Hearthpwn

Update, yay!

Ok man, I agree with the new Hexes, droping Malygos was a great choice, the new Mana Tide Totem DOES a few tricks, great changes. 

However, I'm not so sure about Far Sight. It does its tricks, however I feel like there are too many cards draws already. It's too vunerable to our friend Mill Rogue. The Mana Tide's actually give the Rogues some doubt's, since if they use Vanish their opponent will stop drawing extra cards, and honestly, most of the times you play Mana Tide Totem before knowing the opponent has a mill deck.

I suggest -1 Far Sight +1 Fire Elemental

Far Sight is one of those cards that's really uncertain on paper, but in practice, it's helping to work around some of the overload problems, as it will often give you a card with no mana cost, as 22/30 cards in the deck cost 3 or less.  Far Sight doesn't draw as well as Coldlight Oracle, but the zero cost bonus makes it a bit of an interesting choice compared to some of the other draw cards out there, and it works alright.  It's better than handing the opponent cards, which is (normally) a very bad thing because the deck is kinda slowish.

But this ties into why I doubled up on Mana Tide Totem, as I noticed the deck didn't have enough draw in it, as it tended to stall when I got into the late game.

Ooh, changes - how exciting!

I completely agree with adding hexes - they're pretty much one of the strongest spells in the game.  I understand dropping ancestor's call, as the previous version of the deck was just kind of a strange version of the Malygos OTK chicanery.  And Far Sight I understand, though I sharded mine to craft a golden Al'Akir, so I'll wait for the deck to be provably awesome before feeding it dust, haha.

While I would have liked for that to work out, the deck just needed more survivability, which is why most of that got dropped.

I'm still testing as I have time, so expect to see further updates.

This deck looks really cool - I'll have to throw it together when I get home and can unlock the lava shocks!

Hrm... got a couple plays in and I have to say I'm really feeling the lack of hexes to deal with my enemys' big legends.  The other problem I'm running into is if I play the cheap cards early to keep pace, I'm left with a hand full of expensive creatures by the time my auctioneer gets out - which obviously stops my draw pretty hard.  Advice?

Wait, that's one of the best decks i've seen these days... and there's no Naxxaramas cards in it... that's kind of shocking to be honest.

The only one that might be of use may be Sludge Belcher, but that's not a guarantee.

BA DUM TSS!

I feel like Majordomo could be used in this as well.

Majordomo Executus has one problem: Your HP drops to 8 once you become Ragnaros the Firelord.

Assuming you live long enough after you transfomed, you have basically doomed yourself to getting OTK by all of the major combos.  Also, as your hero power still costs 2, so unless you get luck with Emperor Thaurissan (or have The Coin), you won't be able to transform and fire off the hero ability in the same turn.  The ability is also still random, so it's very likely that you will not hit the right target if you try.

That said, I would consider Majordomo Executus in mage because of Ice Block.  I see it as waaaaay to much risk in Shaman when compared to the reward, regardless of how cool the effect may be.

Unless you have lower than 8 health then you gain health in a sense. YOLO and hope you get alex.

Great way of using Lava Shock bro.

With 4 Dragons already. It might be worth it to add Hungry Dragon and Blackwing Technician, for a more tempo build rather than OTK.

Quote from DPSImI »

With 4 Dragons already. It might be worth it to add Hungry Dragon and Blackwing Technician, for a more tempo build rather than OTK.

That's something I'll consider later on after I've had enough playtesting with the current iteration.  It does seem like the "expected" direction for Shaman, though.

Depending on how long his deck lasts (is it aimed to go past turn 7/8?), the most hated card in the shaman repetoire, Far Sight, is worth a look. 

 

First, you would need to have a deck that gets later game where sneaking in a 3 mana card without on-the-spot affect isn't a big deal.  So if this deck is aimed at winning by turn 8, no go.  But I am guessing it is not, as you have both Malygos and Alexestra.   So follow me here: 

 

1. So what if you lose the "value" of pulling a 0 cost Crackle.  It allows you to add it on top of your turn's burst for no cost on that turn.  Your 15 dmg burst just became 18-21.  For no added cost to that turn.  I am guessing that differnce is good for lethal in an added 3 out of 10 games all by itself.

