Big Shaman | Guide | Season 63 | Cardinal

Guide for Big (Muckmorpher) Shaman

Introduction

My name is Cardinal (it's actually Stefan), and I've played Hearthstone from the very beginning. My main focus has always been playing Control-ish decks, but never the most meta-ones, if that makes sense. For instance, I don't play Control Warrior, but love Big Warrior. Mostly, I like playing decks that have room for optimization, and are perhaps ever-evolving. I like to take a deck, dissect it, and make it better, depending on the meta I'm facing in my own rank, which is mostly rank 5 to 1. I have no interest in making Legend anymore, but will always motivate myself to making these decks better and better. Therefore, the decks I play and the guides I make for them are not your best source of scoring that Legend-rank, but wíll provide you with a fun deck that's still viable, but less present on ladder. They're not memes, by any means, but are also not meta. They're the underdogs you wish would win.

Overview

Many times before, people have tried to come up with a fun ánd viable deck for Big Shaman. As per usual, some have tried out decks with Barnes, and combinations with Ancestor's Call and minions such as Kel'Thuzad. However, in year of the Dragon, Big Shaman has received that one card that makes it semi-viable in Standard, Muckmorpher. Shaman always had ways to cheat with mana and pushing out minions for less than their cost, with cards like Far Sight and Eureka!.

It's the killer-combination between cycle with Spirit of the Frog, and value generation with Big Bad Voodoo and Ancestral Spirit, that has pushed the deck up in playrate, and more significantly, winrate. Being able to both cycle and present board presence, in combination with new strong minions that can heal (Walking Fountain), the deck has seen an uprise in playrate, and has spawned many different builds, each focused on different matchups. There are builds that focus on winning versus Token/Aggro decks, including cards like Lightning Storm and Batterhead, and other decks that push towards a higher winrate versus Control or Combo, by including two copies of Big Bad Archmage.

My preferred build is the one that utilizes Spirit of the Frog, to not only cycle through your spells, but also to make finding Muckmorpher a more doable task. I will explain the key-card choices, and how you can use them best, below:

Card Choices

• Ancestral Healing (Replaceable): Great to use on Walking Fountain, when in dire need of heals. Attention: Ancestral Healing a 4/4 Walking Fountain morphed by Muckmorpher, does NOT make it 4/8.
• Earth Shock (Key): Key against the uprise in Mech-decks.
• Ancestral Spirit (Key): Amazing card to generate more value, and make boards sticky.
• Big Bad Voodoo (Replaceable): Most of all, a fun card to play with, but amazing value can be generated by sticking it to a Muckmorpher, as it copies the mana-cost of the minion it morphed into.
• Witch's Brew (Replaceable): Healing, duh. Do not hesitate to use it on turn 4, for 8 healing, for example.
• Far Sight (Key): Amazing card, that requires a bit of RNG. Most likely, you will high-roll, and are able to play Ysera and Big Bad Voodoo in one turn, for example.
• Haunting Visions (Replaceable): Can be replaced, but not recommended. Very flexible card that pays itself off.
• Spirit of the Frog (Key): Cycle through your decks and spells, extremely important. Dilutes your Muckmorpher output a bit, but always pays itself off.
• Hex (Key): Much needed Control card.
• Hagatha's Scheme (Key): The deck's only form of AoE. You will almost always want this in your opening hand.
• Muckmorpher (Key): Not even going to explain this choice.
• Zilliax (Key): Heal, flexible, best card in Standard right now.
• Cairne Bloodhoof (Replaceable): Tech-card for Warrior.
• Eureka! (Key): Cheat card, and can be used with Big Bad Voodoo and Ancestral Spirit for the big-big minions.
• Al'Akir the Windlord (Key): Charge and Windfury, a minion that will help with controlling the board. Can be used for burst in combination with Nightmare, for example.
• Hagatha the Witch (Key): Not quite sure on her yet, as we don't run a lot of minions. She saved games for me, but also meant absolutely nothing in other games.
• Walking Fountain (Key): Best minion in the Rise of Shadows expansion for Shaman. Rush, Windfury, Lifesteal, often means the difference between life and death.
• Ysera (Replaceable): Value-monster. Can combo quite nicely with her cards, but can also dilute your Eureka! possibilities. Not needed, but definitely strong.
• Big Bad Archmage (Replaceable): Win-more card, except when pulled by Far Sight, for example.

