I haven't actually played with this deck, since I don't quite have all the cards for it yet. I would like some feedback before I invest too much dust into this. (It's really expensive!)
Thanks for your feedback so far. I've not been able to test out this ceck yet so none of it's really set in stone, but here's the basic play:
Step One: Draw the following from your deck: Fire Plume Harbinger, Zola the Gorgon, and Grumble, Worldshaker. You can use some Coldlight Oracles if necessary. Once you draw Grumble, you can play your Fireplume Harbinger. In the meantime, you have to maintain control over the board with your other minions.
Step Two: Use Zola on the Fire Plume Harbinger. Next turn, you play Grumble. On the same turn (if possible), summon Zola and gain a spare copy of Grumble.
Step Three: Assuming they don't take out Grumble, play your second grumble. This puts a version of Grumble in your hand that costs 1 mana.
Step Four: you'll want to use your Fire Plume Harbinger. The vast majority of minions in this deck are classified as Elementals, so when you summon a Harbinger after Grumbling, you'll get yourself a hand full of free elementals.
Step Five: Since Grumble is an elemental, the fact that you've played him last turn activates all your elemental battlecries. Summon all the useful Battlecry Minions from your hand, and then summon your spare Grumble, who now costs zero. The only loss of mana that you should have at this point is from any other minions that Grumble didn't return to your hand. You can also (optionally) summon Zola to get a spare Grumble. It'll cost 6, but it's better than the chain breaking entirely.
So is the plan then just to use Zola for a second Grumble or is there some wombo combo that lets you infinitely use him? Fortunately, I have all the cards on this list so I may goof around with it and see what I can make of it.
Grumble + Brann does not return cards twice, similar to Brann + Brewmasters wouldn't return cards twice.
Fire Plume Harbingers seem like essential cards, especially with Brann. But then again, any time I've play-tested them, I can never seem to get enough board control before using them, the tempo is really hard to balance before getting a big FPH turn off. Air Elementals could easily be cut from this deck, maybe one Fireguard Destroyer too? I would also suggest cutting Blubber Baron, which is an extremely situational card. It's hard to get any kind of value from BB, especially with so many late game removal tools to get rid of him when he gets played anyway.
Maybe swap out Aya and Blubber for two Thing From Belows or something similar. You have enough totems to get a decent discount on those. They don't have battlecry synergy, but they're just really solid minions. And they have decent bodies for trading before bringing them back to hand with Grumble if it worked out.
I'm super curious to try this deck and see what happens. There's a great deck for Grumble somewhere, the Grumble Unicorn deck. Just no one has found it yet.
1. Unsure. I'm guessing not since Brewmaster with Brann doesn't double return something
2. I would cut the Air Elementals. Too many dude pallies in wild that can make this card near useless. I'm also not sold on the Murmuring Elementals. Perhaps just one might make the most sense
3/4. Jade Lightning definitely. This deck will benefit most from Jade interactions IMO and I would even recommend adding them in addition to Aya. I'm not a huge Totem Golem fan but I can see why it would be included, while Stone Sentinel is probably not worth the slot. I've never played with Blubber Baron but I'm afraid the requirement of having it in your hand first to benefit might be restrictive. I would probably try to make room for a Devolve or two as they counter Cubelocks, Buff Pallies and Deathrattle-based decks. Ancestral Knowledge is an excellent late game draw spell but I'm not 100% certain it's necessary.
[Sorry for the necro, hope this is a good reason to do so]
Okay guys, I've finally gotten a chance to play around with this deck, after getting some of the cards I need for it. I've made some drastic changes after playing to adress some serious problems the deck had. (Also, I haven't been able to craft Zola yet, so that has had some impact in the deck.)
-1 Zola the Gorgon +1 Spellbreaker - I don't have Zola yet, so I'm keeping a spellbreaker instead. After playing the deck, I realized that I didn't need Zola to do an OTK with Grumble. I can always find another copy of grumble with a Servant of Kalimos. Zola would probably be more reliable, but they'll do for the time being.
-1 Brann Bronzebeard +1 Lightning Storm - I don't have Brann yet, and I desperately needed something more potent to clear the board with, because Maelstrom portal wasn't cutting it. I might consider Elemental Destruction, but I'm a bit hesitant to put a card with overload (5) in a deck which is already pretty slow.
