After the BRM cards, I am still disappointed in the outcome for my favorite class. However, one aspect of the class bothers me is the play of haunted creeper. This 2 mana drop minion is seen in nearly EVERY shaman deck. What about swapping it for zap-o-matic? The early shaman of shaman is very passive. and Haunted creeper really isnt a threating drop for a 1/2. Dropping of 3/2 with windfury can be much more aggressive and result in a better choice for shaman openings. In addition to the use of pilotted shredder, powermace can also be of interest in the shaman deck.
Needless to say, I am experimenting with standard shaman decks and have swapped out creeper for whirling. There are too many nice combos with staples such as flametongue, rockbiter, and even powermace if you choose so.
Most importantly, whirling can still be a threat late game - you can drop that and next turn combo with rockbiter for 12 hero dmg. Haunted creeper, not so much.
People use Haunted Creeper because of its stickyness, not because it is a threat. Yes whirling zap-o-matic can be a serious threat in the early game but it can be removed leaving you with a useless flametongue totem in hand.
Edit: Personally I prefer whirling zap-o-matic over Haunted creeper but that is only because I don't think flametongue totem is that useful at the moment.
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You are correct, however, I just dont think creeper is really all that useful. I feel as if shamans are stuck into using it and they try and find value by using totem or defender on the two 1/1 drops. This just takes up way too much card space in a deck IMO...
There are cases where creeper can be better than whirling zap-o-matic but that depends entirely on your deck.
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Creeper is a value card, Zapomatic is a power card.
Creeper is effectively a 3/4 body for 2 mana that takes multiple efforts to kill. Combine it with totem and it will do 6 more damage, or wolf for 3 more damage. That is a lot of value from a 2 drop. Creeper is used to control the board in early game.
Zapomatic does 6 damage a turn but with only 2 health. If you can defend it it does the damage of a 6 drop with the potential of much more with combos. It is not however any good for controlling the board because it has very little durability. I use zapomatic like hotcakes in Arena, and I use it in decks designed to go face along with cheap taunts.
Creeper is used in any deck that wants to control the early board into midgame. (or hunter who uses it for that and partly because its a beast as well)
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Zapomatic does 0 damage cuz it dies. creeper survives and can do damage
It is sticky, not powerful. When was one damage enough in the late game? It also doesn't kill a Knife Juggler or Northshire Cleric. Creeper is an amazing value card, but it is far from being powerful itself.
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I invite you to play the hell out of zap-o-matic or whatever "staple" feels wrong for you.
Creeper bad matchups only include atm Priest and Patron Warrior, but the thing is, if everyone keeps playing the same 26 cards in their shaman decks there will never be any improvement.
I personally hate Haunted Creeper and have never understood why people love it so much. I've always thought it was one of the absolute worst cards from naxx. Of course I refuse to play zoo or huntard, which are the only other two decks it really gets played in. That said, Shaman is one of the better classes for it as it can actually turn it into a semi-threat with Flametongue. I mostly just roll my eyes when someone plays one otherwise (especially if they're some roleplayer with crafted golden creepers DansGame).
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"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear turns into a cat and eats you." - Anonymous Druid
It's an excellent card that fits well in the deck. It's not entirely a dead draw late game either because it enables you to keep a (admittedly weak) board after a Flamestrike. Of course, it won't provide as much value as a Piloted Shredder but you are only paying 2 mana for the card.
creeper is hands down the best minion in the shaman deck. Against aggressive board classes - creeper is out of this world.
Imagine following fairly common scenario.
Your warlock opponent goes first, and plays a flame imp. You can choose any 2 cards to deal with on 2 mana.
a) you coin out whirling zap. It trades with flame imp, dies - you proceed to be way behind on board. Nothing was gained and the best case is you can trade with his turn 2 minion - with something like rockbiter.
b) you coin out creeper, either he trades or he doesnt. If he trades, you now have 2x 1/1s on the field- you can trade and you have a 1/1. If youre holding 1 damage, you can chose to finish it off. If he has played a knife juggler, you can kill it with flametongue totem.
If he doesnt kill it, you have something on the board. - if you have a dire wolf / abusive / flametongue. you can trade and keep 2x 1/1s
I personally prefer Chow. I feel that chow turn 1 allows you to keep up on the board and not just killing his 1 health minions after they have already done their damage, although the big issue is chow is a big ole dead drop later in the game, creeper far far less so.
For Shaman, its only really good if you are running a lot of totem enablers. As someone who loves Bloodlust shaman, it is an amazing card. I like Zap-o-matic, but its mostly just removal bait. Great for a mech deck that has lots of removal targets (Mechwarper, Shredder) but kinda bad in something that you want to keep on the board.
This card is excellent in mech shaman, which might actually be the most competitive shaman archetype out there right now. It has performed very well at tournaments as of late and took Savjz to rank 4 at the ESL hearthstone "Play it cool" f2p ladder climb competition last week.
