Hearthpwn

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Hello everybody, I'm Seppe and I won't perpetuate the elitism of our community by giving you my rank or accolades; if you need those to decide whether a deck is good or not, I'd venture the issue lies within you most of the time. That being said (and excuse the rant), here's my take on something that we've actually never gotten before: a cool, thematic, fun and workable? control shaman deck.

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Elemental Mastery Shaman tries to be a control deck at its core while fulfilling the shaman fantasy of a jack-of-all-trades who controls the elements and its creatures. I won't bother mentioning all Un'goro has changed for shaman or rating the cards as we all are mature enough to understand that we can't possibly have a solid understanding of the shitstorm that is the meta right now; though I will give some tips on usage and general philosophy behind the inclusion of most of the cards.

One last thing (and I know I'm kind of contradicting myself after the rant but hell, you got this far) I've obviously tested this with a good amount of iterations and thought behind it and, although I know it's way too early to have proper stats (and this is a small pool) we can see a trend here. 42/40 seems to hint at a 50% win rate, but if we ignore rogue which is terribly messing the averages with its horrible, horrible matchup, we get 40/30 which is a very interesting 75% win rate.

As said, the deck is control at its core, using value from shaman's elemental package, board clears and heals. At a first glance, the actual clears, heals and value may seem lackluster, but it all gets amplified with good synergy and incredibly consistent discovers from Stonehill Defender and Servant of Kalimos. I'll write a small review of each card further down, but let's just take a moment to realize how busted the pool of discovers for those two cards is in shaman with things like Earth Elemental, Al'Akir the Windlord, White Eyes and Kalimos, Primal Lord. Because of the way the discover mechanic works right now, you can very realistically expect two of those each game.

As a finishing note for the introduction, and because I'm mostly a Johnny kind of player, in every iteration I've tried to make changes towards a more solid deck without losing the identity of the deck and that fantasy recreation of the shaman and the wielding of the elements. As such, the archetype is probably capable of bigger things and I'm looking forwards to any constructive criticism on that part from those of you who just care about the wins.

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Card Explanations and Tips

Dirty Rat: This is mostly a tech card against quest mage and, to some degree, against most quests and aggro decks. You obviously want to hold onto this against mage until the very last turn before their combo to maximize the chances of pulling Archmage Antonidas or Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt: The deck is a bit lacking on the burst department which these two cards can help with, but the core idea behind this is to be mostly early removal, while retaining a degree of flexibility as finishers or Hallazeal the Ascended activators.

Fire Plume Harbinger, Hot Spring Guardian, Fire Elemental: These are our elemental triggers, ensuring we can start an elemental chain while doubling as control tools. Calling Fire Plume Harbinger a control tool is probably a bit questionable, but this guy enables turn 3 Earth Elemental while going second as well as crazy shenanigans like pulling all your chain one turn earlier.

Far Sight, Mana Tide Totem: Refuelers, although this deck tends to play one card per turn. Far Sight can land you some really good discounts as well.

Hex, Lightning Storm, Jinyu Waterspeaker, Volcano, Hallazeal the Ascended: Generic stalling and control stuff, worth mentioning that Volcano plus Hallazeal the Ascended is our reset button, similarly to how Elemental Destruction worked; slower as a combo, but faster as removal. Because of the cost of this particular combo, going for the more common Lightning Storm one is better against aggro. Using Hallazeal the Ascended to its full extent is something you will only need against fast decks or as a Hail Mary, most of the time you will slam this down as a vanilla 4/6 with the potential threat of synergy for your opponent.

Stonehill Defender, Servant of Kalimos, Elise the Trailblazer: Value generators, specially the tortoises. These guys are pretty much the MVP of every game. Generally good against aggro, they start to shine when pulling extra threats which shaman has an amazing pool in taunt and elemental. It really is an oddity when you don't get an extra Kalimos, Primal Lord or a couple of Al'Akir the Windlord. Elise the Trailblazer is mostly a card against other control decks for when the game drags enough, most of the time, you'll rather get the other two guys working first.

Earth Elemental, White Eyes, Blazecaller, Kalimos, Primal Lord: Our threats and what resembles most a win condition in our deck. These guys will do anything from stopping aggro to melting faces, and they'll do it with style. Because of the very real possibility of getting double Kalimos, in a good chunk of our games picking Incantation of Fire is the best play: good pressure and it can actually bring the opponent in range of our burst. Obviously, you will be using all of them on a regular basis, with Incantation of Water deserving a mention for the absurd heal you can get while developing a big body.

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Card Substitutions

*The deck works under the assumption of synergy, so I'd recommend actually testing things out before doing changes*

Most of the numbers and cards can be swapped around for other similar things, shifting the deck towards either end of the mana curve: you can include more early cards while taking away big stuff to make it more anti-aggro, or include more burn and go for a more pressure-y style. Here are some examples of what you may do to push the deck towards a more specific goal:

Faster curve and pressure

In: Maelstrom Portal, Feral Spirit, Tidal Surge, Thing from Below, Doomsayer, Tol'vir Stoneshaper,...

Out: Fire Elemental, Blazecaller, Elise the Trailblazer, Far Sight,...

Midrange-y board control

In: Earth Shock, Devolve, Flametongue Totem, Jade Claws + Jade Lightning + Aya Blackpaw,...

Out: Volcano, Hallazeal the Ascended, Earth Elemental, Stonehill Defender

Greedier control

In: Flamewreathed Faceless, Ancestral Spirit, Faceless Manipulator,...

Out: Jinyu Waterspeaker, Volcano, Hallazeal the Ascended, Lightning Bolt,...

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So that's my take on a control shaman, hope this amuses anybody enough to try it and refine. As a closing note, and for those of you that don't have a deep collection, I'll leave some budget substitutions. Looking forward to your comments and have fun in Un'Goro :)

Dirty Rat > Any double of the one-offs

Far Sight > Loot Hoarder, Novice Engineer

Earth Elemental > Thing from Below or any decently sized taunt

Elise the Trailblazer > Any double of the one-offs

Hallazeal the Ascended > Tidal Surge

White Eyes > Thing from Below or any decently sized taunt

Kalimos, Primal Lord > Any of the swaps in this section are probably pushing it past viability, but this one in particular is irreplacable