You can replace any card in this deck that has been stated as replaceable, with other value-oriented cards. This deck was built with Warrior in mind, because that's what I personally faced the most in my rank (5 to 1). Good replacements can be Mechanical Whelp, Exotic Mountseller or a second Big Bad Archmage in terms of minions. If you face a lot of Aggro, you can include cards like Lightning Bolt, Lightning Storm or Totemic Smash.

Matchups:

Bad:

• Murloc Shaman (35% winrate)
• Cyclone Mage (45% winrate)
• Midrange Hunter (45% winrate)

Good

• Mech Hunter (65% winrate)
• Mech Pally (70% winrate)
• Tempo Rogue (59% winrate)

General Strategy

As any Big-deck, the general strategy behind Big Shaman is to cheat. Yes, cheat. In short, we use cards like Muckmorpher and [Hearthstone Card (Eureka) Not Found] to pay less mana than the value we get from them, and to get big minions out on the board that can potentially generate a lot of value. In depth however, the deck can be quite tricky to use. Because our minion pool is relatively small, we are very reliant on draws, and the strategy behind playing a deck like this differs by our match up. You play Big Shaman versus Aggro significantly different than if you would play it against Control or Combo. Because of that, I wanted to go by each class and discuss the most prominent match ups within fighting these classes, as well as discuss the mulligan versus each class.

Versus Druid

Versus Druid, your most prominent matchup would be Token Druid, which provides a more than solid challenge for us. As you might know, Token Druid relies on filling up the board, and finishing you with buffing their Tokens. The finisher Token Druid is always looking for is Savage Roar, but Rise of Shadows has provided the deck with an entire arsenal of making any board state run out of control very quickly. The deck gained buff-spells, such as Blessing of the Ancients, as well as refill tools, such as The Forest's Aid. It even gained ways of generating value, with cards like Keeper Stalladris and Archmage Vargoth. A good challenge, that can go either way for us, depending mostly on draw (duh). This deck, as pulled by HSReplay, has a winrate of 51% against Token Druid.

Mulligan

• Hagatha's Scheme (57% mulligan winrate)
• Earth Shock (50% mulligan winrate)
• Muckmorpher (50% mulligan winrate)
• Walking Fountain (Keep only if you have one or two cards above) (49% Winrate)

Strategy

As said, Token Druid relies on filling up their side of the board with Tokens, and leaving too many up at any time might result in an immediate defeat. The challenge we face is mainly focused around the fact that we're playing quite a slow deck, while Token Druid is incredibly fast. The earliest we can have board presence is turn 5, or turn 4 on Coin. This excludes Spirit of the Frog, since it can't really contest the board. Because of this, we're mostly reliant on our removal-cards, and just waiting it out until we can cheat out our minions.

The Mulligan as said above is our dream-scenario. Being able to Earth Shock their Acornbearer is huge, and building up Hagatha's Scheme is also incredibly valuable. As soon as we can get to turn 5, things look a bit better for us. We have quite a few minions in our pool to deal with the Tokens in one turn, such as Al'Akir the Windlord and Walking Fountain, the latter one being the absolute MVP minion in our deck. If you're relying on Muckmorpher to cheat them, you might fall short, since it can low-roll Ysera, Spirit of the Frog or Cairne Bloodhoof. This matchup mostly defines itself by the draws of both players, as redundant as that might sound. Generally speaking however, if you can get to the late-game, especially with Hagatha the Witch, you'll most likely win. You have access to heals, minions with Windfury and Charge/Rush, and some even do both.

Other tips

As said, this matchup can go either way. One of the possibly biggest dangers is Soul of the Forest, for which we have very limited answers. Therefore, if the Druid plays [Hearthstone Card (Whispering Woods) Not Found] on turn 4, ALWAYS use Hagatha's Scheme to clear it the turn after. As tempting as using Muckmorpher might be, Soul of the Forest on turn 5 can potentially seal the match as a loss on the spot. There are arguments for keeping Scheme until they play The Forest's Aid, but you'll most likely have answers on board when you get to that turn.

