Spellemental Shaman Budget Deck List & Guide - Hearthstone Budget Deck Breakdown

Welcome to Budget Deck Breakdown, the series where we take cards that just about every player has in their collection and make a deck out of them. Sometimes the decks are good. This week we've got an old classic: Elemental Shaman. Thanks to a handful of quality minions from Forged in the Barrens, it's a fresh look at a deck that wants to play good Elementals on curve first, last, and always. Let's talk about Spellemental Shaman.

You Can Call Me Al'Akir

Elemental Shaman might be the "fairest" deck in the history of Hearthstone. Elemental Shamans wanted only to curve out by playing Elemental after Elemental on every turn, gaining incremental advantages over their opponent until eventually, they conceded (the Shaman, that is). Sadly, Shaman as a class doesn't really have a place in the Barrens meta. No Grandmaster has deigned to bring the class across three weeks of play, and Thrall himself is a rare sight on ladder. Did that stop us from working to find a budget Shaman deck to feature for this week? Of course not.

Spellemental Shaman has a few things going for it, which is a few things more than most other Shaman decks have. It's got good efficient minions at lower mana Costs, chunky bodies for the late game, a decent amount of card generation (which is Shaman's best impression of card draw in its current state), and a few extra ways to punish their opponents in ways they might not be expecting. Basically, it's your standard curve Shaman deck that uses Elemental synergies and Burn spells to overpower their opponent.

Ell's Spells (Sound of Guitar Riffing)

Let's start by looking at the Elemental synergies, which exist mainly to take advantage of a pair of powerful 3-Drops: Arid Stormer and Gyreworm These two can create some big tempo swings on curve if we played an Elemental the previous turn, so to make sure that we can get them online reliably we're running cheap Elementals like Cagematch Custodian, Menacing Nimbus, and Imprisoned Phoenix. The best enabler of our 3-Drops comes in the unassuming package of Kindling Elemental, a 1-Drop that can get them on board and activated as early as turn two.

Our Spells package is built to give us a lot of extra cards, whether they are extra minions from Primordial Studies or extra spells from Guidance and Diligent Notetaker. Menacing Nimbus also fits into this category by providing us with another Elemental when played. Our biggest swing in terms of out-scrounging our opponent for every last drop of value comes from our one copy of Vivid Spores landing on a decently threatening board and making it that much more of a pain to deal with. Thanks to Lightning Bloom, we've got a slightly easier time finding the mana to cast Vivid Spores on a quality board.

Our top-end looks to pick up where our cheaper minions and burn spells left off to take control of the board or deal the last bits of damage to end the game. Both Fire Elemental and Al'Akir the Windlord have been buffed slightly, which is great for us. All we want from them is to deal damage in various ways and carry us to victory.

What's the Plan?

Versus Aggro

We mulligan to find our early tempo swings: Arid Stormer and Gyreworm, alongside premium 1-Drop Kindling Elemental or another cheap Elemental to curve into them. Primordial Studies can be a fine keep, as is Cagematch Custodian thanks to its ability to tutor Whack-A-Gnoll Hammer. Lightning Bolt and Serpentshrine Portal can be decent keeps if we've got cards from the previous sentences.

We're looking to swing tempo as early as possible to take control of the board and force our opponent to answer us instead of the other way 'round. Our Discover effects are best used to find AoE like Landslide or Lightning Storm early, and Diligent Notetaker works best to recur cheap removal. Otherwise, we use our spells and weapons to keep them off the board while our minions work to finish the game.

Versus Midrange

We're still looking in the mulligan for the early power spike from activated Arid Stormer and Gyreworm, so we're once again digging for the usual suspects. Lightning Bloom can be a nice keep in this matchup, allowing us to use it surgically for a big turn (potentially with Vivid Spores or Fire Elemental) to overwhelm our opponent.

We're trying as much as possible to curve out, making use of our good 3-Drops (Whack-A-Gnoll Hammer and Serpentshrine Portal included) to win the board then use the late game power of Fire Elemental and Al'Akir the Windlord to win. Diligent Notetaker is very flexible in this matchup, giving us the potential to find extra minions from Primordial Studies, extra spells from Guidance, or extra damage from Lightning Bolt. We're going to be the more aggressive deck in this matchup, so we're looking to pivot towards pointing as much of our damage as possible at the portrait across from ours.

Versus Control

We're looking for Cagematch Custodian to draw Whack-A-Gnoll Hammer, Primordial Studies to give us extra minions, and Diligent Notetaker to gain extra value or bodies from our spells. Arid Stormer can be a good keep if we can activate them and threaten our opponent early on. Menacing Nimbus can be a nice keep since it replaces itself with a solid minion.

We want to slowly move onto the board, threatening our opponent while spacing out our threats as much as possible to tax their removal. We need to get good use from our cards that generate value, otherwise, we risk running out of steam. We want to watch for a good time to play Vivid Spores and deny our opponent the ability to fully clear our board with their usual AoE. Fire Elemental and Al'Akir are our late-game threats to push in lethal when our opponent has exhausted their removal.

Card Replacements for the Rich and Famous

Instructor Fireheart is a one-woman value train and a fantastic addition to this deck if you have her. Lilypad Lurker is a good minion that pays off our Elemental synergies and has a number of good targets in the meta for its Hex. Lady Vashj is a solid Spell Damage minion whose back half serves as powerful card draw in the late game. Bru'kan is a good minion who helps make our burn spells hit so much harder.

If you want to change the deck while taking advantage of your less expensive cards, there are still a variety of ways to do that. Landslide and Earth Revenant are good additions to the deck if you're facing a lot of aggressive decks. If you want more 1-Drops to lower the curve and apply more pressure to slower opponents, Intrepid Initiate and Novice Zapper are good minions for their cost and work well with other parts of the deck. If you're looking for more good 3-Drops that can add in more damage late, Mankrik is a good minion and nobody has to say anything at all about his dead wife. Seriously, stop bringing it up.

It's probably a stretch to say that Spellemental Shaman is a powerful deck because, like other Shaman decks, it has the fatal weakness of being a Shaman deck. Even with that in mind, there are still plenty of tools within this deck that, when used at the right time, can do some very powerful things. It may not be "good" in the traditional sense of "being able to reliably win games," but it's still fun to play.

Have we inspired you to take a chance on Spellemental Shaman? How do you feel about Shaman's current place in the meta? Share your thoughts in the comments!