Hearthpwn

I have updated this deck from before a single WOG card was revealed until now, and I am more confident than ever that, thanks to the evolution mechanic, battlecry shaman is going to take the fuck over. Onyxia is for combos with Evolve -- 10 mana for a 10 drop and 6 2-drops is pretty sweet.

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This is a theorycraft decklist inspired by my LOE Buzzword Shaman:

The deck is a battlecry/scarab Shaman, which capitalizes on the fact that battlecry cards happen to be very good in Shaman decks. I realized, after a while, that there are very few Naxx/GVG cards in that deck, and none of them are really crucial to the deck -- they're mostly just the strongest midrangey cards from those sets. Every midrange deck is losing shredders and boom -- this deck happens to have the steam to pick up without them.

As soon as Naxx and GVG leave the meta, I predict that Shaman will be a leading midrange deck, and Brann will be a crucial card in that deck. Of course, this is very hard to predict without seeing the new set and the new meta, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try to predict it anyway!

I personally think that midrange decks will generally be weak in the meta, with nerfs to Druid combo and the fact that Paladin's best cards are mostly in GVG. I think it will involve a lot of aggro (all the best taunts, antique healbot, and zombie chow are all gone), and a lot of control (Control Warrior did not lose much), and not many decks in the middle. But I think that Shaman will survive.

Midrange Battlecry Shaman is well-equipped to handle both of these.

Against aggro decks, Shaman has taunts (Stoneclaw Totem, Defender of Argus), heals (Healing Wave, vitality totems from Tuskarr Totemic), a strong early curve, and reasonably good board clear options.

Against control decks, Shaman can use Brann for strong tempo plays, extra card draw through battlecries (Nefarian, Azure Drake, Jeweled Scarab, Mana Tide Totems from Tuskarr Totemic), and plenty of hard removal.

Most importantly, this deck is adaptable -- Shaman 3-drops are good, but situational cards, which is really great for a discover mechanic like Jeweled Scarab. This means that this midrange deck can tune itself to the opponent as needed.

Remember that this is a theorycraft -- I don't know what cards shaman will get, or how exactly the meta will shift, so this deck will obviously change some as we uncover that information. But you can enjoy my predictions, and we'll just see how they work out.