Thrall, Deathseer is one of the few DK's that I'm missing. People have always said that DK's are generally a safe dust investment since each class always find some way to use their DK. However, Thrall, Deathseer focuses on the evolve archetype, and with some of the most powerful evolve support cards being rotated out, like Doppelgangster and Evolve itself, won't the shaman DK become obscure? Given that the evolve archetype can hardly compete even now, without some really powerful new evolve cards being added in the next rotation, which I find unlikely, I see Thrall, Deathseer becoming trash tier.
Does anyone see any silver lining? Am I missing something?
I know, that people will advice to wait for the next expansion, as there might be some support for the evolve decks, but I have always hated this based on randomness mechanic, since people started playing it in competitive decks. And the reason why I hate it - it's because it ruines shaman as a class. Instead of getting proper control tools (AoEs, draws, early game) or tools, which go with the overload mechanic, which make you think how to play optimally and how to carefully plan your future turns, the devs just gave shaman a lazy way to cheat out big minions. With the chance of risk, of course. But why do we need that stuff? Why not just give us consistent cards?
The DKs are good, because they answered the weaknesses of the different classes, they can be put in different decks and sometimes offer a win-condition: Gul'Dan - a slow one, but he offers 1) sustain, 2) board control, 3) immediate -//- presence, 4) nice damage to the face. Anduin - reach. A powerful Twisting Nether - effect, with ways to sqeeze out some damage. Jaina - heal, board presence and -//- control. You actually have to be careful not to give them an additional 3/6 freezing/healing body. Mal'furion - stall and a Trueheart upgrade to the HP. Rexxar - draw! (and you are getting additional resources), a small AoE effect.
Valeera - Extra card resources, she requires you to plan which ones you want to copy. Gaining an extra turn = ensuring you to execute that special combo.
Garrosh - kinda underwhelming, HP punishes the player the more you stay as the DK, but it's notable to mention, that this card can be used in tempo decks, as well in some kind of combo ones. An immediate board impact. Uther - in theory an additional win-condition. A Trueheart upgrade to the HP, immediate board impact. Thrall - conditional. He requires you to have board presence. Once you lose it and once you start praying to RNGeesus for top-decking the needed cards, things will go downhill for you. This just wasn't the card shaman needed, it goes in few deck-types and probably in fewer ones next expansion.
I know, that people will advice to wait for the next expansion, as there might be some support for the evolve decks, but I have always hated this based on randomness mechanic, since people started playing it in competitive decks. And the reason why I hate it - it's because it ruines shaman as a class. Instead of getting proper control tools (AoEs, draws, early game) or tools, which go with the overload mechanic, which make you think how to play optimally and how to carefully plan your future turns, the devs just gave shaman a lazy way to cheat out big minions. With the chance of risk, of course. But why do we need that stuff? Why not just give us consistent cards?
The DKs are good, because they answered the weaknesses of the different classes, they can be put in different decks and sometimes offer a win-condition: Gul'Dan - a slow one, but he offers 1) sustain, 2) board control, 3) immediate -//- presence, 4) nice damage to the face. Anduin - reach. A powerful Twisting Nether - effect, with ways to sqeeze out some damage. Jaina - heal, board presence and -//- control. You actually have to be careful not to give them an additional 3/6 freezing/healing body. Mal'furion - stall and a Trueheart upgrade to the HP. Rexxar - draw! (and you are getting additional resources), a small AoE effect.
Valeera - Extra card resources, she requires you to plan which ones you want to copy. Gaining an extra turn = ensuring you to execute that special combo.
Garrosh - kinda underwhelming, HP punishes the player the more you stay as the DK, but it's notable to mention, that this card can be used in tempo decks, as well in some kind of combo ones. An immediate board impact. Uther - in theory an additional win-condition. A Trueheart upgrade to the HP, immediate board impact. Thrall - conditional. He requires you to have board presence. Once you lose it and once you start praying to RNGeesus for top-decking the needed cards, things will go downhill for you. This just wasn't the card shaman needed, it goes in few deck-types and probably in less next expansion.
