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!
Great comments, thank you! And I'm glad you've found success with it.
I've noticed the same regarding the bounce effects, and in my games I've tried to avoid at all costs playing more than one each of zola/slosher/grumble, and to really prioritise bouncing chain gang/ice cream/frostrider. Obviously in most games this all won't line up perfectly, and regardless, to my experience it seems like the ice cream battlecries are hard-coded to all go off first every time anyway, which is also pretty frustrating (joking obviously). I've been verging on cutting bog slosher actually, but the slosher + chain gang combo alone is honestly so powerful (particularly in this deck which usually has pretty low tempo and quite easily falls behind on board) that I've kept it until now. I think you may be right and that slosher could go. I do like Zola still though, because, unlike slosher, when shudderwock recasts the effect you retain minions on board which a) might be frozen and therefore can activate the ice cream effect, and b) can then be bounced as a 1-cost by grumble.
I'm really torn about Undatakah. I have won games off the back of him alone, and as soon as you get a couple of 1-cost Shudderwocks in hand the deathrattle effects do go off with pretty good consistency. I also like the redundancy added by having two armour generators - it's much less likely that two effects will both fail as opposed to just the one. I also think that if your first comment is addressed (regarding bounce consistency), this actually makes Undatakah better, because your shudderwocks will much more quickly and therefore more consistently have their deathrattles go off. However you're totally right that he is a very slow card in a deck that already struggles for being slow. He also creates a lot of the deck's "slowness": you don't just need to have played him before shudderwock - you need to have played and killed off at least one or two deathrattles too.
I think I'll keep Undatakah in for now but thank you for your insightful points and I may cut him after more testing. I think I will cut slosher now too.
Are two Ice Cream Peddlers necessary? I don't want to craft a second one :/ Would something like Rain of Toads be a fine replacement? Also, why is Da Undatakah ran if you no longer run Hakkar, the Soulflayer?
The deck now uses 1 x Leper Gnome and 2x Plated Beetle as its 3 deathrattles with Undatakah. Dealing 2 damage to the opponent every time a Shudderwock with leper gnome deathrattle dies is a surprisingly reliable win condition. It's ridiculous but having one awful classic 1-mana minion is about as effective if not more effective than having Hakkar in your deck, I've found. Gaining a consistent stream of armour from the dying shudderwocks is also extremely good (I've noticed the armour you gain this way, if you manage to get it going, is much more consistent albeit less "burst" armour compared with ice cream peddler battlecries).
To answer your first question: the deck would actually still function reasonably well with only one peddler. This is partly because there are two infinite armour generators (1. Beetle + Undatakah + Shudderwock, 2. Frostrider + Ice Cream + Shudderwock), so your armour generation is a lot more guaranteed than if there were only one armour generator. This is also partly because if you only ran one ice cream, you could consider prioritising bouncing it back with grumble, zola, or bog slosher, so that when you play shudderwock you will still have your two (or more) ice cream battlecries 'stored'.
Regarding replacements: I think 1x Rain of Toads is a great idea. I would also suggest a second Healing Rain or a second Acolyte of Pain, as drawing cards and staying afloat until the very late game are two areas where the deck falls down if you are unlucky with your draw. I think a second Tar Creeper would be very solid, 1x Murmuring Elemental would be interesting and would sometimes allow very strong swing turns, and Saronite Taskmaster would be just a funny (and often quite strong) deathrattle to have in the Undatakah combo. Taskmaster when drawn and played on turn 1 also provides amazing early board presence which is almost non-existent in the deck as is.
Hope that helps!
Just got 155 armor before the guy ended up conceding
Amazing haha :) by the time I start getting 30+ armour per turn I start praying they don't concede, as is tradition with ridiculous combo decks
thanks for the deck - I had a blast on ladder with a control mage, who was a good sport, and let me get to 603 armor before conceding - we instantly became friends afterwards - to much fun...
Yeeeess that is so good! I'm happy you had such a cool experience from my deck :) I still have so much fun when I get the combo going properly.
This deck is definitely fun, playing in wild currently and it’s insanely fun! Question, does anyone know if Shudderwock gives the 8 armor even if Ice cream peddler is played without a frozen minion on board? Dumb question, but I haven’t had the chance to test that specifically yet.
Thanks so much and I'm glad you're enjoying it :)
Unfortunately it doesn't - any conditional battlecry still retains the same conditions when Shudderwock is casting them, so the battlecry comes up but no effect takes place if you have no frozen minions on board.
When I first saw this I thought it was one of the most clever uses of a pack filler card, now I'm glad this deck got some attention! Well deserved!
Thank you very much :) I'm pretty proud of it! I just hope I can refine it to the point where it may actually be relevant in the Rastakahan meta (whatever that ends up looking like).
Yeah deck still needs tweaking to many fast decks that outpace the combo. so far been 0/5 with the deck. Still a fun deck but needs changing somehow.
Edit: Yeah I give up on this deck until major changes are made not sure if the freeze aspect will work in the current meta. All other decks destroy it. I am literally 1/15 with the deck. Fun deck to play in casual but for sure not a ladder deck.
Really wish i didn't craft this, lost 7 in a row to poor casuals (no new cards spotted). To slow, the big cards unplayable, because when you do, your dead next turn. Hakkar mostly at the bottom, never reached it that far.Going to try v3.0, really want it to work :)
It's way too slow. But I like the idea.
I've been looking for a viable fun deck like this, thank you.
I think with Mojomaster Zihi you don't really need the full combo(Hakkar, the Soulflayer, Da Undatakah ), you could always use Seaforium Bomber, with 30+ armor, only 5 mana and bombs in their deck, either they die to fatigue of surrender.
Thank you for the comment :)
Actually after playing the deck quite a bit and reading people's suggestions, I do feel like trimming the combo down, and this seems like the best way of doing it, so watch out for changes similar to your suggestions!
I try this deck būt he iš too slow.
Even combo decks draw faster than you and Hakkar usally is dead card in your hand.
Just tried this and got some crazy results.
First game i almost got the whole combo off against a Paladin, but he used his DK and hid behind a Taunt and won with his Hero Power. Because of that and not having Ice Cream proc when i had frozen minions out and before getting Grumbled to my hand i decided to add in Murmuring Elemental and Fire Plume Harbinger to double up on my chances of it procing. I also added in Primordial Drake to maintain board clear.
My other game i came to realize a way to keep yourself safe from the Corrupted Blood. KEEP YOUR HAND FULL! Once you get the full combo going you should have a consistent full hand, if you draw the corrupted blood, the card gets destroyed and the effect doesnt proc.
Glad you had some interesting moments :) yeah that's an excellent point. I've been building up a series of pro-tips for the deck after experimenting a lot with it and this is one of the main ones - full hand meaning no corrupted blood effect.
Either I'm extremely unlucky, or this deck needs A LOT more draw power. It's got plenty of cards to keep me alive into the late game. That's not an issue. The problem is that I am top decking around turn 10, 11. Even though I don't die easily, I still don't live long enough to draw the pieces necessary for this combo. Every opponent can put together their win condition while I'm still trying to draw cards.