Shudderwock OTK Infinite Drain Life
- Last updated Apr 19, 2018 (Witchwood)
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Wild
- 21 Minions
- 9 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Shudderwock Shaman
- Crafting Cost: 8800
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/10/2018 (Patches Nerf)
- Atralb
- Registered User
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- 14
- 33
- 57
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Battle Tag:
Atralb#2201
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
396
Guys, I am proud to present to you the highlight video of my first day playing this outrageously funny deck !
PS : - As this is footage of games played during the release of the expansion, this is an old version of the deck and does not match current's decklist.
- I am very sorry for the sound of the video. I don't have good headphones for streaming right now, and enabling desktop sound would cause some echo so I just disabled it. I hope you don't mind and that it doesnt kill off your entertainment watching the deck in action.
**** COMMUNITY FEEDBACK : Just wanted to express my thoughts on the community's judgement of the card. This is a very slow combo and is even more difficult to achieve than Quest Mage while this combo was strictly a "Win the game" and wasnt hated by the community for the fact that its winrate was not high. This one has an even lower winrate and should have not gathered all the hate it did, because this by far not an overpowered deck.The reason it is complained in the community is because of the animation time but people confuse it with overpoweredness and asking for nerfs. The only thing where I completely agree and definitely ask for is to fix the animation by making the Battlecry cast all effects at once, or only cast those that actually do something. ****
WHAT NOW : Thank you to all of you who watched Day One stream, this has been one heel of a ride haha, 11 hours uninterrupted stream ! I'll be back on it starting from Monday evening (in Europe).
So how did the deck performed ? Well, now we know the combo is even more busted than we thought and even Primordial Drake doesnt really breaks our combo even if killing Murmuring Elemental, since as soon as you pull off the first Shudderwock (while having emptied your hand before), your very next turn should be exponentially more powerful. However, as expected, it suffers the weaknesses of any combo decks which is the difficulty to survive against aggro decks and being completely anticlimactic when not drawing all the key cards needed.
According to my experince now, there will be 2 archetypes of the deck. The one I made which will be better against aggro decks and the build around bogshaper with cheap spells which will be better against slow decks. The prevalent version will be determined once the meta settled. For now, at least in legend, the meta has been extremely aggro centered. With decks such as Odd Face Hunter (I swear, you can see Wolfrider played in legend now), Odd Dude Paladin, Rush Tempo Warrior being very popular. Thus, my version (which I updated now to beat them, all changes explained at the end of the guide in "1ST PLAYED EDIT") seems to be more efficient atm. However, I do believe the meta will slow down, when people are gonna pick Cubelock again (cause it is still overpowered) and that other will want to beat them and make refined control decks. If a meta like that is happening, then the Bogshaper Build could be better. I will be showing this second version I tried to refine below if you are interested. (In "Discussion")
Hi guys, Atralb here.
So this deck revovles on a pretty busted combo doable with the new (really OP) shaman legendary Shudderwock : You want it to basically recast the battlecries of Lifedrinker + Saronite Chain Gang + Grumble, Worldshaker.
This indeed lets us Step 1 : deal damage to the enemy's face while healing yours, summoning another copy of Shudderwock that would get put back to our hand for only 1 mana. And, then as you all know it :
- Step 2 : Repeat
- Step 3 : ???
- Step 4 : Profit !
The most efficient way to consider this deck during deckbuilding is to compare it to a Kingsbane deck. Both are extremely similar in concept. You need to quickly assemble all your combo pieces that will eventually create an infinite value card in the late game.
So, in order to be doing so consistently, the deck contains (as any classic combo deck) card draw and removal. Let us begin !
Key Cards :
The cards making our wombo combo are Lifedrinker, Saronite Chain Gang, Grumble, Worldshaker and of course Shudderwock.
To help with our plan, two other cards come into play : Murmuring Elemental and Fire Plume Harbinger. The latter one reducing the cost of the first one allows us to cast another Shudderwock's battlecry (a battlecry that will cast a battlecry that will cast battlecries, Battlecryception boys ! Well no it won't work that way since it specifies "other battlecries" ^^, too bad !) for basically the double the damage and healing and the double 1 mana shudderwocks in hand ! When you think about it's really pretty insane. In fact, since Shudderwock's battlecry has a random order , this combo is actually necessary if you want to ensure you get at least 1 Shudderwock back in hand.