Dopple Gangster isn't the only card going to Wild that will make Evolve Shaman meh. Nerubian Prophet I believe it's name is (6 mana 4-4) is a Old Gods card. That is a very underrated card in Evolve Shaman so that going is a huge blow, despite the fact that no one uses it in Evolve Shaman nowadays and is mainly a budget or backup card to use.
Amm, Corridor Creeper was a better inclusion than Nerubian Prophet. The last one is without a doubt a budget backup plan, but no one played him, because he was pretty slow and, most importantly, shaman lacks card draw. How can you ensure yourself to find that card at the right time? You just hope.
Nah, if you ask me, the token evolve deck back in Un'Goro was the last we saw from shaman. Since the start of KOFT (or at least for me, who mained control warlock) this deck and class went into oblivion; it couldn't compete in that environment, because it didn't offer anything special. Every other aggro deck had better early and mid-game, the control decks had more ways to deal with the weak tokens. Only if they didn't have an answer by that time, then a possible Bloodlust could have ended the game, but that was pretty much it. By the time you find your evolve combo, the opponent could just snowball with their board - before and after the evergreen nerfs. K&C was just a stamp for the fate of shaman.
Evolve will get new cards, just wait. They will not let that archetype die. It’s too fun.
Hiwever, I’m praying they make the freeze shaman archetype a thing to be reckoned with next expansion. Just a few cards needed to be viable.
I hope so too, I pulled Moorabi twice (second one from the HCT pack, I only dusted the first one after K&C had been released to play it safe, but alas..). However, even if Shaman gets freeze support that's actually good, Moorabi is just so bad, it probably wouldn't even find it's way into a freeze deck.
Even if Shaman gets evolve support, so many cards were released in the K&C expansion with high cost and low stats, that I feel the consistency has just taken a huge hit anyway. Some really bad evolves added into the pool, for example, are Lynessa Sunsorrow, Dragonhatcher, Dragoncaller Alanna, Fungalmancer, Furbolg Mossbinder, and if you think about it, even Bonemare has been added to the 8 cost pool (this is more annoying for Spiteful Summoner priest decks though). There are probably a lot more I haven't thought of, in addition to the bad evolves that already existed such as Ticking Abomination and Anomalus.
Amm, Corridor Creeper was a better inclusion than Nerubian Prophet. The last one is without a doubt a budget backup plan, but no one played him, because he was pretty slow and, most importantly, shaman lacks card draw. How can you ensure yourself to find that card at the right time? You just hope.
Nah, if you ask me, the token evolve deck back in Un'Goro was the last we saw from shaman. Since the start of KOFT (or at least for me, who mained control warlock) this deck and class went into oblivion; it couldn't compete in that environment, because it didn't offet anything special. Every other aggro deck had better early and mid-game, the control decks had more ways to deal with the weak tokens. Only if they didn't have an answer by that time, then a possible Bloodlust could have ended the game, but that was pretty much it. By the time you find your evolve combo, the opponent could just snowball with their board - before and after the evergreen nerfs. K&C was just a stamp for the fate of shaman.
Yea I feel like Evolve Shaman as a whole struggles against most decks.
Going back to Nerubian Prophet, looking back on it, he actually was and still is kinda slow compared to Corrider Creeper, despite it's nerf. If I'm not mistaken, Evolve Shaman acts somewhat like a Recruit Warrior, both require large amounts of board control throughout the game, but in most cases, it can't hold long like a Exodia Mage or Reno deck can.
As you said, Shaman went to the bottom again in Frozen Throne, which makes sense since:
1. Most people would run Evolve Shaman in WILD
2. The only other 2 (or 3 or even 4) decks that were viable for Shaman in either of the formats were Totem and Malygos, and these decks can't really hold up a full game.
