Hearthpwn

Well it looks like Blizzard is continuing to push control shaman.  This card obviously replaces elemental destruction.  Hopefully shaman will get better control cards to make it viable because volcano alone will definitely not do it since it is worse in most scenarios than elemental destruction.  The upfront cost is more even though the total cost is less which is usually worse ( 5(2) vs 3(5)). It is a 10 mana combo vs an 8 mana combo with hallazeal which is a huge deal not to mention that hallazeal plus elemenal destruction will usually heal you back up to full health whereas volcano will not.  Spell power scales much better with ele D than volcano.  Totemic Call has synergy with elemental destruction but anti synergy with volcano.  Volcano is better than ele D for large single target removal IF you have no board.  But shaman already has one of the best single target removal spells in the game.

I'm not sure why some here are complaining about shaman having another AoE spell.  The competive shaman builds are aggro (which will likely die after mammoth season begins)  and midrange which will probably be the best build with the jade mechanic but will definitely not run volcano just like it doesn't run elemental destruction because it is board-centric deck.  Unless, a lot of good control cards get printed this card will  likely just be a worse aoe card than elemental destruction.

Flametongue alone is not enough to make Al-Akir viable.  And delaying the rockbiter combo by one turn is a moot point because rockbiters won't be run in midrange anymore and Al-Akir is strictly run in midrange decks.  The utility and versatility of rockbiter was as a removal card in addition to a burst damage card.  Rockbiters usefulness as a cheap and efficient removal was arguably more important than as burst damage in midrange decks.  At 2 mana, Blizz nerfed it's versatility as a removal spell but it's probably still viable as a windfury burst spell (2 mana for 6 face damage is still pretty good).  I don't think midrange shaman has room to fit in inefficient removal spells and therefore I don't think they play Al-Akir.  For those who say Al-Akir is a shitty card, well it has only been a shitty card when midrange shaman has been a shitty deck.  Naxx weakened mid shaman and GVG killed it.  But before that and after WOTOG, midrange shaman has been good and whenever midrange shaman was good, Al-Akir was good.  Why? Because Al-akir, like most midrange decks, is really good at shifting between offensive and defensive strategies.  Al-akir was good at going face or as removal.  A very good fit for a midrange deck. 

This card is unplayable in anything other than totem decks.  And by totem decks, I don't mean decks that run TfB and/or TBV.  I mean decks that run wicked witchdoctor, primal fusion, and totemic might. 

With the announcement of the rockbiter nerf, I have the strong feeling that our beloved Windlord will only be worth 400 dust.  I can't see running rockbiters anymore in my midrange deck.  It's value in early minion removal is arguably more important than it's burst potential in midrange shaman.  But without the ability to efficiently remove minions, I can't justify running this in my midrange shaman deck.  And if I don't run rockbiters, it hugely reduces the utility and power level of Al-Akir.  Intentionally or not, I think the HS team effectively nerfed 3 cards with this one nerf (rockbiter, doomhammer, and Al-Akir). 

What do you think?  Is Al-Akir worth anything more than 400 dust?

This change sucks for non-aggro shaman players.  The versatility of the card as efficient early removal and a burst finisher was what made the card great.  If they wanted to nerf aggro then they should have nerfed doomhammer or FWF.  FWF has gotten more nerf threads than any other card and I would have been happy to see that card nerfed into oblivion.  The nerf to this card makes it impossible to use rockbiter for removal AND develop a 1 drop.  Shaman more than any other class, plays poorly from behind.  I know a lot of people are happy to see any nerf to shaman and want their free wins back like when shaman Tier was synonymous with unplayable decks; but such a drastic nerf to a card in the CORE shaman set is a huge loss.  It probably makes Al-Akir unplayable now.  Midrange shaman is not dead, but the deck building options have been severely reduced because of this 1 nerf. 

Yogg druid that has no Yogg in the decklist.  Whoever is naming these seatstory decks needs to get their head out of their @$%.

Why is "aggro" in the title of this deck?

