[Legend NA] Token Shaman
- Last updated Jan 25, 2016 (Explorers)
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Wild
- 21 Minions
- 8 Spells
- 1 Weapon
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 1800
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 12/12/2015 (Explorers)
- AzureYeti
- Registered User
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- 4
- 5
- 15
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Battle Tag:
AzureYeti #1798
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
183
Token Shaman: The Shaman deck where you actually want totems.
UPDATE: per request, here is legend proof: http://imgh.us/Hearthstone_Screenshot_12-12-15_15.15.59.png
Just got to legend NA today with this Token Shaman deck!
I'm honestly surprised this deck wasn't big in the meta before now; the only LoE cards are 2 copies of Tunnel Trogg and they really aren't that key to the deck.
Let me mention that I ran a Zombie Chow in place of Worgen Infiltrator for a lot of games. I made the change because the downside of Zombie Chow seemed to be a pretty major impediment to getting lethal in some games. Worgen Infiltrator, on the other hand, is an excellent target for the many attack-boosting cards in the deck and doesn't give health to your opponent when you're pushing for lethal.
The following winrates combine stats for both versions of the deck.
APPROXIMATE WINRATES (shortly after achieving legend 12/12)
Druid: 65% | Hunter: 64% | Mage: 60% | Paladin: 59% | Priest: 71% |
Rogue: 75% | Shaman: 77% | Warlock: 56% | Warrior: 46% |
These results show a 77% winrate versus Shaman. The only sub-50% matchup according to these results was vs warrior. Warrior's removal including Brawl can be very effective.
GENERAL GAMEPLAY
The goal of the deck is pretty straightforward: take board control from the very start and use your board-dependent effects to get great trades while maintaining board control. Your most common win condition is Bloodlust. Your secondary win condition is through Doomhammer+Rockbiter Weapon for 2 5-damage hits to the face. Even without one of those specific win conditions, you can still often get lethal simply from snowballing your board advantage and playing aggressively. Just remember though that this deck is not an aggro deck. Like zoo, it emphasizes immediate board control and maintaining it throughout the game. However, trading infinitely often isn't the way to win. It's important to do the math of how much reach you can get off Bloodlust when you have to determine when it's appropriate to start ignoring your opponent's minions and push for lethal. The same applies when you don't draw a win condition; it may become critical for you to aggressively push for lethal before getting out-valued and removed from the board entirely.
One of the general Hearthstone skills that is most useful with this deck is playing around board clears. Good thing the deck has ways to play around board clears. If you're approaching a board clear turn, electing to play minions such as Haunted Creeper, Nerubian Egg, and Loot Hoarder are great ways to reduce the value of their board clears and make an insurance policy of sorts. Another great tool you have is your Hero Power! Electing to make a totem instead of playing a 2-drop can be an excellent decision before a board clear to save cards.
CARDS COMMENTARY
Rockbiter Weapon: Excellent removal and partial win condition. This can be used on your hero early on to keep your board in tact and remove a pesky minion. It can also be used on a token for a fantastic trade and as surprise reach damage.
Abusive Sergeant: Great card that helps make great trades and becomes a token itself.
Tunnel Trogg: There may not be that much overload in the deck, but this still a phenomenal minion. Simply getting out a 1/3 on turn 1 helps take immediate board control and give your board-dependent cards a target. It's also good for later game, as it synergizes well with your other later game cards like Ancestral Knowledge and Doomhammer.
Worgen Infiltrator: Probably one of the more controversial minion inclusions, even for me. It trades well in the early game and is difficult to remove, making it an excellent target for your board-dependent cards. It fits the theme and doesn't give your opponent health (*cough* Zombie Chow) so I like it!
Ancestral Knowledge: This deck runs a lot of cheap minions, so card draw is very useful. Ancestral Knowledge is a great card draw mechanism; the overloaded mana crystals really don't matter that much in the mid to late game, just plan ahead so that you still have a play when you're overloaded.
Flametongue Totem: A fantastic card all around. Don't forget that you can kill off a minion next to it and give the attack boost to the minion adjacent to the traded one as well; this way you can get phenomenal trades when you have lines of tokens on the board. It can also be a surprise card that you use for lethal. I also really like the interaction with Argent Horserider, which becomes a 4-point removal play.
Haunted Creeper: Token generating anti-aggro minion. Great target for Defender of Argus. Need I say more?