If you seem to struggle with this matchup in particular, you can change the deck a bit. Some versions run Batterhead, a very powerful clearing tool that can also bypass the Deathrattle-effect of Soul of the Forest. Other versions run a copy of Lightning Storm to, in combination with Hagatha's Scheme, clear the board. In conclusion, this matchup should be about controlling the board early, to then demolish the Druid late-game.

Versus Hunter

The most prominent matchups are Mech Hunter and Midrange Hunter. Versus Mech Hunter, we have very good chances (64% winrate), while Midrange Hunter can proof to be quite a challenge (45% winrate). Luckily, the Mulligan for playing Hunters will not differ that much. Both Midrange and Mech Hunter rely on making efficient trades, while buffing up key minions, such as Scavenging Hyena and Tundra Rhino, or magnetizing certain minions with Wargear or Missile Launcher. In any way, the major difference between both decks is wide vs. tall. Midrange Hunter wants to go wide, for which we have limited tools, while Mech Hunter wants to go tall, with magnetizing minions, for which we actually have a lot of tools. This explains our winrates versus the two decks, and will go a long way in deciding our Mulligan. Please take into account that the Mulligan is aimed primarily at Mech Hunter, since that will be about 60% of your matchup's division, depending on your rank (I believe Midrange Hunter is more common in Legend).

Mulligan

• Hagatha's Scheme (54% winrate)
• Earth Shock (54% winrate)
• Spirit of the Frog (55% winrate)
• Muckmorpher (52% winrate) - Keep only if you have one or two cards above.
• Hex - Questionable keep, but I find it works amazing versus Mech Hunter. It's a dead card against Midrange however.

Strategy

The strategy doesn't differ that much from other matchups against Aggro-archetypes; we want to get to the late-game, which means controlling the early game. Earth Shock and Hagatha's Scheme are certain keeps, against either archetype. Hunters will play fast, and allowing minions to stay on the board for too long, might result in taking too much damage over time. Therefore, do not be greedy with your removal, except when you're positive your Mech Hunter-opponent has Wargear on turn 4 (discounted by Galvanizer). If you can Earth Shock or Hex that, it's massive. If you feel like you're taking too much damage, do NOT hesitate to use an untimely Ancestral Spirit on your Stoneclaw Totem. Again, if we get to late-game, we have a very good chance of just out-valueing them.

Mech Hunter is very straight-forward, and because we have access to so many removal and transform spells, you'll win most of the time. But as mentioned before, Midrange is difficult. They can outvalue us, even in the late-game, with cards such as Zul'jin, Unleash the Beast and Dire Frenzy. Having all of these cards on curve, will mean defeat, most likely. Hunter rolling Huffer on 3 and being able to buff that on 4, with Dire Frenzy, is scary. Very scary. At the end of the day, you'll just have to hope for the right draws, but can also get lucky with some good spells from Haunting Visions.

Other tips

It's important to know what threats your opponent has access to, and to prioritize the right targets. Earth Shock and Hex are amazing for Scavenging Hyena and any buffed-up Mech, and throwing away these cards at just any opposing minion might be costly. At the other hand, Hagatha gives us more tools to fight their value-generation, which just again dictates how needy we are for that late-game phase. One of the cards that has won me more games against Hunter than I can count, is Ysera. Her ability to give you strong removal cards, as well as above-average minion-stats, is amazing. Cycling through your deck to find removal is also very important, so NEVER underestimate Spirit of the Frog here.

A very strong card against Hunters is also Witch's Brew, which can keep you in the game long enough to outlast them. Do not hesitate to use it, even if it's just to heal for 8, for example. Because remember, late-game, you'll have access to Walking Fountain and the generated spells by Hagatha the Witch. As a last tip, using one Hagatha's Scheme on 1 Wargear might seem like overkill, but assuming you don't have access to Hex, allowing the Hunter to magnetize another Wargear to it often means death.

Versus Mage

A tough matchup, for sure. Our winrate now states 46%, against Cyclone Mage. Mages love playing against slow decks, because they're slow themselves. Slow, but insanely powerful. Against us, they can, and should, easily wait with playing their Giant until they have access to Conjurer's Calling. If they play it on curve, they run the risk of having it Hex'd, but play it on turn 6 with a Conjurer's Calling, and even our Hagatha's Scheme can't save us then. In short, if they find their threats in time, we're done for. If they don't, we have a chance.

