One of the most unique decks brought to the HCT EU Winter Playoffs 2018 was Viper’s Shaman deck, called “Peanut Shaman”. While we aren’t sure about the name’s origins, it has performed much better than most have expected, letting Viper be one of the four players who qualified for the Winter Finals.
From this blog post Blizzard shared today, we can learn more about the deck’s history, why it was brought to the tournament, as well as Viper’s run with it. Learn more below!
Torben “Viper” Wahl was one of just four players who did not bring a Hunter or Paladin deck to the HCT Winter Playoffs–Europe. As it happens, he also was one of just four players who qualified for the HCT Winter Championship by the end of the tournament.
This was thanks in part to a homebrew Shaman deck he cooked up with Felix “kolmari” Baum. “It’s essentially control Shaman,” Viper said. “I think you can compare it the most to Odd Warrior. Odd Warrior doesn’t die and just removes everything the other guy plays and at some point the Odd Warrior has cards and the other guy doesn’t have cards anymore. This Shaman kind of comes down to the same thing.”
There are some wild interactions and synergies available in Peanut Shaman. You can Haunting Visions into Kragwa, the Frog. You can Zola the Gorgon your Elise the Trailblazer to shuffle more cards into your deck, before playing Shudderwock to shuffle even more—or use Zola the Gorgon on the Kragwa before Shudderwock-ing for massive frog value.
With a total of nine legendary minions (at least one from each set in Standard currently), Peanut Shaman is not a budget deck. According to Viper, there are some alternative cards that substitute well. “All of the Shaman legendaries are very unique cards, so you can’t play many second options for them,” Viper said. “You could replace Zola, Elise, Kelseth, and Ziliax with two Firetree Witchdoctors and two Twilight Drakes. That is likely the best option.”
Peanut Shaman will likely lose to decks that kill you in one turn such as Mecha’thun, OTK Paladin, APM Priest, and so on. Against aggro decks, things become much easier, as your enemy will run out of cards before you will. Against aggro, Viper would agree that the most defensive play with a deck like Peanut Shaman is often the best play on nearly every turn.
Piloting this deck successfully requires a bit of pre-mulligan meditation. “You should make up your mind at the start going into matchups with these fatigue or control decks versus these other non-aggro decks,” Viper said. “Like, ‘I think I should use this card on this card’ or ‘I should use Volcano for that, I should save Hex for this.’ Sometimes you have to deviate, but thinking about it from the beginning helps, because sometimes 70 seconds is not enough time to think through a turn.”
The success of Peanut Shaman during the HCT Winter Playoffs just goes to show, play what you think is good and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. “I’m always very nervous, but it’s been getting better,” Viper said. “Especially if I’m bringing decks like this Shaman where everyone is going to look at it and say it’s a bad deck. I think I’m just OK with myself if I bring whatever I think is the best and I’m not afraid of people calling me out. If I have success with it, I don’t really mind what people think at first.”
Three players brought versions of Viper’s Peanut Shaman deck to the Americas Playoffs last weekend, but failed to find success. Only Jihwan “DacMalza” Hwang is championing it at the APAC Playoffs this weekend. Will it come through for him as it did for Viper? Find out when the broadcast goes live at twitch.tv/playhearthstonethis Friday, January 25, at 5:45 p.m. PST.
A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.
It’s funny because this deck used to be around, I actually found it on this very page and played it about a week ago. However, I didn’t really think it’s necessarily a ladder deck as well.
However, to anyone who can give it a spin and who is interested I recommend trying it with two unstable evolutions. It’s awesome with Zentimo and Krag’wa. May not be most competitive but the V A L U E
Different strokes for different folks. I actually enjoy playing against the classic, value-oriented Control decks without any combo finishers. For example, Odd Warrior is one of my favorite decks to play or play against.
But Peanut Shaman won’t be popular on the ladder simply because it’s not a great ladder deck. Tournament meta is much different, it doesn’t work as well on the ladder, plus it’s expensive and difficult to play. If it was meant to be popular, it would already be after 2 weeks.
But there isn’t a lot of Aggro on the ladder. Current meta is rather light on Aggro decks. It’s heavy on Midrange and Combo decks. Peanut Shaman is okay against the former (but only okay) and terrible against the latter. At Ranks 4-1 (the most competitive ones next to high Legend), the real Aggro decks are maybe 15% of the meta. That’s not enough. Just to prove the point, HSReplay currently puts the deck at roughly 40% win rate, and that’s really bad.
In tournament, you can counter-pick, you can’t do the same thing on ladder (outside of the high Legend situation where you queue into the same player twice in a row, but that’s also not guaranteed). In HCT EU, nearly every player has brought at least one Aggro deck, and some of them had full Aggro lineups. And you have to win only once with each deck, meaning that it was rare to not have something to counter.
It’s funny because this deck used to be around, I actually found it on this very page and played it about a week ago. However, I didn’t really think it’s necessarily a ladder deck as well.
However, to anyone who can give it a spin and who is interested I recommend trying it with two unstable evolutions. It’s awesome with Zentimo and Krag’wa. May not be most competitive but the V A L U E
Please don’t make peanut shaman a thing on ladder. Decks that juste don’t die and remove everything you play are really boring to play against
Different strokes for different folks. I actually enjoy playing against the classic, value-oriented Control decks without any combo finishers. For example, Odd Warrior is one of my favorite decks to play or play against.
But Peanut Shaman won’t be popular on the ladder simply because it’s not a great ladder deck. Tournament meta is much different, it doesn’t work as well on the ladder, plus it’s expensive and difficult to play. If it was meant to be popular, it would already be after 2 weeks.
Why it’s not a great ladder deck? As long as there are a lot of aggro it seems a good deck :p
But there isn’t a lot of Aggro on the ladder. Current meta is rather light on Aggro decks. It’s heavy on Midrange and Combo decks. Peanut Shaman is okay against the former (but only okay) and terrible against the latter. At Ranks 4-1 (the most competitive ones next to high Legend), the real Aggro decks are maybe 15% of the meta. That’s not enough. Just to prove the point, HSReplay currently puts the deck at roughly 40% win rate, and that’s really bad.
In tournament, you can counter-pick, you can’t do the same thing on ladder (outside of the high Legend situation where you queue into the same player twice in a row, but that’s also not guaranteed). In HCT EU, nearly every player has brought at least one Aggro deck, and some of them had full Aggro lineups. And you have to win only once with each deck, meaning that it was rare to not have something to counter.
^ This. My favorite matchup by far is control vs control. To bad combo had to invite all his friends to the party…