Let's talk about the best possible outcome for 1 Shudderwock. When all those key battlecries are alreday done :
- 2 Saronite Chain Gang's + 2 Lifedrinker's = 2 copies of Shudderwock + 6 face dmg + 6 own face healing
- times 2 with Murmuring Elemental = well the double you get it
So basically with 10 mana you are dealing 12 face dmg + healing yourself for 12 and getting back FOUR 1 mana shudderwock that will also deal that same amount of damage and healing !!! This is actually a legit 48 DMG OTK combo (at maximum, which means it can surely attain 30 health on average) AND can aslo be split in smaller part each turn if not all has been assembled. The consistency of this deck's combo seems to be really great to me !
Even if you only get the most basic version of the combo, it's still 6 face dmg and 6 face healing per turn for 1 mana starting from the second Shudderwock, which is exactly like a 6 atk Kingsbane who can only attack face, and any veteran Kingsbane player will easily understand you are already in a pretty good shape when you are constantly attacking face with a 6 atk lifesteal Kingsbane while having great shaman removal tools in hand instead of weapon buffing in hand. And there's even more !
Board control tools
Board clears : Lightning Storm, Volcano and Primordial Drake. Basically all the premium board clears available for shaman as of the upcoming rotation. (Avalanche is rather meh and the 4 mana spot is already crowded)
Primordial Drake is actually bonkers in this deck in the fact that it is already a great control tool, but it is also a battlecry that will get recast by Shudderwock each time he is played. If you have already played both your drakes, this means each Shudderwock you will play will deal 4 dmg to the board, which now, if killing the opponent'hero while healing ours wasn't enough lets you also clear the opponent's board with this single card ! Guys I'm so hyped for this deck !
Hard removal : Hex is insane against Cubelock and we surely will need this in Witchwood's meta.
Stalling tools : Some spots of the deck were chosen to add some taunts and healing, namely Feral Spirit, Hot Spring Guardian and Healing Rain.
Brrrloc is also a good early game stalling card to enable better board clears, and its battlecry can only target enemies which yet again adds a cool disrupting battlecry to Shudderwock.
Card draws
Many card draws in the deck to help us achieve our goal as soon as possible : Mana Tide Totem, Sandbinder which fetches one of our 3 key elementals and Witchwood Piper is another good card draw card that kind of achieve the same goal as Sandbinder, even though in a lesser way, but the fact that it pulls out the lowest mana-using card of our deck is pretty valuable. And moreover, shaman doesnt have any other good card draw.
Potential Replacements and Discussion :
The cards i'm thinking could be changed are
- REMOVING Brrrloc if it doesnt proove to be an efficient addition to Shudderwock
- REMOVING Witchwood Piper if it happens to be too much card draw and not enough removal tools.
- REMOVING 1 Fire Plume Harbinger and 1 Murmuring Elemental if we feel they tend to remain too much dead cards in hand, waiting for the combo, or simply want to add removal and/or card draw for better consistency over higher combos. But keep in mid this also reduce sandbinder's consistency.
- REMOVING the last Fire Plume Harbinger because you can discount a Murmuring Elemental with Grumble, Worldshaker too. BUT Not playing Harbinger means you need to have a turn somewhere in the game where you're gonna pay 8 mana for only a 7/7 on the board, and that you can't drop your Grumble, Worldshaker when it is a good opportunity if you can't combo it with Murmuring Elemental. Not only that, but a Grumble, Worldshaker turn generally needs you to play some bounced minions on the same turn to let you stabilize the board a bit since himself doesn't do anything on it for more than half your mana, and with 2 mana availabe instead of 4, it's even harder. Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty good idea but this strategy has its weaknesses too.
REMOVING Hot Spring Guardian which isn't bad but isn't great either.DONE- ADDING 2 Doomsayer if Aggro is prevailing.
- ADDING Zola the Gorgon not for another shudderwock as everyone seems to think, but instead a third Lifedrinker which empowers all our casting of shudderwock greatly, but is a really weak tempo play (7 mana 2/2 + 3/3). The same possibility with Saronite Chain Gang. This choice will be a balance between greed and survival consistency.
- ADDING Acolyte of Pain for a mighty 3 card draw right away in combo with Volcano. I've already done this in my jade/evolve control shaman deck last season which had some success in Rank 5-4 (i changed decks from rank 3) which prooved to be quite consistent. And Potion of Madness is out now !
- ADDING some weapon removal like Gluttonous Ooze or Harrison Jones will most likely be needed in the meta ahead of us, but I will leave it like that for now since it is indeed a Theorycraft deck.
