Hearthstone Year of the Hydra, the 2022 Core Set, and Voyage to the Sunken City are almost here and it's about time we give Shaman a review of what is to come. Below you will find our thoughts on Shaman as they pertain to the brand new Hearthstone year. We're going to go over the archetypes we expect to see play, the heavy-hitting cards, a general overview of Shaman, and a theorycraft deck for you to try out on Day 1.
Before we jump straight into our review though, we've got a few pieces of content you may want to check out.
- If you haven't seen the whole Core Set for 2022, check out our guide.
- All the cards have been revealed for Voyage to the Sunken City.
- You can build decks with all these cards in our deckbuilder.
- Need a set rotation refresher? Learn more about card set rotations in Hearthstone.
- Open your card packs early by creating your own Fireside Gathering.
- Check our pack opening simulator to test your luck.
Now with that done, let's jump into it!
Year of the Hydra Shaman Quick Impressions
- Shaman is clearly being pushed into two different directions with the first expansion - Token Aggro and Spell-based Shaman.
- These two directions are further supported by the return of cards like Bloodlust and Krag'wa, the Frog via the Core set.
- Despite the theme of the expansion and the class' history with the tribe, Shaman did not get much support for a Murloc strategy.
- The Shaman legendaries Glugg the Gulper and Radiance of Azshara are reeking of untapped potential waiting to be explored.
- Overall, Shaman is getting some interesting new tools alongside some old tricks and I rate it a 7/10 for its power level.
Shaman Power Level
Year of the Hydra Shaman Archetypes
In addition to the new directions supported by Voyage to the Sunken City, the class still has couple of other tricks up its sleeve from previous expansions as well.
- Token Shaman - A potential resurgence of a board-based Aggro Shaman could be on the cards this year.
- Spell Shaman - Blizzard wants you to make a Trio-School Shaman list, but is the current support enough?
- Freeze Shaman - As the archetype was basically added in the last expansion, it loses very little with the rotation and is expected to stay around.
- Elemental Shaman - Another archetype that still has some key tools left to make it viable despite little additional support.
With our quick archetype overview out of the way, let's talk more about them.
Token Shaman in Year of the Hydra
The return of Token Shaman? Token Demon Hunter didn't seem to work out so Blizzard changed focus and has started pushing the archetype for Shaman instead. The good old Bloodlust returns as the all-important finisher for the strategy, and cards like Anchored Totem will enable cheap Tempo swing turns. And since Anchored Totem will trigger upon summon, you will always have at least something to play alongside it via your Hero Power Totems which are all 1-Cost minions.
The deck might even have some synergy with the next strategy to be discussed, as cards like Violet Teacher and the new Coral Keeper will appreciate if you're also running a decent chunk of spells. Bioluminescence seems like another token-spell synergy card, but its current cost makes it a bit hard to combo reliably.
Spell Shaman in Year of the Hydra
So far most of the spell-heavy Shaman lists have been all-out aggressive, and while it isn't out of the question to happen in the Year of the Hydra as well, the new synergy cards seem to be more value- than tempo-oriented. What seems to be holding back the tri-School strategy (especially any aggro ones) is the lack of Fire spells: at the start of the year there will be only Don't Stand in the Fire!, Perpetual Flame, and Scalding Geyser, the last of which provides an instant Dredge effect for Azsharan Scroll 33% of the time, in average.
If a slower, more value-heavy strategy becomes viable, it has the potential to include a Naga package, with cards like Queen Azshara, Slithering Deathscale, and Naga Giant offering powerful late-game options for a Control direction and Baba Naga, Vicious Slitherspear, and Murkwater Scribe offering some Tempo options. Wrathspine Enchanter seems like a big meme with the current card pool though.
Freeze Shaman in Year of the Hydra
While some of the tri-School cards can technically be counted as new support, realistically speaking Freeze Shamans were left to play with their Alterac Valley toys. However, that certainly does not mean that the archetype wouldn't stand a chance, quite the contrary - it has the tools to be the most powerful Shaman archetype out there.
Elemental Shaman in Year of the Hydra
Another "technically-support-but-not-really-support" case. But like with Freeze Shaman, the old toys seem to be working just well, and the potential for a viable tempo- or midrange-based strategy continues to exist in the Year of the Hydra.
Year of the Hydra Shaman Heavy-Hitters
With a fresh Core Set and the Voyage to the Sunken City, there are a ton of cards to talk about in our review. We're going to go over the heavy-hitters, the cards that are going to make the most impact to start this year off.