-2 Maelstrom Portal +2 Fire Elemental - I cut mp because it was nowhere near powerful enough. I'm not saying that MP is a bad card, because in the right deck it's excellent. In this deck, however, the last thing that I would ever want in this deck is more things taking up board space, especially 1 drops. Hopefully the fire elementals are self-explanatory.
-1 Earth Elemental -1 Devolve +2 Rumbling Elemental - I cut one of my earth elementals because I had too many late-game cards. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but doesn't really work in this deck. I also cut my devolve since it wasn't really solving my issue with aggro decks, since it was more suited to taking down one or two big minions, which I can already do with other cards in my deck. In place of those two I added in a Rumbling elemental. In an early concept for this deck I actually had some rumbling elementals, but I cut them for one reason or another. Turns out I vastly underestimated them. Since the majority of minions in my deck have battlecries, it's about as good as a Knife Juggler.
-1 Spirit Echo +1 Glacial Shard - I don't have spirit echo yet, simple as that. I've been flip-flopping between glacial shards and Elven Archers.
I've also been considering some other cards to deal with a major issue that the deck has; we need bigger minions. our biggest minions right now are earth elementals, Kalimos, Grumble, Fireguard destroyers, And Fire elementals. That sounds decent on paper, but then you remember that we're in a meta full of huge minions, and our deck right now is mostly filled with minions whose sole purpose is their battlecry. They don't really do much after that, other than try – and often fail – to trade with enemy minions. I've had a few ideas as to a couple cards that could remedy this: The Mistcaller, Thrall, Deathseer, or Evolve. I don't have any of those cards, and I was wondering if they would be worthwhile in this deck. If they are, what should I cut for them?
So other than the Rumbling Elemental and I guess the potential for bouncing it back, is there a reason that you're running the Spellbreaker over Hex? I would think that especially against Warlock, Hex would be better so they can't get their demons back or cube them. Devolve could also help with this as well as Paladins, or even Inner Fire Priests. Running Hex (even two of them) would help with your big minion issue since you can remove them a lot more effectively that way instead of trading stuff into it. Also, Healing Rain could be an option to strengthen your board after trades.
From my experience playing a similar Jade Elemental Shaman list, if played right, the deck should already perform decently against Control/Combo decks, with Jades to outvalue the opponent, and a ton of bursting power (eg. Murmuring Elemental +
What's more difficult is the matchup against hyper-aggro decks. Personally, I ran Tar Creeper, Tol'vir Stoneshaper and Stonehill Defender(Shaman has a lot of strong Taunts), and found it to be quite effective. You could also consider running Hot Spring Guardian for healing.
I also don't think you should cut Jade Lightning or Aya Blackpaw. Jade Lightning is a great removal that also contributes to spawning Jade Golems, while Aya Blackpaw is simply too good in any Jade deck to exclude (especially since you already have it).
hmmm i run the zola, grumble, kalimos combo in my jade shaman deck. i use the current popular jade shaman deck but i replace the jinyu waterspeakers with kalimos and zola, i can pull off this combo in maybe 30% of control matchups and otherwise it's quite a strong deck. i find that the jade and murmuring elementals with grumble are usually enough to not stress about finding a kalimos proc, while any more elementals would either weaken the jade package or diminish the healing/removal of the deck. if the combo doesnt look like its a go, then zola and grumble become useful for getting more jades. that being said the combo is extremely satisfying, and usually a surprise for my opponant.
i like this deck a lot, its probably the most fun ive had in kobolds :)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I haven't actually played with this deck, since I don't quite have all the cards for it yet. I would like some feedback before I invest too much dust into this. (It's really expensive!)
The core strategy here is Zola the Gorgon+Grumble, Worldshaker, Which can get me tons of damage when combined with our damaging battlecries and Brann Bronzebeard.
Thanks for your feedback so far. I've not been able to test out this ceck yet so none of it's really set in stone, but here's the basic play:
Step One: Draw the following from your deck: Fire Plume Harbinger, Zola the Gorgon, and Grumble, Worldshaker. You can use some Coldlight Oracles if necessary. Once you draw Grumble, you can play your Fireplume Harbinger. In the meantime, you have to maintain control over the board with your other minions.
