Flowrider
A 2 mana 3/2 that casts Thrive in the Shadows. Thrive is a good enough card to play in constructed decks occasionally, so Flowrider having a decent body on top of it is tempting. The issue is that the condition means we can’t really play it on turn 2. This is a card that requires us to overload, and if we’re overloading ourselves on turn 1 for example, we don’t have the mana to play this on turn 2.
So Flowrider comes down around mid-game, which makes it much worse. The card should still be useful for a deck that wants to overload, but unless you have a high overload uptime, you’re not going to run this.
Score: 2
Chill Vibes
8 health for 3 mana spells have existed before and are generally not good cards (8 armor gets a little better). The Finale ability pushes the card to being very good, as an Antique Healbot with taunt for 3 mana is a good deal. The problem is that you’re not too likely to get full value from the heal on turn 3, so activating the Finale ability requires some investment later in the game when you’d want to play this.
One thing to note is that after the rotation of Alterac Valley, Shaman will only have two frost spells in Standard: Cold Storage and Chill Vibes. This means that Azsharan Scroll has a 50% chance to offer Chill Vibes. That’s something to think about.
Chill Vibes should be a card that a Control Shaman will be interested in playing, as healing isn’t abundant in the class; faster decks never take it.
Score: 2
Pack the House
This is an expensive spell, costing a total of 9 mana, but packs a lot of stats. Based on a rough estimate in which a random X drop is worth X-1 mana, Pack the House produces 14 mana worth of stats. That should be the calculation given it has absolutely no inherent synergies built into it like Tiny Toys. It’s meant to produce an overwhelming number of stats that should help the Shaman dominate the board against decks that don’t carry mass removal options.
And still, if we are expected to play this on turn 7, this card is likely unplayable. By this point, every important form of mass removal in the format comes online, dealing with the board regardless of how many stats are produced by Pack the House. This card doesn’t win the late game.
The way to make this card competitive is to cheat it out early with Jazz Bass. That seems to be the direction Shaman is headed towards. Turn 5 Pack the House gets a lot better and might be too fast to deal with for defensive decks. That still requires a significant investment of cards and specific pieces to enable it, but it’s something.
Score: 2
Jazz Bass
We’ll say this again. We really hate 2-attack weapons, especially on turn 3. They can be very ineffective when it comes to controlling the board. Jazz Bass’ saving grace is its ability to cheat out an expensive spell after being juiced up by overload cards. This also comes with a problem. If you’re playing overload cards, you’re… overloading yourself.
Let’s say you equip Jazz Bass on turn 3. On turn 4, you play a couple of overload (1) cards. Your next spell is now discounted by 3 mana. You’re looking at that Pack the House sitting in your hand and realize you cannot play it on turn 5 because you’re overloaded by 2. Pack the House costs 4 and you have 3 mana available! So, the very requirement of Jazz Bass sometimes clashes with its own reward.
This makes Overdraft important, but now you need to find Jazz Bass, Overdraft, Pack the House, and a few overload cards to make your ‘dream’ come true. Doesn’t sound so great, does it?
There is another potential utilization for Jazz Bass, which is to enable crazy combos, with stuff like Criminal Line Up and Bioluminescence. These seem even more unlikely. If it can’t even do the most basic thing consistently, how is it going to enable more complex stuff? We have our doubts.
Score: 2
Brass Elemental
This card has a lot of keywords. Yes. This is thought provoking analysis, we know. Rather than overcomplicate things by calculating out the value of each keyword, let’s think about how Brass Elemental affects the board.
If we’re playing it reactively to kill enemy minions, it’s very similar to Restless Mummy, but more likely to stay on the board. It deals 3 damage twice to a minion. That’s pretty good.
The big difference from a normal rush minion is that Brass Elemental is a solid proactive play. It can be a threat if you just drop it onto an empty board. A good past comparison here is Corpsetaker from Knight of the Frozen Throne. Brass Elemental requires no deck building maneuvers to activate. On an empty board, it’s a fully upgraded Corpsetaker.
So Brass Elemental compares very favorably to past 4-drops that saw constructed play. The final question is whether this card has any specific synergies with what the class might be trying to do. Restless Mummy was drawn by Town Crier. Corpsetaker scaled with Keleseth. Brass Elemental is just a pile of stats and keywords that doesn’t further a particular game plan. The good stats for the cost and the elemental tag could be enough to slot it into a tribal deck, but the absence of other synergies could be a limitation.
Score: 2
Altered Chord
A 2-mana deal 5 damage with lifesteal is strong. The limitation to minions prevents this card from being completely broken but also tempers our excitement. This is a strong removal card that acts as payoff to an overload package and gears an overload deck to play defensively. This fits with the Jazz Bass plan, where the Shaman stalls into a swing that turns the corner. It doesn’t solve any issues when it comes to the package’s potential late game limitation, but rather enforces it further.
