They've both got their downsides. Al'Akir is underpowered but pretty versatile, and Ragnaros just nukes the fuck out of something blindly. If you don't mind bowing down to RNGesus, then I think overall Rag is probably better.
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Hearthstone |OT| Why tap cards when you can roll need [Naxx final wing out now]
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They've both got their downsides. Al'Akir is underpowered but pretty versatile, and Ragnaros just nukes the fuck out of something blindly. If you don't mind bowing down to RNGesus, then I think overall Rag is probably better.
I'm really curious as to why you can't fit both Rockbiter and Lightning Bolt, honestly. As for Al'Akir vs Ragnaros, it largely depends on the kind of Shaman deck. I'd say in general Al'Akir tends to be better since he brings more things to the table than Rag.
For reference sake, here's the current iteration of my Shaman deck. Pagle and Tinkmaster were cut for an MTT and Wild Pyro, if I recall. Pyro helps shore up the anti-aggro match-up and I went with the Al'Akir package so I didn't have to run Windfury like the Leeroy route. Argent Commander / Sylvanas / Cairne share the same slot, though I'm sticking with AC most of the time since the Charge tends to be highly relevant.
All that said, I haven't played it much recently so I may need other tweaks for meta changes. I'll probably play it more after Legendary so I'm not wagering ranks with testing :x
For reference sake, here's the current iteration of my Shaman deck. Pagle and Tinkmaster were cut for an MTT and Wild Pyro, if I recall. Pyro helps shore up the anti-aggro match-up and I went with the Al'Akir package so I didn't have to run Windfury like the Leeroy route. Argent Commander / Sylvanas / Cairne share the same slot, though I'm sticking with AC most of the time since the Charge tends to be highly relevant.
All that said, I haven't played it much recently so I may need other tweaks for meta changes. I'll probably play it more after Legendary so I'm not wagering ranks with testing :x
ShinNL
Member
In the current meta that's such a bad idea. I use Lightning Bolt + Earth Shock + Wild Pyromancer exclusively with my Shaman. Taking damage to the face with all these rush decks is a horrible idea, not to mention the shield bearer & mirror images ruining your removal plans.
MisterArrogant
Neo Member
I also have Ysera and Gruul for end game drops. Ysera I usually use on front loaded decks where I'm hurting if the game goes on too long and I'm low on cards. Gruul has seemed not so effective. I think I've only seen him attack once. Usually he's countered before he can get an attack off. I get annoyed by Rag's randomness, but if you have a clear board or just one annoying minion, he's pretty effective. Very worst case scenario -- something usually dies after he hits the board.
That deck is actually very, very similar to my earlier iterations.
My current Shammy deck is:
(Didn't screenshot it since it doesn't fit on one page.)
1 - Forked Lightning x 1
1 - Rockbiter Weapon x 2
1 - Leper Gnome x 1
2 - Stormforged Axe x 1
2 - Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
2 - Dire Wolf Alpha x 1
2 - Flametongue Totem x 2
2 - Pint-Sized Summoner x 1
3 - Feral Spirit x 1
3 - Hex x 2
3 - Lightning Storm x 2
3 - Shattered Sun Cleric x 2
4 - Chillwind Yeti x 1
4 - Defender of Argus x 1
4 - Spellbreaker x 2
4 - Twilight Drake x 1
4 - Violet Teacher x 1
5 - Bloodlust x 1
5 - Azure Drake x 2
5 - Earth Elemental x 1
6 - Fire Elemental x 2
8 - Ragnaros x 1
I swapped out Earth Shock for Spellbreakers. It didn't seem like I needed silence too often my first few turns. It seemed like they were more necessary mid-game and I'd rather have the 4/3 body on the board attached to it.
I originally had the two mana totems but swapped them out for the Azure Drakes. Sometimes mana totems would be awesome and I'd get a ton of cards from them. But it seemed like most of the time I'd set it down and my opponent would immediately remove it. So I figured if I'm only getting one card out of them and typically no damage I'd again rather have the 4/4 body attached to it with the spellpower bonus. (I see you have both though.) When I did get a lot of cards out of the mana totems it felt like overkill and I'd rather have more damage on the board.
