Hearthpwn

Hello everyone, Jambre here (Social: Twitter.com/JambreHS , Twitch.tv/Jambre , YouTube.com/Jambre)

After climbing to top legend last season I have been pretty much exclusively playing Shaman this season in top 10 Legend, recently hitting #1 Legend.

The deck is often viewed as an RNG deck where you are victim to the luck of your evolves and the luck of drawing weapon or not. This isn't completely true, the deck is very hard to play optimally, particularly this version with Coasters and Giants. A lot of unconventional plays that are unique to this deck pop-up in each game, but with this guide you will learn how to pilot this deck effectively.

I made a comprehensive in-depth video guide (1hour +) with example gameplay, specific matchup and overall gameplay tips here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fTopLWgPa8
I would really recommend watching it if you have the time as it goes into great detail, paired with in-game footage that a written guide cannot compare to. Plus, it will help me out a lot as a content creator.

Decklist and proof of winrate: (Proof , Decklist , Stats)

Code: AAECAfWfAwLhuAOczgMO0wHuBrSRA8aZA9SlA9ipA+iwA924A5XNA5vNA/DUA9zbA6neA6reAwA=

Overall Game-Plan

As with any Evolve build it is built around the weapon, Boggspine Knuckles. A secondary build around package which synergises well with the weapon is Derailed coaster + Mogu/Sea Giant. To enable Coaster the deck must keep its minion hand-size large going in to turn 5/6, it does this by running minimal spells in the deck, and by not dumping hand on early game. Early game the deck will not fight hard for board control, often choosing to totem up or do low tempo plays to set up future swing turns.
The opponent will likely get an early board lead, but this is good as it will cheapen the cost of Mogus and Giants. When you have Mogus/Giants in hand you need to be looking to enable them, delay your board pushes until you can play these cards cheaply.

Swing Turns

What is a swing turn? Do not confuse this to mean a swing of the weapon (though it often includes this). A swing turn is when you swing tempo on the board, going from a behind-on-board situation to an ahead-on-board situation.

A typical swing turn:

-T4: Coin Weapon but don't attack

-T5: Coaster + Mogus/Giants/Dreads or Desert Hares + Dreads/Mogus/Giants + Broom.

This will develop a huge amount of stats onto the board, with part or all of it having Rush, allowing you to remove the opponent's threats whilst also developing an overwhelming board state.

Screenshot of example:
Screenshot 1 - Screenshot 2

In Screenshot 1, we lightning bloomed our weapon on turn 3 and equipped the weapon. We could have played Dread and swung into the cat, leaving us ahead a random 5 drop in tempo. Instead, we hold the weapon swing and the Dread in hand setting up a turn 5 Coaster.

If we played the dread immediately on T3 this could cause potential problems:

-Our opponent's board size will decrease - Either we are immediately removing their minions or they are given the option to trade them off themselves. This makes Mogus and Sea giants much harder to develop cheaply.

-All of our opponent's removal options are viable plays for mana. If we don't develop board then these options are locked out until our swing turn, where they will be limited by 1 turns worth of mana to remove. If we stagger our threats they can also stagger their removal. Without being able to spend mana on removal our opponent is pretty much forced to either develop board (playing into our Mogu's and Sea Giants) or do nothing - either being good for us.

-By playing the Dread and swinging we also have -1 minion for our coaster and -1 weapon charge available, decreasing both our future tempo and value.

Instead we hold setting up for turn 5 and dump everything at once, also allowing us to get the Sea giant down (See Screenshot 2)

How Greedy Can I Be?

You should always be looking to set up swing turns for the most part, but depending on the matchup and your hand, it can dictate how greedy you can be.
If your opponent is running hard tempo resets like brawl, then you don't necessarily want to wait to set up a turn where you dump everything at once. Other AOEs like Blade Dance also might require you to be greedier than usual in order to play around it.

If your opponent is running weapon removal, you can't always equip a weapon and wait for the perfect swing turn.

Your life total pressure also dictates how greedy you can be. There isn't any natural healing tools in the deck. If you allow your opponent to keep hitting you in the face while you set up your swing you may just die in the process or shortly afterwards. This will depend on how much burn damage the opponent is capable of and how much early pressure they put you under, if they are a purely board based deck you can get to low life totals and still be fine, as long as you get board.

If your hand has double Mogu double Giant in it, you want to be setting up a turn where they are all playable, they are very hard to get down once you've done the swing turn since board states get traded off. If you have neither in hand you are a bit more free to just develop quickly.

Swing Turn Rules

1) Plan ahead - Look to your future turns and know what your swing turn is, and what your turns look like leading up to it. Will I be coining weapon or Blooming weapon? Or will I need Coin/Bloom to get a Giant down also? Make sure if you do an early push that your follow-up turns are also good.

