[S15 Legend] Midrange Dragon Shaman
- Last updated Jul 15, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)
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Wild
- 22 Minions
- 8 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 5600
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 6/23/2015 (Blackrock Launch)
- SirFunchalot
- Registered User
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- 16
- 22
- 46
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
964
Brief Overview:
This is a relatively standard midrange shaman list that plays all of your typical cards that you would expect to be but with a few notable exceptions. This list forgoes the more stock Fireguard Destroyer, Neptulon, Al'Akir the Windlord and some tech cards in favor of a suite of the full 4 copies of Blackwing Technician and Blackwing Corruptor as well two fat dragons in Onyxia and Deathwing to help increase the potential to activate the blackwing cards.
Why Dragons?:
So why play more dragons and their support cards over the more standard options, what do they do better than other cards in the current meta? The answer is that the blackwing minions are some of the best 3 and 5 mana minions in the current Hearthstone card pool so finding a way to use them effectively is actually a fairly powerful thing. Shaman has always had a traditionally weak turn 3 as their options were generally relegated to the now inefficient Feral Spirits, the incredibly slow Manatide Totem, the weak on its own Unbound Elemental or the 3 mana mech minions. Blackwing Technician outclasses pretty much all of those cards if you're holding a dragon as a 3 mana 3/5 is an incredibly powerful body that generally trades 2-for-1 and doesn't have any of the downsides the other 3 drops have so long as you happen to have a dragon in your hand. Blackwing Corruptor is a bit easier to understand why its powerful as simply noticing that it's essentially a 1 mana cheaper Fire Elemental should be reason enough to see why its good; the tempo gained from this card can win games on its own against aggressive strategies and the incremental value it gains against control decks is equally as powerful.
Now lets talk about the real question you're asking, "Why play Onyxia and Deathwing?", those cards are bad, right? I certainly don't think either of these cards are bad and I actually think they are the best big dragons you can currently play in this deck, even better than the more universally praised Ysera. Onyxia on an empty board represents 14 potential damage, more than any single card in all of Hearthstone, also no class has more ways to benefit from a board filled with minions than Shaman, betweenDefender of Argus, Flametongue Totem and even Rockbiter Weapon it's not hard to get some very substantial value out of those Whelps; granted her title as a Dragon is a strong selling point but her actual impact on a game is substantial as well. Then there's Deathwing, the epitome of a late game card, but I assure you it has a place in this midrange deck. I'm certainly not the first person to play Deathwing in shaman, Gaara, one of the best shaman players in the world has included the 10-drop dragon in numerous incarnations of his shaman decks, and there's good reason for that. Shaman as a class has very poor card draw and AoE options, what this means is that in the later stages of the game it's unlikely you'll have a large amount of cards in your hand and it's also unlikely that if your opponent can manage to flood the board with say, Grim Patrons it can potentially be difficult to remove all of them. What Deathwing does is he blows up everything you can't deal with and discard a couple potentially situational cards while simultaneously developing a massive minion that is more or less impossible to remove without hard removal and if not answered immediately his massive 12 attack points can threaten to kill an opponent in a matter of 3 turns even if they're at full HP. While a card you hope you don't have to use, when you do, no card is better at clawing you back in to a losing game than Deathwing.
Tech Choices:
coming soon
Mulligan Guide:
coming soon
Gameplay Footage:
coming soon
I really enjoyed trying this deck out, great idea with it. 4 Fire ele's Kreygasm.
The biggest troubles i ran into were Death's Bite and Truesilver Champion since they can clear most of the minions in the deck unfortunately. The Defender of Argus definitely helped somewhat with this, but I added in Harrison Jones over Sylvanas Windrunner for this purpose, wanted to see what you thought about this.
I definitely agree with that change if you're facing lots of warrior, hunter and to a lesser extent paladin. I was only playing sylvanas because I was facing a lot of handlock and control warrior
Any Sugestions to change Onyxia and Dr. Boom?
Dr. Boom is mandatory for a hearthstone collection he is too good not to have and sees play in every single class. As for Onyxia she is by far the fat dragon of choice but if you don't have her use Ysera instead, and if you don't have Ysera then I guess Nefarian, and if you don't have Nefarian then I guess play another deck.
A very interesting deck, and it might be what I'm looking for the Shaman! I love the class, but a lot of times slow starts just kill you bad (well any class is the same I guess). Only issue is the lack of taunts, but it might be ok tho.
