[DKMR]BorN bringing you a budget shaman deck this week! We are going to be taking a look at budget Midrange Shaman Deck. With the decline of Hunter, Shaman is in a better position than in previous seasons. With its cheap removal it has an edge over most control decks and can handle aggressive decks, outside of Hunter, as long as the Shaman can draw its removal early enough.
The midrange build is the most widely used, as it is able to quickly and efficiently dispatch threats while packing powerful burst damage, utilizing the windfury mechanic along with a rockbiter-weapon buff. Let’s take a look at the rest of what makes Shaman the formidable hero that he is.
Totemic Call
Shaman’s Hero Power, Totemic Call, allows Shaman to summon one of four different totems at random, but you may only have one of each on the board at a time.
These four are: healing-totem, wrath-of-air-totem, stoneclaw-totem, and searing-totem. Since only one of each totem may be summoned by the Hero Power at a time, if Searing, Healing, and Stoneclaw are already on the board, you know Wrath of Air will be summoned next.
You can use this knowledge to your advantage to try to control which totems will be summoned. If you have to sacrifice totems, be sure they are killed in an order in which you can Hero Power at a specific time to maximize your chance of getting the desired totem. Use these minions to help control the board; they each offer a different way to help secure a strong board presence.
The Deck
The deck we are bringing you today costs 1360 dust, although there are some adjustments you can make to bring down the cost a pinch; we will discuss alternatives later on. This deck is quite similar to its more expensive variant, leaving out the alakir-the-windlord, bloodmage-thalnos, doomhammer, and other pricey cards.
Today we will go over card replacements and alternatives for those on a budget, but if you’re interested in learning more about Midrange Shaman’s play-style and matchups, check out this guide: https://hearthstoneplayers.com/guide-midrange-shaman-dkmr/.
Bringing Down The Cost
For those who do not quite have the 1360 dust to create the entire list, let’s look at few cheaper options. If you want to go for more of a tempo style, harvest-golem are definitely worth considering. Dropping one lightning-storm and a mana-tide-totem for two Harvest Golems would save you 120 dust. Although the wild-pyromancer is great for its AoE, it can be swapped out for a kobold-geomancer. It lacks the AoE that Wild Pyromancer provides, but still boosts the damage of your spells. senjin-shieldmasta is another free card worth considering.
Other Alternatives
There are a few other cards worth putting in if you don’t have those mentioned earlier. gadgetzan-auctioneer is a great card in Shaman Deck due to all the low-cost spells, especially if you choose to drop the Mana Tide Totem. If you are not seeing many weapon-users, feel free to drop the Acidic Swamp Ooze for another Wild Pyromancer or Kobold Geomancer.
If you have extra dust, definitely craft a defender-of-argus or two. They are great for halting aggression and beefing up your weaker minions and totems. There are many different cards we could include, but they will be as optimal as the ones aforementioned. If there’s a card not mentioned here you would like to discuss, feel free to leave a comment; we’d love to talk cards with you!
Strategy
The goal of Midrange Shaman is to continually clear your opponent’s minions and create card advantage with cheap removal spells, then overwhelm your opponent in the late game with your tough minions, totems, and burst damage.
You should be carefully monitoring your use of Overload cards, planning how much mana you will have the following turn and what plays can be made.
When mulliganing against Aggro decks, you’ll want to keep cards which aid you in controlling the early game, such as stormforged-axe, lightning-bolt, feral-spirit, earth-shock, Lightning Storm, and Wild Pyromancer.
Against Midrange/Control decks, you’ll definitely want early minions such as Unbound Elemental, Feral Spirit, and Wild Pyromancer, as well as removal like Lightning Bolt.
Matchups
Stabilizing and keeping control of the board can be an easy task for Midrange Shaman; it’s what makes this deck so powerful and gives it little to no weaknesses. It’s the type of deck that can win any matchup with the right cards, but be careful, it can fall prey to Aggro decks.
Shaman matches up very well against heroes like Druid, Paladin, Mage, and Warrior. Priest can sometimes be an issue when running Thoughtsteal, Cabal Shadow Priest, and Shadow Madness, they are able to take control of your cards, luckily you can solve this with a little burst damage.
In the Warlock matchup, it does well against Handlock decks, but you’ll have a tough time against Warlock Aggro if you don’t get the right cards to deal with early threats. Going up against Rogue can be difficult; they match you in removal and burst damage. Stabilizing is the key to winning here.
Hunter is Shaman Deck’s worst matchup. With no healing power in the deck, Hunter’s Hero Power puts you the clock to finish quickly or get pinged to death. Although Shaman really struggles against Hunter Aggro, Midrange Hunter is a different story. While you still have an expiration date, your chances of winning improve greatly.
Midrange Hunter is much slower than their Aggro counterpart, giving you a chance to burst them down faster than they can do to you. Doomhammer is a key card here, as it allows you to deal 16 damage alone, while also allows you to deal with the Hunter’s weak minions. Hex is also significant, being able to remove Savannah Highmane with ease. No matter which version you are playing against, you should be focused on being as aggressive as possible and racing the Hunter down, while dealing with threats. Try to minimize the damage you take.
Conclusion
Midrange Shaman Deck is an all-around powerful deck. Its consistency and ability to handle any matchup make it one of the strongest decks available. It can grind very well on the ladder and can be used as a hard-to-counter opener in tournaments, especially with the decline of Aggro Hunter. We at DKMR find Shaman Deck to be an under appreciated Hero and hope to see others unlock the potential this class has to offer and feel that with this budget version more of you will be able to try it.
Last Words
We hope you enjoyed this week’s deck. If you’d like to see a particular budget or non-budget deck discussed next, please let us know! As always, continue to reach out to us here, on Twitter, or over on our website. Thanks for reading!
[DKMR]BorN streams weekdays http://www.twitch.tv/born_hs. You can find all of DKMR’s streamers on their website with the days that they stream!
Written by [DKMR]BorN
Discussions about this topic brought to you by Team [DKMR] (sponsored by HearthStats, 2P and Gunnar)
Decks to Watch Out For
This week, we’re continuing to see an absurd amount of Miracle Rogue on the ladder as well as tournaments. From the Deck Wars tournament we saw StrifeCro and Ekop both running a Tempo Shaman that turned many players’ heads. Lastly, we also have ManaGrind’s DuckWingFace’s mage deck.
