Exactly. Not to mention that almost all Shaman spells are cheap. So in most cases you can play a minion and a spell on the same turn. Overloading 1 or 2 mana crystals after turn 10 is not so bad, you won’t always need to use up all your mana every turn.

I’m not sure at all, but something tells me you can’t get the quest that way

Inunderstand. You could play only a sigle copy though, lowering the bad side effect from to less than 1/15, since you can draw it before turn 6.

Can be used in Spiteful Priest too. Grand Archivist casting Mind Control or Free from Amber twice is huge.

The toad is probably an hexed minion lol

Crowskin needs to survive a turn, maybe shielded by a Voidlord. Then Cube, Taldaran or Faceless for multiple Voidlords or Doomguards. Slow and obvious play, but maybe worth it.

Good analysis! But why not consider eaglehorn bow a suitable weapon?

If this survives a turn, can be used to make multiple doomguards/voidlords using Cube, Prince Taldaran or Faceless Manipulator + weapon. Huge combo.

I see no reason to play this card instead of many other one-drops like Fire Fly

Shaman spells are mostly cheap. And about half of them are not as bad. They can well be used for additional value.

Great deck! Looks fun. Perhaps a rogue version would be possible, with shaddowstep for double coldlight oracle and elven mistrel for drawing king tog

Malchezar dilutted your deck with random minions. Having them on your hand at least is better. But it is still too unreliable.

Medivhs Vallet only fit one deck (secret mage), as so does this card. If Even Shaman turns out to be a playable deck, this card won’t be trash. Also, comparing cards from different classes doesn’t always make sense. Fire Plume Phoenix is the real benchmark here.

I agree with your view on dirty rat and other “hate combo” cards. Perhaps Rin/Azari hold an answer for the problem too: they ruin combo decks, but not at a cheap cost. You have to invest time and mana into it. Dropping a Gnomeferatu for 3 mana and seeing your opponent’s DK being ripped or having Skullking Geist fucking all 1 mana spells was just too easy a counter for combo decks.

Without standard mode the game would be unplayable for anyone starting on or after year of the Kraken. How long do you think an online card game game can survive if it doesn’t get new players?

It all depends on you opponent. If you face aggro/murloc paladin, secret mage, pirate warrior, hunter, etc. go for the skull. Otherwise, if you are up against cube/control warlock, big priest, jade druid or any slow deck, play Lackey on turn 5 and Rin on 6. Leave the skull. It’s a high bargain having two legendaries in your deck that don’t work well together, but versatility has a price.

I see your point. But with the next rotation taking Evolve away, if Shaman doesn’t get new evolving cards it would basically make his current DK useless. Hence Shaman would be the only class “without” a DK. Personally, I think Blizzard’s choice of HP for Thrall Deathseer was terrible.

I may be too optimistic, but it may not take multiple expansions to set Shaman and Warrior back in the meta. Both classes have good cards. They are not lacking a super strong & broken legendary to finish off their opponents. Take Shaman for an exemple: Kalimos and Grumble have tons of potential to work together. They are not viable because the class lacks proper support cards. You can’t use them with a murloc quest, a evolve-centered DK and a few freeze cards. Just like Possessed Lackey is a support card that makes Cube Lock a viable archetype, a few well positioned cards could lik Shaman’s already existing good cards into a consistent deck.

Good idea

A new Shaman hero is very interesting. This possibly means that they are pulling standard Shaman away from the evolve mechanism, a feature that always received a lot of criticism for being too random. Also, for the last two years Blizzard threw 4 different archetypes for Shaman (evolve, murloc, elemental and totem), not to mention the failed freeze cards and the exclusive overload mechanic. The class is all over the place! No wonder it’s been left out of the recent meta. All classes have multiple archetypes, but none are as widespread and unfocused as Shaman currently is. I hope the new hero card embodies one of the already existing archetypes (hopefully elemental) and help us make some actually competitive decks.