Here is a deck I've been working on and having a lot of success with, it's based around the fact that shaman has so much good early game control between rockbiter, lightning bolt, earth shatter, and storm forged axe that it allows you to build up a few cheap minions and totems (faeries dragons, novice engineers, feral spirits, ooze), and eventually buff these minions w flametongues to allow u to make even better trades in turns 4 and 5(obviously very important to hold on to flametongue till you know it will allow you to trade your lower cost minions for their higher cost minions). Doing this should allow you to save your hexes to take out bigger minions that the opponent throws at you in the late game. Azure drake as well as manatide totem (make sure the totem is protected before you lay it down) lets you maintain card advantage in the mid game while also buffing the spells that you may not have needed you use. Once you hit 6 mana, fire elemental and argent commander (in my opinion the two best 6 drops in the game right now), let you continue to make efficient trades and you should have built up a solid little army of 2 or 3 totems and other creatures by this time. I know that taunt is supposedly "underpowered," but I include one earth elemental in this deck because it is very good at dealing with turn 5 or 6 warrior/paladin/hunter bitch minion rushes and it also trades well with pretty much any other 5 or 6 drop. At this point in the game you should have nice board control, have dealt anywhere between 8-12 damage to your opponent, and continue to trade out minions while swinging at your opponent's face to do decent amounts of damage. Finally, a combination of ragnaros, argents, fire eles, and bloodlust should allow you to finish off your opponent.
If you play the early game right and get a decent draw, you shouldn't need to have two lightning storms in this, I also think that lava burst isn't necessary considering all of the good 5 and 6 drops that the deck has (drakes, fire eles, argents).
Why are there no 4 drops?
This deck has a lot of 1,2, and 3 drops with overload, therefore turn 4 becomes a turn where you are limited by your mana count anyways. Use your hero power and your board clear in the first 3 turns to gain board advantage and transition into turns 5 and 6 where you can keep the advantage with drakes, argents, and fire eles.
Why two novice engineer? Doesn't this card suck?
There have been so many times where novice engineer has allowed me to top deck an axe, lightning bolt, or earth shock and straight up kill their 2 or 3 drop. On turn 3, say that they drop something with 4 health, like impmaster or something along those lines, playing rockbiter on the engineer allows you to trade your 2 drop with their 3 drop, giving you an advantage going forward in the game. Flametongue totem with the engineer also will often allow you trade out your 2 drop for their 3 drop, all the while giving you a card advantage because of its battlecry.
I know that having 2 card of everything reduces the randomness, but actually I think that taking a lot of different cards (this isn't the case in every deck) enhances the overall amount of solutions that you can come up with to clear the board and eventually finish off games with for this particular deck, you really just have to play it to see how fluid it is and how easy it can make playing shaman seem. For instance, there is simply no need for 2 bloodlusts, that card is purely a finisher or a card that bails you out of a really unfavorable situation. Mana tide totem is also a waste to take two of, simply because it doesn't enhance your damage but rather is a card that must be played at a very specific time to be effective (it must survive for at least two turns to get the value). It is the same situation with earth elemental- the drawback of 3 overload is just too high to play two of them in this deck and would hinder your ability to take other essential cards. The reason that this deck excels is its board control in the early game and transitioning to the mid game where you use your high value argent commanders and flame elementals to further the value of your trades (these cards are usually a 2 for 1). Rock biter (this card is op because you can kill faerie dragons with it, one of the most common 2 drops), lightning bolt, and storm forged axe control the early game so well because together they can kill any 2 or 3 drop creature in the game, this is why you must take 2 of each. Feral spirit is also a key card because it keeps your totems protected (it is also excellent because it won't fall to a blizzard from mage on its own or a holy nova from priest, forcing them to make hard decisions), this combo with flametongue totem can be devastating, as it will deal 8 damage on the turn after if your opponent is unable to clear either of the wolves, either that or it will allow you to get a lot of value in your trades with both of your wolves. I realize that it isn't the cheapest deck to build (1 legendary, 1 epic, 9 rares), but it isn't that bad considering that ragnaros is the first legendary that everyone should craft, and that 2 argent commanders and 2 azure drakes are also some of the best neutral rares to craft first as well.
Having 2 cards of each will reduce randomness so I believe it's always better to do it. Everything else looks nice.
Having a balance of single cards and double cards makes a deck much more solid. Having all singles maximizes RNG and rarely would all 30 of them mesh well together. All doubles certainly reduces RNG, but leaves very little room for making a strategy out of 15 cards.
Having 2 cards of each will reduce randomness so I believe it's always better to do it. Everything else looks nice.
Having a balance of single cards and double cards makes a deck much more solid. Having all singles maximizes RNG and rarely would all 30 of them mesh well together. All doubles certainly reduces RNG, but leaves very little room for making a strategy out of 15 cards.
Having 2 cards of each will reduce randomness so I believe it's always better to do it. Everything else looks nice.
Having a balance of single cards and double cards makes a deck much more solid. Having all singles maximizes RNG and rarely would all 30 of them mesh well together. All doubles certainly reduces RNG, but leaves very little room for making a strategy out of 15 cards.
Isn't it more solid to get the cards that you need more often instead of hoping to get that one lightning storm? It may be at the bottom of your deck, with 2 you have a higher chance of at least one being where you need it.
The game is already draw based and you should do everything you can to reduce that. At least that's how I see it. A strategy out of 15 cards is more reliable than one out of 30.
