Laddering with Shaman: 2 Ways to Adapt to the Meta

Hello everyone I’m Spark, Legend player from Hearthstone and today I’m going to present you 2 Shaman Decks that I’m using this season to climb the ladder efficiently.

The release of Naxxramas brought a lot of potential cards to play for Shaman but the deck is already loaded with standard slots that you already have to play so it’s really hard to fit them all.

That’s exactly why I went for 2 different builds and with Hunter not being as dominant as before, and more importantly not being able to counter the Shaman strategy with Starving Buzzard into Unleash the Hounds anymore, it’s time to bring those Decks as strong forces in the current metagame.

Mid Range Shaman : Sea Giant build

Description

The overall idea of the Deck is to replace the usual Shaman win conditions doomhammer and alakir-the-windlord with sea-giant.

In order to make those viable, I run some early sticky minions like zombie-chow and haunted-creeper which allow me to get rid of rockbiter-weapon, using stormforged-axe as an early board control tool and flametongue-totem to power up those minions and make some efficient trades. 

Strengths and weaknesses

This build is perfect to start climbing the ladder because of its good match ups against Aggro and Mid Range Decks. Indeed, there is many early board control tools combined with the standard lightning-storm to prevent aggression.

sea-giant also has an easy time getting played for a really low cost at those lower ranks thanks to all the minions played on the board and the nature of the build itself.

Obviously, the deck is weaker against heavy Control Decks, even though those match ups are still winnable, but I would highly recommand switching to the second build as soon as you face more of those Warrior Control or late game Priest.

Mulligan and Tips

You should generally try to dig for your early plays : zombie-chow and haunted-creeper. Keeping flametongue-totem can be a good idea if you already have those cards in hand.

earth-shock, lightning-bolt and stormforged-axe are strong removals to keep in your starting hand, especially when facing aggressive Decks.

unbound-elemental can be considered against slower match ups and feral-spirit and lightning-storm are also good tools to have against very aggressive Decks like Zoo.

When going for a sea-giant play, remember to always look for an opportunity to throw in some more minions before playing it as it reduces the cost of the card, trading haunted-creeper can also be a good way to make it less expensive.

defender-of-argus is a strong mid game play to power up your small minions or give your giants taunt to completely stop aggressive Decks, however try to not taunt them up against slower Decks as the-black-knight is seeing a lot of play in the current meta.

Control Shaman : Reincarnate build

Description

This Deck is a lot more late game oriented and try to make use of some powerful deathrattles in combination with baron-rivendare and reincarnate.

The early to mid game is focused around activating nerubian-egg in order to establish strong board presence while waiting for those late game plays with sylvanas-windrunner and cairne-bloodhoof.

The deck also reintroduce the alakir-the-windlord plus rockbiter-weapon synergy for some late game burst or board clear if necessary.

Strengths and weaknesses

This build is the opposite of the previous one as it is far more vulnerable against aggressive Decks because of its focus around mid to late game and the fact that Shaman has no healing power.

However, the Deck is really strong against heavy Control Decks because you will have more time to pull off some crazy combos that can turn the game around.

Mulligan and Tips

The Deck having no real early plays, you should keep nerubian-egg to activate them as early as possible with rockbiter-weapon or flametongue-totem.

The others early removals, earth-shock and lightning-bolt, are also good to have in your starting hand and feral-spirit should generally be kept to prevent early aggression.

In the early game, you will try to hero power as much as possible and throw in a nerubian-egg as soon as you have a card to make it work in your hand, this strategy works very well against Control Decks because a flametongue-totem play will completely counter their first notable threat. Obviously, playing baron-rivendare the turn you activate it will be a very strong play and give some hard time to your opponent.

Later in the game you should try to get your fire-elemental and cairne-bloodhoof safely on the board to start crushing your opponent.

reincarnate is the icing on the cake as it can heal back cairne-bloodhoof while getting one or two baine-bloodhoof on the board, or it can be a huge turn 8 play against late game Decks with sylvanas-windrunner to steal your opponent’s win condition while keeping her on the board. This combo and Hex are basically the reasons why the Deck is so good against Control Decks.

reincarnate can also be an activator for the nerubian-egg but I generally only do this if I have baron-rivendare on the board. Finally, it is also really strong with alakir-the-windlord to use him twice in the same turn for a total of 12 damage that you can split as you need.

Closing

I hope you liked this article and that it will make you enjoy the possibilities of this class. Obviously, those are not the only viable builds for Shaman currently as you can mix them up to go for a consistent Mid Range build or even try to be more aggressive by playing something focused around Undertaker.

I really loved switching between those (and obviously my Hunter because I will never abandon this class) to adapt to the load of Zoo and Aggro Decks in the lower ranks and fight those presky late game Control Decks in higher level of play and I hope it can help you out in your way to Legend.

Don’t hesitate to discuss about it in the comment section below, be sure to check out more of my work on Hearthpwn or here on HSP and follow me on Twitter to keep track of my updates 😉