How Viper Broke the Mold with Peanut Shaman
Viper spoke with Blizzard about his Peanut Shaman deck that secured his spot in the upcoming HCT Winter Championship. Read on!
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Quote from BlizzardTorben "Viper" Wahl was one of just four players who did not bring a Hunter or Paladin deck to the HCT Winter Playoffs–Europe. As it happens, he also was one of just four players who qualified for the HCT Winter Championship by the end of the tournament.
This was thanks in part to a homebrew Shaman deck he cooked up with Felix "kolmari" Baum. “It's essentially control Shaman,” Viper said. “I think you can compare it the most to Odd Warrior. Odd Warrior doesn't die and just removes everything the other guy plays and at some point the Odd Warrior has cards and the other guy doesn't have cards anymore. This Shaman kind of comes down to the same thing.”
There are some wild interactions and synergies available in Peanut Shaman. You can Haunting Visions into Kragwa, the Frog. You can Zola the Gorgon your Elise the Trailblazer to shuffle more cards into your deck, before playing Shudderwock to shuffle even more—or use Zola the Gorgon on the Kragwa before Shudderwock-ing for massive frog value.
With a total of nine legendary minions (at least one from each set in Standard currently), Peanut Shaman is not a budget deck. According to Viper, there are some alternative cards that substitute well. “All of the Shaman legendaries are very unique cards, so you can’t play many second options for them,” Viper said. “You could replace Zola, Elise, Kelseth, and Ziliax with two Firetree Witchdoctors and two Twilight Drakes. That is likely the best option.”
Peanut Shaman will likely lose to decks that kill you in one turn such as Mecha’thun, OTK Paladin, APM Priest, and so on. Against aggro decks, things become much easier, as your enemy will run out of cards before you will. Against aggro, Viper would agree that the most defensive play with a deck like Peanut Shaman is often the best play on nearly every turn.
Piloting this deck successfully requires a bit of pre-mulligan meditation. “You should make up your mind at the start going into matchups with these fatigue or control decks versus these other non-aggro decks,” Viper said. “Like, ‘I think I should use this card on this card’ or ‘I should use Volcano for that, I should save Hex for this.’ Sometimes you have to deviate, but thinking about it from the beginning helps, because sometimes 70 seconds is not enough time to think through a turn.”
The success of Peanut Shaman during the HCT Winter Playoffs just goes to show, play what you think is good and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. “I’m always very nervous, but it’s been getting better,” Viper said. “Especially if I’m bringing decks like this Shaman where everyone is going to look at it and say it’s a bad deck. I think I’m just OK with myself if I bring whatever I think is the best and I’m not afraid of people calling me out. If I have success with it, I don't really mind what people think at first.”
Three players brought versions of Viper’s Peanut Shaman deck to the Americas Playoffs last weekend, but failed to find success. Only Jihwan “DacMalza” Hwang is championing it at the APAC Playoffs this weekend. Will it come through for him as it did for Viper? Find out when the broadcast goes live at twitch.tv/playhearthstonethis Friday, January 25, at 5:45 p.m. PST.
Yeah, he has been iterating on this as a base. Currently he has some elemental and dragon synergy cards, plus the Unstable Evolutions as previously mentioned -- mostly for fun, but I've also found the Unstable Evolution can steal a couple games on ladder that would be unwinnable otherwise while not being reliable for a tournament setting.
When he send his decklist in for the tournament , they asked him : Hey how should we call that deck? And he said i dont care , call it whatever you like. And thats the story.
Nice
Usually there are always players trying something different in tournaments and these are the ppl that should be highlighted in my opinion. Of course at the end you can't say if the deck you created will stand against the usual tier decks but just give it a try and in this case it was rewarded.
Congrats to Viper and kolmari for this good work, at least this shows that there are still some players that are willing to risk something.
replacement for shaman?
I really liked how the casters couldn't figure out this decks win-condition all through his wins... And yet, showcasing a deck with 9(!!) Legendaries kind of shows almost always the ones who get paid to play Hearthstone even have a chance to find out a meta-breaking deck.
Yes, because legendaries are known to be good cards xD
Where did I say they're always the best? The point is, they're the hardest to come by, And when Viper himself said most are irreplaceable, in this specific deck, they ARE the best. I've been playing since closed beta and still am missing 4 of those legendaries. Some of the others I could only craft BECAUSE I've been playing for years disenchanting cards.
Cool deck, but why peanut?
deletedClickbait
Often when you wonder why, the answer is why not. Trust me I' m an engineer.
They actually asked Viper this exact question during the interview. He said something along the lines of: "Someone was saying you have to have a name for the deck and I was asking what it should be and someone said 'Peanut' is a good name and I said okay it's Peanut."
If it is clickbait it apparently worked on you, me, and lots of others.
Is it really good?
It worked for Viper. We should, however, take into account the fact that EU had very few OTK lineups; I'd expect this deck to struggle heavily if it needs to create consistent board pressure to rush down opponents before a combo happens.
I play EU and OTK are everywhere. What are you talking about?
Did you play in the EU tournament?
This should be evidence enough that tier lists, metas, and crowd mentality shouldn't always dictate what you play competitively.
Granted, tournament scenes are quite different than ladder, but we all know the odd player or streamer who regularly reaches legend with unconventional decks.
Replacements for Zentimo, Electra, Shudderwok, Elise, and Zola?
/s