Hi, all.

I'm creating this thread, in order to start a discussion about Quest Jade Shaman. I browsed through hsreplay, tempostorm and our beloved site, but I didn't see any posts regarding it. I feel like it doesn't attract the attention it deserves, so I came here to showcase it.

Based on my experience so far, I can safely say that this archtype is a sleeper and will become extremely popular some day. There is something extremely broken in doubling the jade and lackey generation, that I can't quite put my finger on it. I have been playing a lot of games with this deck-type (I've started from rank 6) and I've managed to reach Legend. My decklist looks like so:

[Legend] Jade Shudderwock Shaman

Wild · Jade Shaman · by Kovachut · 6 years, 7 months ago

• 1 Corrupt the Waters x 1
• 1 Sludge Slurper x 2
• 2 Crackle x 2
• 2 Devolve x 2
• 2 EVIL Cable Rat x 2
• 2 Jade Claws x 2
• 2 Novice Engineer x 2
• 2 Questing Explorer x 2
• 2 Sandstorm Elemental x 2
• 3 Bog Slosher x 2
• 3 Jade Lightning x 2
• 3 Zola the Gorgon x 1
• 4 Jade Spirit x 2
• 5 Antique Healbot x 2
• 5 Loatheb x 1
• 5 Zilliax x 1
• 6 Aya Blackpaw x 1
• 9 Shudderwock x 1

11,080 Dust 15,391 33 Copy Deck Code

Despite my success, I don't really recommend you to ladder with this version, because it gets countered by the infamous Burn Mage. Even though I run some tech cards (1x Eater of Secrets, 2x Antique Healbots), it still loses badly, if the mage has a godlike starting hand. But other than that, the deck has the potential to beat the rest of the competition.

Versus Control

You just win, because the opponents can't deal with the evergrowing jades.

Versus Combo

The MVPs are:

Versus Aggro and Mid-Range

Now, since the deck has a fairly weak early-game, aggro players can easily obtain the upper hand and beat us. But those MUs are still winnable. The MVPs are:

Plague of Murlocs is extremely useful against Big Priests.

Alternative Builds

When I started playing with my Thief Priest in the first few days of the expansion, I stumbled upon 3 different quest jade shamen on the ladder. I've noticed, that my opponents ran some mid- or late-game defensive tools - Omega Mind, Lightning Storm, Hex, Hagatha's Scheme, Walking Fountain, Siamat, Earthquake. So they've decided to take a more control-ish approach for their decks. Imho those cards aren't bad per se, in a more minion-heavy meta they could prove to be useful. But as long as Burn Mage stays dominant, this won't be the case. You don't have time to play any of those cards right now and your spells would easily get cancelled by Counterspell. Your deck needs to consist of cheaper things.

Speaking of which, some of those builds also ran the typical lackey package we see in standard (including EVIL Totem and Weaponized Wasp). I have tried the latter cards myself, but I don't really feel like those are all that useful. I always have the feeling, that EVIL Totem is just a 2-health taunt, which can be easily dealt with. And it doesn't speed the quest completion process that much. The wasp could be useful, but if you are facing loads of swarm decks like Odd Pala or sticky minions, the 3 damage doesn't really matter imho and it can make your Shudderwock worse. You would be better off running Maelstrom Portal instead.

I tested the Mogu Fleshshaper-Evolve combo, but I'm not really impressed by it. For me it's too inconsistent. Although Jade Shaman utilizes a lot of understatted battlecry minions and adding evolve spells in the deck could be good on theory, I personally think that those high-roll turns aren't needed.

That's all from me. What are your thoughts on this archtype? Have you tried it yourself? What builds did you use and how far did you go on the ladder?