I used to have two feral spirits rather than one. I can't remember why I swapped it out. (I honestly don't play the shammy too much.) I think I was trying to substitute either the Dire Wolf Alpha as a baby Flametongue with some body damage or trying out the Pint-Sized Summoner to counteract the Overload penalty.
I added a Forked Lightning to head off rush decks in the early game. Leper Gnome was to help get some bodies on the board before I get too far behind. If I can't get something on the board by early-mid it seems like it's really easy to fall behind. I might swap him out and put one of the lightnings back in. He always seemed like one of the better one drop minions though. Good usually for about 4 damage.
I swapped out unbound elementals with shattered sun clerics because it seemed pretty chancy getting them buffed with overload spells. Shattered sun clerics get a guaranteed 1/1 buff to somebody already on the board. If it was somebody from last turn, you can definitely count on that damage being applied.
I swapped one Defender of Argus for Chillwind Yeti. Defender of Argus is great if you have minions on the board. If you don't, and you've been trading minions all match and your side of the board is empty, he's sitting in your hand waiting for an optimal play or being played as a really sub-optimal four drop. Chillwind Yeti is a good all-around four drop. Having one of each felt like a better balance.
Threw in a twilight drake and a violet teacher. I don't remember having a lot of cards in hand with this deck so it might be more consistent to stick with the Yeti than the drake. (Maybe I put him in before I took out the mana totems and forgot to remove him with it.) Violet Teacher combos decently with bloodlust. (Or so I was thinking.) I can't remember getting her out a lot. I backed down to just one bloodlust. Bloodlust is awesome if you have a lot of guys on the board. Like I said, it seems to me like a lot of matches you're trading minions all match and there's never more than one or two on board and ready to attack. It seems like most people know to take out your totems and not leave them to be bloodlusted. With nothing on the board that turn, bloodlust is just dead in your hand. It seems very situational and where it works you're already in a usually decent position. So I cut it to one and threw the earth elemental in.
This is actually my most diverse deck out of all of them. I only have one of a lot of each card in here. Usually I double up on most everything. My thinking was a lot of the Shaman's cards are situational for decent or optimal plays. So by diversifying it was my hope it would be more consistent. I'm not trying to claim this is an awesome deck or anything. Never really tried it in ranked but it seems to do pretty well in casual. It's just my current experiment.
I see both of you guys are using Pyromancers. Never seen that in a Shammy deck before actually. It seems counter intuitive to me because you're also taking out your own totems. But if you guys are finding it works for you, I'll give it a try. Thanks for all the tips.
ShinNL
Member
It's not that bad because Shaman has a healing totem. It also serves as a guaranteed 3 damage Lightning Storm when you have no other choice. But the best part is that it turns your Lightning Bolt into a Swipe. Quite important vs rush decks since Lightning Storm has too much overload to use at turn 3.
I can't be the only one getting really sick of hunters. The card draw, damage and cheapness of Buzzard / Timberwolf / UTH is just too stupid. And wow is it mega annoying when they draw that combo twice in the first 10 cards of their decks. How stupid is Blizzard? Compared to other strong cheap combos like Wild Pyromancer + Equality or Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing, this is the only combo that increases in value by triple with each enemy minion.
For each minion you get:
1. Card draw
2. Board presence
3. Instant damage (charge)
Game ruining nonsense.
Professor Lich
Member
One of thr funner shaman decks I ran that was somewhat effective was a spell ane spell minion deck. It worked so well since shaman spells are cheap/back loaded.
That being said, I don't see it being a good deck to rank with.
That being said, I don't see it being a good deck to rank with.
MisterArrogant
Neo Member
Good points. Never thought of that. I'll swap him in and try him out.
Earth Shock is invaluable due to your concerns about how your mana curves out. The 4/3 body off of Spellbreaker is generally not typically that helpful. Put another way, Earth Shock serves as an anti-aggro card by getting around Argent Squires, Leper Gnome, etc. or it has enough Spellpower behind it just to do the 2-3 damage needed to remove a slightly larger threat. In the mid-range or Control match-ups, it does basically just function as a Silence effect typically, though it does act as the best way to deal with Twilight Drake from Warlock Giants.