Knife Juggler: You've got a lot of cheap minions and flood, so why not run Knife Jugglers? They're very helpful against Muster for Battle and similar aggressive flood techniques, and are useful for other removal plays.
Loot Hoarder: The inclusion of 1 Loot Hoarder is up for debate, but I really like the amount of card draw that the deck has overall with it included. It's also a good token minion.
Nerubian Egg: With this many cards that grant attack, Nerubian Egg doesn't have to be an egg for long. It synergizes phenomenally with Defender of Argus as well.
Feral Spirit: This card gets phenomenal value. For 3 mana get 2 2-drop quality minions with Taunt that protect the rest of your board. Synergizes well with Tunnel Trogg as well. This card protects your tokens as well as your life total and can really pack a punch.
Argent Horserider: It's basically a removal spell whose effect you can increase with your other cards that generates a token afterwards. It can also push damage for lethal.
Tuskarr Totemic: Dr. 3. This card is simply fantastic. Even if it just pulls a normal totem, you're basically getting a 2-drop and your hero power for 3 mana, and your hero power is really good in this deck. It may also pull a Totem Golem, which is incredible value, or a Mana Tide Totem, which can lead you to victory if your opponent doesn't remove it. Then there's the Flametongue Totem, which of course has excellent synergies with this deck. When you play Tuskarr Totemic, make sure to play it to the left of something that you would like to get the attack boost from Flametongue Totem.
Defender of Argus: Into the fridge! This card is fantastic. You can use it to get a good trade, to stop aggro decks, to play around board clears, to activate Nerubian Egg, to draw attacks into your deathrattle minions, to push for lethal...that might be it. But that's a lot you can do with it.
Doomhammer: Only one copy is used in this deck. It's great for board control purposes and for pushing for lethal. Combos with Rockbiter Weapon really well. Notable, the 5 damage from the combo is enough to kill a Sludge Belcher, which is something that I see played against this deck a lot.
Bloodlust: The primary win condition. There's not really too much to say about it; try to save it for lethal but you can use it to get trades if you must.
Sea Giant: The bane of aggro Secret. You can often get Sea Giant out for absurdly cheap with this deck, and the aggro decks that tend to allow you to get him out for cheap often don't have ways to deal with it.
MULLIGAN GUIDE
In general, you want to mulligan for your early game drop minions: Tunnel Trogg, Worgen Infiltrator, Haunted Creeper, Knife Juggler, and Nerubian Egg. If you're concerned about your early game, then Loot Hoarder is often a keep as well, but he's not really your top priority when it comes to the mulligan. Keeping your board-dependent cards (Abusive Sergeant, Flametongue Totem, Defender of Argus) is largely dependent on what other cards you have. Like if you have Nerubian Egg you may want to keep an Abusive Sergeant. Against classes with strong early game removal (like Mage) it may be better to focus on getting difficult-to-remove minions on the board (like Haunted Creeper and Nerubian Egg) instead of Knife Juggler. The matchup instructions give more specific advise on when/which to keep. Your 3-drops Argent Horserider and Tuskarr Totemic are often good to keep as well, but again dependent on what else you have. If you have a 1 and a 2 drop already, sure, keep Tuskarr Totemic. If not, it's often a difficult judgment call. Defender of Argus I'll sometimes keep if I have Coin and a solid curve. Turn 4 Defender of Argus when you have 2 minions on the board is a fantastic play, so don't automatically toss him.
Druid: Name of the game is kill Darnassus Aspirant. This deck has many ways to do that. Mulligan for your typical 1-2 drops as well as Rockbiter Weapon. If you have a 1-2 attack early minion (Worgen Infiltrator, Tunnel Trogg, Haunted Creeper), probably keep Abusive Sergeant or Flametongue Totem. If you have Tunnel Trogg, consider keeping Ancestral Knowledge or Feral Spirit (especially if you have Coin).
Hunter: Mulligan for your typical early game drops. I like to keep Rockbiter Weapon. You really want to get a strong start in case it's a face hunter, so really focus on your 1-drops and Haunted Creeper.
Mage: Mulligan is pretty typical, but try to prepare for Mana Wyrm. Keep Rockbiter Weapon. As mentioned before, try for hard-to-remove minions to play around early removal like Frostbolt.