Mulligan

• Hagatha's Scheme (56% winrate)
• Muckmorpher (49% winrate)
• Spirit of the Frog (48% winrate)
• Far Sight (48% winrate) - Keep only if you have both cards above.

Strategy

As mentioned, Mages like to play slow. Because Cyclone Mage often wants to control the board, if you have no board, they'll have to toss out certain spells in ways they wouldn't want. Mages will outvalue us every single time, do not even question that. Yes, we can do fun things with Muckmorpher into Ysera into Ancestral Spirit, but will that save you from around 30 damage on turn 7? Nope. One might even say that we're the aggressor in this matchup. We go face, when we can go face. The exception to that rule is of course Giants; never leave those up. Some of the ways in which you can beat Mages are our access to some out-of-the-box combos, as well as our known combos. Mages generate value, but lack healing. And as nice is it is to make two Giants out of one, it still doesn't have Taunt. And that's how we can defeat them!

As said, we are the aggressor here. We have some sweet combos to deal with their board ánd deal with their face. Some examples:

• Al'Akir the Windlord into Ancestral Spirit; kill a Grave Horror and go face for 6.
• Al'Akir the Windlord into Nightmare; go face for 16 (!). You can then even Dream him, to not let him die. Or you can Ancestral Spirit him.
• Al'Akir the Windlord or Walking Fountain into Earthen Might; go face for 10 or 12.

Other tips

In short, we have time to work on our combos, but any Giant being present is scary. Prioritize Giants and even Rabble Bouncer as targets, and if you dealt with those, the field is yours. If you find yourself outvalued too often, a good card to include is Zentimo. Yes, he dilutes your Muckmorpher output, but his ability to deal with the effect of Conjurer's Calling is worth diamonds, gold, emeralds, everything. Some versions run more removal, like Lightning Bolt, but I severely question that. If you want it, you can include it.

Deal with the Giants, deal with the match, that should be your motto. The randomly generated spells by Mana Cyclone are not of your concern, with the exception of Polymorph. The occassional secret can be painful, but none can wreck as thát much. Stick to your gameplan, and even be greedy sometimes. Trust me.

Versus Paladin

Paladin is a good matchup for us, whether we're playing against Mech or Holy Wrath Pally. Between these two, the latter one will cause us the most trouble, because of the nature of our deck. In theory, we are a Control-ish deck, and Combo decks can potentially defeat us. Mech Paladin, just as Mech Hunter, will not cause many issues for us, because of our access to healing and transform-spells. However, Kangor's Endless Army is a dangerous card, and requires planning on your behalf to utilize cards like Hex on the best targets. Having any Mech-deck invest more into one base minion before transforming said minion, is extremely good but also dangerous. It mostly depends on having access to Spirit of the Frog, which is a very strong keep against any Mech-deck.

Mulligan

• Hagatha's Scheme (75% winrate)
• Spirit of the Frog (80% winrate)
• Hex (78% winrate)
• Muckmorpher (72% winrate) - Keep only if you have one or two cards above.

As you can see, Hex is much more effective against Mech Paladin than Earth Shock, because you can completely negate any form of future Magnitizing. It disables the Paladin's ability to bring it back to life with Kangor's Endless Army.

Strategy

The strategy against Mech Paladin is basically the same as Mech Hunter; control the board, heal where needed, and neutralize big threats accordingly. Your absolute MVP-card is Spirit of the Frog, because even if you didn't manage to find Scheme or Hex, you can start cycling through your deck with the Spirit. Ideally, you would save Hagatha's Scheme for Kangor's Army, and use Earth Shock and Hex on curve to get rid of too much damage on board. The one thing making Mech Hunter more effective against us than Mech Paladin, is simply Spider Bomb. Just plan your turns, know your enemy's deck, and you should be fine.

