by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Greetings, friend. Once a month, I try to bring a different class and deck list together for my How To segment, and I wanted to focus on a class that got lots of value out of the new Naxxramas cards. In the past, we’ve looked at fairly late game decks and play styles – Control Warrior and Ramp Druid, specifically – so I thought we’d get a little more (but not too!) aggressive.

Midrange Shaman is a deck that has an absolutely inspired level of flexibility. It has sufficient depth in terms of removal to wrestle through most aggressive decks, as well as enough win conditions and damage to threaten control decks before they really catch their stride. If you learn the ins and outs of how and when to utilize the complete toolkit, you can make this deck work against a huge variety of opponents. One weakness to be aware of, going in, is that you have no card draw – midrange decks tend to play to a victory that should occur naturally before you will empty your hand and be forced to get by on topdecking.

The Decklist

As usual, a full list of the cards and why they’re here:

2x Earth Shock – Silence is more powerful and more relevant now than it has ever been. Being able to deal damage on top of it is a truly amazing perk, and hard counters all kinds of Deathrattle and Divine Shield minions. In a perfect world, you get to use these to trade up in terms of efficiency, but don’t underestimate the value of being able to take an Argent Squire off the board before it can get buffed.

2x Lightning Bolt – This variant on Shaman doesn’t have any spell damage, but being able to dish up three damage on demand without your Hero or minions taking any damage is a tremendous value. It’s made doubly valuable by the fact that it has half of its cost deferred by Overload, giving you some great emergency outs in the mid- or late-game scenarios where you either need finishing damage for lethal, or just to take care of a big board from your opponent.

2x Rockbiter Weapon – Immensely valuable. Definitely worth mulliganing for under almost all circumstances. Outside of Shieldbearers, this allows you to clear any other 1-drop in the game if you’re facing an aggressive or Zoo-style deck; alternately, if you draw it later, it can tandem into your Doomhammer for incredible burst. Use it if you need to; save it to play on yourself with the weapon or on to a minion to get a favourable trade if you don’t.

1x Ancestral Spirit – Previously a card only seen in highly specific, short-lived deck styles like the Crusher Shaman, this pairs so wonderfully with the Deathrattle-heavy style this deck uses to sustain tempo. In a perfect world, you’d have this for use on one of your Legendaries with a Deathrattle – but don’t be afraid to apply it to something early on and take board advantage using it.

1x Reincarnate – The other reason for that last card. This new Shaman addition is scary good alongside Deathrattle minions specifically, which makes it playable on almost everything else in this deck. As tempting as it might be to sit on it for a big combo, don’t fall prey to aggression because you were unwilling to play it on a 2-drop.

2x Flametongue Totem – A great way to get efficient trades and build your board. As often as not, the primary beneficiaries of these will be your Hero Power totems – they also tend to bait removal from your opponent, which is immensely valuable to you when you have so many other minions you want to maximize value on. You can’t play this on to an empty board, so it can become a dead drop if you’re significantly behind – but you shouldn’t be.

2x Haunted Creeper – This little guy has become a staple appearance in a surprising variety of decks. Aggro decks, Deathrattle decks, token decks; everyone is leaning on the little spiders that could. Rarely will your opponent waste a Silence on this – and, frankly, when no single deck can run more than six Silences (or equivalents), it’s optimal for you if they do. It is a weak 2-drop on its face, but you can do a surprising amount with those tokens in combination with Rockbiter Weapon, Flametongue Totem, or the possibility of getting 4+ of them simultaneously using different combinations in this deck.

2x Nerubian Egg – Here for a similar reason to the above. You need Rockbiter Weapon, Flametongue Totem, or Defender of Argus to activate these, but they also help insulate you against board wipes.

2x Feral Spirit – Scary good value. The Overload on this spell can be intimidating, but getting two 2/3 Taunt minions out is a big play at any stage in your game. It’s a perfect stall against aggro decks, or the perfect aggression against slow-rolling control decks. Think about the Overload when you’re putting them out, and try not to toss them into a situation where they will get instantly cleared (unless it’s a do-or-die scenario).

2x Hex – One of the best removal cards in the game. Best used either early to deal with a cost-efficient minion on your opponent’s board, or as a later-game counter to one of their finishers. Your opponents will play around these, so try to maximize your trades and not getting baited into using them poorly.

