Big Shaman | SoU Doom in the Tomb Update | In-D...
- Last updated Oct 14, 2019 (Doom in the Tomb)
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Wild
- 13 Minions
- 16 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Control Shaman
- Crafting Cost: 15820
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 6/13/2019 (Rise of the Mech)
- Nohva
- Registered User
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- 3
- 13
- 34
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Battle Tag:
Nova#25328
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
37
Introduction
My name is Azerite (it's actually Stefan), and I've played Hearthstone from the very beginning. My main focus has always been playing Control-ish decks, but never the most meta-ones, if that makes sense. For instance, I don't play Control Warrior, but love Big Warrior. Mostly, I like playing decks that have room for optimization, and are perhaps ever-evolving. I like to take a deck, dissect it, and make it better, depending on the meta I'm facing in my own rank, which is mostly rank 5 to 1. I have no interest in making Legend anymore, but will always motivate myself to making these decks better and better. Therefore, the decks I play and the guides I make for them are not your best source of scoring that Legend-rank, but wíll provide you with a fun deck that's still viable, but less present on ladder. They're not memes, by any means, but are also not meta. They're the underdogs you wish would win.
Saviors of Uldum Doom in the Tomb Update!
Saviors of Uldum has not specifically done this deck any real favors, and have pushed it further away from the meta if anything. However, play this wisely, and you can still have a winrate of around 50%, at the very least.
SoU has however given us one minion, Colossus of the Moon, that can carry games by itself. It fills up the 10-mana slot real nice, and is superior to Big Bad Archmage in almost every single way.
With the Doom in the Tomb update however, we received some very nice tools to make the deck even better. A full list of the added cards can be found below:
+1x Emperor Thaurissan, +1x Ragnaros the Firelord
Overview
Many times before, people have tried to come up with a fun ánd viable deck for Big Shaman. As per usual, some have tried out decks with Barnes, and combinations with Ancestor's Call and minions such as Kel'Thuzad. However, in year of the Dragon, Big Shaman has received that one card that makes it semi-viable in Standard, Muckmorpher. Shaman always had ways to cheat with mana and pushing out minions for less than their cost, with cards like Far Sight and Eureka!.
Before Saviors of Uldum, and especially before the Doom in the Tomb update, this deck relied on cycling through it with Spirit of the Frog. However, since the Doom in the Tomb update allows us to play around with very strong cards that generate heaps of value or tempo, the deck's goal has changed.
Our goal is to survive until turn 5, where we would have usually found a copy of Muckmorpher. From there on out, its goal remains the same as ever: cheat out minions with disgusting discounts, and resummoning them with our spells. Colossus of the Moon will usually be the win-condition against Combo and other Control decks, while Walking Fountain and Zilliax can cripple Aggro decks very early on. I will explain the other key-card choices, and how you can use them best, below:
Card Choices
- Mutate (Key): Incredibly strong synergy with our cards. Cheating out means at a discount, with 4/4 stats, and then mutating them into a full-blown 9-drop, is nutty.
- Ancestral Spirit (Key): Amazing card to generate more value, and make boards sticky.
- Far Sight (Key): Amazing card, that requires a bit of RNG. Most likely, you will high-roll, and are able to play Ysera and Big Bad Voodoo in one turn, for example.
- Haunting Visions (Replaceable): Can be replaced, but not recommended. Very flexible card that pays itself off.
- Lightning Storm (Key): Important removal card against all the Token decks alive and well right now.
- Hex (Key): Much needed Control card.
- Hagatha's Scheme (Key): One of the deck's only forms of AoE. You will almost always want this in your opening hand.
- Muckmorpher (Key): Not even going to explain this choice.
- Zilliax (Key): Heal, flexible, best card in Standard right now.
- Blatant Decoy (Replaceable): Incredibly strong against N'Zoth decks, if you can time it right.
- Emperor Thaurissan (Replaceable): Allows us to cheat even more than we already have been doing while playing this deck. Crazy value if you can make it sticky.
- Eureka! (Key): Cheat card, and can be used with Big Bad Voodoo and Ancestral Spirit for the big-big minions.
- Earthquake (Key); One of the game's best AoE at the moment.