Against Holy Wrath Paladin, you are the aggressor, as any Control deck should be versus a Combo deck. HW Pally's ability to cycle is dangerous however, and the tricky part is that the mulligan is very decisive in the Paladin match up. Ideally, your mulligan against HW Pally looks significantly different than against Mech Pally. By turn 3 however, you should've been able to identify the deck you're up against. Namely cards like Novice Engineer should give it away, or cards like Galvanizer. If you have identified it, you can adjust your gameplan accordingly; with Mech Pally, you're playing the removal-game, with HW Pally you need pressure on board. Luckily, we have more threats than Pally can deal with, especially because of our ability to revive and heal our minions. The only effective board clear Paladin has, as of right now, is any combination between Wild Pyromancer, Shrink Ray, Equality and Consecration. Play around these, and never get to greedy with going wide on board. Generally speaking, it's better to have a few high-statted minions, than more low-statted ones, against Paladin.

Another key reason why we can be successful against HW Paladin, is our access to heal. Paladins want our health at the 25-mark, so beware of that, and know when they can pull off the combo. Because of the predictability of HW Paladin, you should be able to know when you are in need of 30 or more health. In any case, and in any matchup, Spirit of the Frog is wildly important here.

Versus Priest

The rarest class on ladder, Priest is mostly about building up single high-statted minions and combo-ing you with the Divine Spirit and Inner Fire combo. It's either that, or fringe decks such as Villain or Chef Nomi Priest. Because Priest is so rare on ladder, this section will be somewhat smaller, mostly because there are no known stats on mulligan-strategy. However, our ability to transform any minion, whether buffed or not, is very important. To mulligan correctly, just look at the general mulligan strategy at the top of this guide. Fish for cards like Hagatha's Scheme, Spirit of the Frog and Earth Shock/Hex.

Nomi Priest is the most dangerous, because we have limited AoE. Keep Hagatha's Scheme for that matchup, and build it all the way up. You can use cards like Haunting Visions to gain additional Schemes, and might even get lucky with Hagatha's passive ability, Bewitch. Against all Priest decks however, go for board pressure, but make use of Deathrattle-effects like Big Bad Voodoo and Ancestral Spirit. 

Versus Rogue

With the Boomsday Buffs, Rogue has viable Pogo Rogue decks on ladder now, which are a bad matchup for us, unfortunately. We now have a 45% winrate against them. Luckily however, Tempo or Lackey Rogue is still the most used deck for Rogue, and we have an okay-ish winrate against them (58%). We can diffuse some Pogo-Hoppers, with cards like Earth Shock and Hex, but since we can only run 4 copies, while a good Pogo Rogue can have up to 15 Pogos in their deck, we need a good mixture of board-pressure and RNG to help us win that matchup.

Mulligan

• Hagatha's Scheme (57% winrate)
• Spirit of the Frog (55% winrate)
• Muckmorpher (53% winrate)
• Far Sight (54% winrate) - Keep only if you have one or two cards above.

Strategy

Pogo Rogue is one of our toughest matchups, and I have a feeling that archetype isn't even optimized yet. The combination between Lackey-generation and Pogo-Hoppers create big problems for us, but nothing we can't overcome. Your gameplan should not change, and against Pogo Rogue, you're the aggressor. Mildly put, you don't care about their Lackeys, and only want their face. If you allow the Rogue to copy and play more Pogos, the matchup gets bad, really bad. The exception to board control versus going face, would obviously be a Pogo-Hopper. You'll want to kill those as much as you can, except when it destroys your own minions and board presence. Be clever with cards like Ancestral Healing, and hiding big minions behind your taunts.

Tempo/Lackey Rogue is a better matchup for us, as long as we mind our health. Because of our access to healing, we should be good most of the time, but if you are unable to find any healing effects, and your opponent has all the burn and burst, you're unlackey. Unlucky, I mean unlucky. In general however, this matchup is straightforward. Mind your health, mind the board, and out-pressure your opponent. Watch out for cards like Sap however, and do NOT put all Deathrattle-effects on one minion.

Other tips

If you struggle too much with your matches versus Pogo Rogue, Zentimo can be quite strong. However, good Pogo Rogues know how to position their Pogo-Hoppers, so don't use his effect too lightly. 