Mana Tide Totem is what you drop after you've secured the board (or, if desperate, as a 3 mana cycle that saves you 3 Health). Once you've gotten the board settled (e.g., Feral Spirit with an Unbound in play, for instance), you just MTT and refill your hand. Having a full hand lets you have choices with dealing with whatever your opponent does. Sure, sometimes it's unnecessary but it's pretty vital in those occasions where you do need it.
Besides that, if MTT pulls removal, you need to ask yourself what that means. Like, if a Druid hits it with Wrath, you learned nothing really. But if they Swipe it? Keeper Silence it? Or, vs Control Warrior, they're rather limited in ways of dealing with it over Taunt without blowing premium removal (Shield Slam) or combo setups (Slam + Inner Rage / Cruel Taskmaster / Whirlwind or some form of damage + Execute). You learn a lot about what your opponent can possibly do that very moment when you setup a target like MTT behind wolves.
Pint-Sized takes an entire turn before she activates so not sure how often she's really doing much for you. Really, the best way to deal with Overload is to just know what the most likely Overload turns are and plan around it. Turn 4 tends to see some Overload which is one of the reasons why Flametongue is so nice to have as it gives you a better than Hero Power use of 2 mana to follow-up a Feral Spirit, for instance. It's also why my deck doesn't run many 4 drops: There's a really good chance I'll just flat out not have 4 Mana available on that turn.
Forked Lightning is inconsistent since you have to wait for two targets before you can use it. Besides that, it sets you back a lot. You're really better off with single-target spells as they're more versatile. The times you'd like Forked Lightning are there, sure, but you'd usually rather deal with the drops in other ways and save 2+ target situations for once you have Lightning Storm online for better value.
As far as Leper Gnome is concerned, measuring him in damage is fairly meaningless, really. Like, you're not a rush deck so you're not sitting there counting damage. Very few decks will really care that they take 4 damage from a Leper Gnome. Argent Squire is typically better due to what she represents: Two actions to remove.
Unbound Elemental as a 2/4 is highly relevant: Very few things in the early game can straight deal with that in an efficient manner. Look at basically every argument about Nat Pagle. Adding in an Overload makes him a 3/5, then a 4/6, and so-on. You don't plan for him to get massive but you definitely plan around playing him in situations where you can make him grow. Besides that, he represents another threat that needs to be removed somehow so you get a lot of free information from the way people react to him.
On top of that, Coin Unbound -> Feral Spirit is one of the most frightening openers from a Shaman if the opponent has no immediate answer.
Twilight Drake is not really suited in a deck that actually wants to play ~two cards before turn 4. At that point, you'd rather have a Yeti for the sake of consistency and/or for improving the late game top deck.
Violet Teacher ... not sure what synergy she has with the deck. You don't run enough spells to really flood the board and most of your spells are kind of waiting for an enemy to use them on anyway. She doesn't do much with Bloodlust unless you're already in a position where she was on board and you threw multiple spells and all of them somehow survived a turn.
With Zoo being such a relevant deck, you really can't really plan on Bloodlust. And those kind of decks would run more things like Argent Squire, Scarlet Crusader, Harvest Golem, etc. to persist.
Earth Elemental is in a weird spot since BGH just came back into the meta due to the Tinkmaster nerf. Like, he's good but I'd say be wary on him.
Not really sure how that works, honestly. One-ofs without the way to search the deck for what you need makes them kind of awkward. You'd rather just have good cards in the deck that you'd be happy about drawing more often. Besides that, there's really not that many super situational Shaman cards. Like, Earth Shock / Lightning Bolt / Rockbiter are on-demand removal options so they're situational in the sense that they require a target. Feral Spirit is sort of situational, I guess, but it swings boards hard if it's played into an empty board / while ahead so it's great to have.
If it works, it works I suppose. My experience with Shaman is mostly around the Legendary range and the meta there is different than the low-to-mid rank tiers (and casual is just a fairly useless place for much in terms of meta testing).
Pyromancer used to be a Shaman staple precisely because of Totems. Or, rather, because of Healing Stream. It was only removed due to a bigger concern about playing the mid-range area. If not for the prevalence of needing extra ways to ping the board, I'd rather run 2x Argent Squires somehow.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I would definitely run 2xrockbiter and 2xlightning bolt. The bolts are soo good in shaman deck and if you manage to save them it is pretty good burst from nowhere.
greendomo's ghost
Member
Kinda not wanting to play this anymore. Seems like every unranked game I play, the guy I go up against has multiple legendaries. It just feels like I'd have to buy a bunch of cards to stay competitive. Will I get better matchups on ranked games?