Step Two: Use Zola on the Fire Plume Harbinger. Next turn, you play Grumble. On the same turn (if possible), summon Zola and gain a spare copy of Grumble.
Step Three: Assuming they don't take out Grumble, play your second grumble. This puts a version of Grumble in your hand that costs 1 mana.
Step Four: you'll want to use your Fire Plume Harbinger. The vast majority of minions in this deck are classified as Elementals, so when you summon a Harbinger after Grumbling, you'll get yourself a hand full of free elementals.
Step Five: Since Grumble is an elemental, the fact that you've played him last turn activates all your elemental battlecries. Summon all the useful Battlecry Minions from your hand, and then summon your spare Grumble, who now costs zero. The only loss of mana that you should have at this point is from any other minions that Grumble didn't return to your hand. You can also (optionally) summon Zola to get a spare Grumble. It'll cost 6, but it's better than the chain breaking entirely.
Changelog
Revision 1-
-1 Blubber Baron +1 Devolve
-2 Air Elemental +2 Jade Lightning
-2 Stone Sentinel +2 Earth Elemental
-2 Totem Golem +2 Fire Plume Harbinger
Revision 2-
-2 Mana Tide Totem +2 Coldlight Oracle
Revision 3-
-1 Aya Blackpaw +1 Spirit Echo
Revision 4-
-1 Zola the Gorgon +1 Spellbreaker
-1 Brann Bronzebeard +1 Lightning Storm
-2 Maelstrom Portal +2 Fire Elemental
-1 Earth Elemental -1 Devolve +2 Rumbling Elemental
-1 Spirit Echo +1 Glacial Shard
So is the plan then just to use Zola for a second Grumble or is there some wombo combo that lets you infinitely use him? Fortunately, I have all the cards on this list so I may goof around with it and see what I can make of it.
Grumble + Brann does not return cards twice, similar to Brann + Brewmasters wouldn't return cards twice.
Fire Plume Harbingers seem like essential cards, especially with Brann. But then again, any time I've play-tested them, I can never seem to get enough board control before using them, the tempo is really hard to balance before getting a big FPH turn off. Air Elementals could easily be cut from this deck, maybe one Fireguard Destroyer too? I would also suggest cutting Blubber Baron, which is an extremely situational card. It's hard to get any kind of value from BB, especially with so many late game removal tools to get rid of him when he gets played anyway.
Maybe swap out Aya and Blubber for two Thing From Belows or something similar. You have enough totems to get a decent discount on those. They don't have battlecry synergy, but they're just really solid minions. And they have decent bodies for trading before bringing them back to hand with Grumble if it worked out.
I'm super curious to try this deck and see what happens. There's a great deck for Grumble somewhere, the Grumble Unicorn deck. Just no one has found it yet.
Also, with respect to your questions:
1. Unsure. I'm guessing not since Brewmaster with Brann doesn't double return something
2. I would cut the Air Elementals. Too many dude pallies in wild that can make this card near useless. I'm also not sold on the Murmuring Elementals. Perhaps just one might make the most sense
3/4. Jade Lightning definitely. This deck will benefit most from Jade interactions IMO and I would even recommend adding them in addition to Aya. I'm not a huge Totem Golem fan but I can see why it would be included, while Stone Sentinel is probably not worth the slot. I've never played with Blubber Baron but I'm afraid the requirement of having it in your hand first to benefit might be restrictive. I would probably try to make room for a Devolve or two as they counter Cubelocks, Buff Pallies and Deathrattle-based decks. Ancestral Knowledge is an excellent late game draw spell but I'm not 100% certain it's necessary.
Made a few revisions to the deck based on your suggestions, and clarified the strategy in the main post.
Edit: Had an idea about the combo, went into more detail on the main post
Edit: Exchanged Aya for Spirit Echo.
[Sorry for the necro, hope this is a good reason to do so]
Okay guys, I've finally gotten a chance to play around with this deck, after getting some of the cards I need for it. I've made some drastic changes after playing to adress some serious problems the deck had. (Also, I haven't been able to craft Zola yet, so that has had some impact in the deck.)
