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So I'm seeing lots of talk that Neptulon is actually good in regular Shaman since it's a War Golem with a built-in +4, but has anyone tested it?
We already have plenty of late-game beaters, most of which have an instant impact on the board. This doesn't (plus it makes BGH live.)
Neptulon really helps the long game for the most part. While I wouldn't trust it to impact the board, I have had it give me charge minions multiple times which can help stabilize or just immediately push damage. I made a spell burst/ control deck with rag/nep/al akir and a bunch of spells. It does wonders vs other control decks I still need to tweak it against aggressive decks, but neptulon has been great. Even in the soon-to-be-stock murloc deck he's nice because he's a top deck into gas. Typically, though, I would play him as my last threat after trading out the opponents removal.
For those doubting DuneMaul Shaman, I am guessing you just don't understand how to use it? Maybe you do now that it has actually come out, but I put one of these in my Crusher deck instead of the healing three drop, and have had amazing success with it.
Sometimes you can take a chance and drop it at turn 3 (coined) or 4 (depends on class you play against, wouldn't recommend this against mage with frost bolt plus ping), but essentially, you want to have board control. And you want to be able to clear the board before attacking face. It isn't that hard to set up as a shaman, and oh_my_god can this thing crush face. With no buffs at all, it hits face for 10...TEN!! I have dropped double rock biters on it, and once had him sitting next to a flametongue with one rock biter.
I have played 10 games with him, and of the 8 he appeared on the board, he got to attack 6 times. He attacked face with windfury 5 of those 6 times. The other one was conscious gamble. Even it paid off because he mis-attacked face first behind three minions (including a tazdingo) then actually hit the tazdingo, destroying it and still living.
Sur, it won't always work out perfectly, but this has been MVP. I got it and two of the shaman 2-drop windfury minions from my 3 packs. So it isn't even a fully new deck with all new GVG cards. M.V.P.
After a bunch of games with the new cards available, here's some personal impressions:
Neptulon: nuclear weapons grade bomb legendary confirmed (though I never understood in the first place how anyone could consider this card bad). It puts insane pressure on the opponent and is impossible to deal with in clean fashion. Awesome play animations to boot.
Annoy-o-Tron, Powermace and Arcane Nullifier X-21 will be the future triforce of midrange and control shaman builds.
Shaman has enough minions that "demands to be dealt with" in constructed. Shaman needs minions that stick around and get buffed. Zap with the 2 health and no deathrattle just doesn't cut it. Dunemaul has the same problem.
Neptulon isn't as bad as people think, but the 7-mana spot will be taken by Dr. Boom and/or Troggzor instead.
Vitality Totem came in too late. It would've been the best card when freeze mage was still a thing.
Really the only good card is Crackle, but I'm afraid that's not enough to reincarnate the dead Shaman.
Eh, I like what shaman has to offer now. I've always preferred the control/spell burst strategy to the class and it's gotten better now. PreGVG the deck had a problem with stabilizing with too little hp and being in danger of topdeck or steady shot death. While the meta is still shifting, Vitality totem does solve that issue no matter what deck pops up. I'm still as sad about Crackle as I was when it was revealed, too many times I get the "only 25% chance to get worst case" scenario to happen. But it is still Lightning bolt 3/4 in the deck.
While i'm not the typically tempo/aggro player, there is value in overloading (ooooh see what i did there) with must-remove threats and I'm very interested in seeing what mech decks come out for Shaman in the coming weeks.
Neptulon is a lot of fun. Something I hadn't thought of before is that it can give you more than 1 of "Ol' Murkeye" (if that's the legendary murloc's name). I got 2 last night off of him. To be fair they stack worse than they do with just 1 drop murlocs, but it's a cool interaction.
In general, I feel Shaman has some much needed tools to really play around with. It has always been good verses the bigger decks and now has some help (even from neutrals) against the aggro decks. So let's not call it dead yet, also it was never truly dead outside of rank. Worlds had plenty of shamans!
PS. This is the shaman archetype I'm enjoying the most atm (close to my old build). In major testing
Yea I'm liking it so far. Powermace has been holding it down and I've been pleasantly surprised my crackle and neptulon. Funny enough, zapomatic is the card that's underperformed the most so far, it either does REALLY good, or gets cleared immediately. But I guess that's the nature of a card like that. Been messing around with a midrange mech shaman build and it just feels good playing a different kind of shaman. Still testing, but I've liked how it's played so far.
Not sure about the arcane nullifier, they're really good if I get a powermace on 3, but on their own I'm not sold on them yet.
What rank is everyone playing at? How is Shaman anything but dead right now?
I've never been so frustrated with Shaman since freeze mage. I'll just stop playing until Shaman is playable again.
I feel Shaman is playable again since control warrior and handlock are so popular right now. Shamans only bad matchups that are sorta popular are priest (hasn't gotten better in gvg and is in a slump) and hunter (a lot less common now but still shamans worst matchup for me).
vs Control is not the problem. The problem is the lack of response to the new early board presence from other classes. The
LeperClockwork Gnome for example clears totems and leads to a turn 3 4/4. Now even Paladin gets a very strong early game. All Shaman got were good mid-late game cards like Crackle and Neptulon. I took a hint from the pros and put Zombie Chow in the deck, which helped out somewhat. It's still rough most of the time. My favorite classes are Shaman, Rogue, and Priest, and this expansion has been brutal.on the flip side, playing it with mechs, can kill turn 4 because of the whirling zap o matic with only a little help
I have moved up to rank 5 with a burst shaman using all the magic spells in the shaman's arsenal except forked lightning. I also use a violet teacher, a handful of legendaries (Dr Boom, Al'akir, Thalnos and Toshley) and a Bloodlust (which doesn't have to be the finisher, but can be). Having both lightning bolts and crackles, plus a single lava Burst is what sets this deck apart, but also is what gives it such incredible flexibility.
And it was the addition of crackle made this deck possible, as the most common way to win is to control board and face until you get enough magic to melt them to zero. They never see it coming from a Shaman (being magiced to death), and it is cheap to thalnos, lava burst, crackle x2 and/or lightning bolt...whatever you have. We're talking 12 damage minimum most times with no use of Malygos, even with no Thalnos, 12 face damage is pretty easy.
Other times I control the board with magic and ferals, then overwhelm them later with fire elementals, Toshley, Dr Boom and Al'Akir with various buffed small guys and totems, bloodlust being icing on the cake.
Sometimes the spare parts from Toshley give me crazy value, like being able to drop and attack with Al'Akir, then stealth him, then next turn attack twice, and use toshley's death spare part to pull Al'Akir back to my hand and drop him and attack again...sure, doesn't happen every time, but any +1 atk, freeze enemy minion or my other favorite, swap the atk and HP on Al'Akir (5 dmg x2 before any rock biter or flametongue) is also awesome.
I find Shaman wonderful currently. The deck feels it might creep higher than 5, but I just don't have that time, being a working family man and what not.
Sounds very nice, i have seen this as well with a Malygos deck take me down from 20+ hp. The crackle spell has really aided Shaman nicely.
I ju
I just had someone use that on me, I was a mech Shaman, in complete board control, with like one card in my had, lots of big minions- and they ancestored called Malygos, burnt everything down with one AOE, and then killed me with lightning bolts and crackles the next turn(I had 27 health). The worst thing ever.
Why on Earth is this topic still pinned?