- Al'Akir the Windlord (Key): Charge and Windfury, a minion that will help with controlling the board. Can be used for burst in combination with Nightmare, for example.
- Hagatha the Witch (Key): Not quite sure on her yet, as we don't run a lot of minions. She saved games for me, but also meant absolutely nothing in other games.
- Ragnaros the Firelord (Replaceable): What more can we say but "By fire be purged."
- Walking Fountain (Key): Best minion in the Rise of Shadows expansion for Shaman. Rush, Windfury, Lifesteal, often means the difference between life and death.
- Ysera (Replaceable): Value-monster. Can combo quite nicely with her cards, but can also dilute your Eureka! possibilities. Not needed, but definitely strong.
- Colossus of the Moon (Key): Funny thing is, almost all minions are replaceable, but I would argue that this one is NOT. Its presence alone is usually reason enough for your opponent to get really frightened. It has potential to be the win-condition against Combo and other Control decks.
You can replace any card in this deck that has been stated as replaceable, with other value-oriented cards. Decks are always built based on personal encounters on ladder. For instance, if you dabble around in between ranks 20 to 10, chances are you'll face more aggro decks than in ranks 5 to Legend. Nevertheless, adjust value and control-cards accordingly, meaning: if you face a lot of Aggro, replace a Big Bad Voodoo with another Lightning Storm. Or an Ancestral Spirit with a copy of Witch's Brew, for example.
Mulligan:
- Against Aggro: Finding Hagatha's Scheme, Lightning Storm or Haunting Visions is key. Consider dropping Muckmorpher in your opening hand if you don't have any AoE present. If you have either Hagatha's Scheme or Lightning Storm in your opening hand, you can keep Muckmorpher.
- Against Control: Good cards to fish for are Muckmorpher, Far Sight and Hex. If you have a Muckmorpher or Far Sight, you can make a case to keep an Ancestral Spirit too, as it will generate a ton of value.
- Against Combo: Good cards to fish for are Muckmorpher, Far Sight and Blatant Decoy. Finding Muckmorpher and being able to generate a lot of pressure, will usually force your opponent to use their cards sub-optimally. Morphing into Colossus of the Moon on turn 5 is usually game.
General Strategy
As any Big-deck, the general strategy behind Big Shaman is to cheat. Yes, cheat. In short, we use cards like Muckmorpher and Eureka to pay less mana than the value we get from them, and to get big minions out on the board that can potentially generate a lot of value. In depth however, the deck can be quite tricky to use. Because our minion pool is relatively small, we are very reliant on draws, and the strategy behind playing a deck like this differs by our match up. You play Big Shaman versus Aggro significantly different than if you would play it against Control or Combo. Because of that, I wanted to go by each class and discuss the most prominent match ups within fighting these classes, as well as discuss the mulligan versus each class.
Versus Druid
The decks that Druid has at their disposal are most prominently Quest Druid and Malygos Quest Druid. The tricky thing is that Token Druid is also still an option, but at lower ranks. Token and Quest Druid require vastly different strategies to counter, but as with all classes, we will mulligan based on play-rate. For Druid, that's (Malygos) Quest Druid.
I'll be honest: this is a 50/50 matchup. We can highroll Mucks into Decoys, which will cripple their gameplan, no matter if they're regular Quest or Malygos Quest. The latter of these two has such few minions, chances are high you'll pull a combo-piece. Good targets for Decoy to pull are Chef Nomi, Elise the Enlightened, Flobbidinous Floop and of course Malygos. If you can manage to generate thát value off of Blatant Decoy, you're probably good.
Mulligan
Versus Hunter
Against Hunter, we're going to assume either Secret or Highlander Hunter. In both cases, this matchup is, above all else, just fun to play. The only real arch-enemy here is Freezing Trap. This can wreck us real good, but other than that, we can fullfill our gameplan, while Hunter can do his. I would argue that until turn 7, we play the Control-game, while Hunter tries to peel off as much damage as he can. From turn 8 on out, we're in the lead. We drop big threats, which Hunter has trouble with, and hope to win off of a cheeky Colussus of the Moon.
Mulligan
- Hagatha's Scheme
- Muckmorpher
- Mutate - If you have a Muckmorpher, keep this.