After the BRM cards, I am still disappointed in the outcome for my favorite class. However, one aspect of the class bothers me is the play of haunted creeper. This 2 mana drop minion is seen in nearly EVERY shaman deck. What about swapping it for zap-o-matic? The early shaman of shaman is very passive. and Haunted creeper really isnt a threating drop for a 1/2. Dropping of 3/2 with windfury can be much more aggressive and result in a better choice for shaman openings. In addition to the use of pilotted shredder, powermace can also be of interest in the shaman deck.
Needless to say, I am experimenting with standard shaman decks and have swapped out creeper for whirling. There are too many nice combos with staples such as flametongue, rockbiter, and even powermace if you choose so.
Most importantly, whirling can still be a threat late game - you can drop that and next turn combo with rockbiter for 12 hero dmg. Haunted creeper, not so much.
People use Haunted Creeper because of its stickyness, not because it is a threat. Yes whirling zap-o-matic can be a serious threat in the early game but it can be removed leaving you with a useless flametongue totem in hand.
Edit: Personally I prefer whirling zap-o-matic over Haunted creeper but that is only because I don't think flametongue totem is that useful at the moment.
If you look closely, you can see this is a signature and not a comment. Why are you reading? Stop reading this. Did you read this too? Dang you must like reading.
You are correct, however, I just dont think creeper is really all that useful. I feel as if shamans are stuck into using it and they try and find value by using totem or defender on the two 1/1 drops. This just takes up way too much card space in a deck IMO...
There are cases where creeper can be better than whirling zap-o-matic but that depends entirely on your deck.
If you look closely, you can see this is a signature and not a comment. Why are you reading? Stop reading this. Did you read this too? Dang you must like reading.
Creeper is a value card, Zapomatic is a power card.
Creeper is effectively a 3/4 body for 2 mana that takes multiple efforts to kill. Combine it with totem and it will do 6 more damage, or wolf for 3 more damage. That is a lot of value from a 2 drop. Creeper is used to control the board in early game.
Zapomatic does 6 damage a turn but with only 2 health. If you can defend it it does the damage of a 6 drop with the potential of much more with combos. It is not however any good for controlling the board because it has very little durability. I use zapomatic like hotcakes in Arena, and I use it in decks designed to go face along with cheap taunts.
Creeper is used in any deck that wants to control the early board into midgame. (or hunter who uses it for that and partly because its a beast as well)
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Or argue with me about games on Qallout, the video debate site.
It is sticky, not powerful. When was one damage enough in the late game? It also doesn't kill a Knife Juggler or Northshire Cleric. Creeper is an amazing value card, but it is far from being powerful itself.
If you look closely, you can see this is a signature and not a comment. Why are you reading? Stop reading this. Did you read this too? Dang you must like reading.
I invite you to play the hell out of zap-o-matic or whatever "staple" feels wrong for you.
Creeper bad matchups only include atm Priest and Patron Warrior, but the thing is, if everyone keeps playing the same 26 cards in their shaman decks there will never be any improvement.
My comments refer mostly to the wild format.
I personally hate Haunted Creeper and have never understood why people love it so much. I've always thought it was one of the absolute worst cards from naxx. Of course I refuse to play zoo or huntard, which are the only other two decks it really gets played in. That said, Shaman is one of the better classes for it as it can actually turn it into a semi-threat with Flametongue. I mostly just roll my eyes when someone plays one otherwise (especially if they're some roleplayer with crafted golden creepers DansGame).
"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear turns into a cat and eats you." - Anonymous Druid
I run Haunted Creeper because I run Flametongue Totem and Defender of Argus. They have very good synergy with Haunted Creeper's deathrattle. Also, face hunter you can remove a Leper Gnome and then a Knife Juggler (or other 2 health minion) with the Spectral Spiders. Other than that, it's sticky for most classes to deal with: mages will be loathe to Frostbolt it, druids won't want to waste a Wrath etc.
It's an excellent card that fits well in the deck. It's not entirely a dead draw late game either because it enables you to keep a (admittedly weak) board after a Flamestrike. Of course, it won't provide as much value as a Piloted Shredder but you are only paying 2 mana for the card.
I personally prefer Chow. I feel that chow turn 1 allows you to keep up on the board and not just killing his 1 health minions after they have already done their damage, although the big issue is chow is a big ole dead drop later in the game, creeper far far less so.
For Shaman, its only really good if you are running a lot of totem enablers. As someone who loves Bloodlust shaman, it is an amazing card. I like Zap-o-matic, but its mostly just removal bait. Great for a mech deck that has lots of removal targets (Mechwarper, Shredder) but kinda bad in something that you want to keep on the board.
This card is excellent in mech shaman, which might actually be the most competitive shaman archetype out there right now. It has performed very well at tournaments as of late and took Savjz to rank 4 at the ESL hearthstone "Play it cool" f2p ladder climb competition last week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsAxvr_etUM