ShinNL
Member
You know, my decks with no Legendaries are winning way more often than the ones with. Because if you draw Legendaries too early they become clutter in your hand, killing your tempo.
Don't try to make a control deck without Legendaries (like using Stormwind Champion). Instead have a deck that ends with Argent Commander as the highest drop.
And if you don't have Argent Commander yet, you'll be surprised how often Reckless Rocketeer gets the job done, provided the rest of your deck has good tempo. It's completely viable to just aim for a good curve so that you play one card per turn, getting the biggest minion out that you can with the available mana, maybe mixing in a removal spell here or there for the times you can't trade effectively.
Arena removes the collection aspect and replaces it with a random draft.
Make an aggro deck. Zoo (variationf of warlock aggro) or Hunter decks are great budget decks, along with Rogue. The problem is people try to make control decks when they don't have any of the good control cards, though you could probably make a budget control priest too. I think Warrior/Pally/Druid suffer the most from not having the right cards (in a control deck). You can make a great budget mid-range deck with Mage, a budget control with Priest, or great aggro with warrior/hunter/warlock.
What he didn't tell you is it costs $1.99 or 150 gold to play Arena. Guess where you get that gold from?
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Edit: HOOOOOOOOOOOLD UP
I just played in the Arena and that was the exact opposite of what I said I wanted. I meant no deck building at all not just building from what they give you. You know, prefab decks already designed for balanced play. I guess that is not supposed to exist in this game? Just the "basic decks" against AI or something? My interest is already fading.
I just played in the Arena and that was the exact opposite of what I said I wanted. I meant no deck building at all not just building from what they give you. You know, prefab decks already designed for balanced play. I guess that is not supposed to exist in this game? Just the "basic decks" against AI or something? My interest is already fading.
hypersheep
Member
Man the two times I've played Mad Bomber today he's hit me for three in the face.
Golden portrait
MisterArrogant
Neo Member
Thanks for all of that feedback. If you ranked up to Legend then you obviously know more than I do. It sounds like maybe earlier revisions of my deck would have been a little more effective. Sometimes I think I just get too many losses that are really down to chance, decide it's a problem with the deck, and go to town overhauling it. It seems easy to overthink things in this game.
I am curious though, as you ranked up to legend, are you continually altering your deck to deal with the meta at various levels? Or do you usually stick with a fairly intact deck most of the way through? When I stall out I feel like I need to go back to the drawing board and redesign my deck. But sometimes I worry I'm tinkering too much with it and I really just need to stick it through and that with a slight majority of wins will eventually claw me higher. Rather than expecting to fly through.
Man I need coaching sessions. Would love to just be able to get to 7 wins.
No trouble in constructed but for some reason Arena allways goes bad for me.
Hydranockz
Member
I have found watching Trump or someone explaining their reasoning for drafting certain cards over others has really helped me.
RumblingRosco
Member
scy, what would be the best Thalnos replacement in your deck? After playing Opiate a few matches yesterday I am tweaking my Shaman deck, but I lack Thalnos. Thinking Kobold Geomancer is the closest there is to a Thalnos imitator.
michaelius
Banned
TIL you can even Ooze Jaraxxus' weapon... I didn't know holding the Ooze against Warlocks was a viable strategy.
That must be one really pissed off warlock
TIL you can even Ooze Jaraxxus' weapon... I didn't know holding the Ooze against Warlocks was a viable strategy.
The only thing that could be more satisfying would be Harrison Jones on that.
If you are a Warlock yourself, you can also use Sacrificial Pact for an instant win.
Robin64
Member
No time limit.
ShinNL
Member
Mmm, interestingly my decision to remove Frostbolt from my Freeze + Legendaries eck seems to have improved it. I often found myself overkilling 2 drops with it in a race vs rush decks. However, spending a card to 1 for 1 is pretty bad in a match up where they have more low drops than I do. Mid-late game it's usually a 1 for 2 card, so not very good. So instead I just run 2 Cone of Cold, 2 Blizzard and 2 Flamestrike just to clear stuff efficiently. Using Mirror Images, Sunfury Protector and Water Elemental as bridges to get to the 6 mana curve. Probably eliminated most late game dead drops this way, with everything being pretty good even if I draw it later.