-1 Zola the Gorgon +1 Spellbreaker - I don't have Zola yet, so I'm keeping a spellbreaker instead. After playing the deck, I realized that I didn't need Zola to do an OTK with Grumble. I can always find another copy of grumble with a Servant of Kalimos. Zola would probably be more reliable, but they'll do for the time being.
-1 Brann Bronzebeard +1 Lightning Storm - I don't have Brann yet, and I desperately needed something more potent to clear the board with, because Maelstrom portal wasn't cutting it. I might consider Elemental Destruction, but I'm a bit hesitant to put a card with overload (5) in a deck which is already pretty slow.
-2 Maelstrom Portal +2 Fire Elemental - I cut mp because it was nowhere near powerful enough. I'm not saying that MP is a bad card, because in the right deck it's excellent. In this deck, however, the last thing that I would ever want in this deck is more things taking up board space, especially 1 drops. Hopefully the fire elementals are self-explanatory.
-1 Earth Elemental -1 Devolve +2 Rumbling Elemental - I cut one of my earth elementals because I had too many late-game cards. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but doesn't really work in this deck. I also cut my devolve since it wasn't really solving my issue with aggro decks, since it was more suited to taking down one or two big minions, which I can already do with other cards in my deck. In place of those two I added in a Rumbling elemental. In an early concept for this deck I actually had some rumbling elementals, but I cut them for one reason or another. Turns out I vastly underestimated them. Since the majority of minions in my deck have battlecries, it's about as good as a Knife Juggler.
-1 Spirit Echo +1 Glacial Shard - I don't have spirit echo yet, simple as that. I've been flip-flopping between glacial shards and Elven Archers.
I've also been considering some other cards to deal with a major issue that the deck has; we need bigger minions. our biggest minions right now are earth elementals, Kalimos, Grumble, Fireguard destroyers, And Fire elementals. That sounds decent on paper, but then you remember that we're in a meta full of huge minions, and our deck right now is mostly filled with minions whose sole purpose is their battlecry. They don't really do much after that, other than try – and often fail – to trade with enemy minions. I've had a few ideas as to a couple cards that could remedy this: The Mistcaller, Thrall, Deathseer, or Evolve. I don't have any of those cards, and I was wondering if they would be worthwhile in this deck. If they are, what should I cut for them?
So other than the Rumbling Elemental and I guess the potential for bouncing it back, is there a reason that you're running the Spellbreaker over Hex? I would think that especially against Warlock, Hex would be better so they can't get their demons back or cube them. Devolve could also help with this as well as Paladins, or even Inner Fire Priests. Running Hex (even two of them) would help with your big minion issue since you can remove them a lot more effectively that way instead of trading stuff into it. Also, Healing Rain could be an option to strengthen your board after trades.
From my experience playing a similar Jade Elemental Shaman list, if played right, the deck should already perform decently against Control/Combo decks, with Jades to outvalue the opponent, and a ton of bursting power (eg. Murmuring Elemental +
Fire Elemental/BlazecallerKalimos, Primal Lord to face).
What's more difficult is the matchup against hyper-aggro decks. Personally, I ran Tar Creeper, Tol'vir Stoneshaper and Stonehill Defender(Shaman has a lot of strong Taunts), and found it to be quite effective. You could also consider running Hot Spring Guardian for healing.
I also don't think you should cut Jade Lightning or Aya Blackpaw. Jade Lightning is a great removal that also contributes to spawning Jade Golems, while Aya Blackpaw is simply too good in any Jade deck to exclude (especially since you already have it).
hmmm i run the zola, grumble, kalimos combo in my jade shaman deck. i use the current popular jade shaman deck but i replace the jinyu waterspeakers with kalimos and zola, i can pull off this combo in maybe 30% of control matchups and otherwise it's quite a strong deck. i find that the jade and murmuring elementals with grumble are usually enough to not stress about finding a kalimos proc, while any more elementals would either weaken the jade package or diminish the healing/removal of the deck. if the combo doesnt look like its a go, then zola and grumble become useful for getting more jades. that being said the combo is extremely satisfying, and usually a surprise for my opponant.
i like this deck a lot, its probably the most fun ive had in kobolds :)