Hearthpwn

With the introduction of N'Zoth into the roster, I believe this deck has finally reached critical mass in terms of maintaining a board.

The deck usually seeks to put out as many sticky deathrattle minions as possible before ending the game with either a Bloodlust burst play, a value Sylvanus+Reincarnate steal, or an extreme value Kel'Thuzad trade play/Kel'Thuzad Reincarnate play. The addition of N'Zoth now gives the deck a whopping 5 win conditions which merge seamlessly together and stretch opponent removal capabilities to their maximum.

Previously difficult matchups such as Tempo Mage were unfavorable largely because of the amount of removal that is run in those decks. Often, this deck would exhaust their removal until they had only about 1-3 cards in hand before running out of win conditions. N'Zoth now makes those close games lean far more in your favor, and almost always secures a fatigue match-up as well.

I've had a pretty strong run over the past few days, and the only real struggles I've faced are against control warrior since bloodlust is usually unable to finish them off plus they got late-game threats as well, and control priest largely because of how devastating Entomb can be to N'Zoth.

Notice: I'll be deleting the oldest edits from now on whenever a new expansion/nerf come around to keep this from being a gigantic wall of text.

Edit for Frozen Throne: New hype with this new expansion brings us back toward reassessing potential includes for this deck. With the expansion being themed around dead things, the number of new deathrattles to look at has had a notable increase. Sadly, some of them are limited towards being killed off during your opponents turn, which degrades their power in a list than can self trigger deathrattles through Reincarnate. One interesting, non-deathrattle card to look at is Drakkari Enchanter. This card actually does have some niche application in this deck as it allows you to double trigger Thaurissan ticks and KT resummons. However, that gives the card very limited use as it'd be requiring 2 specific minions, both costly in their own regard and it's 2 legendary minions to boot. Beyond that we have the Shaman Death Knight Thrall, Deathseer. This card gives you an alternative approach towards managing your board, and isn't all that bad in this deck to be honest. Bloodlust is the main wincon since this deck tends to amass large boards quite easily, so Deathseer can likewise give your large boards a huge power boost. However, this negates their deathrattles procs in most cases. Hence, I'd recommend subbing out N'Zoth if you want to use Deathseer as the 2 cards do not mesh very well with each other. As for the actual deathrattles, the opponent turn oriented ones are moot. We got Shallow Gravedigger which can function quite well as the average wild Deathrattle card tends to be pretty good. However, you'd still want loot hoarder over it since the cards you run in your own deck tend to be better than the average random deathrattle anyway, plus you get to dig deeper for Bloodlust if necessary. now Arfus is a card that one has to seriously consider. It's statline is mediocre and Potion of Madness is a brutal counter, but you should take note that you can self-trigger this card via Reincarnate and Umbra, giving you an edge. The plus of this card is potentially giving you another giant wincon for later on in the game, along with him being a great N'Zoth/KT revive and a great Barnes pull as well. I'd recommend you sub out a Loot Hoarder for him as than extra draw from hoarder tends to be worse than the average Death Knight from Arfus, plus both suffer similar weaknesses with Arfus having greater strengths in this type of deck.

Edit for Frozen Throne Midpatch nerfs: New nerfs on the horizon and unfortunately a card from this deck got hit. Hex got the jump from 3 mana to 4, making it weaker overall. Though one could argue whether not this was warranted, that's not what this edit is about. The question to ask now, is Hex still worth running in this deck, especially at x2? Well, Hex is still a very strong source of single target removal, both removing and that and effectively silencing it too. Considering the Wild environment and the prevalence of deathrattle decks, I'd still recommend running x2 Hex for this reason. However, there is definitely a choice to be had between running a Hex or an extra Devolve based on what you encounter though.

Edit for Kobolds & Catacombs: Here's some disappointing news about this recent expac, there doesn't seem to be any card accessible to Shaman that truly makes the cut for this deck. Not to say there aren't a couple of interesting choices, but even these are few and far between. Going straight to the key choice cards, we're essentially looking at 3 options; Unstable Evolution, Carnivorous Cube, and Marin the Fox. Beginning with Unstable Evolution, this card may initially look out of place in a deck that looks to use N'Zoth. However, as you play this deck, you'll find yourself floating on quite a few basic totems and/or deathrattle weenies.Unstable Evolution gives you the option to spend excess mana on upgrading these relatively harmless minions into more powerful minions, and maybe even come across a good deathrattle along the way to add to N'Zoth's pool. Of course, downsides exist here, as you can also find yourself stuck with a terrible deathrattle now included in your N'Zoth pool, Still, you will generally end up with a higher value minions at the end of the line, so it's worth considering. The biggest question is what to get rid of for the card. Personally, I can't justify including it, but it can be left up to player choice here. Next up is Carnivorous Cube. It looks great at first glance; decent stats, pop a deathrattle trigger and generate some back-up minions to fuel the Bloodlust lethal. However, there's 2 points of conflict here. First, it directly competes with Sludge Belcher in it's slot, so you'll have to make the hard choice of picking one or the other and, imo, Sludge Belcher still wins out. Second, it's VERY expensive if you simply want the deathrattle trigger effect, and redundant when you run Reincarnate. An interesting card to be sure, but a bit too clunky to be worth replacing Sludge Belcher for. Finally, we stumble upon Marin the Fox. His main claim to fame here is strictly in the chest he generates and your ability to simply pop said chest with Reincarnate for some easy loot/double down on some relatively OP cards. He's very expensive for this effect though, and most definitely is not replacing any of the upper end of the current deck in terms of synergies, so he's more of a fun choice over a competitive one. Atleast he's free though. And...well that's about it as far as Kobolds and Catacombs goes. Not a very exciting expansion for deathrattle shaman to be sure. Atleast you won't have to make too many investments to update this time around.