Am, ok, I don't play in wild competitively, so I don't know the meta there. But I have an urge to mention aggro shaman - with tunnel troggs, totem golems and crackle.
I also want to mention another thing very fast - Recruit Warrior and Evolve Shaman are nothing alike. The first one doesn't have cheap minions, it doesn't rely on its board in the early game to survive, they have a lot of tools to keep board control, so that they will reach the late-game, when the big stuff start to kick in. The second one however acts like an aggro-ish mid-range deck, which builds up a board gradually. It relies on the board-state to stay in the game - either to try to snowball with it or to keep board control with it. In summary the differences are - 1) you can rarely manage to pull though, when playing from behind; 2) worse draws, 3) you are playing poker and going all in - if we consider your minions as tools to keep board control, then they are super vulnerable to the opponent's answers 4) the irony is that you want to end the game quickly; like you said it can't hold long like other decks do.
Am, ok, I don't play in wild competitively, so I don't know the meta there. But I have an urge to mention aggro shaman - with tunnel troggs, totem golems and crackle.
I also want to mention another thing very fast - Recruit Warrior and Evolve Shaman are nothing alike. The first one doesn't have cheap minions, it doesn't rely on its board in the early game to survive, they have a lot of tools to keep board control, so that they will reach the late-game, when the big stuff start to kick in. The second one however acts like an aggro-ish mid-range deck, which builds up a board gradually. It relies on the board-state to stay in the game - either to try to snowball with it or to keep board control with it. In summary the differences are - 1) you can rarely manage to pull though, when playing from behind; 2) worse draws, 3) you are playing poker and going all in - if we consider your minions as tools to keep board control, then they are super vulnerable to the opponent's answers 4) the irony is that you want to end the game quickly; like you said it can't hold long like other decks do.
There are a few more nice evolve targets remaining, but the real issue may be that Evolve itself is rotating out. Redundancy is a good thing with these types of effects. Losing Evolve means less incentive to include high cost token generators which means less value for the DK card.
And while there's no telling what the expansion will bring, when you look at the remaining Shaman cards, what stands out? To me it's largely Flametongue Totem and Bloodlust. Both cards synergize with the base Shaman hero power.
The DK is far from weak, honestly, I think he is the 3° best one, losing for the brokens warlock and priest, cost only 5 manas, give you 5 armor, transform any useless totem and tokens you have in something much more relevant and change the more useless hero power in game for another much better.
Shaman is dead but don't because the DK but because many classes do almost all he can a lot better.
Play tokens and aggro? Druid, paladin and warlock do the same with much better and fast cards.
Tempo? Rogue and again warlock do this x2 or even x3 times better than shaman, your overload spells are terrible from tempo perspective.
Control? Priest and again warlock have much, much better tools to survive and outvalue the opponent.
Combo? There no combo deck for shaman.
Priest control is hard for any class but the new dragon and mass removal completely destroy shaman decks, so many of them, and, for end any hope of play, Corridor Creeper make Devolve a terrible card.
The DK is far from weak, honestly, I think he is the 3° best one, losing for the brokens warlock and priest, cost only 5 manas, give you 5 armor, transform any useless totem and tokens you have in something much more relevant and change the more useless hero power in game for another much better.
Shaman is dead but don't because the DK but because many classes do almost all he can a lot better.
I guess everyone has their own different opinions.
I'm going to start so - yes, that's correct. Shaman isn't in a tough spot, because the DK is bad. It's because the good cards in the shaman card pool aren't good enough to compete against the more powerful ones from the other classes and in the last 2 expansions shaman got many trash themes - looking at the freeze and the totem ones.
But regarding your ranking of the DK by its power level and placing it on the 3rd spot, well, this is where I want to disagree. And I'm going to repeat it once again - this card lacks flexibility and it doesn't provide anything, which shaman desperately needs - card draws, bigger AoEs or other sort of removals, board presence. It's just a win-more. And I feel you want to argue about the last one, but in reality is - you don't gain new resources, you just convert already existing ones into potentially better ones and that's all.
