Ladderwalker
Version 2 - Ready for Rise of the Shadows
Difficulty: expert
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Leolph
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/leolph
About this deck:
This month I decided to play some ranked after a long hiatus and I needed a good deck that is fun and control style. Since my ranked Shaman wins are the only class below 1000 wins I've chosen this class to go for it. As you can see, this deck has just 4 neutral cards and the rest are all Shaman cards, so for the Shaman control deck lovers out there, this is the deck for you to climb in the current meta!
The first version of this deck struggled (surprisingly) a bit against Big Shaman (Muckmorpher/Eureka! etc.) and after changing some cards the deck went from 0% winrate to 57% winrate against Big Shaman. Starting the climb from Rank 20 to Rank 9 - 3 Stars I only met Big Shamans, no Murloc Shamans or other Shudderwock Shamans. The climb was done on EU servers, the hardest of the 3 realms of Hearthstone to climb (especially from rank 20).
Tough matchups are Hunter, especially Spellhunter when they have an insane Zul'jin turn. The RNG of Zul'jin decides if you win or loose this game, even if you were ahead the game all along. The swing Zul'jin can cause is insane and even worse than those swing turns the un-nerfed Yogg-Saron, Hope's End did, so maybe Zul'jin might be a card that needs a nerf soon, especially when it comes to wild format this is very much needed. Hunters were the most class I met during this climb. You need to have 1 Hagatha's Scheme high and ready after they played Zul'jin, otherwise it's a loss. On the other side: Mech Hunters are quite easy with this deck and this is represented in the winrate: 13-9 (59%). And you guessed right, all 9 losses were against insane Zul'jin swing turns.
Bomb Warriors were the second most matchup but although this matchup is very grindy you eat Bomb Warriors to lunch with an insane winrate of 80% against them! You outheal all the bombs and are very well prepared with Archivist Elysiana against fatigue damage.
Spell Damage Mages (67% winrate) and Pogo-Hopper Rogues / Tempo Rogues (86% winrate) were also very often matchups.
The games vs. Zoolocks are at 50% winrate (3-3) and mostly decided by the mulligan and if they have the Grim Rally very early or not.
The same goes for Token Druids with Soul of the Forest, but in this case I was lucky with a 60% winrate.
Priest is a free win, haven't lost a single game to this class.
All in all the deck has a 65% winrate in the current meta:
If you are a streamer and play this deck (or a modified version of it) on stream please give credit! Thanks!
How to play this deck and some tipps:
- Mulligan for Sludge Slurper, Witch's Apprentice, Menacing Nimbus and Bog Slosher. Keep 1 Hagatha's Scheme if you get it, especially against minion heavy decks.
- Bog Slosher is the hidden star of this deck, with the cards mentioned for the mulligan you can have a very, very good early and midgame. If you have The Coin you can save it with a Bog Slosher for a turn 10 combo with Walking Fountain. Most opponents concede if they see a bounced 6/10 Walking Fountain in your hand representing a double minion removal with an additional 12 heal points. You play Bog Slosher over Youthful Brewmaster because of the Buff (for bounced Lackeys/Witch's Apprentice/Menacing Nimbus) and the elemental tribe to activate Elementary Reaction (if needed)
- This is a very control style deck and with your expensive late game cards you could have some hand size issues, especially when you are already in Hagatha Hero form. Don't worry about it, as long as you have your Shudderwock, Swampqueen Hagatha and Archivist Elysiana in your hand it's ok to overdraw a card, especially when there are bombs in your deck
- Almost every deck plays Zilliax which is the reason why there is The Black Knight in the deck.
- Other good removal tech cards are Big Game Hunter (very good agains Conjurer's Calling Mages) and Mossy Horror (very good against Token Druids, Paladins, and Murloc Shamans).
- Use Krag'wa, the Frog to create additional Earth Shocks and Hexes
- The same goes for Swampqueen Hagatha, either choose removal spells like Earth Shock and Hex or cheap walls like Feral Spirits or Rain of Toads. In combination with Bog Slosher and the created card from Swampqueen Hagatha you have a ton of removal potential.
- In all those long control style games there will always be a "breath refresh turn", this is where you play a lot of Witch's Brew to heal up. Against Bomb Warriors it can help to create additional Witch's Brews with Krag'wa, the Frog
- Shudderwock is used as a fire and forget card in this deck, you can play it every time, even if you only need one battlecry from a card you have played before, don't bother if you overdraw a card, just make sure you already have Swampqueen Hagatha and Archivist Elysiana in your hand
- I'll add more here after I got some feedback
More infos / footage:
Check out my stream to watch me playing this deck. At the moment I do not stream that much, so follow my stream to get notified when a show starts.