- ADDING Bogshaper too draw our Lifedrinker Saronite Chain Gang and such. It can be discounted with Fire Plume Harbinger aswell and seems like it was kind of meant for thisdeck. However, as it is now, the deck doesnt have low cost spells to combo with, and i would need to change quite some cards to be adding this one. It will be part of the testing phase without a doubt. Here is my updated version of the deck centered around Bogshaper
Minion (15) - 1x Grumble, Worldshaker
- 1x Shudderwock
- 2x Bogshaper
- 2x Sandbinder
- 2x Fire Plume Harbinger
- 2x Lifedrinker
- 2x Murmuring Elemental
- 2x Saronite Chain Gang
- 1x Brrrloc
Ability (15) - 2x Unstable Evolution
- 1x Blazing Invocation
- 1x Lightning Storm
- 2x Volcano
- 2x Earth Shock
- 2x Healing Rain
- 2x Hex
- 2x Lightning Bolt
- 1x Zap!
Loading Collection
Props to Yinghao, for getting the idea ! (see his original deck : https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1066129-shudderwock-otk)
BEWARE when (even if it primarily seems good for shudderwock and overall deck) adding elementals with battlecries such as kalimos primal lord, Stone Sentinel, or Blazecaller. Damage that can target anything is too risky, and summoning multiple small minions is too since, you have good chances to put them back in your hand and clog it up, possibly burning combo pieces like a second Lifedrinker or a Murmuring Elemental.
PRIMORDIAL DRAKE ISSUE : The fact that Primordial Drake's battlecry to Shudderwock can easily kill Murmuring Elemental, and in extreme cases Shudderwock copies (only during double battlecry) before they get back to hand is indeed a concern. However, the drake addition to our overall survival package and the infinite board clear with Shudderwock is still an extremely good addition. Whether with or without is better will be determined after playtesting and I don't think we can settle this matter now. I will then leave the deck as is for now.
1ST EDIT : Removed the Hot Spring Guardian, 1 Fire Plume Harbinger and 1 Murmuring Elemental to improve the consistency of Sandbinder in drawing our key cards. Replaced by card draw : Bloodmage Thalnos (for potential bigger Lightning Storm), Far Sight and Acolyte of Pain. Testing will tell which one of these two will be the best, cause they both have pros and cons in theory now. (far sight for potential discount on combo cards and being a spell leaving witchwood piper a better pool to draw, and acolyte for drawing multiple cards and a combo with volcano). Thanks for the feedback Optimatum :).
1ST PLAYED EDIT :
- 1 Far Sight - 1 Feral Spirit - 2 Witchwood Piper
+ 2 Doomsayer + 1 Murmuring Elemental + 1 Healing Rain
I needed both Doomsayer because of the ladder swarming with aggro decks, and Healing Rain specifically for Odd Face hunter. At this moment, Witchwood piper wasnt good anymore, since it couldn't consistently draw key minions anymore, and as some people truthfully said, the deck had a bit too much of card draw. 2 Feral Spirit was a bit overkill with already 2 Saronite Chain Gang, so I dropped one. And Far Sight was too much of a tempo loss as expected. The second Murmuring Elemental is very good because it can give an additional battlecry of something you want for Shudderwock, and gives you a second chance to get the combo quickly.
Conclusion
As this is a new archetype, this decks needs a lot of playtesting and card swapping at the beginning to see which build will be the most consistent in Witchwood's meta. I actually really trhink this deck will be a viable deck in the meta, even if not past tier 3. But I still have the feeling this has a slight chance to become in high tier meta if Cubelock, aggro decks, or other new archetypes don't get out of hands. Remember we get one of the best cubelock's hardcounter in the card of Hex.
Overall I'm pretty fucking looking forward to play this deck, and will surely test this out on Day One of the release !! Hope you love it guys, I'm out !
Stop begging for clicks.
Hey boys, I love all things Shudderwock. Definitely check out the Zyrios version. It's not OTK, but amasses insane value and is a lot of fun to play.
deck is crap. give up on it
I played 68 games split over three versions of this deck, (well not really this deck but shodderwock infinite lifesteal combo), between rank 5-3 yesterday and i went 34-34 it struggles versus "the big three" ie Warlock / Paladin / Priest and does very well vs all other classes i went 6-0 vs mage for example.
After that i crafted an odd pally and went 17-8 (it only struggles vs warlock). I really wanted this Combo Shammy to work because it´s whacky when the combo goes off but 68 games and 50% winrate getting me nowhere.
The version i used is here http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1091943-shodderwock
I kept dying to Even/Odd Paladin. So I put in two Abominations. It hindered the hell out it and killed some of my stuff, but since the current meta is so heavy in the swarm style decks, doing this helped a lot.
I actually managed to get legend with my version last night but i used it as a counter to Taunt (wall) druid, Control mage and Quest warrior. (ran into the same dumpster legend questwarrior on my way to legend last night and since i was playing mindblast priest it annoyed the heck out of me)
I´ve seen posts claiming success with quest murloc shammy (with shudder as a way to buff your board and fill your hand instead of infinite lifesteal), that may be the way to use it while laddering since you never know what you will face on your quest for legend.