2) Keep Board Tension - More minions = cheaper Mogus/Giants. This means that you want to keep opponent's weak minions alive on board. You do this by not developing stats that allows them to trade off their guys, which often means pressing hero power. Also, if you have played early stats but want to keep up board tension, don't always take value trades. i.e you have a custodian on board vs opponent's 3/2 and 1/1, sometimes you would value trade but in this deck it can be better to just trade 1-for-1 if you are expecting to fall behind on board. Don't get carried away though, if an opponent's minion is particularly threating (usually high attack) it is fine to remove it.

3) Maximise upcoming Coaster - This means you need to keep up minion hand-size. You will naturally do this by following rule #2. Consider playing Evil cable rat but not playing the lackey, or consider not playing custodian if you already have a weapon, in order to both keep board tension high and keep minion count up in hand.

4) Decide on your spread wide card - For your upcoming swing turn you need to decide what your development will be. Often it is coaster which usually takes up all of your mana, but sometimes it will be a 3 drop + extra, sometimes it will be 1 drops. In the latter 2 cases it is important to know whether to play 1 drops early. It is tempting to play tour guide on 1 or sludge on 1, but if that still leaves you behind on board you may be hurting your future turns. 1 Drops are very good on swing turns since each one decreases cost of Mogu/Giant. If you have multiple Mogus/Giants in hand, each 1 drop is saving you a lot of mana. Tour guide can be especially good at this, since the 1 mana tour guide + hero power can discount up to 8 mana in your hand.

5) Learn to Count - Before you coaster make sure you know how many 1/1s it summons. For Mogus/Giants count before you develop to make sure they are playable. You may need to wait a turn. Don't assume they will be playable and then be shocked when they are not. For a bit of a shortcut when it comes to Coaster: If Coaster summons 6 (you need a board space for Mogu/Giant) then your opponent needs 3 minions for Mogu to be 0 mana and 4 minions for Giant to be 0 mana.

6) Play giants/mogus in correct order - If you have 1 board space then giant cannot get cheaper, so play giant first - sometimes you will trade off opponent's minions and Mogus are still playable, whereas if you Mogu'd first then traded, sometimes the giant is not.
If you aren't limited by board space, look out for spots where playing a 0 mana Mogu will then also discount your Giant to 0.

7) Sequence trades correctly - Especially important on Coaster turns. You usually will need to trade off one 1/1 before playing each Mogu/Giant. When doing so make sure that you aren't killing opponent's minions with the trades, otherwise the Giants/Mogus will cost more. This can mean doing trades that don't achieve anything other than freeing up a board space. Once your Mogus/Giants are down then you can start killing minions.

8) Leave 1 mana and 1 board space for broom - Sounds obvious but it's an easy mistake to make.

Managing Resources

A lot of this applies more often to grindier games vs control decks but also worth keeping in mind in any matchup.
Each game you will be limited by these 3 factors:

1) Number of swings you have:

If you have only 1 weapon in hand and no pillagers/custodian you will need to a bit more greedy with your swings until you find more. This usually means just being more picky about when you choose to attack. Decide whether you need to evolve or whether you'll need the next durability to make a future board. You don't want to be left with no way to evolve your desert hares because you swung your weapon too early.

2) Number of board generators you have:

This mainly applies to Warrior but also to any class with good removal aoes. Just make sure you have a good way to refill the board if your board gets cleared. For instance, if you already have a board that requires a board clear, it's not a great idea to add desert hares to it and leaving your refill as cable rat + totem if it gets cleared, exceptions being if adding to the board plays around clears. Also, consider the quality of your development and of your refill. If you have a good statted board with high mana cost creatures but still want to evolve, consider holding back some other high cost ones for your refill. This can mean NOT playing a 0 mana dread corsair if your board already requires a brawl. Or, if you have the choice between Pit Master or Desert Hare but already are developing Dread + Mogu/Giant then you probably want to hold back the Hares. Outside of just developing more pressure on a refill, your refill is also a lot less weak to smaller AOEs like skipper + armoursmith. Overcommitting to a brawl or Barov and then also having your next board die to skipper can be game losing. The key vs warrior is to keep up pressure so they have to react, commit enough stats that small AOEs don't do enough, but also make sure your refill is strong enough too.
Number of board generators also can factor into tempo matchups. If you have Mogus/Giants in hand but only 1 spread wide minion (maybe a coaster or hare) you may need to wait long enough so that you can enable the giants/mogus. Even if the development is good now, it could leave your hand stranded in the future.

3) Mana of re-equips: If you have a hand with weapon + double pillager it can be tempting to think that you are able to swing whenever you have a swing available. Re-equipping costs mana, having to spend mana costs us tempo. This is less relevant when we have hoard pillager since it's 4 mana to equip and comes with a random 5 drop, but even then can still be relevant if we need to develop and evolve 2 wide boards in a row, or need to get down a Sea Giant. A nice curve is: T4 Coin weapon > T5 make board 1 > T6 make board 2 > T7 Hoard Pillager + Hare/Pitmaster. Pay attention to what turns are acceptable to be re-equipping without losing too much tempo, and then structure your turns around that.

