Mutate Token Shaman Deck List Guide – Saviors of Uldum – September 2019

Strengths

• High tempo swing turns where you generate large numbers of rushing tokens via Thunderhead which then allow you to mana-cheat Mogu Fleshshaper and Sea Giant onto the board.
• Large amount of removal and immediate plays from hand allowing you to gain and maintain board control vs board reliant decks such as Combo Priest.

Weaknesses

• Tempo reset tools like Brawl or some of Paladin’s board clears.
• Long term value.

Card Choices

Mutate – Tempo tool to evolve Mogu Fleshshaper or Former Champ. Sometimes you should use this card on an EVIL Totem in a tempo matchup if you cannot protect the Totem from a trade.

Zap! – Zero mana overload card. Very good with Thunderhead as you can play them both on Turn 4, or can combo with a second overload card on Turn 5.

Lightning Bolt – Another overload card. Can go face SMOrc. Sometimes on Thunderhead + Mogu/Sea Giant turns where a Lightning Bolt will kill an opposing minion, it can be better to bolt the opponent’s face so there’s an extra minion still on board which acts as a 1 mana discount to Mogu or Sea Giant.

Murmy – Curve filler card which also has synergies in the deck by virtue of being hard to remove and with Underbelly Angler.

Sludge Slurper – Strong 1 drop with overload synergy, token synergy, Murloc synergy. What’s not to love? (Answer: Rush Lackey)

Voltaic Burst – Another overload card, this one is better with Mogu and Sea Giant. It is also generally better with Likkim than Zap or Lightning Bolt as usually the Likkim itself is enough removal, but you also get two 1/1s as board development. Watch out for board space, and look for combos with The Storm Bringer, Vessina or Bloodlust.

EVIL Totem – Repetitive Lackeys are nice. With the large amount of board control options, sticking this for multiple turns is a realistic prospect.

Likkim – Shines against board reliant minion decks, particularly Combo Priest. Not so good vs Control Warrior, OTK Paladin or Quest Druid. Great way to spend your mana before setting up swing turns.

Underbelly Angler – Silly 2-drop that cheeses out wins.

Thunderhead – Great mid-game tempo card to seize board. Look to do big combo turns with this, overload cards and Mogu/Sea Giant.

Vessina – A cheaper Bloodlust. Combos very nicely with Thunderhead if you are able to stick either for a turn.

Bloodlust – The way we convert our wide-boards into a victory. Usually a dead card in hand until it’s not, then you win. Sometimes vs Priest you can use this as removal. Beware of using this just because it is ‘good enough’, if you use it and lose board control because we neglected board development that turn it can be disastrous. This deck lives and dies by board control.

Former Champ – One of the weaker cards and somewhat of a relic from older Shudderwock lists. Necessary card to make Mutate better. Outside of that not terrible stats for the mana + it’s two bodies.

The Storm Bringer – Fun card. When this is in your hand start to plan your turns to activate it. Ideally you want to hit 5+ minions. It’s a very expensive card and requires you to have a wide board, which often costs mana in itself. Cards like Thunderhead or Voltaic Burst can give you wide boards very cheaply. Look to doing plays like developing a Thunderhead but saving your Zap until turn 6 – Zap something (sometimes your own guy!) to generate tokens and make Legendaries on the same turn.

Mogu Fleshshaper – This card is already super strong in Quest Shaman, but even stronger in this deck which can explode minions onto board way easier. Perhaps the strongest card in the deck.

Sea Giant – More expensive than the Mogu, but with better stats. Sometimes you want to delay your Thunderhead swing turns by a turn or two so you can play this card alongside them. If you do it too early, then both boards start getting traded away and you end up with an unplayable Sea Giant in hand for the rest of the game. Mogu itself has nice synergy with Sea Giant as it often comes down for 0 mana, reducing the cost of the Giant by 1.

Mulligans

Generally you want to be keeping Underbelly Angler, Sludge Slurper, Likkim, EVIL Totem, Mogu Fleshshaper and Thunderhead. But, you should be a bit flexible with your mulligans as there are good synergies available. If you already have a Mogu, then Voltaic Burst or Mutate become attractive cards to keep. Zap! with Thunderhead. Murmy with Angler. You’ll get a feel for this as you play the deck, but generally you want to keep the 6 base good mulligan cards and some complimentary cards if you already have some of the base ones. Regarding Likkim, keep this in decks where you’ll be fighting for board control. Against decks like OTK Paladin or Quest Druid, where you’ll freely get ahead on board – don’t keep this card and instead go for just pro-active cards like Angler or EVIL Totem.

Popular Matchups

Priest

Good matchup. With plenty of board control cards we have one of the few decks available that can deal with priest boards and get ahead. The ultimate goal is to get them off the board. Try to get them on board early if you can via Likkim, but if you can’t set up swing turns in the midgame with Thunderhead and Mogu Fleshshaper.

Priest has a large variety of ways to buff health of their minions but only a few ways to buff attack (mainly Inner Fire). Take advantage of this by limiting the Priest’s card draw, then you can get away with playing big minions of your own and the Priest will have a hard time killing them. Thunderhead, Vessina, Former Champ, Sea Giant all have high health and are hard for the Priest to trade into outside of Inner Fire.

Likkim is one of the best cards you can have vs Priest.

Quest Shaman

Mogu Fleshshaper swing turns really define this matchup. We have the advantage in that we can more easily control the number of minions on board as we can generate them quickly to benefit us, and then rush into our opponent’s minions to reduce the total number again. Giving us mana cheating swing turns but denying them for our opponent. Don’t try to play around Mind Control Tech too much, often we will have 5+ minions on board and most of them are tokens. A 20% chance for a good MCT is usually a bad use of mana for our opponent. We have plenty of cards that benefit from us having a wide board, so don’t be afraid of the MCT. If you do end up with a board of Thunderhead, Giant and Mutated Mogu then sure, play around MCT.

Quest Druid

Slightly favored matchup. Sea Giant is actually very good against Druid as they allow us to freely build up minions onto our side of the board for the first 5 turns – plus the 8 health of Sea Giant dodges the 7 damage of Starfall. One of the best ways to beat Druid is through the combo of Thunderhead, Zap and The Storm Bringer. You play Thunderhead at some point, then on turn 6 (or 5 with coin) you Zap then storm bringer for a board of Legendaries. Look out for when you hit this specific combo.

Otherwise, when approaching quest completion, try to make a board that is somewhat resistant to Starfall or Oasis Surger. Having your board completely wiped by either can be game losing tempo.

Control Warrior

Very bad matchup as they have ways to completely reset tempo, especially via Brawl. My advice would be to mulligan as if you’re facing aggro warrior, but if you know it’s Control Warrior then hard mulligan for Underbelly Angler to try to cheese them out of the game. Another bit of advice would be to not play around Brawl at all. Even a half-decent Brawl where you try to play around it will be good enough to win a lot of the time. Just go all-in and make sure you win the games where they don’t have it.