Hearthpwn

Been playing this deck for a decent bit. Only difference I made was swapping a Portal for a Tending Tauren - it's a little on the expensive side and admittedly it can clog your hand, but it's a good drop for re-establishing a board or for buffing a board when you don't have any of the buff spells in hand.

Really fun deck, and I'm honestly surprised how long it takes the deck to run out of steam. Forest's Aid turns out is stupid good in the control matchup since it lets you remake a board that's been wiped with Brawl - only wish it was like 7 mana because the only way you can buff it is with Power of the Wild and it's rare that you still have a copy in hand or in deck by the late game.

In a vacuum this isn't too bad, especially with that new 5/5 that summon Al'Akir if you have all the totems. 2 problems is that A, you can potentially triple up on totems that can't attack resulting in a lackluster board; B, it directly competes with Spirit Echo - instead of getting the minion back you summon a totem instead. In some cases it's better because you can still leave a board up to get buffed with bloodlust or evolved the next turn. In others it's worse because maybe you want the minion space on board for higher mana tokens to evolve [i.e. Jade Golems]. 

I'm very conflicted as to if this card will be good enough - maybe it will be good enough in token-type decks simply because you make your entire board stick better? I would want to play with it to actually see if it's good or not.

I know for a fact that not everyone will have success with this deck, but I won my first try. Got Lyra, the Sunshard out of Firelands Portal when I had the quest up on board. To say it was a slaughter would be an understatement.

Great job on the in-depth profile: I'd kill to see more profiles go into specific reasoning and more than just a brief summary of what to do in a certain matchup. A few questions: are there any viable replacements for Thalnos and Al Akir (I'd think for Al Akir another Doomhammer, but 2 Doomhammers is going a little into the crazy side, and Thalnos can't be replaced easily because it's pretty much loot hoarder + spell damage all in 1 card), and what changes would you make to the deck now that the TGT list has been fully revealed?

Quote from Sare jump

Quote from TazdingoFTW jump

Quote from LobsterFrogMan jump

Off-topic rant:

As someone who currently plays Lava Shock, can we please stop looking at that card as "a way to fix other cards?"

Lava Shock is a 2 damage spell with the upside of costing less mana in rough situations. It's a flexible way to kill Knife Jugglers, not a way to make bad cards good.

You can't count on being under Arcane Knowledge or any other 2-overload card when you play Lava Shock, or that it'll fix your curve. You can't count on having Lava Shock, or a good reason to use it, when you play an Overload card. After playing a Neptulon, for example, you don't want to shoot face just for the sake of clearing up one mana. After a Feral Spirit if you use your Lava Shock, you had 2 mana before, and after playing it you still have 2 mana. If you didn't have anything to play before, you won't after Lava Shocking, either.

Stop it.

As someone who uses Savage Roar in druid consistently, I have no idea why you would try to fix bad cards like Force of Nature, a 6 mana 6 dmg spell.

Please stop looking at Auchenai Soulpriest as a way to fix Circle of Healing, a card that doesn't do anything on its own.

Please stop looking at Warsong Commander as a way to fix cards like Grim Patron or Frothing Berserker, they are so mediocre if you don't give them charge and you can't count on having them in your hand.

 

It seriously souinds like Overload cards are unplayable if you don't draw into Lava Shock, but that is not the case. I look at Lava Shock as a tempo card that wins you the game if you use it correctly but not as a win condition on its own that you have to draw in order to win the game. If the game offers me opportunities like using Lava Shock with Ancestral Knowledge, a card that is already usable in specific decks, then I don't say "I can't play that combo because I may not draw into it".

 

expect all thhose classes have pretty damn good card draw, while shaman has to combo JUST to have a decent draw...

Honestly my main complaint is that Shaman is just getting screwed having to deal with overpriced cards, as they have in the past. It's only now that the class is getting stuff that overload makes sense on (see Elemental Destruction, although even then it's just a start mainly due to it hitting ALL minions, not just opponent's).

Looking at the other classes' card draw...Mages have Intellect but technically pay more for it, mainly because at least in Shaman you can Ancestral Knowledge and Rockbiter to clear a 2 drop on turn 3 or follow up with a 1-drop or coin 2-drop, and still have some followup next turn (even if it is barebones Totem Up).

Obviously Druid outmatches most classes' card draw because theirs' gives them a 5/5 AND added utility for healing for 5 AND can sometimes come out turn 5 w/ Innervate. Nothing's touching that to be honest, so it's safe to say to not even compare it to Ancestral Knowledge because it's that much better.

Paladin has card draw in Divine Favor (which is dependent if your opponent's dumping their hand or holding onto cards) and Solemn Vigil (which in at least....I'd say 60% of the time) which, is overpriced and is more of a combo card (both of Paladin's card draw can be said to be more combo oriented).

Warriors have Battle Rage...look at Patron consistency and that's all that has to be said about Battle Rage. I guess Shield Block works as well, but isn't as good of a comparison since it's not pure card draw.

Rogue...well pretty much everything in Rogues draw cards. The closest thing to Ancestral Knowledge is maybe Shiv, and even then it's not astounding but it does its job to cycle.

Warlock...yeah, let's just ignore them too because their hero power is complained to be one of, if not the best in the game.

Hunter's is probably worse than shaman, due to Buzzard nerfs and Tracking just not being that good of a card.

Priest has again, more combo card draw, but it can be argued that it's better because the more damaged minions on board, the better.

So with all of that in mind, Knowledge isn't that bad. It's not great compared to other classes, but it does have some better utility compared to the other card draw more used in the early game (mainly that it doesn't take up your whole turn and maybe with warrior as the exception, you do draw more than 1 card). As shown, while it does seem Shaman has to combo for card draw, so do alot of other classes (I say more prominently Paladin because they either burn an AOE for Vigil value or dump their entire hand and only get your hand size with Favor). But looking at it from the big picture, Shaman definitely could've gotten worse...say a 2 mana, draw 2, overload (3). But also considering that Shaman are getting one of the better (not going to say best because that causes more arguments than meaty conversation) in the same set this is coming in, I'd like to think it's a fair trade off.