play the matchup. There is 1 OTK deck you beat often - Murloc Pala. You have 4 spells that transform the murlocs to make their Anyfin Can Happen useless.

You play the matchup like a control matchup, but you don't have to think about value. Instead you think about pressure.

Mulligan: Ancestral Knowledge Far Sight Barnes. 5-drops and Hex could also be considered.

Midrange

This archtype is a bit strange because there are not a lot of pure midrange decks out there. Secret Paladin usually has murlocs included and that is all the midrange I see. Elemental Shaman might be a new midrange deck though.

I don't have a lot of insight for this matchup, but the mulligan is something between aggro and control. You want board clears, but the small ones are probably not useful. Single target removal is important to deny pressure. At the same time you can't run out of steam. 

Mulligan: Lightning Storm Devolve Far Sight Hex Barnes

Mulligan in general

When you are talking about mulligan it is important to remember that you have limited knowledge. You face a druid, but is it Aviana/Kun OTK, Egg druid, or Jades? When you have played some games you get a feeling that it might be 20% Aviana, 60% Egg and 20% Jade, so you should probably mulligan for en Egg druid. Still some cards that are great against OTK and Jade could be a keep if they are not too bad against Eggs. These are some of the thoughts that should go through your head when you see the opposing class.

Another thing that is VERY important is that if you follow a mulligan guide 100% you will make a lot of mistakes. There is a reason why pros think a lot during the mulligan - it's hard. Some cards gain a lot of value if you have the option of picking them together (an example is Devolve + an AOE spell in this deck). If you already have a good early game card (like a Lightning Storm ) you might want to keep a greedy card (like a Sludge Belcher )even though the guide doesn't say so).

Final words

If you have any questions about the deck or wild in general I am happy to answer them.

I might start streaming soon at https://www.twitch.tv/sipiwi94 and my twitter is https://twitter.com/sipiwi94