Yes, this is the cheapest DK of them all, it can be played really early, it can give aggro decks an edge over the opponent by evolving useless tokens into better stated 3-drops, but only IF you have something to evolve into. What I mean is - shaman better finds some sticky minions, which will live enough turns to get hit by the DK's battlecry and HP, because right now it's super easy for the opponent (doesn't matter what arch-type they play) to clear the fragile tokens and to prevent the shaman player to have a smooth curve. Another thing - the DK is good only in the short term, but it can't hold long a whole game. While yes, you are constantly "healing" your minions every time you push the button and thus you are "keeping" board presence, but a snowball effect can occur only then, when you are already winning. I can imagine you are making a trade and then upgrading the minion into a stronger one, which poses a bigger threat than before. You have probably made a 2 for one trade and you are probably going to make even more of those. But if the opponent already has ways to deal with your minions*, then your hero power becomes really slow. You play an X minion, which is also somewhat weak, because you filled your deck with token generating minions!, you are obligated to pay additional 2 mana, in order to buff it, and thus you are left with less possibilities on the same turn. And don't get me started on saying how unreliable the outcome really is. How you may turn an injured overcosted 5/5 minion into a 1/1.
"give you 5 armor" health is super irrelevant. It doesn't contribute to your main strategy.
Nah, the DK is only good for 2-3 turns, after that the nature of shaman and the inconsistency of the evolve mechanic say their thing. That's why don't blame the warlock and the priest DKs for the failure of this card. They are just more flexible and utilitarian.
But they aren't the only ones, I will just share some links and make some conclusions for yourself:
While, yes, there are other worse ones or such, which don't go well with their class (hunter), the shaman DK isn't treated as one of the top-notch ones.
Note *
It's pretty clear how the control decks will deal with your board.
Aggro decks also have their sleeves on their own - Tempo rogue (Slayers, charge + cold blood, sometimes leroy, bonemare); zoo (soulfires, probably doomguards too, bonemares), aggro paladin (they have cheap taunts, tarim).
Take most of what you read here with a grain of salt, aside from the natural weaknesses the card has regardless of before/after rotation, because everyone is shooting in the dark without knowing what the new expansion right after will add.
Judging the effectiveness of a card without knowing what the next 100+ cards will add always confuses me when people bother to give legitimate advice on whether a certain card will or won't be a safe craft/disenchant.
I think the verdict is out; Thrall is trash tier now, and has been completely replaced by Hagatha. Evolve arctheype has been replaced with midrange even decks.
I think the verdict is out; Thrall is trash tier now, and has been completely replaced by Hagatha. Evolve arctheype has been replaced with midrange even decks.
Dont necro 3 month old thread, if you want to start a conversation, feel free to create a new one ;-)
Thrall, Deathseer is one of the few DK's that I'm missing. People have always said that DK's are generally a safe dust investment since each class always find some way to use their DK. However, Thrall, Deathseer focuses on the evolve archetype, and with some of the most powerful evolve support cards being rotated out, like Doppelgangster and Evolve itself, won't the shaman DK become obscure? Given that the evolve archetype can hardly compete even now, without some really powerful new evolve cards being added in the next rotation, which I find unlikely, I see Thrall, Deathseer becoming trash tier.
Does anyone see any silver lining? Am I missing something?
For me this card has always been trash.
I know, that people will advice to wait for the next expansion, as there might be some support for the evolve decks, but I have always hated this based on randomness mechanic, since people started playing it in competitive decks. And the reason why I hate it - it's because it ruines shaman as a class. Instead of getting proper control tools (AoEs, draws, early game) or tools, which go with the overload mechanic, which make you think how to play optimally and how to carefully plan your future turns, the devs just gave shaman a lazy way to cheat out big minions. With the chance of risk, of course. But why do we need that stuff? Why not just give us consistent cards?
