Pers’s Burn Shaman

The Voyage to the Sunken City expansion has just launched, and to celebrate this milestone we're doing an event called Wild Week. Over the next 10 days, there will be one guide a day, one for each class, using as many new cards as possible. Today, we're going to be looking at Burn Shaman in Voyage to the Sunken City.

Burn Shaman got 3 new cards in the latest expansion: Scalding Geyser, Radiance of Azshara, and Bioluminescence. These cards have revolutionized the deck's playstyle, where it can use Radiance of Azshara combined with Spirit of the Frog to keep drawing and playing 1 cost Nature spells for free. This is actually so strong that you can usually guarantee you'll draw and play every single one of your 1 cost spells on a combo turn if you have enough mana for the few non-Nature ones. In addition, Bioluminescence, which only costs 2 after you play Radiance of Azshara, can be combined with Voltaic Bursts which cost 0 mana to gain quite a bit of Spell Damage, making your burst damage output a lot higher. Both Radiance of Azshara and Spirit of the Frog can be pulled out with Drek'Thar. Overall, this is a deck that requires timing to recognize when to go all-in on the combo but has a very powerful gameplan to master.

Past decks in Wild Week can be found here.

This Burn Shaman deck was made by Pers, one of my Hearthstone friends who took Burn Shaman to top 100 Legend multiple times, so thanks to them for allowing me to share it publicly.

If you want to suggest a specific deck archetype to be covered for a particular class, you can comment it to this article and it may be covered during Wild Week or after.

Now, let's get into a guide on playing the deck. It's going to go through major overarching strategies to keep in mind, how to mulligan, gameplay tips on key synergies, and card choices.

Strategies

This is a Combo deck that uses the power of Radiance of Azshara, Spirit of the Frog, and Bioluminescence along with a few direct damage spells to win the game. Alternatively, if against Aggro, you can go for a tempo turn to swing the board and win that way as Aggro usually won't have removal.

Burst Combo - You can play

1. Spirit of the Frog and Radiance of Azshara

2. One of those and Drek'Thar to get the other.

3. Just Drek'Thar to get both

Any of these three methods will work to start the combo. Then play spells and keep drawing until you get some combination of Bioluminescence and direct spells that can give you the win - you can easily do over 30 and even over 60 damage with this deck. Lightning Blooms help increase the mana available on your combo turn.

Tempo Combo - You can do the general combo turn you usually do, except if you see you can't win with burst damage you can use Voltaic Bursts and Storm's Wraths to create a buffed board including Rush minions that can take board control. This is best used against Aggro if you are going to lose next turn - otherwise it's better to wait for the Burst Combo. Sometimes you can try to do the Burst Combo but get the Tempo Combo done at the same time naturally which can clear the board if your Tempo Combo didn't fully win the game so you can try again next turn.

You can usually combo with both Radiance of Azshara and Spirit of the Frog, but if you don't draw one of those or Drek'Thar and get to high mana you can otk without one or both of those.

These two highlights show how you can sometimes go for the Tempo Combo with buffed Rush minions and sometimes go for a Burst Combo with Bioluminescence.

Mulligans

• Keep Drek'Thar if you have him, as well as 2 Lightning Blooms.
• If you don't have Drek'Thar, keep a Spirit of the Frog and Radiance of Azshara.
• Keep 2 Lightning Blooms if you have a Spirit of the Frog and Radiance of Azshara, but only 1 Lightning Bloom if you only have a Spirit of the Frog.

Gameplay

The key to playing this deck well is to recognize when you should start your burst combo turn and when you should go for tempo.

Below are gameplay tips regarding many of the synergies in this deck and how to use them effectively.

The Burst Combo

In general, you want to avoid comboing if you think your opponent won't be able to lethal you next turn unless you're sure you can win or are afraid of a Dirty Rat. So try to stall with a few freezes with Windchills and Devolves.

To start the burst combo, you need to have Radiance of Azshara and a Spirit of the Frog on the board. You can sometimes play a Spirit of the Frog the turn before, just make sure it's a deck that doesn't have a way to remove it. You can also try dropping one Sprit of the Frog and hope they don't remove it even it's a deck that can potentially do so if you have a second Spirit of the Frog in hand.

In addition, you can summon one or both of these minions from Drek'Thar, and you can predict what minions he will get you based on what minion, if any, you have already drawn. If you haven't drawn any, he has a 2/3 chance to summon Radiance of Azshara along with a Spirit of the Frog.

From there, you will be able to play your 1 mana Nature spells for 0 mana. This will draw 1 mana spells for you, and you can keep doing this to draw all your 1 mana spells (you do have some that are not Nature you'll have to pay for, but you should have some 0 cost spells in hand and extra mana to account for this).

The key cards for this combo, as you're drawing through your deck, is to get Voltaic Bursts to increase your board size and then play one or two Bioluminescences. Against slower decks or decks that gain armor, you should wait to do the combo later to maximize the chance you can play two. After you have gained spell damage, often 14 spell damage from 2 of them and a board of 7 minions (4 Sparks from the Voltaic Bursts, Radiance of Azshara, and Drek'Thar), you can use your spells such as Lightning Bolts, Overdrafts, and Scalding Geyser to win the game. You will often only need two of these spells saved for the combo.

