My climb to Legend - Meta discussion

 Hello everyone, I just hit Legend a few hours ago and, after seeing my tracker stats, I wanted to share some thoughts with you (may even upload on Reddit if I feel like, but probably not).

Some informations: I started playing Tempo Rogue (with Eviscerate instead of Heistbaron Togwaggle since I didn't want to craft it) at rank 3 1 star on EU ladder. This is the complete list if someone is interested (it's the same BoarControl brought to rank 5 Legend a few hours ago).

Now, here are the stats of my climb (I'd directly upload a picture if able to do so, but for some reason linking it from Imgur doesn't work anymore...): unfortunately it took me a couple more games than I needed since at some point my Wi-Fi decided it was siesta time and I lost two games out of disconnection but hey, 69% winrate is still pretty nice.

As you can see, out of 39 games 20 were against Shamans: to be more precise, only one of them was Murloc; the other 19 were either Quest (16) or straight Evolve (3).

Mage, Paladin, Warrior (they didn't save the best for last this time I guess) and Warlock completely unexistent; a sprinkle of Quest Druids, Highlander Hunters, Deathrattle Priests (one was Combo to be fair) and Rogues (3 were Tempo like me, 1 was Deathrattle). And that's it.

I know that 40 games are not a big sample, but they are enough to give an idea of what the environment is in the high ranks. Another fact: out of the 6 last games that I played, 5 were Shamans (the other one was Rogue): at some point I really wanted to pluck my eyes out.

What I'm trying to do is adding evidences to the already existent complaints around Shaman. The main issue is not its OPness (in fact I went 13-7 against Thrall/Morgl/Rastakhan/the fat guy), but rather its highroll potential and its capability of generating resources out of a bunch of mana.

Most of the games I lost were because I got overwhelmed by an absurd amount of stats in the early game, which maybe just Warrior (Brawl) and Priest (Mass Hysteria) can handle properly, and a small part because of resource exhaustion, but the fact is that, at the moment, there isn't a viable strategy against it except going face really fast and hard: Midrange gets totally annihilated and Control barely makes it; the most favorable matchups (Vicious Syndicate) are somewhat unreliable (I explain what I want to say: as you can read in the meta report I linked, OTK Paladin constantly beats Shaman, but the problem is that it struggles against pretty much anything else, therefore no Paladins on ladder) and, given the aforementioned highroll potential, it's able to give you wins even if you're not a top tier player (yes: some of the guys I played against were so bad that I felt bad for them).

In the end, (Quest) Shamans are really popular and, the most important thing, it feels really bad to play against them over and over again.

Let's rattle off what are in my opinion some of the crucial combos of the decks that generate this situation:

• the Evolve Mechanic: Desert Hare + Evolve can be neck breaking for most of the decks (even more if the Quest is completed); to be honest though, this combo isn't the one that worries me the most, because that title goes to
• [Hearthstone Card (Mogu Flashshaper) Not Found] + Mutate: the 8 mana minions pool is really strong, with just a few bad pulls (Hir'eek, the Bat is the worst outcome, whereas the second worst is Heroic Innkeeper or Captain Hooktusk, which is still pretty good on turn 4/5), and it will stay in Standard for more than another year. You can try to fight for the control of the board in order to prevent such insane turns, but
• Heart of Vir'naal + Mind Control Tech punishes you really hard for playing more than 3 minions.
• In the meantime, you have to watch out for insane burst coming from Kobold Lackey, Weaponized Wasp and Life-fucking-drinker plus Bog Slosher.

So, you need to fight for the board in order to kill 8 drops and many 4 drops in the early game without having more than 3 minions in play, otherwise you'd dramatically increase your opponent's board while losing yours. How does that even make any sense?

I don't want to start a nerfing/babyrage thread (hey, I got to Legend, fuck them Shamans), but rather having a discussion about it.

Given that Shaman is a problem for the current meta and maybe the future ones (alongside with Quest Druid in my honest opinion), what do you think? What is the card that triggers you/you don't like to play against the most? Have you found any reliable counters (except joining the dark side of course)? If yes, which?

Feel free to express your opinion and to blow off some steam if you really need to ;)

Thanks for reading

Hey man!

Congrats on your legend!

I just want to ask this: when facing shamans, what was your strategy? Go face or fight for the board?

This is just out of curiosity, since I stopped playing standard when this event came out - was facing too many resurrect priests and I'm so glad they are almost nonexistent in wild nowadays...