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Comments
Had a lot of fun with this yesterday around Rank 10-9. Won 3/4 of my games for my quest, and most importantly, absolutely obliterated the Hunters I went up against. It's the Control Warrior deck I've been looking for. The game I lost was against another Control Shaman where I milled my own Shudderwok. There might be too much value in the deck. I want to play another dozen games or so and then think about substitutions. Great original concept though.
Why does this deck run elemental reaction instead of Far Sight? I feel like with all the high cost cards in the deck it would work better. also, I had to replace archivist elysiana, and the black knight, do you think [Hearthstone Card (haunting vision) Not Found]s would be good? or something else?
This decks looks fine (I also climbed with Control Shaman this season, but a Thunderhead variant because its stronger vs Aggro). I personally think Unseen Saboteur is almost an obligatory card in Control Shaman. It turns Mecha'thun decks, mainly Warrior, and Holy Wrath Paladin from a near auto-loss to a favorable match-ups.
I used to have an Unseen Saboteur in the deck, but as mentioned in the description most games were against Hunters and they are happy for a free Unleash the Beast oO
Very fun deck. I agree that Mountain Giant may have a home here, and maybe also Mind Control Tech against aggressive decks. Bog Slosher has been real good for value.
The idea of the deck is nice, but it just doesn't work out for me. First off, my hand is always full, most of the time there is no way to play Shudderwock without losing a lot of value. So I swapped the 2 Elementary Reactions with Zentimo and Storm Chaser (I know it's another card that draws a card, but couldn't come up with a better substutite). Still having hand size issues.
The other problem is that Big Game Hunter and The Black Knight hardly ever hit, at least at Rank 5.
Anyway, thanks for sharing!
I didn't try this deck cause im missing a few of the cards,it was a simillar one without elysiana,black knight,kragwa,instead i tryd adding in some early taunt minions and countess ashmore for specific card draw
I mean ther's another consideration in his guide he mentioned NOT playing against murloc shaman, and he did not mention agro mech hunter which is way more agressive then spell/secret hunter.He also mentioned having hard time against other agro decks like Zoo Lock and Token Druid. Maybe the pace of the game is alot slower at the rank he played it... But at rank 3 EU all i see is agro agro agro , with the ocasional Control Warrior not BOMB and Variants of Khadgar Mage mustly running freeze packages.
The deck looks decent enough that it could handle agro on paper,but the lack of card draw puts you at the RNG of top decking the right card.
RNG top decking the right card is every Shaman deck
BGH is for mage giant matchups and TBK is for really any matchup. Zilliak is in numerous decks. Just because you aren't getting "value" from them doesn't mean they don't belong in the deck. Dont forget you gain those battlecries on Shudderwock, so even if you "miss" them and play them on a vanilla board, it doesn't mean you can't get value later.
Thanks for your feedback! Don't mind if you loose some value/cards from Shudderwock, it's still a 6/6 and even if you get 1 useful battlecry and/or card out of it you can say that's enough value - especially when you have a Bog Slosher to bounce him back.
If you still have too much hand size issue then try to delay the Hagatha hero form, you will see that she is not always needed.
Concerning Big Game Hunter and The Black Knight I always find targets for them. Even if you just kill a frog with The Black Knight you have the battlecry for Shudderwock and a 4/5 in play. Don't hold too much back, you also can play them just for tempo.
Currently at Rank 7 - 4 stars with still 61% winrate, hope to get to Rank 5 soon, so I can give you more feedback in your ladder area.
Maybe it's ok for you if you change the 2 Elementary Reactions with Mountain Giants ?
Yeah, Mountain Giants could work, I'll definitely try that.
I still having troubles not losing too much value even without Hagatha the Witch with all these dudes generating dudes/spells.
Will try to play the deck less greedily from now :)
edit: grammar
Fantastic deck my dude! I have had a great time playing with it and I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to have a great time while climbing the ladder! I made a video showcasing the deck in all its glory, I really hope you all enjoy.
Dude you are not even playing this deck in the video.. I mean wtf
I'm always willing to try a good Thrall deck, especially a control variant. I dusted my Archivist Elysiana when she was nerfed but have dust to craft her... again. lol
How important is she?
I ended up swapping Elysiana for a second BGH and went fine. It's up to you whether you wanna spend the dust or not.
You only need her in Control Warrior matchups, sometimes maybe in long Priest games. And of course in the mirror match (or other control style Shaman lists).
Very fun deck, tons of options and answers. I've only started playing it, but I'm 4 and 2. I love that with the right cards, I can lock down mech hunter, mech paladin, token druid, and khadgar mage. Cheers!