Thank you, that’s one of the best compliments a writer can get

OTK Shudderwock Shaman was a classic Day 1 experiment. When no one really knows what to play, and runs a bunch of unoptimized decks, every deck feels stronger than it really is. If you add the fact that Disguised Toast (undoubtedly one of the bigger HS streamers & personalities) has played it on Day 1 and the deck got memed because of the length of animations, it all added up.

Best players knew after just a few days that the deck is not going to work. On my Day 1 compilation, written less than 24h after the expansion, I was already saying that the deck is not good. It’s like a worse version of the Exodia Mage, which was never dominating the meta. It might stay as some sort of an off-meta counter to certain builds, but at least right now isn’t going to be popular.

The deck isn’t completely pointless – it still has a positive matchups against some decks, but those decks are so few and far between that it doesn’t make much sense (competitively speaking) to play it over any other meta deck.

Plus, we’ve got some news about the Shudderwock – it’s been capped to 20 Battlecries + the animation times got shorter.

Thank you!

No problem, I’m really glad that you’ve enjoyed it! Yeah, this meta looks really diverse right now. While there are clearly a few decks dominating (power level of Paladin worries me a bit), it’s cool that no matter what kind of decks you like to play, you should find something for yourself.

Thank you a lot! I really like doing those compilations – not only I can share what I already know with all of you, but I also can learn a lot about the meta myself.

You should expect to see this kind of posts after every expansion or a major balance patch!

Sorry, we fixed it. Thanks for noticing!

It was first revealed as a Rare card back in K&C and it was changed at the release. I guess none of us paid attention to that fact, lol.

If anything, I’d probably replace Sea Giants, not Tar Creepers, but yes, it is a solid consideration. Why not Tar Creepers? Because then you’d be missing your Turn 3 too often. Duskbat is a bad Turn 3 play, since it’s just a 2/4 if you don’t take any damage first. That’s why Tar Creeper is usually the best T3 play you can make (other than something like 3x 1-drop if you get a very fast hand and you push for tempo).

I have been facing less Cube Warlocks recently, since everyone is teching against them (I face maybe 1 in 10 games in Legend), that’s why I didn’t include the Silence tech. But if you face more of them, go ahead and play it!

Just added the full guide, including “Card Substitutions” section at the bottom – check it out. However, keep in mind that you don’t want to replace too many AoE cards, or you would be left with no ways to clear the board in faster matchups.

Last section of the guide is always “card substitutions” – look there for potential replacements for more expensive cards

Yeah, this deck is super expensive… And it has so many must-have Epics & Legendaries. It’s pretty sad that slow, Control deck are usually 2-3 times more expensive than Aggro.

This is a highest win rate popular Tempo Mage build right now. We don’t just put in random decks because we feel like it. We analyze many different builds and include the ones that perform best (we tend to ignore builds that were played by literally a single player, because the results are usually skewed).

Vex Crow might look powerful, but the card is just too slow in this deck. Sure, it’s good vs Control decks, but against Aggro you just can’t wait until Turn 6-7 to start comboing it with stuff, and you can’t drop it on Turn 4, because it’s just a 3/3 that will simply die. It’s still an option, but builds that run it have 1-2% lower win rate than this build.

The deck list will change very often, since the meta is not stable yet. Maybe five days from now it will again look completely different.

If you don’t play Wild, then it’s definitely worth to disenchant Golden Fandral

As for which one is better craft, right now Baku looks to be played in more decks than Genn. It’s impossible to call anything a completely “safe craft” so early into the expansion, but right now I’d say that Baku is the safest craft from Witchwood.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you!

The problem with not running weapon is drawing Doomguards. If you draw Voidlord, that’s not a big deal, you can still play it. But Doomguard? Nah, it’s a dead card until late, late into the game when you’ve already played all of your key cards. Of you can risk it, but then discarding Cube, Gul’dan etc. is very bad.

To be completely honest, weapon is not destroyed that often. Weapon destruction might be a bit more common right now, but I’m still getting it off like 3 out of 4 times. And weapon on T5 is basically a win in lots of matchups – if you pull out 2-3 big Demons for just 5 mana, it’s game over for your opponent.

Yes, it sometimes happens that the weapon pulls nothing… but the same can be said about Lackey. Some redundancy is needed to make everything more consistent.

One more advantage of the weapon is that you play the cost in advance. Playing weapon means that next turn you have all of your mana to work with – if you pull out a Doomguard, you can immediately Cube + Dark Pact it, and that’s 15 damage!

If you’re playing a lot of Cube Lock, I would recommend crafting the weapon. It’s the second most important Legendary after Bloodreaver Gul’dan. To be honest, without weapon, I probably wouldn’t even run Doomguards (so basically just play a regular Control Warlock).

Yes, it seems like this Druid is a great counter to this deck. You need to play fast (try to play minions over Hero Powering, you don’t aim at a long game, because in the long game you lose), and hope that they don’t draw the right cards. You can’t really do much more.

3.33% chance that Shudderwock is the last card in your deck, actually.

I know that you’re exaggerating, but it’s just not true. Same could be said about any combo deck – if one of the combo pieces is the last card in your deck, too bad, you probably lose. E.g. if Shadowreaper Anduin was the last card in your Highlander Priest deck, yeah, you most likely didn’t win that game. But it doesn’t happen often.

I think you’ve misunderstood something. I have said that you don’t need to play combo pieces ON THE SAME TURN as Shudderwock, not that you don’t need to play them before him at all…

I’ve explained how the combo works two times – in the Introduction and the Strategy part. Both times I’ve said what you need to play before you can drop Shudderwock.

If there was a point at which I’ve said that you don’t have to worry about playing cards like Saronite Chain Gang or Lifedrinker before Shudderwock, quote that part and I’ll change that…

P.S. I disagree with playing Battlecry cards as fast as possible. All you need to do is to play all of them before Shudderwock. There is no point in dropping that Lifedrinker on Turn 4 if you have a better play for that turn. Dropping them as fast as you can will often just lose you the game, because you were making poor plays. You need to plan ahead. E.g. if your opponent is starting to build the board, you might want to play a Doomsayer even if you have a Battlecry combo piece in your hand. The only “clunky” Battlecry card that I’d say you want to drop as fast as possible (unless you play against a slow deck) is Grumble – at 6 mana and without life gain / Taunt, it’s pretty slow. Both Saronite Chain Gang and Lifedrinker can really wait, you can even drop both of them a turn before Shudderwock if you didn’t have a good opportunity before and it will still be fine.

Thanks!