Glugg the Gulper Impact in Year of the Hydra
An extremely hard one to evaluate, but the card seems to have a lot of potential if you can get past the initial knee-jerk reaction from the 7-mana 3/5 statline. Shamans already use a big stat stick as one of their finisher options in Snowfall Guardian, but this one is so different that its viability is a lot more questionable. Will the three Taunt tokens be impactful enough to warrant running this? Only time will tell.
Radiance of Azshara Impact in Year of the Hydra
On the contrary to the aforementioned Shaman Colossal, the second Legendary seems much more viable. However, as mentioned earlier, Shamans will have access to only three Fire spells at the beginning of the Year of the Hydra (some of which are more or less situational) which means that the arguably most powerful of the three effects the card has will be somewhat under-utilized. The card will only get better with the upcoming sets though, and it would be a surprise if it didn't pop in the meta at some point.
Coral Keeper Impact in Year of the Hydra
Am I overhyping this card? Unlike most Nagas, the card does not require being in hand when the Battlecry-impacting spells are cast which makes a massive difference to its viability. And even though there's an arguable of a lack of good Fire spells right at the beginning of the year, casting spells from two Schools before turn 5 doesn't sound like an insurmountable task for any Shaman list. That would mean a 9/10 worth of stats over three bodies. I'd take that as my turn 5 every time.
Neutral Cards for Shaman in Year of the Hydra
In addition to the real Shaman cards, the Neutrals are hiding a couple of options that Shamans might be interested in. Reefwalker is an obvious support card for Piranha Token deck to complement Piranha Poacher and Schooling. Piranha Swarmer itself, however, is likely too weak to be included to any actual decklist, and how viable the entire token strategy will be remains to be seen.
Any potential spell-heavy direction allows for a variety of Neutral Nagas to be run in your deck, as discussed earlier, but even if you wouldn't go all-in to that direction, you could still opt to run Crushclaw Enforcer to guarantee your game-winning turn 5 on-curve Coral Keeper. No I'm not overhyping the card...
From the Neutral cards returning to the Core set, Sea Giant seems like the one with the most potential to feature in Shaman lists thanks to the Token direction that Blizzard is pushing. Beaming Sidekick might also be useful in trying to preserve your early board presence, especially in combination with Anchored Totem.
Shaman in Year of the Hydra
Now that we've talk about the archetypes and main cards that Shaman is going to have access to in Year of the Hydra, let's talk about what we hope to see from the class and some of the other cards that are going to help us get there.
Token Shaman - A Theorycraft Deck for Shaman in Voyage to the Sunken City
Blizzard wants a Token Shaman eh? I'll show you one. And believe me, I tried to include Coral Keeper but it just didn't seem that viable with the amount of spells the deck runs. The lack of the best Naga out there is the only reason why this deck might fail on Day 1. Let's check out some of the key tools that ended up making the cut.
- I'm envisioning mid-game(?) tempo swings with Anchored Totem and bunch of 1-Cost cards - Schooling is a great refill option for that purpose. A turn 3 combo with Beaming Sidekick sounds like a decent setup for greater things as well.
- I included a Tempo Elemental package because why not. And yes I'm interested in the Arid Stormer + Bloodlust potential.
- Doomhammer stays in the Core set - if you just can't stick a proper board, just start swinging.
- Glugg the Gulper is included because it would be criminal not to test out the new Colossal - I'm far from convinced of its viability though.
The strategy can slowed down by the return of tech cards like Wild Pyromancer and Mossy Horror, the former in particular could be a bane of the wide but weak early boards that this deck would like to have.
Final Thoughts
All in all, Shamans seem to have the makings for a variety of strategies, but none of them instantly pops out as the best possible out there. At least for the first expansion of the year, I have a bit of a doubt that Thrall might be facing a "Paladin syndrome" - trying to branch out into too many directions simultaneously while not truly excelling in any of them. However, there are some undeniably strong cards in the mix as well, which makes me hopeful for the class' future in the Year of the Hydra.
Thanks for taking the time to read our review on Shaman for Year of the Hydra. Do you agree with our take? Let us know your thoughts on our review and Shaman in the comments below.
More Out of Cards Year of the Hydra Reviews
We've got more to talk about for Hearthstone's Year of the Hydra that officially begins on April 12. Check out all of our Standard class reviews!
More Wild Reviews for Voyage to the Sunken City
We've been hard at work preparing additional insights into the new Voyage to the Sunken City cards with a Wild spin. Check out all the classes released so far down below.
Comments
I do enjoy this approach to the card reviews. Reviewing grouped cards paired with the new core set really helps to understand what archetypes will be good in the upcoming meta. Keen to see more of these types of reviews going forward.
Anchored totem is a pretty good addition to even totem shaman in wild, while all your hero power totem costs 1.