It was mentioned briefly in the podcast, but the interviewee, Peter Whalen, created a Rogue-like deckbuilding game called Dream Quest on iOS.  It's one of the best games I've ever played.  The artwork is bad, mostly stick figures and other stock photos, but the gameplay is innovative and brilliant.  If you can get past the artwork, you're in for a real treat. 

Why do you keep Si7 against warrior without backstab? I doesn't seem to contest anything by itself and just dies to war axe.

I wonder how many people who voted in the poll actually play competitively (reach legend) in both regions.  I am guessing no one.  I understand that hearthstone "pros" and "streamers" do, because that is their job.  But the average player doesn't have the desire, card collection, and most importantly free time to reach legend in both regions month after month and thus make any sort of informed decision.  I would imagine the poll results are a reflection of the regional bias commonly seen in twitch chat spam (i.e. NA>EU, EU>NA).  Essentially it means nothing.  Furthermore, trying make judgements based on streamer seems foolish.  Many streamers dick around playing fun decks in their secondary region.  Also, when streamers reach legend they usually play goofy decks because grinding the ladder means nothing until a couple of days before the season ends. 

The only poll results I would take seriously are those who consistently get high legend in both NA and EU.  Also the poll in general is a bit vague.  EU stronger than NA?  The title itself shows inherent bias and most likely the OP is experiencing confirmation bias.  Also how do you define stronger?  Overall win percentage, average number of obvious misplays per game, etc.

Here are my winrates for the past month.  I have a 50% or higher winrate against all classes except warlock.  Thus warlock must be the strongest class.  Oh wait, no.  It doesn't mean that.  In fact, if I were to remove the black box covering the win/loss ratios, you would see that I had 2 wins and 4 losses against warlock.  I had 2 wins and 2 losses against hunter.  That is a total of 10 games for my lowest winrates against hunter and warlock.  You know what that means... absolutely nothing. 

My impression is that a snapshot of winrate means very little.  There is so little information here to draw any meaningful conclusion except that YOU don't do well against rogue.  Nothing else.  I don't know how many games your winrate percentages are calculated from, I don't know which decks you played to achieve these results, I don't know which decks you played against (many classes have multiple archetypes that do better or worse against different decks), etc.  If you only play decks that have poor matchups against rogue, you're going to have poor winrates against rogue.  My final impression is I think it is ridiculous to call rogue "by far the best class atm" simply because you have poor winrates against them. 

I will only go as far as to say that Rogue is in a much better place than people thought it would be after the nerf to bladeflurry. 

Yes.  Twitch chat should be disabled if the chat devolves into derogatory epithets.  If the moderators are unwilling or unable to ban the nonstop flow of bigoted comments, then the entire twitch "community" (I use that term loosely) deserves to lose the privilege of chat.  Nothing constructive comes from allowing others to spew that crap.  It gives the gaming community a well-deserved reputation of being immature racists/misogynists/homophobes.  Like others have said, the chat moves so fast it is impossible to have a constructive discussion anyway, might as well just disable chat completely.  But that won't happen.  Even though it makes those hosting the tournament look bad and the hearthstone/gaming community look bad, it's more important to get that high viewership for the sponsors.  And if you ban chat, you deny those who show up simply to spam immature crap because they are losers and have nothing better to do in their lives. If you deny them that outlet, they will go elsewhere.

Good card.  I think a lot of time this is just going to be a vanilla 3/2 card played on turn 2.  Occasionally, it will get great value after a huge overload turn.  If you are playing a more control-oriented shaman deck with a lot of removal you can probably justify holding this until you get value.  But if you are playing midrange shaman you are most likely going to just drop this on turn 2 if you have it. 

Earth shock rarely silences AND kills anything.  It can be really good against a few cards like Twillight Drake (which sees very little play), leper gnome, and argent horserider.  It won't kill things like mad scientist without spell power.  You can silence bigger things like shredder, belcher or sylvanas, but you won't outright kill them so you usually spend at least 2 cards to kill a minion which leaves you with a card disadvantage and shaman has very poor draw mechanics.  But if you want to run silence it's probably just better to run spellbreaker because at least you get a decent sized body with the silence effect.