Another trick vs decks with ways to reset tempo is to build up an acceptably large board, and instead of adding more to it and swinging, you can just swing and re-equip a weapon. That way, if a board clear comes down you have already spent mana on the weapon and can use your full turn on developing minions.

Playing around weapon removal

First of all, I would only play around weapon removal if you have a good idea your opponent is running it. If it is likely they are running it, you should consider the likelihood of them having it (kept cards in hand that could be it). You also need the correct hands and correct board states to play around it.

The way you play around it is by preloading your board with unevolved minions that you can evolve on the turn you equip, that way if you get oozed/stickyfinger'd at least you have a good board. This is much easier to do if you are ahead on board since if you just jam a coaster or desert hare into minions, they are going to get traded. Also consider the removal available for the opponent and how precious it is, removing un-evolved minions is easier, so there is usually a risk attached to playing them. Also, consider whether your hand allows you to play around it. Sometimes you have Mogus in hand that require a large swing turn, sometimes you don't have that many weapon-swings available and need to make the most out of them to get ahead in tempo, or you don't have many board-floods so wasting one preloading could be costly.
Sometimes the opportunity to play around weapon removal will present itself but it can be rare. You need to be ahead on board vs the right deck with the right hand for it to be a correct play.

Mulligans

I won't go into specific matchups mulligans (you can check that out in the video, however). But as a general mulligan guide you want to be keeping Custodian + Weapon most of the time. If you have a weapon or custodian you don't usually need 2 so can throw one away.

Do NOT fall into the trap of keeping the 1 drops in the mulligan. Just because they are 1 drops does not make them good keeps, particularly when going second. Going first Sludge Slurper can be a good keep depending on the matchup. It's pretty rare that Tour guide is a good keep unless the rest of your hand is already nutty and it enables it. Remember that lots of times it is incorrect to play a 1 early on in this deck.

Conditional keeps: If you have weapon then you can start keeping other cards. Dread corsair is always a keep with weapon. You also want at least 1 way to spread wide: Hare being the best, unless you need coaster to react to remove the opponent's board. Multiple minions that make boards aren't really needed since you can usually only play 1 on your first swing turn, it's better to look for support cards for that swing turn like Dreads/Mogus. Broom becomes good in tempo matchups if you already have a hand with weapon + Hare in it. Bloom is a good keep in very aggro matchups or if you have a very strong hand already and it allows you to speed it up. As for Hoard Pillager, only keep this in very value heavy matchups like warrior, and if you have weapon already - toss it away in tempo matchups.

Overall it's mainly about finding the weapon and then supporting your first swing turn. Just imagine how your turns will play out and keep/throw cards accordingly.

Vs Aggro Decks: Against very aggressive decks (mainly Aggro DH and HL Hunter) you want to rely less on the weapon. The weapon is quite slow initially and will result in you taking too much face damage. The main way you beat these decks is through unevolved coaster swing turns with mogus/sea giants.

If you're going first keeping tempo plays of Sludge Slurper or Custodian is fine (but not really together), and if you have a nutty weapon hand like weapon + double dread it can be a good keep. But outside of the exceptions you should be throwing away the weapon in the mulligan, and even custodian if you are going 2nd. Look to be keeping plays that fight for board if you are going 1st, as well as Mogus and lightning blooms. If you are going 2nd look for tempo swing cards like Sea giants, Mogu, Coaster and Bloom. I recommend keeping giants and especially Mogus even without the coaster. Mogus and Giants synergise very well together, for each one you have the next one gets cheaper too.
If you have Mogus/Giants a keep of a 1 drop is good with the intention of playing it on your swing turn, NOT turn 1. Desert Hare can fill a similar role.

I talk about this a lot more in the video so if you are struggling in these MU definitely check it out.

Card Replacements:
The deck is likely not 100% optimised, and in any case there are a lot of viable card choices for Shaman. Fireheart is not core to the deck and is more of a tech card for slower matchups, whilst being somewhat flexible enough for faster ones. Sea Giant is core to this build, so if you do not own it then I would recommend playing the evolve shaman list without Coasters or Giants and instead runs the 3 mana spells. Cards like Cable Rat and Clacker are not core and are more like filler. Rat performs similarly to Novice Engineer but is better vs tempo decks. If you want to replace them you are free to do so but try to keep the goals of the deck in mind, particularly Coaster swing turns. Don't replace them with a bunch of spells or minions that fight too hard for early board control. You will hurt the powerful turns of the deck. Oh and don't play Revolve under any circumstance. The card is bad.

Hope you enjoyed the guide, if you want to see gameplay footage you can always watch the video guide on YouTube or check me out on Twitch. I'll be happy to respond to any additional comments or questions so don't hesitate to reply down below!