But the combo version could def. be an effective way of countering annoying fatigue decks with massive armor.
You need to be very aware of the game while you are playing this deck. What happened to you was you didnt use the murmuring elemental to double the wocks battlecry. The abilities order is random so that means you need to double it to ensure you get one back. Also make sure your board is as empty as possible to ensure your hand stays empty and free of clutter when comboing. A final note, if you combo with a hand near full and a deck with minions still in it, you may experience trouble as the shudderwock can fill your hand before coming back. So need to be very aware of the game you are playing. Using removal when needed, clearing your hand and board when its time to combo, and making sure to survive to see the combo go off. However when you do get this deck to work, it is a beautiful sight to see.
I have a same result today. It looks like some hiddenNERF. You have to play Grumble after Shudderwock with a board as full as possible with Shudderwocks.. But it is not OTK anymore...
No, you don't have to. The order of the battlecries of Shudderwock are random. So you have to play Saronite Chain Gang and Grumble to bounce one Shudderwock to your hand. But you need to play it with Murmuring Elemental, so all the battlecries trigger twice and, no matter the order, you finish with one or more Shudderwock in your hand
Looks like.
BTW - The most crazy combo is returning Grumble to your hand with Zolla the gordon. If Grumble on board (+something) survive to the next turn you can do a little hell with it ;)
This is a really fun looking decklist and I can't wait to try it out! Although, you said
"This is a very slow combo and is even more difficult to achieve than Quest Mage while this combo was strictly a "Win the game" and wasnt hated by the community for the fact that its winrate was not high. This one has an even lower winrate and should have not gathered all the hate it did, because this by far not an overpowered deck."
While I agree that the combo takes a while, it's really not that hard to pull off. As long as you play saronite before Grumble it can't really go wrong. I don't think it's been around long enough to say whether it's winrate (shudderwock) is high or low. At the moment it may be high or low but to be honest, people are still experimenting with different synergies, and it could change rapidly. I'm not trying to attack you or anything because I really like this decklist as I said, but I don't for a second believe it's harder to pull off than quest mage, you play Saronite before grumble and you have a loop that will either cause you to win because of life drinker or because your opponent conceded.
Now, I could be overlooking something, and correct me if i'm wrong please.
it doesnt matter when you play saronite. the order is random. plus you have to survive till turn 9 at least, preparing everything you need whilst keeping yourself alive is not easy at all.
Well, it's not that simple. In order to get an shudderwock back in hand you must play it with murmuring, which needs to be discounted. And it is simply pointless to play shudderwock before having played at least 1 of each : saronite chain gang, grumble, lifedrink.
So let's recap : before the combo, you must have already played 1 liferdrinker, 1 saronite chain gang, 1 grumble. Then you must have discounted the murmuring elemental with either grumble or fire plume harbinger. This means having drawn a total 6 specific cards of our deck. And finally you can play the combo for 10 mana. However it will only heal you for 6 if only 1 lifedrinker has been played. And you can't do anything more n this turn. The real combo only starts next turn. Now don't you agree it demands a high setup ?
And keep in mind shaman stalling tools are like not even a third of the powerlevel of mage stalling tools (counting ice block, since we're talking about former quest mage).
Have you ever played this deck? Trust me this is a hassle to pull off as it is so slow in a very aggressive meta. It also is very easy to mill important combo pieces with the card draw needed to win at a decent speed. also clearing your hand/board leading into the combo can be difficult as your draw is just too powerful and your curve is so high . Trust me this deck is a lot more complicated than it looks on the outside
While i agree, and thats what i did for a while, i found that drawing a 3 mana elemental in this heavy of a deck was too much. The elemental slot needs to stay open for combo pieces. I tried to replace it with its little brother, wax elemental, but i found that taking up another elemental slot is just not what this deck needed, instead i just ran a nightblade but if your looking for more help in this aggresive format, pick up a non-elemental taunt or just add a second doomsayer
try this built i think its much easier and more consistant
https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1091066-shudder-man-otk
Fit lone champion on to make shudder have Divine Shield and taubt. It works.
Every shuddershock deck is a meme deck. Loses against every aggro deck. Only does well against control decks. Do not waste dust crafting a shuddershock deck. Should be strictly used for fun if u have extra dust
Its combo deck like freeze mage... aggro should destroy combo and that's nothing special. This is a fun but not a meme deck. I think you don't know the difference... this is just a combo deck like worgen warrior or freeze mage back then it just plays a lot different and the combo is like a firework.
Why is brrlock in the deck it is useless. Its only making your draw worse.