Brann Bronzebeard is back for Shaman, in the form of a Hero Power, that you can get by completing the new Shaman Quest Corrupt the Waters, with an emphasis on playing battlecry minions. The class’s huge array of battlecry minions makes the Quest easy to complete and even easier to take advantage of. Cards like Krag'wa, the Frog and Shudderwock are icing on the cake, that can provide an enormous amount of value or tempo. The new addition, the new swiss-army-knife card Siamat, is especially good in the deck, because of the ability to select all the available options, making it a candidate, in theory, for best card of the expansion for the deck.
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The deck’s main strength lies in its ability to clear the board multiple times, using Lightning Storm, Hagatha's Scheme and the new Earthquake spell, which it can add back to the hand via Krag'wa, the Frog‘s battlecry. The deck also includes Electra Stormsurge, to really take advantage of its AoE. After the AoE, the deck relies on doubling the battlecry effects of minions like Swampqueen Hagatha, Siamat and getting lackeys with Sludge Slurper and EVIL Cable Rat. With the doubling of the battlecries, you should eventually outvalue most opponents, especially more aggressive or midrange ones.
A really interesting new card, included in this theorycraft list, is Siamat. A 6/6 for 7 mana, which can get any 2 of Rush, Taunt, Divine Shield and Windfury, but when played with Corrupt the Waters, it gets all of the effects combined, which makes it a really table-turner for most board states. The resulting minion, 6/6 with Rush, Taunt, Divine Shield and Windfury, is so good that playing it without having completed the Quest, will usually not be worth it. One thing to keep in mind is that Shudderwock gets to get the effects when played, as it is a battlecry, which makes him even more potent, since he can affect the board instantly, while also giving you a lot of value with your card-generating battlecries or tempo with the damaging ones.
The deck could forego some of the late-game cards to include more midrange-y minions, to become a little more aggressive, but in that case Hagatha's Scheme and Earthquake should probably be replaced with high-tempo battlecries as well, since you will not be happy with damaging your own board.
On the other hand. you can choose to go the other route and make the deck more defensive and fatigue-like, mainly by including Archivist Elysiana and replacing some tempo battlecries, such as Weaponized Wasp with more defensive options, either minion or spell. That way, playing Archivist Elysiana first and following it up with Shudderwock really tests the patience and resources available to your opponent, while you constantly clear the board and heal, using something like Omega Mind or Witch's Brew.
One notable exclusion for the battlecry theme in this deck, is Barista Lynchen, that will probably be considered too much of an overkill. With your card generation effects, most of which will be doubled through the “upgraded” hero power, you should have a little bit of trouble emptying your hand until really late in the game.
No matter the direction, the constant thing is that Corrupt the Waters is too good to not include, since midrange and control versions of Shaman can really take advantage of it. The deck can include a good amount of tech cards as well, dependant on the meta, since most of the tech cards are battlecries. Harrison Jones, Mind Control Tech and the new SI:7 Infiltrator are some good examples, dealing with weapons, token decks or secret from Mages or Hunter.
Not including Lifedrinker is a strange choice isn’t it?
Take out Conjured Mirage and Hagatha
Hello Stonekeep, ask your developer to change the timestamp of comments to users timezone rather than the servers or the default as i guess everyone around the world is sharing the same timezone now
Yes, that’s how it works right now (I’m also using the wrong time zone actually), but I just didn’t see any option to set it according to the user’s own time zone anywhere.
But you’re right, I can ask devs about it 🙂
Yeah it can only be done in the code ,actually there’s nothing wrong with it but its safe to not give out the server location most of the time . Anyways keep up the good work.????
Please don’t mind the question marks i don’t know how that came 🙂
It was a mistake on my part. Let me tell you something folks, proper rest is important! Guide and list should be fixed now.
If we are running Quest, why would we run Hagatha?
Because many ppl believe they will work togheter, but a quick look at the prerelease event showed thats not possible, so hagatha is a no no, and this article needs to be changed
Battlecry twice outvalues Hagatha . Hagatha is not needed
Fixed the part about passive, I apologize for that (I admit that I was really busy today and I didn’t proofread it properly).
This deck has serious consistency issues. Needs optimizations. IOH the Quest Shaman archetype is very promising.
This entire guide was written under the premise that the hero power was passive. In all honesty this is very irresponsible. Some reader may have gotten super excited about your guide and crafted everything when it came out only to realize it dosnt work quite like you said. Read the cards before writing up a whole thing. I say leave it to Stonekeep
The deck has potential, but I wanted to fact check the writeup.
Siamat becomes 6/6 with all the goodies for 9 mana, not 7, because the hero power is not a passive. Also Shudderwock will probably rarely get the effects of the hero power unless you reduce total cost under 11 mana with Far Sight or something.
Finally, I’m curious how the Hagatha interaction with quest is expected to work. Both the quest and Hagatha are hero power based, but the interaction is not addressed anywhere in the writeup.