If you are playing one of your two key minions from hand, and don't have Bioluminescence or Ancestral Knowledge but have a lot of mana (either through pure mana or Lightning Blooms) you may want to get Spirit of the Frog into play first and then play a Devolve or Elementary Reaction to draw Bioluminescence from the Spirit of the Frog. This is because once you have played Radiance of Azshara, your Devolve and Elementary Reactions will cost 1 and so won't draw Biolumiscence, so if you don't have an Ancestral Knowledge or Bioluminescence in hand this may be an issue. Using Devolve or Elementary Reaction with Sprit of the Frog before playing Radiance of Azshara is the way to get around this. You can of course use Devolve after Radiance of Azshara to then draw Ancestral Knowledge to then draw you Bioluminescence, but this is more mana.

You should play Beakered Lightnings first before playing Voltaic Bursts. 

Playing a lot of Overload cards even if they're not necessarily helping you are useful because they will increase the damage of your Overdrafts.

Overdraft can be played even if you're not overloaded and it will still have an effect from spell damage.

When you're doing this combo, do remember that Radiance of Azshara increases the damage of Scalding Geysers by 2.

During the early game, don't be afraid to use a Scalding Geyser or two to Dredge and increase the chance of drawing a key card to be able to combo earlier - this may be a key minion for the combo or Drek'Thar, or Lightning Bloom to be able to combo faster if you already have the key minions in hand.

The Tempo Combo

If you're against a deck that is putting out a lot of pressure, you can use a few spells to destroy key minions, or use Devolves and Windchills to stall. Remember to keep a few damage spells for your combo though (at least 2). If you're using a damage spell in this way, it's best to use Scalding Geyser as it has a bonus effect.

If you are in danger of losing the game from the board in the next one or two turns and won't be able to do the burst combo by then, you may want to do the tempo combo. The tempo combo means you try to develop a board and clear the opposing board to prevent yourself from losing, and can then try to win from there or with a burst combo turn later.

If you have a Radiance of Azshara or Spirit of the Frog but don't have the mana or cards to play a Bioluminescence and win, you can do a tempo combo. This means you play those minions to try and get Voltaic Bursts and useful spells like Windchill, Devolve, and damage spells. If you do get Voltaic Bursts, you can then use Storm's Wraths if you can draw those to buff your Sparks. The combination of Sparks which have Rush and stall and removal spells can save you from losing to Aggro.

Radiance of Azshara's effect of gaining 3 Armor will actually be relevant in this case when you cast Windchills.

Try to not do the tempo combo if you can stall a few turns without it and then win with the burst combo, but keeping in mind that you can do a tempo combo as a possibility can win you games against Aggro that you'd have otherwise lost for sure.

Card Choices

This section is going to go through the main packages of cards in the deck. Each package has cards that help the deck with a specific goal. When playing the deck, it's useful to know what purposes each card serves and what other cards in the deck have synergy with it or help achieve the same purpose. This section might also be useful if you're interested in the reasoning for why each card was included in the deck.

The Combo Pieces

Spirit of the Frog and Radiance of Azshara are your main minion burst combo enablers, along with Drek'Thar to pull them out. Bioluminescence enables your combo by providing Spell Damage.

0 Mana Spells

Apart from 4 minions, your deck is made up of spells, and the mana cost matters a lot due to Spirit of the Frog. These spells will draw you 1 cost spells when used with it. Beakered Lightning is actually 2 damage in the burst combo because its 2 Overload feeds into Overdraft, Lightning Bloom is both 2 Overload and 2 mana allowing you to do your combo turn 2 turns sooner, and Zap! is a removal and 1 Overload. Both Beakered Lightning and Zap! are also useful against aggro if you go the tempo combo route.

1 Mana Spells

Lightning Bolt is a damage spell for your burst combo that will deal a lot of damage after Bioluminescence. Overdraft can be traded early game to fish for combo pieces while also providing a lot of damage, synergizing with both Overload and Spell Damage. Scalding Geyser is damage and allows you to use the Dredge ability to find specific cards. Storm's Wrath buffs your board for tempo combo turns. Windchill can be used before the combo to stall and draw cards. These cards can be drawn by using 0 cost spells with Spirit of the Frog, and in turn draw 2 cost spells when used with it or 1 cost spells if the 1 cost Nature Spells are under a Radiance of Azshara discount.

2 Mana Spells

Ancestral Knowledge is card draw and 2 Overload for Overdraft. Devolve helps stall against powerful minion boards. Elementary Reaction is draw. These cards can be drawn by using 1 cost spells with Spirit of the Frog, and in turn draw Bioluminescence when used with it or 2 cost spells if the 2 cost Nature Spells are under a Radiance of Azshara discount.

Burn Shaman has been a good deck with a high ceiling for a while, and it has only gotten better with this expansion. It might be worth mastering if you like combos that have flexible combo pieces that are used for both winning and survival. If you have a question or comment, or are wondering about a card substitution, post below.

What are your favorite wild decks? Which off meta decks have you been playing? Share them via our deckbuilder and let us know in the comments below!