 

2.  If you have a few of these Far Sighted spells in your hand, they are insta gib (giblets...) to their face.  Drop Malygos on turn 9 at full cost, your 0 cost crackle is now an 8-11, droppable ON THE SAME TURN as Malygos.  May whoever have mercy on their soul if you happen to have a lowly Lightning Bolt and another 0 cost spell, say Lava Burst.  That is 26-31 damage for 10 mana.  IN ONE TURN.  See the caps?  Sorry it is annoying, but that's the value of Far Sight.  You stack up a bunch of spells in one turn.

 

3.  Pull an unbound?  SCHWEET!!!  Now you can drop it at no cost on the turn you use a bunch of overload spells.  So instead of 5 mana to cast OL spells on turn 8 (3 Unbound plus 5 magic spells), you get the unbound and EIGHT mana to cast with.  That is at least 1, possibly 2 more spells to buff unbound.  Or Ferals to protect him (while buffing him).

 

4.  LOL @ the rare but possibility of pulling Malygos or Alexestra with Far Sight.  I am sure I need not speak much more about a 6 mana Maly or 5 mana Alex (Drop Alex plus have 5 more mana to melt face on turn 10).

 

5.  Far Sighting Auctioneer?  Yeah, that's a 3 mana auctioneer, letting you cast 3 mana of spells on turn 6, or 7 mana of spells on turn 10.

 

6. Any totem at 0 cost allows strategic placement of that totem after you used your turn's mana to develop the board to support it.

 

7.  2 mana healbots, 0 cost pyros, 2 cost Drake, lol @ 1 mana Ancestral Call. 

 

All of these allow for the key word here, flexibility in a turn.  They allow you to remove a minion you couldn't have, cast an extra spell or two or melt face for lethal when you otherwise wouldn't have done so.  They also allow you to cycle a card, which is valuable.  This is a "gathering resources," deck and sometimes a certain card is more neded than another.  Personally, I would replace a MTT with a Far Sight, and maybe the Vitality totem as well, hard to say.  You do have two Healbots.

 

Lastly, Far Sights are only really valuable in a deck that is designed to go into later rounds and benefits greatly from combos.  This spell deck most certainly does both.

 

Anyway, just my 2c.  I use them in a heavy minion control deck, myself, and they are wonderful.

**adds Far Sight to the list of considerations**

Oh, and when I ran a non-Maly miracle shaman for a while pre-auctioneer nerf (wasn't that bad, but not fully viable), and those 0 cost Far Sighted cards were awesome for pulling another card (at no cost).  But so was Far Sight, actually because it is a two for one:

 

Use Far Sight, get mana-reduced card from Far Sight, then get card from auctioneer for using Far Sight. 

 

The bummer is that the nerf to 6 mana took that from a "lateish" game play to a very late game play.  But in a deck like this, chances are you pull a cheap spell from Far Sight, plus another spell, possibly able to use the Far Sight spell on the spot, and maybe the other one, too, giving you two more cards.

 

I truly loved pulling a 0 cost Far Sight from Far Sight (plusthe one from auctioneer), then using the 0-cost Far Sight for another reduced mana card, plus another from Auctioneer.  Was hilarious when it all worked out.

 

But the problem was always getting there.  I had to use my spells to stay alive and was left with an auctioneer and no spells.  But this was pre-crackle, actually.  And obviously pre-Lava Shock.  

Unbound Elemental is included so you have the flexibility to deal with aggro, as it allows you to mitigate one of the drawbacks to more aggressively controlling the board if you need to.

Quote from Almagnus1 »

Unbound Elemental is included so you have the flexibility to deal with aggro, as it allows you to mitigate one of the drawbacks to more aggressively controlling the board if you need to.

Well said.  I agree with both people here, that you want your spells for OTK, but also that you are going to need to be flexible, and unbound is value added to when you have to use spells anyway.