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Mulligans
Aggro Mulligans
Bloodsail Corsair: Pretty obvious. Early board control with Patches is extremely important.
Flametongue Totem: If you have Bloodsail Corsair, turn one Bloodsail Corsair and then turn two Flametongue Totem is very powerful.
Maelstrom Portal: Particularly against Pirate Warrior as well as some other archetypes like Token Druid, the Maelstrom Portal can establish awesome early board dominance.
Feral Spirit and Tar Creeper can help you stabilize and recover if you're getting bursted down early on by aggro decks.
Fire Fly: If you don't have anything else to play. Mulligan this if you have the Bloodsail Corsair in your hand.
Control Mulligans
Bloodsail Corsair: Pretty obvious. Early board control with Patches is extremely important.
Flametongue Totem: If you have Bloodsail Corsair, turn one Bloodsail Corsair and then turn two Flametongue Totem is very powerful. It's also basically game-winning against Mana Wurm and Northshire Cleric, as you have very few answers for these in the first few turns.
Fire Fly: tends to be a card that you play on turn one and then leave until you need to use the token to combine with other Elementals.
Feral Spirit is a good card in any situation. I would not recommend using Coin to play this on turn two, but using it on turn three and using the Hero Power the turn afterwards tends to be a fairly strong play.
The Evolve Shaman is a rather new deck archetype emerging in the Hearthstone ladder. This decklist, as per the name, uses the card Evolve to turn a board flooded with smaller creatures into one filled with strong creatures. The primary combo is to use Doppelgangster, which spawns 3 2/2 for 5’s, and turn them into 3 strong 6-drop creatures.
The main way to build this deck has remained mostly constant. People prefer to use a playset of Jade cards, including Jade Claws, Jade Lightning, and Aya Blackpaw to create a multitude of Jade creatures to flood the board and be evolved.
However, I believe that the Evolve deck can be taken a step further by using the Elemental playset, rather than the Jade one.
Why Elemental is better than Jade:
Cards such as Stone Sentinel, Blazecaller, and Kalimos, Primal Lord all have very powerful Battlecries, but the body (such as, in the extreme case of Stone Sentinel, a 4/4 for 7 mana) are lacking for the cost. However, with Evolve, you can not only get amazing value out of the Battlecry but also out of the high mana cost, creating large creatures.
The Elemental playset has a deceptively large ways to fill the board, as well. Feral Spirit, Stone Sentinel, and Kalimos, Primal Lord all have ways to summon additional creatures to combine with Evolve or Flametongue Totem.
The Elementals also have much higher versatility than Jade cards, as well. Kalimos, Primal Lord in particular has many options when you summon it as well as an excellent body to Evolve with. It is also far less susceptible to Polymorph effects than it’s Jade counterpart, Aya Blackpaw, which is easily rendered mostly useless by Hex or Polymorph. This versatility allows the Elementals to easily win out over Jade in later stages of the game – the stages when you are getting value out of your
I also include the totem synergy of Flametongue Totem and Thing from Below. Thing from Below in particular counts as a 6 mana creature while on the board, even though you will rarely be casting it for that much. This means that you can get even more value out of Evolve.
What are you losing by using Elemental over Jade?
Obviously, it’s not a strictly better choice. Jade synergy only requires five total cards, rather than the 13 used by the Elemental playset, which allows the Jade counterpart of the Evolve deck to add cards such as Bloodlust and Primalfin Totem.
Jade also has the advantage of being much stronger in the first few turns of the game. Jade Claws allows you to establish very early board presence, and Jade Lightning is an extremely mana-efficient nuke card.
Why not both?
Using both the Jade and Elemental playsets is a very attractive choice. You get the best of both worlds -power in the early and the late game, incredible versatility, and the obvious synergy of being able to absolutely flood the board and combine that with Evolve .
However, using both requires you to toss cards such as the Thing from Below and Flametongue Totem playset, the Pirate combo that makes you dominate the board from turn one, and even Hex or Maelstrom portal. Keeping all these other cards for versatility is very important.
Despite this, I have tried the Jade/Elemental/Evolve deck before with good results. If you want to, I recommend tossing out one Feral Spirit, one Tar Creeper, Hex, Devolve, and one Fire Elemental, and adding in Jade Claws, Jade Lightning, and Aya Blackpaw. Taking out the Feral Spirit and Tar Creeper is okay because you have the early game power of Jade Claws and Jade Lightning, the Hex because you have the added removal of Jade Lightning, and the Fire Elemental because of the aforementioned removal and the addition of the 6-drop Aya Blackpaw.
Deck Variations
Jade/Elemental/Evolve: Mentioned Above
Mana Tide: Take out Hex and one Tar Creeper and throw in Mana Tide Totem. Coin out the Mana Tide Totem whenever you can, follow it up with Feral Spirit for mega bonus points.
Anti-Wyrm/Cleric: Take out Hex and one Tar Creeper, and add 2x Lightning Bolt. Trust me, it sounds a bit dumb but it works if you’re running into a lot of Mages and Priests.
Midrange Murders Me!: Take out Hex and one Maelstrom Portal, throw in 2x Lightning Storm. Again, trust me here. It can work.
But! But! I don’t have [insert card here]!
Patches the Pirate: Take out the Pirate playset and add either the Jade cards mentioned above (take out Fire Elemental and Hex, as well) or throw in some Mana Tide Totem and another (couple, depending on how many Mana Tides you threw in) one-drops. (Good one-drops include Argent Squire, Mistress of Mixtures, and Lightning Bolt.)
Kalimos, Primal Lord/Stone Sentinel: These cards are both rather key to playing this deck. Maybe you should look at something else, such as the Jade variant.
Blazecaller: The main thing you’re losing here is a large creature and a good amount of removal. Add another Hex and something else, you’ll be fine.
