JimmyRaynor’s Evolve Shaman – Doom in the Tomb

Shaman players rejoice, for Evolve is back and its unpredictability will strike fear into your opponents, provided you evolve your minions into something good! While Evolve does not have the likes of Saronite Chain Gang or Doppelgangster to take advantage of in the Standard format, it can still be a good way to snowball a token-based board into something more menacing, that your opponent will have trouble dealing with. Along with Evolve, Mutate can be an extra tool in this direction, especially when paired with Zentimo, to cast Mutate to 3 targets, instead of 1. The unpredictability of the mechanic makes it, in some instances, a nightmare to deal with, as long as you don’t allow your bad Evolves to tilt you into oblivion.

The deck is token-based, playing aggressively from the start, in order to establish a board presence, since that’s the deck’s whole premise; to win through superior board control. Lacking any sort of removal or AoE, it is really important to not fall behind too much on the board, although a good timed Electra Stormsurge + Evolve with a bunch of tokens can put you back in the game, often enough. Seeing as this is an aggressive token deck, Knife Juggler could not be missing from the Theorycraft, along with some other good early game options, such as Saronite Taskmaster and Mecharoo.

While the list does lack removal, Quicksand Elemental can act as a pseudo-removal, especially during the first couple of turns, allowing you to trade into the enemy board with minimal, if any, losses, thus establishing that much needed presence that the deck needs to operate. And of course, Mogu Fleshshaper is included to take advantage of the reduction it will inevitably receive, which can allow you to trade an enemy minion and then Evolve or Mutate him into an 8-drop much earlier than your opponent would be confortable with.

Zentimo and Electra Stormsurge are really interesting choices you can opt for, with the former giving you 1-2 extra casts of Mutate at once for 3 mana, while the latter can be used to double-cast Evolve, transforming your board to 2 mana higher, for a mere 4 mana. Some of the more interesting and effective targets for that kind of investment are your mid-game minions, like Hench-Clan Hag and Former Champ.

This theorycrafted list includes SN1P-SN4P, altough the mech options to Magnetize him to are limited to Microtech Controller, Explodinator and Hench-Clan Hag, mainly because of its Deathrattle, that can give you a board full of tokens to Evolve, but there could be better ways to fill that spot (along with a couple more).

Even if you are not able to snowball the board fast enough, keeping a copy of Evolve handy for late game can be crucial, since the list can include Shudderwock as a last resort, summoning a board full of tokens, ready to be transformed. Even though it will prob be a mid-game board, full of 2-6 cost minions (after you Evolve them), any lack of AoE can be devastating for the opponent, especially if you opt to include a copy or two of Bloodlust instead of SN1P-SN4P or Explodinator.