The Comprehensive March of the Lich King Preview

Data Reaper Report - Shaman

Deathweaver Aura

Deathweaver Aura

An unconventional buff, not giving you immediate stats on the board, but a deathrattle. 2 mana plus 1 overload for a couple of 3/2 Zombies is okay, but nothing groundbreaking. What makes this card more enticing to play is Scourge Troll, a 1-drop we’ll discuss later that doubles deathrattle given to it. It makes for a very intimidating 1-2 punch that can seal games early.  Aggressive decks want to frontload as much power as possible, and this helps accomplish that.

Score: 3

Unliving Champion

Unliving Champion

This is one of the better undead payoffs in the format, developing three 3/2 bodies for 3 mana when activated. This is a significant amount of stats at an early stage of the game. You can compare it to Mischievous Imp, which is a very impactful threat that can come down on turn 4. The activation of Unliving Champion is arguably easier too. If Zombie Shaman works, Unliving Champion would be a primary reason for it.

Score: 3

Harkener of Dread

Harkener of Dread

This card reminds us of Burning Blade Acolyte, though better in almost every way. The fact its initial body is a 2/2 taunt is a huge deal since it means you can’t ignore it. You must go through 8/8 in total stats of taunt. It’s a good defensive minion for Shaman, but it doesn’t apply much pressure, which makes us wonder where this card would fit. It’s likely too slow for current Control Shaman, so it would have to be a different deck. We’ve been brewing some cool stuff with Harkener, and we like the card, but we’re not too optimistic about its immediate competitive prospects.

Score: 2

Shadow Suffusion

Shadow Suffusion

Another interesting buff that grants a deathrattle, and this time it’s a board wide buff. 3 damage on a deathrattle is quite a lot. You can compare this to Bloodlust, and it looks favorable. Though you don’t get the immediate burst damage, Suffusion is cheaper and allows you to load up the damage earlier, making it very difficult for the opponent to clean up your board without taking significant punishment. We know how much pressure the skeleton package in Mage can apply to an opponent, and Suffusion grants a stronger effect, making it imperative that you keep the Shaman off the board. Pretty good.

Score: 3

Prescience

Prescience

If you build your deck specifically to only include expensive minions, Prescience is a Saronite Chain Gang that draws 2 minions. That’s a very powerful draw engine for a “Big Shaman” deck. In addition, its potential as a tutor is something to consider, as we might be able to build a defensive shell that finds our key combo pieces with Prescience.

The restriction does leave Shaman quite limited in its deckbuilding options. You might “hope for the best” and decide that an average roll of a single taunt still makes it a playable card, but Shaman has better draw options for decks that can play cheaper minions. Current Control Shaman really doesn’t need this, so it would have to be a new archetype. We think it will eventually become a competitive card, but it might take more than one expansion.

Score: 2

From De Other Side

From De Other Side

We’re not sure why this card costs as much as it does. For 10 mana, a card better win us the game, but instead we get an elaborate board clear. The idea is to play many deathrattle or reborn minions so that we don’t just clear the opponent’s board, but also develop our own. But this requires a massive deck building effort, putting in cards that are mediocre by themselves just so that our 10-mana spell, that can’t even do any face damage, work better.

We can’t say we’re behind this. Either Barbaric Sorceress carries this spell into competitive play, or it sits in the collection collecting dust. There is no way we want to spend 10 mana on this one.

Score: 1

Scourge Troll

Scourge Troll

This 1-drop gives us some room for optimism regarding an aggressive undead Shaman deck. Scourge Troll on turn 1 is a significant threat that the opponent must clear, or risk being snowballed very early. The primary follow-ups on turn 2 should be Deathweaver Aura and Vrykul Necorlyte, but Shadow Suffusion, Rotgill and Hawkstrider Rancher could also be relevant later in the game. Solid baseline stats with a dangerous ability at a game’s onset should be a good card.

Score: 3

Blightblood Berserker

Blightblood Berserker

A very big and very expensive taunt containing a lot of keywords. Here’s what we need to understand: since the minion has lifesteal, its deathrattle is also affected by lifesteal. When Berserker dies the first time, it sends 3 lifesteal damage to a random enemy, and then does it again on its second death since it’s reborn. Overall, there’s a lot of healing packed into this taunt. Value trading into it pretty much means the Shaman is going to heal by huge amount. Killing with direct damage or hard removal still guarantees a heal of 6, so the only way around that is a silence or transform effect.

