Armour-plated Ice Cream Shaman
- Last updated Dec 8, 2018 (Rastakhan)
- Edit
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Wild
- 22 Minions
- 7 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Shudderwock Shaman
- Crafting Cost: 16240
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 12/2/2018 (Boomsday)
- Arachnidius
- Registered User
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- 9
- 36
- 64
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Battle Tag:
Arahknid#2777
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
114
Freeze Shaman is here. This is not a drill: freeze shaman is here.
I'm excited to present Kiwiinbacon's showcase of my deck! Check out his other sweet deck showcases on his youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianRumPunch
Edit 3: I JUST PLAYED THE MIRROR MATCH ON LADDER! This is surreal - I queued the deck up and found myself as King Rastakhan vs. King Rastakhan. When he played plated beetle I thought 'surely not'... then he played Ice Cream Peddler and Hyldnir Frostrider.
Trielix beat me at my own deck but it was a blast!
I spectated his next game where he gained 124 armour and dealt 58 damage in one turn to a kingsbane rogue. Thanks for showing the deck off so well!
Change Log
v1.1: - 1x Rain of Toads + 1x Tar Creeper
v2.0: - 2x Cryostasis + 1x Plated Beetle
- 1x Zentimo + 2x Acolyte of Pain
- 1x Rotten Applebaum + 1x Volcano
v3.0: - 1x Belligerent Gnome + 1x Leper Gnome
- 1x Acolyte of Pain + 1x Far Sight
- 1x Rain of Toads + 2x Seaforium Bomber
v4.0: - 1x Leper Gnome + 1x Prince Keleseth
- 2x Plated Beetle + 2x Corpsetaker
- 1x Bog Slosher + 1x Zilliax
- 1x Far Sight + 1x Al'Akir the Windlord
- 1x Da Undatakah + 1x Hagatha the Witch
Write-up
NOTE: this is my write up from the initial version of the deck. It has gone through substantial changes since then, but I'll leave it here in case I feel like updating it to reflect the newest version at some point.
This deck revolves around Shudderwock utilising Ice Cream Peddler's battlecry to gain effectively infinite armour in the very late game, while shuffling an endless supply of Corrupted Blood in to the opponent's deck via Hakkar, the Soulflayer + Da Undatakah. Here's how the deck works in detail:
- The deck mostly functions like a normal Shudderwock deck with a game plan of controlling the board and getting your battlecry effects off. Most Shudderwock lists have a little more card draw than this deck, so Mana Tide Totem is essential to find ASAP.
- The deck runs DOUBLE Cryostasis, so that your Ice Cream Peddler can get value pre-Shudderwock. It was quite a struggle finding ways of making this card playable, and I initially had one Wax Elemental to up the consistency of having an excellent target for Cryostasis, but had to cut it. Cryostasis is much more effective when played on a taunt, and so Belligerent Gnome is a great target for it and naturally suits Shudderwock Shaman's control game plan. There is also the possibility in the late game for Zentimo + Rain of Toads + Cryostasis to provide you with massive stall potential. Even playing this same combo but with Saronite Chain Gang allows you a large amount of stall. Mana Tide Totem is naturally 0-attack and as a high-value card has soft taunt, and so it also makes a great Cryostasis target as it would never have been able to attack the following turn anyway.
- Hyldnir Frostrider is essential to the Shudderwock battlecry, because this allows Shudderwock to freeze the copies of itself (hopefully) before either of the Ice Cream Peddler battlecries go off, and thereby gain at least 8 armour per Shudderwock played. Of course this gives you no board pressure on your next turn, but if you play enough Shudderwocks in a turn then Glacial Shard should ensure that your opponent has no board pressure either.
- The deck has three specific Deathrattle minions only: Plated Beetle, Rotten Applebaum, and Hakkar, the Soulflayer. This is so that Da Undatakah (and then Shudderwock) guarantees gaining these three deathrattles exactly. This is so that later, whenever your Shudderwocks die, you will gain armour and restore health (the point of which is to enable you to survive turns in which you draw multiple Corrupted Bloods), and also shuffle more Corrupted Bloods into each deck. Note that you can play Undatakah whenever you like (e.g. before any deathrattles have gone off), because as long as the deathrattle minions have died when you play Shudderwock, the effect will then work. Note also that whenever your Shudderwocks die because they are returned to your hand when it is full, their deathrattles will go off, so activating your deathrattles is a lot easier than it may at first appear.
The result of all of this is that if you manage to survive until the very late game (and this is quite a big if), you will eventually be in a position where each turn you can play a full board of shudderwocks, gain a million armour, heal to full, and make your opponent kill themselves by drawing Corrupted Blood.
And you do all of this with FREEZE SHAMAN ... (sort of).
I'm really excited to see if there's any way this deck can work. Please suggest any refinements you think I could make as I'm sure the deck needs it.
Thanks!
SUPERRRRRRRRRRR EXPENSIVE, and not very good.
Wow... so just... fuck Seaforium Bomber then huh?
What? Why do you think Shudderwock shaman has to run seaforium?
Shuffle damage into enemy deck; a replacement for Hakkar, the Soulflayer.
Sure, but why does me choosing to use Hakkar as a win condition mean "fuck Seaforium Bomber"?
Anyway, now that I've played the deck a fair bit and have read through a lot of people's suggestions, I'm starting to want to trim down the combo because it's so slow, and cutting Hakkar for Bomber does seem like the most logical way of doing that - Bomber may be getting some respect after all ;p
Great, insightful comments. Thanks man.
