Hearthpwn

I've been trying to learn more about arena and building better decks for it. My general understanding is that board control is one the key components for a good arena deck, on top of having card advantage through discover mechanics and a good curve. Would anyone (especially Shaman players) be willing to evaluate my arena deck and give me some pointers on its content (even just in a reply, but the poll would be great too, if you'd be kind enough to take the time)? I tried to pick the cards that would provide decent board control and presence. Thanks!

A few bad cards Like Ancestral Spirit, Frost Shock and War Golem, it might lack of board clear like Lightning Storm or Elemental Destruction and it has too many 1 drops/spells. I think Flamestrike will really hurt you but against any other class you could win if you curve out nicely. I'd say 6-7 wins.
The problem with shaman is that his Hero Power doesn't really impact the board in a meaningful way like the ping of mage for instance.
It's going to be a very good after the release though.

Quote from Nihls >>

A few bad cards Like Ancestral Spirit, Frost Shock and War Golem, it might lack of board clear like Lightning Storm or Elemental Destruction and it has too many 1 drops/spells. I think Flamestrike will really hurt you but against any other class you could win if you curve out nicely. I'd say 6-7 wins.
The problem with shaman is that his Hero Power doesn't really impact the board in a meaningful way like the ping of mage for instance.
It's going to be a very good after the release though.

Ancestral Spirit is just too slow, it's not the worst card but you'll never really get to pick on which minion you play it because arena is leaning towards minion trade, minions don't stay too long on the board. Yeah sometimes you'll get a crazy good minion to stay on the board more than one turn and then it's a great play, but most of the times you'll just keep it in your hand during the entire game or just use it on any 2 or 3 drop you can find to fit your curve. Might aswell just play a Shredder or a Harvester.

Ancestral Spirit is bad because it is a very situational card, and the effect is not great either. It takes up a card slot and is a dead card in your hand more than half the time as you never play it early, and playing it late you need to have a good target on board or enough mana in hand to spirit the same turn. For these situational cards the effect has better be damn good (e.g. seal of champions, velen's chosen) for it to be good, which ancestral spirit is not. Most of the time you draw it you don't have a good target or the situation isn't right or it doesn't help in a meaningful way, and you would rather draw something else instead.

A reasonably fine Ancestral spirit play is you play Fire elemental and then ancestral spirit it. It takes 2 cards and 8 mana to do. If you do not ancestral spirit the creature on the same turn you might not have it around the next turn. A lot of the time it acts like a divine shield for attack and I don't think anyone considers hand of protection to be a great card.

If you compare this to Savannah Highmane, that is also a 6/5 and deathrattle two 2/2s for only one card and 6 mana. In the late game you are less worried about mana and you probably want to have bigger cards in hand instead of this rather weak value buff.

Ancestral spirit is sick on very specific cards such as sunwalker. It has taunt so it can't be ignored (this is very important), and a divine shield upon regeneration. Considering the limited number of taunt and/or divine shield creatures this is a rather low probability event.

Quote from Nihls >>

Ancestral Spirit is just too slow, it's not the worst card but you'll never really get to pick on which minion you play it because arena is leaning towards minion trade, minions don't stay too long on the board. Yeah sometimes you'll get a crazy good minion to stay on the board more than one turn and then it's a great play, but most of the times you'll just keep it in your hand during the entire game or just use it on any 2 or 3 drop you can find to fit your curve. Might aswell just play a Shredder or a Harvester.

Quote from wrathss >>

Ancestral Spirit is bad because it is a very situational card, and the effect is not great either. It takes up a card slot and is a dead card in your hand more than half the time as you never play it early, and playing it late you need to have a good target on board or enough mana in hand to spirit the same turn.

Ancestral spirit is sick on very specific cards such as sunwalker. It has taunt so it can't be ignored (this is very important), and a divine shield upon regeneration. Considering the limited number of taunt and/or divine shield creatures this is a rather low probability event.

AS is basically a targeted Redemption.

Sorta.... It has value but it's situational.

We don't know your other choices, so AS might have been the best choice out of the 3 cards anyways.

You'll be laughing if you can play AS on an Earth Elemental, Sunwalker, Sludge Belcher, etc. Unfortunately this deck doesn't have any strong targets for AS so it's value goes down for sure.

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And honestly your deck looks above average.

Outside of board clears your deck has everything. Minion buffs to utilize totems, lots of targeted removal, lots of reach, card draw with Cult Master, and some big win conditions (stormwind champ and Muklas Champ).

You could ask for more but that is being unrealistic.