I'm getting quite good with Alarm-o-Bot plays. I've been using them effectively for crazy openings, but they're also great as leftover mana drops. You can use them to bait AoE, silence and removal spells for essentially nothing of value lost. In some situations I've played it without anything in my hand for that purpose. It's crazy mindgames if you for example put a Cairne Bloodhoof + Alarm-o-Bot. Everytime that happens they focus on the Alarm-o-Bot first.
Maybe I should check if I can find a way to add it in my Shaman deck. Earth Elemental without overload would be really really nice (stopped using them because of it).
I'm getting quite good with Alarm-o-Bot plays. I've been using them effectively for crazy openings, but they're also great as leftover mana drops. You can use them to bait AoE, silence and removal spells for essentially nothing of value lost. In some situations I've played it without anything in my hand for that purpose. It's crazy mindgames if you for example put a Cairne Bloodhoof + Alarm-o-Bot. Everytime that happens they focus on the Alarm-o-Bot first.
Maybe I should check if I can find a way to add it in my Shaman deck. Earth Elemental without overload would be really really nice (stopped using them because of it).
The thing for trying to figure out what needs changed in the deck is over a series of games where you're consistently in a spot of "Well, I really wish I hadn't drawn this." Ideally, you want to know what card you want to add as well as what card you want to remove. Makes it easier to track over multiple games and go "If X was Y instead, what would I do here?"
As for the climb itself, sort of? I did Rank 5-25 with two decks: Druid tokens (outdated list) and then my Shaman list (though it still had Pagle and Tinkmaster at the time). Once I got to Rank 5-ish, I switched to Warrior Control since it gave me the best aggro match-up and a good chance vs most the control lists. I did basically every season the same way, really. Play more aggressive decks that end games faster for the boring parts of the climb and then switch to slower decks for the match-ups when they started to matter.
The big thing is having a good understanding of why you lost. And not things like "well, I Brawled 6 of his creatures and Doomguard lived" but things like using Shield Slam when Execute was better and it costs me 7 turns later when I have Execute in hand and no ways to ping his Rag and it's basically a dead card. I've lost games to Hunters because I got in a hurry to finish and didn't take the win by letting Rag do his thing and keep my board clear otherwise (and, conversely, won games by purposefully killing my minions to deprive hounds in the final turns).
Don't think too hard on what your opponent did to beat you but how you reacted. Did the Hunter top-deck Leeroy to get lethal? Tough luck. Did you consider that as an out for him? What outs of his did you play around? Ask those types of questions on your losses. Depending on what your deck does, don't always think in terms of getting his HP to zero in the shortest way possible. Think of what their gameplan is and how to play against that.
Typically, the problem for people who do well in Constructed vs Arena is the drafting portion. Do you use any of the available tier lists or Arena Value to help the process? That's usually a good place to start.
Besides that, playing Arena is typically different than Constructed as you can't risk certain blowout plays so you're almost always better off clearing their board on your terms rather than, say, thinking a Taunt is good enough. You almost always take favorable trades.
Hm. Depends. If you want the option of raw spellpower, you can just go Geomancer. If you want a minion that represents a better clock, an extra Wild Pyro does the trick too. If you just want an early-game minion, getting Argent Squires helps a lot at giving you early pressure though that's more of a 2-of case. And, of course, Loot Hoarder works as a way to draw a card.
Just want raw Spellpower: Geomancer, Flametongue lets it kill Shieldbearer.
Want a better clock with the +1 AoE: Wild Pyromancer, Flametongue lets it kill Yeti / Cairne.
Want a better early game position: Argent Squire, Flametongue lets it kill Harvest Golem.
dat card draw tho: Loot Hoarder, same range as Geomancer.
Personally, I'd take the extra Pyromancer most of the time as it kills Acolyte without help and other Feral Spirits as well as being a few extra points of damage if it gets to attack multiple times. It is riskier, though, since it means you do need Healing Stream more often to counteract the damage so that's worth considering.
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