OP has a point. I think it's ignorant to say that one way is the only absolute. Instead of having 2 of the same card, you could have 2 cards that could be both good on their own, yet also combined in a way that matched with their own mirror might not be as powerful.
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Here is a deck I've been working on and having a lot of success with, it's based around the fact that shaman has so much good early game control between rockbiter, lightning bolt, earth shatter, and storm forged axe that it allows you to build up a few cheap minions and totems (faeries dragons, novice engineers, feral spirits, ooze), and eventually buff these minions w flametongues to allow u to make even better trades in turns 4 and 5(obviously very important to hold on to flametongue till you know it will allow you to trade your lower cost minions for their higher cost minions). Doing this should allow you to save your hexes to take out bigger minions that the opponent throws at you in the late game. Azure drake as well as manatide totem (make sure the totem is protected before you lay it down) lets you maintain card advantage in the mid game while also buffing the spells that you may not have needed you use. Once you hit 6 mana, fire elemental and argent commander (in my opinion the two best 6 drops in the game right now), let you continue to make efficient trades and you should have built up a solid little army of 2 or 3 totems and other creatures by this time. I know that taunt is supposedly "underpowered," but I include one earth elemental in this deck because it is very good at dealing with turn 5 or 6 warrior/paladin/hunter bitch minion rushes and it also trades well with pretty much any other 5 or 6 drop. At this point in the game you should have nice board control, have dealt anywhere between 8-12 damage to your opponent, and continue to trade out minions while swinging at your opponent's face to do decent amounts of damage. Finally, a combination of ragnaros, argents, fire eles, and bloodlust should allow you to finish off your opponent.
Why not two lava burst and two lightning storm?
If you play the early game right and get a decent draw, you shouldn't need to have two lightning storms in this, I also think that lava burst isn't necessary considering all of the good 5 and 6 drops that the deck has (drakes, fire eles, argents).
Why are there no 4 drops?
This deck has a lot of 1,2, and 3 drops with overload, therefore turn 4 becomes a turn where you are limited by your mana count anyways. Use your hero power and your board clear in the first 3 turns to gain board advantage and transition into turns 5 and 6 where you can keep the advantage with drakes, argents, and fire eles.
Why two novice engineer? Doesn't this card suck?
There have been so many times where novice engineer has allowed me to top deck an axe, lightning bolt, or earth shock and straight up kill their 2 or 3 drop. On turn 3, say that they drop something with 4 health, like impmaster or something along those lines, playing rockbiter on the engineer allows you to trade your 2 drop with their 3 drop, giving you an advantage going forward in the game. Flametongue totem with the engineer also will often allow you trade out your 2 drop for their 3 drop, all the while giving you a card advantage because of its battlecry.
Having 2 cards of each will reduce randomness so I believe it's always better to do it. Everything else looks nice.
Arena Tips
I know that having 2 card of everything reduces the randomness, but actually I think that taking a lot of different cards (this isn't the case in every deck) enhances the overall amount of solutions that you can come up with to clear the board and eventually finish off games with for this particular deck, you really just have to play it to see how fluid it is and how easy it can make playing shaman seem. For instance, there is simply no need for 2 bloodlusts, that card is purely a finisher or a card that bails you out of a really unfavorable situation. Mana tide totem is also a waste to take two of, simply because it doesn't enhance your damage but rather is a card that must be played at a very specific time to be effective (it must survive for at least two turns to get the value). It is the same situation with earth elemental- the drawback of 3 overload is just too high to play two of them in this deck and would hinder your ability to take other essential cards. The reason that this deck excels is its board control in the early game and transitioning to the mid game where you use your high value argent commanders and flame elementals to further the value of your trades (these cards are usually a 2 for 1). Rock biter (this card is op because you can kill faerie dragons with it, one of the most common 2 drops), lightning bolt, and storm forged axe control the early game so well because together they can kill any 2 or 3 drop creature in the game, this is why you must take 2 of each. Feral spirit is also a key card because it keeps your totems protected (it is also excellent because it won't fall to a blizzard from mage on its own or a holy nova from priest, forcing them to make hard decisions), this combo with flametongue totem can be devastating, as it will deal 8 damage on the turn after if your opponent is unable to clear either of the wolves, either that or it will allow you to get a lot of value in your trades with both of your wolves. I realize that it isn't the cheapest deck to build (1 legendary, 1 epic, 9 rares), but it isn't that bad considering that ragnaros is the first legendary that everyone should craft, and that 2 argent commanders and 2 azure drakes are also some of the best neutral rares to craft first as well.
Having a balance of single cards and double cards makes a deck much more solid. Having all singles maximizes RNG and rarely would all 30 of them mesh well together. All doubles certainly reduces RNG, but leaves very little room for making a strategy out of 15 cards.
Well met!
Isn't it more solid to get the cards that you need more often instead of hoping to get that one lightning storm? It may be at the bottom of your deck, with 2 you have a higher chance of at least one being where you need it.
The game is already draw based and you should do everything you can to reduce that. At least that's how I see it. A strategy out of 15 cards is more reliable than one out of 30.
Arena Tips
This deck seems really cool! Ty for sharing was looking for a descent fun shaman deck :)
OP has a point. I think it's ignorant to say that one way is the only absolute. Instead of having 2 of the same card, you could have 2 cards that could be both good on their own, yet also combined in a way that matched with their own mirror might not be as powerful.