Berserker is a very strong defensive minion that can help the Shaman stabilize against aggression. The problem is that it costs 8 mana and Shaman has no way to reasonably cheat this out. It doesn’t prevent the Shaman from being killed by over-the-top damage, and it’s quite weak in slower matchups since it doesn’t put that much pressure on the opponent for an 8-cost minion. Could become stronger if Shaman gets a Muckmorpher/Eureka type of effect in the future.

Score: 2

Rotgill

Rotgill

Rotgill is a big payoff for a wide board. Any minion that dies with the deathrattle, buffs the rest of the board, and this can keep stacking. Unless the opponent has a full board wipe such as a Twisting Nether, it’s going to be a nightmare to trade into the board and try to clean it up. You can also play Rotgill and immediately sack some of your minions with trades to buff the rest of the board and push face damage. The murloc tag is quite relevant too, as we can find Rotgill with Gorloc Ravager. This is a very good card for any aggressive deck, but there’s a chance it finds its way to slower archetypes just because Shaman is very board-centric, regardless of its strategy.

Score: 3

Overlord Drakuru

Overlord Drakuru

This legendary is a big letdown. Let’s think about what it does. It’s a 9 mana 6/8 with both Windfury and Rush that summons the enemy minions it kills to your board. That’s theoretically a decent swing: killing two minions. Getting them on your side of the board.

The problem is that this is a 9-mana, class specific legendary. Let’s look at a 9-mana neutral that does see play in current Control Shaman: Insatiable Devourer. This is a 9 mana 4/4 that eats up to three of the opponent’s minions and steals their stats. You could very much compare it to Drakuru’s ability.

So how is Drakuru ever better? Devourer kills more stuff on impact, and therefore is likely to grow into a bigger threat. Infusing it is trivial in Shaman. Is Drakuru a card because it works better with From De Other Side?

Unless Drakuru gets a mana discount, we can’t see how it’s ever better than a generic neutral.

Score: 1

 

Final Thoughts

March of the Lich King Set Rank: 10th

Overall Power Ranking: 11th

Shaman could be in a little bit of trouble, as we sense an absence of assurance regarding its archetypes’ ability to compete in the new format. Both established decks and new Shaman decks could be facing some obstacles.

We’ll start with Control Shaman, the deck that didn’t get much from this set and has recently been stagnating. Much like Beast Hunter, it will have to rely on neutral additions to stay on track, with cards such as Astalor, Bonelord, Invincible and Theron providing it with some late game options to tinker with. Rotgill could be the class card it might be interested in if the deck is looking to pressure more through the board.

We do like Zombie Shaman. It has a strong 1-drop in Scourge Troll, some good follow up plays and ways to leverage a board lead into a victory. However, the undead early game might be lacking if we don’t find Scourge Troll, and our card draw options remain limited to Gorloc Ravager and a murloc package. It might be suffering from the Enrage Warrior problem of early Castle Nathria by feeling incomplete.

And then there’s ‘Big Shaman’, which looks the most suspicious and unreliable of the bunch. There doesn’t seem to be a concrete late game plan here other than stabilizing and hoping for the best. One possible solution we may have found is to incorporate an OTK combo with Bonelord Frostwhisper and Al’akir. If that works, Big Shaman may have its late game win condition. We do believe in its ability to handle fast matchups and stabilize behind its undead taunts, but we can’t help but feel annoyed that it can’t develop its threats earlier. You know, doing the thing that any successful ‘big’ deck in Hearthstone’s history has been able to do in the past.

And that’s kind of it. We have an aging established deck that’s unlikely to significantly change, an aggressive deck that’s untested and may be lacking in some elements, and a very gimmicky ‘big’ archetype without a way to… cheat out its big stuff!

Can you blame us for raising an eyebrow at Shaman’s prospects for the next set? We do think that every class will be competitive in March of the Lich King, but Shaman might be one of those classes that players just choose not to play.