Opening Marks

Hello, everyone! I welcome you to one of my newer decks for Standard - Questline Shaman. With the new Year of the Hydra, the archetype may have gotten no new Overload cards, but it received a few tools that add much more value and flexibility, essentially metamorphosing the deck from a burn-oriented to a control playstyle.

Playstyle

With the new control archetype moniker, your goal is to stave off any pressure your opponent may challenge you with. Your best prey are minion-based decks, whether they bet on minion quantity or quality. In tandem with a lot of card draw and value generation, nearly all those decks will keel over.

Late game is also this deck's speciality thanks to Stormcaller Bru'kan. He can double-cast a ton of valuable spells, namely burn, Sunken Scroll and Charged Call. This way, you can either push more damage or generate even more value, especially to basically fatigue out aggro decks. Bru'kan of the Elements also adds more late-game punch.

A few tips:

• Sunken Scroll stays on the deck's bottom no matter what, meaning you can safely play Azsharan Scroll and use Scalding Geyser in later turns.
• Leverage:
  • the use of your first three Overload cards. Since you will unlock your Overloaded Mana Crystals after doing so, you may want to play your stuff accordingly to have more Mana next turn;
  • your card usage before playing Stormcaller Bru'kan. If you plan on playing him alongside something else, check whether it's alright to double-cast your next spell cast - for example, Perpetual Flame should generally be avoided in such scenarios to not Overload you for a heckton;
  • your spell usage for the purposes of Krag'wa, the Frog. They can return a lot of useful cards back into your hand, either to further control the board or preserve your late-game oomph that you might've needed to use early.
• Be good at maths. Novice Zapper and Bru'kan enable you many more outcomes that you otherwise may not be in to solve and thus let you either stay alive or be close to winning.

Mulligan

• Always keep the Questline.
• If you suspect an aggro deck, keep anti-aggro tools in your hand.
• If you suspect a control deck, you can be a bit loose in your mulligan.
• If you suspect a combo deck, you are screwed, but if you fail to surrender, keep burn spells.

Possible Replacements

• Spirit Alpha - an anti-aggro tech. You can summon a good chunk of 2/3 Wolves to defend yourself or pop pesky Divine Shields, and that can improve the Mech Paladin Matchup.
• Bearon Gla'shear, 2x Bracing Cold and 1x Bioluminescence (optionally Queen Azshara and 2x Overdraft) - the aforementioned package essentially turns your deck into a combo deck while retaining your core QL package. This drastically improves your control matchups, because they will just die; the aggro matchup will sink, though. Click here for detailed info on the OTK QL variant.
• Snowball Fight! - another anti-aggro card, but moreso the godsent vs Mech Paladin, since the card pops their Divine Shields whilst Freezing most of their minions.
• Kazakusan - an alternative anti-control tool to make your QL powerspike hit even harder via his treasures.
• Wrathspine Enchanter - can be used to play your removal without it going out of your hand, giving you outs that would otherwise exceed your current Mana available.
• Spammy Arcanist - yet another anti-aggro card.