The DKs are good, because they answered the weaknesses of the different classes, they can be put in different decks and sometimes offer a win-condition:
Gul'Dan - a slow one, but he offers 1) sustain, 2) board control, 3) immediate -//- presence, 4) nice damage to the face.
Anduin - reach. A powerful Twisting Nether - effect, with ways to sqeeze out some damage.
Jaina - heal, board presence and -//- control. You actually have to be careful not to give them an additional 3/6 freezing/healing body.
Mal'furion - stall and a Trueheart upgrade to the HP.
Rexxar - draw! (and you are getting additional resources), a small AoE effect.
Valeera - Extra card resources, she requires you to plan which ones you want to copy. Gaining an extra turn = ensuring you to execute that special combo.
Garrosh - kinda underwhelming, HP punishes the player the more you stay as the DK, but it's notable to mention, that this card can be used in tempo decks, as well in some kind of combo ones. An immediate board impact.
Uther - in theory an additional win-condition. A Trueheart upgrade to the HP, immediate board impact.
Thrall - conditional. He requires you to have board presence. Once you lose it and once you start praying to RNGeesus for top-decking the needed cards, things will go downhill for you. This just wasn't the card shaman needed, it goes in few deck-types and probably in fewer ones next expansion.
Evolve will get new cards, just wait. They will not let that archetype die. It’s too fun.
Hiwever, I’m praying they make the freeze shaman archetype a thing to be reckoned with next expansion. Just a few cards needed to be viable.
There are a few more nice evolve targets remaining, but the real issue may be that Evolve itself is rotating out. Redundancy is a good thing with these types of effects. Losing Evolve means less incentive to include high cost token generators which means less value for the DK card.
And while there's no telling what the expansion will bring, when you look at the remaining Shaman cards, what stands out? To me it's largely Flametongue Totem and Bloodlust. Both cards synergize with the base Shaman hero power.
The DK is far from weak, honestly, I think he is the 3° best one, losing for the brokens warlock and priest, cost only 5 manas, give you 5 armor, transform any useless totem and tokens you have in something much more relevant and change the more useless hero power in game for another much better.
Shaman is dead but don't because the DK but because many classes do almost all he can a lot better.
Play tokens and aggro? Druid, paladin and warlock do the same with much better and fast cards.
Tempo? Rogue and again warlock do this x2 or even x3 times better than shaman, your overload spells are terrible from tempo perspective.
Control? Priest and again warlock have much, much better tools to survive and outvalue the opponent.
Combo? There no combo deck for shaman.
Priest control is hard for any class but the new dragon and mass removal completely destroy shaman decks, so many of them, and, for end any hope of play, Corridor Creeper make Devolve a terrible card.
https://hsreplay.net/cards/#showSparse=yes&text=jaina, gul'dan, valeera, thrall, uther, anduin, malfurion, garrosh, rexxar&rarity=LEGENDARY
https://hsreplay.net/cards/#showSparse=yes&text=jaina, gul'dan, valeera, thrall, uther, anduin, malfurion, garrosh, rexxar&rarity=LEGENDARY&gameType=RANKED_WILD
It's pretty clear how the control decks will deal with your board.
Aggro decks also have their sleeves on their own - Tempo rogue (Slayers, charge + cold blood, sometimes leroy, bonemare); zoo (soulfires, probably doomguards too, bonemares), aggro paladin (they have cheap taunts, tarim).
Take most of what you read here with a grain of salt, aside from the natural weaknesses the card has regardless of before/after rotation, because everyone is shooting in the dark without knowing what the new expansion right after will add.
Judging the effectiveness of a card without knowing what the next 100+ cards will add always confuses me when people bother to give legitimate advice on whether a certain card will or won't be a safe craft/disenchant.
I think the verdict is out; Thrall is trash tier now, and has been completely replaced by Hagatha. Evolve arctheype has been replaced with midrange even decks.
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