Score: 2
Melomania
Hagatha’s hero power is back as a temporary aura for a turn that costs no mana. This seems quite fun to play alongside Schooling and the minion-dense build of a Control Shaman from 2022, but we don’t think this is great. The main issue is that Melomania is not a near infinite value generator and still costs a card to play. Hagatha was a hero card you fired off once and permanently got you card advantage. That was very important for Shaman’s ability to compete in the late game. It’s not happening here, and the card is pretty much useless by itself, forcing you to invest a lot of bodies to maximize its benefit for one turn.
Score: 1
Saxophone Soloist
This is… a worse Fire Fly? A 1/2 for 1 mana is an unplayable card, but what made Fire Fly useful is that it could develop two bodies a turn. Saxophone Soloist is less flexible, as the board must be empty for you to continue to get more copies. Here’s a question that bothers us: Do we genuinely want to continue spending 1 mana on 1/2’s throughout the game? Does that make for a winning strategy? We don’t think so. There are so many better 1-drops to play. Other than being a murloc, Saxophone Soloist doesn’t have any notable synergies worth exploring. In fact, it has anti-synergy with a murloc deck whose goal is to flood the board. It’s a murloc for flavor purposes only.
Score: 1
Inzah
Inzah’s only fault is that it might be a little boring, but the effect can be powerful. It’s generally advisable not to underestimate global mana reductions such as these, even if it’s a 1-of legendary. It encourages us to run many overload cards, because once Inzah drops to the board, we gain an advantage by playing them and can outpace our opponents.
There is no one specific use for the card. Inzah can help us outpace the opponent or set up a discount to enable an important finisher. Every overload card, including those in your hand, is discounted, so finding Inzah at any point in the game is enough.
There’s also a subtle way to tutor Inzah, which interests us: Prescience. The natural turn 4 Prescience into a turn 5 Inzah is particularly appealing here, so we’ll likely explore this direction to make sure Inzah is found in a high enough percentage of games to be impactful.
Score: 3
JIVE, INSECT!
A 5-mana overload Rag spell. The important thing to note is that this spell is not a summon effect, but a transformation, which means you need a friendly minion on the board to turn into Rag. This makes it a little more complicated to play on turn 5, since it requires a board.
Nevertheless, this card puts a lot of pressure on an opponent. We think players might be overly fixated on combo implications for this card. Yes, with Jazz Bass and Inzah, you can start thinking about the farfetched dream of a Criminal Lineup. But a more realistic and underestimated use for this spell is at the top end of a proactive deck.
As an aggressive deck, you’re likely ahead on the board since you’re prioritizing taking the initiative. A slower opponent will be fighting to keep you off the board and try to remove your threats. It makes it less likely that their board will have minions, which means you can transform one of your small minions into Ragnaros on turn 5 and hit them in the face for 8, while demanding an immediate answer for the Rag the next turn. This can be game winning.
We should expect Shaman to heavily experiment with the card in a variety of different decks, as it fits almost any kind of strategy.
Score: 4
Final Thoughts
Festival of Legends Set Rank: 10th
Overall Power Ranking: 10th
We’re not sure Shaman got the set it needed to reinvent itself successfully in the new year, but some game changing Core set updates could prove more impactful and lead the class back to relevance.
The overload package is neat. We can see a clear line of play in Overload Shaman that produce powerful swings. The issue is that we see lines of play, but we don’t see a cohesive deck. The composition of the deck could be something that players eventually figure out, but there are some holes in the strategy that we’ve spotted.
Ancestral Knowledge is great, but Overload Shaman still may run into card draw issues born out of its needs to spam multiple cards a turn to fuel Jazz Bass. Those issues are so glaring that some players have already put their faith in Metrognome to be the class’ savior. We don’t share the same enthusiasm.
The other issue is Shaman’s late game. How is it supposed to beat decks with a strong defensive shell? Is it supposed to Criminal Lineup its way into four copies of Ragnaros? Does it have the overload package required to enable such Jazz Bass swings? Should it rely on a single copy of Jive and Criminal Lineup to do it? Maybe it’s supposed to execute a Bioluminescence combo? Does it even have enough damage and resources? Just how many pieces do we need to hold in our hand to get it done? It’s all a bit sketchy. Shaman’s late game is not convincing at all.
Shaman’s early game looks more promising. The Core set updates could push Totem Shaman over the top, with Thing from Below looking like the most notable piece that’s coming back. A deck that floods the board with totems, and follows them up with discounted Things and Gigantotem, looks very coherent. The other option is to move onto the menagerie route, with Shaman boasting powerful cards from many different tribes that could fit together into one deck. Jive Insect seems quite dangerous to an opponent that falls behind on board and gets turn 5 Rag’d.
So, we do think that Shaman can be successful, but this success is likely coming from seizing the initiative early and snowballing. If the class dilly dallies on some late game combo, it may find itself outclassed.
thank you for the information