Versus Mage
A tough matchup, for sure, against Cyclone Mage. Mages love playing against slow decks, because they're slow themselves. Slow, but insanely powerful. Against us, they can, and should, easily wait with playing their Giant until they have access to Conjurer's Calling. If they play it on curve, they run the risk of having it Hex'd, but play it on turn 6 with a Conjurer's Calling, and even our Hagatha's Scheme can't save us then. In short, if they find their threats in time, we're done for. If they don't, we have a chance.
Mulligan
Versus Paladin
Paladin has a ton of decks to choose from, but almost all are aggro-based and as such, require the mulligan strategy from those archetypes. In the case of absolute certainty that your opponent is Holy Wrath Paladin, you can choose to keep Blatant Decoy in your mulligan. The matchup is fairly straight-forward, in the way that we need to survive until they run out of steam. In case you're playing against Murloc Paladin, it's important to have access to either Lightning Storm or Hagatha's Scheme by turn 5, when they play their disgusting Tip-The-Vomit for 2 mana. If you don't have AoE by then, you're dead. If you do, you have a very good chance of winning.
Mulligan
Versus Priest
Priest perhaps is the most difficult mulligan, because Anduin's decks are vastly different from each other. Combo Priest is still running rampant, while N'Zoth (Quest) Priest is also very much gaining in popularity. Both decks have two enemies however: Hex and Blatant Decoy. Hard-mulligan for atleast Hex, when facing Priest, and use it to neutralize the biggest culprits in each deck, being High Priest Amet and Convincing Infiltrator. Once the N'Zoth Priest gets to turn 10, with a decent Wall of Khartut Defenders, just concede. There's no way you'll win the match from there.
Mulligan
Versus Rogue
Against Thief Rogue, we stand a good chance and the matchup is fun. Against 100 N'Zoths Rogue, using the degeneracy that is Togwaggle's Scheme, we need to get lucky and get N'Zoth pulled off of Blatant Decoy. Sap is also a very real threat against our mana-cheating efforts, so always be wary of that. Against Thief Rogue, just have fun!
Mulligan
Versus Shaman
Murloc Shaman is our worst matchup, by far. We apparently can only win about 35% of the matches, and that is most likely due to the fact that we do not have access to a lot of AoE. Quest Shaman is doable, but it follows the same strategy as against Murloc Shaman: find your AoE. We need to control the board, and Quest Shaman can run out of steam much quicker than Murloc Shaman does, due to the absence of Underbelly Angler. For the rare Control Shamans on ladder, we need toplay smart with our Muckmorphers. You can hold off a turn to play one, and instantly attach Ancestral Spirit to it. Be wary of Hex and Earth Shock though.
Mulligan
Versus Warlock
The only common Warlock deck right now, is Zoo Warlock. Just like with any other Aggro-deck, we need our clears and then we take over the field. Other than with similar token decks, or Aggro decks, Zoolock often utilizes final big threats if their usual strategy doesn't work, like Arch-Villain Rafaam or Sea Giant. Luckily, we fare pretty well against them, with a winrate of about 60%. It's the combination AoE and late-game heals that really cripples them.
Mulligan
- Hagatha's Scheme - Hard mulligan!
- Hex
- Muckmorpher
- Blatant Decoy - Works well against N'Zoth Warlock.
Versus Warrior
Thankfully, Control Warrior has taken a step out of the meta-game for now. As a sidenote, I have no idea why, because N'Zoth Warrior is a crazy good deck. But alas, Warriors are mostly Aggro Warrior now, which requires the same strat as with all other Aggro decks; find your AoE. Apart from their usual swarming, they can run some heavy hitters too. A case can be made to keep Hex in your mulligan, as a solid removal for an early Frothing Berserker.
Mulligan
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I hope you enjoyed this deck and the guide. I write bigger guides for serious people that like to test out semi-viable, and I'm looking forward to hearing some of your experiences with this particular deck, or any other Big Shaman deck.
Super-fun deck, thanks !