Versus Shaman

Murloc Shaman is our worst matchup, by far. We apparently can only win about 35% of the matches, and that is most likely due to the fact that we do not have access to a lot of AoE. The ability of Murloc Shaman to fill the board turn after turn, with cards like Underbelly Angler (we all know that good feeling of seeing an Underbelly Angler created by Underbelly Angler dropped on the board), is devastating. We simply can't keep up with their generation. More than anything else, you will have to think of out-of-the-box plays here, like using Ancestral Spirit on Stoneclaw Totems, or even 'wasting' Big Bad Voodoo on totems just to keep board presence.

Mulligan

• Hagatha's Scheme (53% winrate)
• Haunting Visions (47% winrate)
• Earth Shock (47% winrate)
• Spirit of the Frog (44% winrate) - Keep only if you have two cards above.

Strategy

Control the board, keep board presence, by any means necessary, and neutralize Underbelly Angler, ALWAYS. It sounds simple, but it isn't. It's also our only strategy, besides conceding of course. Always hit Angler with Earth Shock or even Hex, and fish for extra removal-spells by using Haunting Visions. Use Spirit of the Frog as fast as you can, to find Hagatha's Scheme, and always be wary of Bloodlust. There is not much else to be said, than good luck!

Other tips

The only tip in terms of replacements and finding a way to alter the deck if you face a lot of Murloc Shaman, is including Batterhead. As said before, it's an amazing card, even if simply played on curve. It can often delete the entire board, and you can of course use cards like Ancestral Spirit to GO AGANE! (sorry)

Versus Warlock

The only common Warlock deck right now, is Zoo Warlock. Just like with any other Aggro-deck, we need our clears and then we take over the field. Other than with similar token decks, or Aggro decks, Zoolock often utilizes final big threats if their usual strategy doesn't work, like Arch-Villain Rafaam or Sea Giant. Luckily, we fare pretty well against them, with a winrate of about 60%. It's the combination between cycle, AoE and Hex that allows us to make the most out of this matchup.

Mulligan

• Hagatha's Scheme (72% winrate) - Hard mulligan!
• Hex (61% winrate)
• Haunting Visions (59% winrate)
• Muckmorpher (56% winrate) - Keep only if you have Hagatha's Scheme.

Strategy

As mentioned, we should do well against this deck at any given time, especially when we find Hagatha's Scheme. Zoolocks flood the board, turn after turn, and we neutralize their board, turn after turn. Haunting Visions can be used to generate single-target removals, or a Hagatha's Scheme, if you have no way of finding it in time. Hex will help us deal with Early Sea Giants, as well as the occassional Magic Carpet. For that latter card, Earth Shock is also a very strong keep.

Other tips

If, for some reason, you struggle with this matchup, you can consider including Batterhead. But again, this deck should make short work of Zoolock in general.

Versus Warrior

For almost all matchups, the mulligan is rather similar. Warrior however, requires a lot more in terms of thought and planning. The big difference between Warrior and all other classes is that they will always play slowly, and play the removal game. You cannot go to fatigue, because you'll lose 100% of the time. Between the two most prominent archetypes, Control and Bomb Warrior, Bomb Warrior is most likely our best matchup. As you'll be able to read below, the mulligan is vastly different than againt other decks. And against Warrior, more than ever, we need to cheat. Cheat as much as you can.

Mulligan

• Far Sight (52% winrate)
• Spirit of the Frog (52% winrate)
• Haunting Visions (50% winrate)
• Ancestral Spirit (48% winrate) - Keep only if you have one or two cards above.

Strategy

Warriors can deal poorly with sticky boards, which is the primary reason for the inclusion of minions like Cairne Bloodhoof. Cheating out minions is therefore not as important as it is to cheat mana costs in combination with those minions. A key combo is, for example, to cheat out Ysera while also being able to tag it with Big Bad Voodoo or Ancestral Spirit. Normally, you wouldn't stick both effects to one minion, but against Warrior, you can! Warriors generate massive amounts of value, with cards like 'Boom-on-7', Omega Assembly and Omega Devastator, so you need to play that same value game, but better.

Against Bomb Warrior, an added risk is cycling yourself to death. It depends mostly on how fast you'll find the bombs, and how fast you'll find your heals.

I hope you enjoyed this deck and the guide. I write bigger guides for serious people that like to test out semi-viable, and I'm looking forward to hearing some of your experiences with this particular deck, or any other Big Shaman deck.