2x Lightning Storm – Mulligan aggressively for these if you think your opponent is playing an aggressive, low-curve, swarm-style deck. The random element of this card can be your best friend or your worst enemy, but in general, a guaranteed two damage to all enemy minions for an up-front cost of only three mana is huge. Don’t let the Overload put you in a position where your opponent gets to rebuild their board and you’re left with insufficient mana to follow it up.

2x Harvest Golem – If it weren’t for the thematic Deathrattle component of this deck, I wouldn’t include these guys. It may very well be the most-played minion in the game, but I think it’s a touch slow in the current meta. Your hope, if anything, is to follow one of these guys up with one of your combo cards (see the list on Nerubian Egg, above), and get really efficient trades or burst damage happening.

1x Baron Rivendare – One would hope you saw this coming. All of these Deathrattle minions make this a pretty obvious choice. Rivendare can end up becoming something of a bit of a ‘win more’ card, snowballing an existing advantage, but he can also make a questionable board position look more favourable very quickly. If your games drag out, he can be a lifesaver in the right circumstances.

1x Defender of Argus – One of the handful of ways for you to buff your board and increase the value of other minions. He’s also one of your three ways to get Taunts out (unless you count casting Hex on your own minion 😛 ), so keep that in mind when utilizing him.

1x Doomhammer – Ideally one of your win conditions, dropping the Doomhammer can also be an emergency way to clear an opposing board that has some low-cost, low-health minions looking to overwhelm you (e.g. token style). As noted above, the combination with one or both of your Rockbiter Weapon spells can make this into a scary 10-16 damage very quickly.

1x Feugen – I added these two to this deck late in the process. In older versions of the Shaman, I probably would have used more low-cost Taunt minions, or popped in an Azure Drake or two for the draw and spell damage. I’ve found that these two legendary constructs, however, get a lot of work done, and can make for some scarily overwhelming possibilities if you have Ancestral Spirit, Reincarnate, Baron Rivendare, or any combination thereof. If you decide to run a variant of this deck with draw, this might be one of the options for something to replace, but I’d almost encourage doing something like swapping in Mana Tide Totem for a Harvest Golem or a Nerubian Egg instead.

1x Stalagg – As above.

2x Fire Elemental – There is no Shaman deck that doesn’t use these, period. This might be the single best minion card in the game. No more words – only glorious fire.

1x Sylvanas Windrunner – A late-game closer, and good in tandem with all of the same things listed on Feugen above. Helps to swing the game back in your favour in an emergency, more than anything.

Other options – As mentioned above, feel free to add card draw if you find you need a little more staying power. Card draw is a general weakness of Shaman, because the only class card that provides any is Mana Tide Totem. A Bloodmage Thalnos or a Loot Hoarder in lieu of one (or more) of your other 2-drops is an acceptable compromise. You could also elect to try a Gadgetzan Auctioneer, but it’s fundamentally a bit slow for the style of deck in play here. Similarly, if you choose to slow the deck down, some people will elect to introduce a finisher like Ragnaros or Al’Akir, which is okay, but may hurt you in your already-challenging match-ups against super-aggressive Hunter or some of the older styles of Zoo. By the time you start thinking about introducing things like The Black Knight, etc., you’re building a control deck, and this decklist and strategy no longer applies.

How To Play It

You’ve got a ton of highly favourable match-ups, and your strategy is fairly consistent across them all, which makes this a good deck in terms of its learning curve if you want a single deck to stick to for a while.

Mulligan for critical early game cards – you almost always want at least one of either of Rockbiter Weapon or Lightning Bolt for removal, and a 2- or 3-drop minion if at all possible. Feral Spirit is good to hold if you think you’re facing something really fast (especially if you’re going second), as is Lightning Storm.

Generally speaking, your strategy revolves around clearing your opponent’s board as you build your own (editor’s note: duh.). Part of how you do that correctly, though, is about adjusting your play to fit what your opponent is doing. If you open against an opponent with little-to-no initial board presence, sticking to your Hero Power for a turn (or two) doesn’t hurt. You have lots of ways to beef up those totems, and you want as much as possible to hold your emergency removal for major threats, and your burst damage to close out lethal and win the game.

The temptation to hold on to a lot of things to build big, epic combinations can be overwhelming – and when they work, you can get some very, very impressive results (triple Thaddius, double Sylvanas Windrunner mind controls, etc.) – but you have to play this deck to its immediate advantages and keep your eyes on maintaining board advantage. Almost all Shaman playstyles depend on it.

Hit me up in the comments or over on Twitter @lackofrealism and let me know how this deck – or your variant! – works for you.