Emperor seems cool but i am not sure if he worth the slot. From 14 games i played this deck he was either dead card because i could not afford to lose tempo (he does nothing the turn he is played) or he was just win-more card. Only in one game he saved me as i could play both Muckmorpher and discounted Eureka (got AlAkir + rag into face ^^) so rng anyway :/ Maybe a Living Monument or Big Bad Archmage or Burly Shovelfist or Anubisath Warbringer might do better?BTW this game made me laugh a lot :D https://hsreplay.net/replay/5dAYC8VvLudZhUsVpBZiRU#turn=4b
//EDIT: Okay ~40 games, 68% winrate (could be better as i did several stupid mistakes). And i must say Emperor opens crazy combos :D
Thoughts on Big Bad Voodoo I saw you removed it in the revision history. But it's such a cool card!
It's a very cool card, indeed, and can sometimes still be picked up with Haunting Visions, but as an actual inclusion in the deck, it didn't make the cut. Big Bad Voodoo is good, but Mutate is the insane. That was the main divider there.
Don't you think Ragnaros the Firelord is WAY to slow for this deck? I mean you get to turn 5 against most aggro and you play Muckmorpher and get a rags your screwed.
There just seems to be to much clunk and a lot of heavy relying on a perfect mulligan and a bunch of luck.
At least with BBA you had a chance for a good taunt.
I love this arch type...love the control game but it truly is a 50% deck at best once your past the lower ranks.
While I agree with your overall sentiment of the deck being too slow for the meta, and it being a 50% deck past rank 5, playing Muck into a full board against Aggro is never a good move. It's better to clean up first, and then drop Muck. Against Aggro, you clean and you clean and you clean, and then you go to town with your mana-cheating.
Besides, hitting Rag on 5 with Muck against a Control or Combo-deck, is nutty. If all you face is Aggro, this deck is weak. To that, I can agree.
Hey, it looks like a great and fun deck! Is there by any chance a replacement for Ysera and Colossus of the moon?
Ysera can be replaced, but her value is tremendous. You can choose to replace her with Batterhead. Colossus I would not cut from this deck, but I also think it's a bit of a stretch to craft it for this deck only.
What do you think of Colossus of the Moon? People say it's too slow, but I've been messing around with it in some other big decks and it's pretty fun
I need to find the time to update this list, but yes, Colossus of the Moon works well against Control decks. Against Aggro however, it's not that great.
Thanks for the great write-up and providing such a fun deck! I’m not very good with it yet, but I’m having a blast.
Would running two Spirit of the Frog cards make any sense? I’m having really bad luck finding it early, but it seems like it might also just dilute the Muckmorpher even more.
For now, I think having two Spirits is too much. The idea is finding one, which you then use to cycle through most of your spells. There's a significant chance of the second copy being a dead card, and in that case, you'll definitely not want the Muckmorpher diluted any further.
thx for the in-depth guide :) I play a simmular version but with windufury,rockbiter, doomhammer and whirwlind tempest for funny OTK moments. a 4/4 whirlwind tempest from muckmorpher into rockbiter + windfury next turn is 28 dmg
Hmm, that sounds very interesting. It looks like you went with a mixture of Aggro/Overload Shaman and Big Shaman. Whirlwind Tempest is definitely a fun card I looked to include, but it's so expensive...
Great article for your first one on Hearthpwn.
Thank you!
I like the deck mate! What are your thoughts on Electra Stormsurge?
As a general rule of thumb, I want to avoid Battlecry-minions, since we're a deck that cheats, thus negating the Battlecry effect a lot through Muckmorpher and Eureka!. And as a vanilla 3/3, 3 drop, I think Electra is a bad card to include.
Not sure about the Frog - Mucks bring her into play too often for my liking.
The idea is that in most cases, you want Frog in your mulligan, to help cycle through your deck. Muckmorpher morphing into Frog is somewhat unlucky, but there's only one copy of it in the deck. Please mind that dropping Muckmorpher on 5 isn't always the best thing to do; you might want to wait until you can Muck and Big Bad Voodoo in the same turn. That way, when you do pull Frog, you atleast get some value.
For me, Frog has been the sole reason for winning some games. His ability to cycle through your removal spells, cannot be competed.
Can you check the game and tell me if i played right or wrong? https://hsreplay.net/replay/BLeZPokasM4g7jdoNsMeaY