From the few games I've played with it I've also noticed that the plated beetle armour is a lot more consistent. It may well be the case that an Undatakah focus (and not an Ice Cream focus) would be more consistent, but honestly, at least just at the moment, the flashiness and fun of playing Ice Creams is worth it for me. There's also a worry that that would then be a completely different deck, because no freeze package means no Cryostasis, which means Zentimo is only there for Hex, and then one wonders whether that's worth it, and honestly the tempo you can gain from Cryostasis (and much more so with Zentimo + Cryostasis) is actually very strong in the right circumstances. Also with no freeze package you have no mid-game armour game, and some games (i.e. against aggro/tempo), being able to gain just 8 or 16 armour in the mid-game can make a big difference.
As I said you make good points, though. Thanks for trying the deck out!
Edit: as you can see, I've come to agree with you after playing some more with the deck!
Oh, I totally get wanting to play with Ice Cream Peddler and make it work. What if you went the other way, and cut the Undatakah/Hakkar package for more draw and early game survival? (I know you also want to kill people with Corrupted Blood, but with insane amounts of armor you don't really need that.)
By the way, re: my idea of doing just Undatakah/Plated Beetle, Dane went there. It's pretty epic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ1iGwZbSD4
So far - it's a crap deck.
UPDATE: played a few more hands and it's not a crap deck - it's a SUPER-crap deck
LOL the update.
Lol
If you tried it and didn't like it, fair enough, and I'm sorry it didn't appeal to you! It's very slow and needs a lot of refinement (combo decks always do need the most refinement compared with other game plans). It should feel better now that I've made the first lot of changes, and I'll probably update it again with further refinements soon. Perhaps if you played it again it may have risen back up to merely crap, not super-crap. ;p
Just played my first game with this deck and was lucky enough to queue into a slow dragon control warrior, so I had plenty of time to set up the most important combo pieces. Ended the game with 350+ armor. Obviously I need a lot more plays to really get a sense of it, but here are a few quick thoughts:
* The Ice Cream Peddler combo is great when it works, but in order to get the armor you need Shudderwock to trigger the battlecries for Saronite Chain Gang > Hyldnir Frostrider > Ice Cream Peddler in order, *without* bouncing the copies back to your hand before the chain completes. Once you're dropping multiple shuds per turn, this will happen, but you can't count on it.
* Although it's only three armor instead of eight, the armor you get from Da Undatakah giving Shud Plated Beetle's deathrattle seems much more reliable. You'll *always* get the deathrattle on at least one Shud and can get it on several, if Da Undatakah triggers before Saronite Chain Gang. This makes me wonder whether there might not be a much more consistent deck to be had by ditching the freeze package and focusing on Da Undatakah. You could use the extra card slots for more draw and early game defense.
* It turns out you don't need armor to survive Corrupted Blood. Armor kept my opponent from killing me, while Corrupted Blood killed him, but once the Shudder train started, I always had ten cards in my hand, so at the beginning of my turn I would draw a single Blood and discard it rather than taking damage from it.
This deck is an absolute blast to play. I feel like it might gets its own place on the ladder once the meta actually shapes up and being able to gain a ridiculous amount of armor is just awesome :D I made a video showcasing the deck in all of its glory, I really hope you all enjoy!
You can subscribe to the channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/CanadianRumPunch
I'll have new deck showcases daily !!
I haven't really made a big effort with my theorycrafts before recently, and I've been around Hearthpwn enough that I know when kiwiinbacon picks up your deck it must be worth something. Thank you so much! It's really exciting to see your footage playing the deck and I can't wait to watch the whole video now. :)
I like the creativity, but based on the already said remarks, maybe 1 copy of Seaforium Bomber ads an extra shuffle to your decklist, promosing another pending doom besided the deathrattle?
Does Frozen Crusher have a place in this deck?
nope. too slow.
and you want battlecries or deathrattles, not post-combat triggers
I can't see this deck working. Is super, super slow.
You have to draw the essential Shudder combo cards: Zola, Shudderwock, Grumble.
Second, you have to hit turn 10 to play Hakkar, the Soulflayer, then wait for him to die (and praying for it to not being transformed, stolen by your opponent or shuffled into his deck).
After Hakkar's deathrattle triggers you can play Da Undatakah (and if you want the full combo, Plated Beetle and Rotten Applebaum have to have died previously.
Only then you can play your Shudderwock.
Good luck trying to stay alive 'til then.
I had to make an entire deck just to visualize the deck and my changes much more clearly.
I had in mind that Murmuring Elemental + Shudderwock = Every effect goes off twice, making the combo go infinite and other stuff. Unfortunately for that you have to run Fire Plume Harbinger which is meh.
Also cut Belligerent Gnome just because I think you're good enough that aggro won't destroy you instantly, also doesn't do much for Shudderwock in the way Battlecries go, replaced for 3 mana Ooze as weapon tech and also another way to gain armor.
Summary Replacements: -1x Zola the Gorgon, -1x Bog Slosher, -1xBelligerent Gnome for +1x Murmuring Elemental, +1x Fire Plume Harbinger, +1x Gluttonous Ooze.
That's a super old way of looking at shudderwock shaman. All the new shudderwock decks run Zola the Gorgon to secure that the combo goes infinite, and it is a way more consistent way than using the murmuring elemental and fire plume harbinger combo, wich requiers two pieces. The Zola also gives you copies of other crucial pieces in the early game :)
Upvoted for the idea and description of the deck, regardless how deck will perform. Great job Sir.