Also, I am looking for decks to use Onyxia and Deathwing haha. I'll give this deck and try, and let you know how it goes in the near future. And I like the idea of cutting Sylvanas for a healbot. Hunters are around too much not to have something to slow them done (easier said than done tho)
P.S. No real overloads in this deck is a nice addition too :)
A suggestion : cut 2x rockbiter add 2x nerubian egg
oh and cut 1x blackwing corrupter and add 1x healbot
Great deck ! new type of shaman, loving it.
Rockbiter Weapon is one of the best early game removal spells in the entirety of Hearthstone as it is a 1 mana (without overload) answer to 3 health minions AND can be combined with other minions to take down singular larger minions with a single attack, cutting it is a HUGE mistake. With that said Nerubian Egg becomes infinitely worse once you cut Rockbiter Weapon as then you have even less ways to activate the egg. Although to be honest I don't think Nerubian Egg is even necessary as our early game is already fairly strong thanks to Earth Shock, Rockbiter Weapon, Zombie Chow and Haunted Creeper. Finally Blackwing Corruptor is BY FAR the best Dragon support card and the reason to even include a large amount of dragons in your deck, cutting corruptor from a dragon deck is about as bad as cutting Murloc Warleader from a Murloc deck, it just doesn't make any sense. Antique Healbot is a decent 1-of in shaman and if you really want to play it I'd probably cut Sylvanas Windrunner for it since she's pretty bad against aggressive decks which are what you really want healbot for.
if you won't put nerubians 2 flametongues is too much, you don't have enough minions and there are already 4 egg activators in the deck
i think it makes a more solid early game without having to take face damage with rockbiter
the full 2 copies of Flametongue Totem is definitely not too much it has tremendous synergy with your hero power, haunted creeper, and even in the late game with Onyxia, it is a card that can milk tremendous value from your weaker cards. I don't know why you so badly want to add Nerubian Egg to this deck and always insist on taking out cards that would activate the egg but I am telling you from experience it's a terrible idea. If you so badly want to play a more stock list of midrange shaman and play eggs and other things instead of the dragons then do that but cutting Rockbiter and Flametongue totem is just a terrible idea they're some of your best cards when playing midrange shaman...
To everyone asking for replacements for Onyxia and Deathwing please understand that these cards were chosen for specific reasons and are therefore considered to be the optimal choices. With that in mind if you do not have them and still want to play the deck I'd use Nefarian and Ysera in their place, although the deck will not perform quite as well it should still be serviceable.
Would Kel'Thuzad or Chromaggus be a good replacement for Onyxia? I think it would do something a little similar.
I don't have Onyxia or Deathwing. Can I even bother replacing them with other late game dragons like ysera and chromagus or is it not worthwhile? If so, what other dragons do you think would be a good fit?
I don't have an onyxia in my pool, I was thinking replace with neptulion, because the point of the card is to get bunches of minons right
Neptulon is a really good card but unfortunately it's not a dragon, and we really can't afford to only play 3 dragons and still play all 4 of the non-dragon blackwing cards so Onyxia is one of the best dragons available for this type of strategy hence her inclusion. Honestly Onyxia is the only big dragon I feel that's completely mandatory for this deck, the Deathwing slot can be replaced by Nefarian or Ysera but what Onyxia does is just too good not to play.
If you're running Onyxia, wouldn't a Bloodlust be prudent?
I personally haven't found a need for Bloodlust as a resolved Onyxia that survives and leaves up whelps is probably going to win you the game regardless of whether or not you have Bloodlust in your hand. I also don't even know what I would take out for it if I did want to play it.
I've had a lot of luck with a few changes:
- Sylvanas
-2 Blackwing Corruptors
+2 Bloodlusts
+1 Healbot
I just swapped the Blackwing Technicians for Knife Jugglers, which also seems to be working well, but I may switch back depending on the meta.
Bloodlust is completely unnecessary and will almost never win you games you weren't already winning. Also if you're not going to play Blackwing Corruptor or Technician then there is literally no reason to include Onyxia and Deathwing and you're better off with Neptulon and Al'Akir. But the blackwing minions are so insanely powerful idk why you wouldn't want to play them. The only change you made that even makes a remote amount of sense is cutting sylvanas for healbot, and even that is only necessary when you're facing a ton of hunter.