Priest: I think the key to beating priest is getting hard to remove minions on the board. That means trying not to break your Haunted Creeper or Nerubian Egg, both of which develop after a Nova, and using creatures like Feral Spirit and totems that don't die to lightbomb. So, I'd recommend keeping your usual cards, Rockbiter Weapon to kill Northshire Cleric, which can get the priest a lot of draw against this deck, Feral Spirit, and strongly consider Defender of Argus since he can boost health to play around board clears.
Same here. I think it is a troll deck.
You can't be helped.
how can you be competitive with this deck , idk how i can win , i can't take the board control and i'm to low in draw , i'm 2-20 with this deck in casual tried all playstyle help me please
Sorry it's not working for you; it's difficult to know where you're going wrong though without more information. Just a general tip though is to play really thoughtfully. The deck may seem straightforward but a lot of times it's not; a lot of decisions about how to make your board as hard to remove as possible can be critical. Think about what your opponent may have, what they're trying to do, and play accordingly in a manner that should allow you to get/keep board control.
i have more info, massive taunt destroy the deck , example dragon priest , can't take the tempo
Dragon priest can be difficult, you're right, but how often do you battle it? If it's not that frequent then shouldn't make a huge impact on overall climb. Using attack boost cards taunt can often be easy to get through, but with multiple taunts winning can become difficult.
Just want to say nice deck man! I replaced a 2nd argent rider for gormack and had great success. Went from rank 11 to rank 6 on the last night going 27-15.
Congrats! I do think Gormok could be a really good addition.
Sorry to hear it's not working for you. It's hard to say specifically what might be happening without more information though.
Intentionally playing around removal might help you. Like playing totems instead of easy to kill minions going into turns 4-6 against priest, not coining out knife juggler against mage, using Defender to raise minions with 1 health to 2 when you expect swipe...things like that. Freeze mage is a tricky matchup, but try to keep something to kill doomsayer and don't play minions that will just die to flamestrike and blizzard going into those turns.
Any replacements for Troggs?
Other good 1-drops like Worgen Infiltrator and Argent Squire could be tried. They may do fine, but I expect won't be nearly as good.
replacement for doomhamer and sea giants?
There's not much of a replacement for Doomhammer; it's one of a kind. Maybe try a Piloted Shredder instead. Gormok or Loatheb could be decent in place of Sea Giant, or another Shredder if you don't have those.
oil rogue, freeze mage hardest matchups they dont care about your creepers or your egg. Not to mention zoo just out tempos this deck every time.
Legend proof? I would try this out but worgen infiltrator doesnt seem like the best option in this deck.
http://imgh.us/Hearthstone_Screenshot_12-12-15_15.15.59.png
It's possible that something could work better than worgen; feel free to try subs
ok ty it would be useful in the deck post, most people put legend proof and it gets them more likes
I have got to give you some serious props. Every season, my goal is to get to rank 5. Usually, I'm able to do it without too much difficulty, but this season has been crazy. No matter what I chose: aggro druid, face hunter, combo-lock, entomb priest, etc...nothing would get me past rank 8...nothing! Win 2 then lose 3, over and over. Then I came across your deck--and I finally broke through to rank 5.
There are a few things about this deck that makes it work really well in this meta.
1) Unlike aggro shaman, this deck doesn't rely on lucky card draw to get the right spells for a OTK; thus, making it much more stable. The problem with aggro shaman is if you don't draw your Crackle and Doomhammer, then it is very difficult to win. With your token deck, there are a few other win conditions.
2) (And i noticed you never mentioned this) Most people will be expecting you to play aggro shaman. This is key because your opponent will often over-commit their resources to remove your Tunnel Trogg. After they blow all of their early spells to remove the Troggs, they often can't keep the board clear, setting themselves up for a lethal Bloodlust. I did very well against mages and druids because after they blew frost bolt/warth on the Troggs, not only did they have no removal, but it often put them off-curve and/or made them blow their coin.
3) It seems like this deck would have no chance against Secret Paladin, but it does. SP's can keep an even board until turn 6 and play their MC. The genius counter is Sea Giant. I won about 80% of my games against SP when I drew sea giant. They simply have no answer for it on turns 4-6. Even if they play MC on 6, they are taking such heavy damage that they will have to commit everything to clear the board....and then they are vulnerable to your doom hammer.
Masterful job! TY!
Thanks so much! Glad it's working well for you! Good point with the expectation of playing aggro shaman; people really do see a Trogg and try to remove it ASAP, even though it often just stays a 1/3 in this deck (which is still really useful).