Hearthpwn

So.. yeah. This is indeed Totem Shaman. You may think there is no reason to play it, it must be a complete joke, but it really isn't. Moreover, it wins Demon Hunters. And the reason for that is the new card called Totemic Reflection. The moment I saw it I knew it was absolutely busted, but funny enough, it got completely overlooked by the community, I saw tons of comments laughing at this card. Let me elaborate on why it is so powerful.

In the worst case scenario, which is buffing a non-totem minion, it's just a +2/+2 for three mana which is indeed very bad, though it's good to be able to buff a non-totem minion when necessary. The real moment of glory for Totemic Reflection starts when you buff a totem and as a consequence copy it. So, if you buff a basic totem, which can be considered the weakest totems (aside from the Healing Totem, but more about that later), it is a +4/+6 or +5/+5 for three mana! You give +2/+2, the totem becomes 2/4 or 3/3 if it's the Searing Totem, and then you get a free copy. The amount of stats gained for three mana is absurd, but then things get even more crazy when you buff a non-basic totem, a real totem.

So, we have access to three totems right now in Standard, and we play all three of them - EVIL Totem, Flametongue Totem and Mana Tide Totem. In case of the latter two the stat gain from Totemic Reflection is the biggest - +4/+7. But the most important part is that our beefy totems have abilities that are extremely valuable for us. And the number one priority target for Totemic Reflection is Mana Tide Totem. 

Now to the actual game plan: this is a rather fast deck. I wouldn't exactly consider it aggro because of the game plan, but in many ways it is. Our main intention and our best bet to win is to get a Mana Tide Totem and to cast a Totemic Reflection on it, releasing the non-stop slide. In order to do that we have to win turns one and two and have a positive board presence by turn three to be able to drop the Mana Tide Totem, which will let us duplicate it next turn. But we don't actually want to risk so much by dropping a bare Mana Tide Totem and hoping it survives a turn. That is why we have three ways to protect it - Beaming Sidekick, Guardian Augmerchant and the glorious Totemic Might. Also we run the full lackey package, and Titanic Lackey also helps to defend the totem. I especially want to point out how good Guardian Augmerchant is - not only it is versatile in its usage (you can remove stuff if necessary), but also a neutral 1-mana Divine Shield with a good body is very solid. And when applying  to Mana Tide Totem, it's much harder to kill a 0/2 with Divine Shield than a bare 0/3. The best part about Guardian Augmerchant is actually Totemic Reflection transferring the Divine Shield to the copy. And for the same reason Beaming Sidekick is good too - we double its buff when duplicating the totem.

The deck runs full lackey package for several reasons - they are effective early game cards allowing to control first turns of the game very efficiently, and they also give access to some really late game stuff we don't want to naturally put in the deck, and this is very valuable against control match-ups.

There are three cards in the deck which can be considered finishers: Totemic Surge, Storm's Wrath and Splitting Axe. The latter finally becomes viable with Totemic Reflection because we first double a totem, and with the axe we effectively quadruple it. I won't say this will happen every game, but here's best case scenario for you: you start second, first turn - 1-drop, second turn you coin Mana Tide Totem and buff it with Totemic Might, third turn you duplicate it with Totemic Reflection, now you have two 2/7 Mana Tide Totems. And turn four - you play Splitting Axe and now you have four 2/7 Mana Tide Totems. Chances that your opponent can deal with such a board state are low, to say the least.

There is one dark horse in here and it is, who you think - the Healing Totem. It is actually the third best totem to duplicate after Mana Tide Totem and EVIL Totem, and the reason for that is when you get more than one tick on your healing, your trades become very effective. Sometimes you will manage to quadruple it and at this point all trades become one-sided with +4 healing each turn on your whole board.

The rest of the deck is mainly supportive aggro shell, and the last part of it worth mentioning is the overload package, but not full, consisting of four cards - Surging Tempest, which is a very good 1-drop, Storm's Wrath, which is a huge board buffer, Serpentshrine Portal and Sludge Slurper, which happens to be a part of the lackey package too. All of this stuff is self-explanatory, but I want to emphasize how good Serpentshrine Portal is. Remember Flanking Strike? It was considered busted, and it really was a very good card, no doubt about that. And now Shaman got Serpentshrine Portal, which resembles closely Flanking Strike, but with several huge upsides: it costs 4 mana, but one of that mana you don't have to pay upfront - overload makes it much more flexible; it can target face, which can be crucial (again, more flexibility); and finally, though with Flanking Strike you always got a 3/3, and here you lose the consistency of that, you can not only low-roll, but also high-roll a 3-drop too, the most prominent ones of which are Arcane Golem, Felguard, King Mukla, Terrorguard Escapee and all the 3-mana Primes and 3-mana imprisoned demons.

One more thing:  your main goal is to protect your most valuable totems, and for that don't be afraid to use Totemic Might even on one, it it's valuable. In case of this deck you really don't have to try to assemble a huge board of totems before using Totemic Might, and Totemic Surge, because fortunately all the buffs carry over to the duplicated totems, which is our primary game plan. Also this deck doesn't need Bloodlust, your board will naturally grow big enough to kill your opponent. Also the deck slots are vital, and I had a very hard time finding the place for the cards. The first version of this deck had Blazing Battlemage, and it is a very good card, but I absolutely can't decide what would be fitting to replace with it.

I already tested the deck in ladder, and it holds very well against Demon Hunters - you keep up with them during the first turns of the game and then you burst out with humongous card generating totems. One good thing about Demon Hunter is it doesn't have hard removal, and their damage is not big enough at this stage of the game to remove both buffed totems you have on turn four or five - and the more you go, the bigger you make them and the more of them you create. Aside from Demon Hunters I managed to test this deck against Spell Mage, Resurrect Priest and Big Druid, all of which I won. The sample size is mainly restricted by the class variety right now, as you can imagine everyone's playing Demon Hunter. I face them at a staggering rate of 85% right now, but with freshly live nerfs this amount can potentially drop a bit, opening the gate for more classes in ladder.

All in all, though I intended to make a totem deck the moment I saw Totemic Reflection, I am still amazed by how good it is. If Shaman gets at least one or two more totem-related cards during this year, this deck might actually become tier one. Praise Totemic Reflection and good luck in trying out the deck if you found it interesting :)