Quote From Painkiller1724

Hey man!

Congrats on your legend!

I just want to ask this: when facing shamans, what was your strategy? Go face or fight for the board?

This is just out of curiosity, since I stopped playing standard when this event came out - was facing too many resurrect priests and I'm so glad they are almost nonexistent in wild nowadays...

Thanks!

Just a premise before answering: considering that Shamans have access to double Battlecry Mind Control Tech you can't really expect to keep the board for too long, especially if they jam a random an 8 drop out of nowhere on turn 4. Sometimes I bait an MCT if I have 3 small minions and a medium sized one (e.g. Blink Fox, Swashburglar, Faceless Lackey and the 2 drop if not good), but yeah, no more than three guys is a self-given rule in this match up.

Once I clarified this, you are a Tempo deck, so you can't afford losing too much time (and resources) over clearing the opponent's minions: in the end, if their life hits zero it doesn't matter what the board looks like, right?

So, the gameplay I chose consists in taking the control of the board for the first 4/5 turns (you shouldn't have many problems: Rogue has insane tools like Vendetta, Underbelly Fence, Backstab and Sap); once you've delayed his quest completion (EVIL Totems are a must kill) and started chipping his life total, the only things you care about are face and minions you'd regret to leave up. To be specific, I'm talking about Bog Slosher and Weaponized Wasp shenanigans: Lifedrinker is worth to be killed since a bounce would mean 6 (and 3 more from Shudderwock) more damage to deal in order to win. The reason is the same for Wasp: if you have something on the board (of course not a 10/10 Edwin VanCleef) you better trade it into those 1/1s in order to avoid a 3 mana deal 6 to either your face or your board.

For the rest, it's Tempo Rogue: set up a good Waggle Pick, doink your opponent in the head and use your Shadowsteps wisely;Spirit of the Shark is good for both value (EVIL Miscreant, Lackeys in general, Edwin VanCleef and to be honest any other kind of battlecry) and burst (Lifedrinker, especially if you can Shadowstep it and play it again: the fact that it has stealth is a pretty big deal, since in this meta it only dies to Wardruid Loti + Starfall).

However, if they are Murloc, just spread out on the board and make them run out of resources while chipping damage.

First of all thank you OP for the thread. I am afraid Outof.cards is more dead than alive regarding to little response on the forums. 

I too find the meta very much crowded with evolve (quest) shamans. The deck seems indeed very strong an consistent so its not surprising its that popular. 

Even before the desert hare evolve combotthe deck had some pretty strong combos with fleshshaper evolve or the double burn damage from lackeys/wasps/lifedrinkers.

None of all of these ever felt fair to play against. Sure, some late druid turns or some things combo priest can do don't feel very fair either. But the amount of those combos in quest shaman combined with the insane draw and value generation makes the deck a bit too strong. 

Yeah, and this results in meeting 7-8 shamans in 10 games in higher ranks definitely makes the meta boring and stale. 

And no, I couldn't make out a solid counter to it which seems not very healthy for the game. 

Yeah it's really sad that this forums is slowly losing people's interest, or at least that's what it looks from the outside...

I just wonder how long we'll have to deal with this stuff: cards like Lifedrinker, Bog Slosher and Shudderwock will be in Standard for another 5 months, but even when gone there will surely be other battlecry minions that will take their place.

Moreover, they can't just keep giving Shaman bad stuff expansion after expansion, but the main problem is that I fear passing the whole next month not playing because of the meta: Blizzcon's hype won't possibly be so powerful to overshadow this issue.

I don't think the plain vanilla Evolve Shaman deck is that oppressive. They can high-roll but their start is often slow. I have played that deck and lose to Rogues all the time.

Quest Shaman is different. It's so easy to finish the quest and then the power from double battercries is disgusting. MCTech is the biggest problem; that card must be sent to hell.  Desert Hare becoming 5 minions + evolve (following the quest completion) is also insane. 5 four drops for 6 mana?

Quote From Duke

First of all thank you OP for the thread. I am afraid Outof.cards is more dead than alive regarding to little response on the forums. 

 

as much as I hate to admit it. I agree that the activity on this site is plummeting. Sometimes one of the threads on the 'recent threads' section will go over a day without getting a post, and there are plenty of threads that don't get responded to at all. Also, most decks on the front page don't get more than a total score of 5, and they usually don't get more than 600 or so views. I hope this site gets bigger when other games start getting more support on the site.