This past weekend, Vicious Syndicate put out their very first Classic data reaper report. Out of the 90,000 games they collected data for, an interesting bit of information came to light when it comes to Shaman; A new deck is being refined for the class!
New decks in Hearthstone are nothing new as metas evolve, but to see this happen in Classic, a mode that players assumed was figured out for good, crazy! Much has changed since the original release of Hearthstone though: We have several data-analysis tools in the community that weren't around in Classic and players are just better at understanding the bits and pieces of Hearthstone now. With that in mind, while it might feel mind-blowing, we should have known this would happen at some point.
Quote From Vicious Syndicate Turns out that Shaman had incredible burst options that were criminally underutilized. Rockbiter may have been nerfed only years later, but it was already a very powerful card alongside Doomhammer. Lava Burst is a fantastic direct damage spell that gives the Shaman so much reach to end the game with Lightning Bolt. The best way to navigate this archetype is to take control of the early board while accumulating resources, but once Doomhammer is drawn, turn things up a notch and start going at the opponent’s throat.
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But one thing we’ve discovered about Shaman is that it can get even more aggressive, and though we can’t guarantee anything until we see more of it, this could be a direction that elevates the class even further in power. An Aggro Burn Shaman utilizing a lower curve, cuts situational removal and goes after the opponent’s throat from turn 1 looks like a unicorn deck that never truly existed all those years ago.
Midrange Burst Shaman
Aggro Burn Shaman
This archetype uses a lower curve of cards to pump damage right into your opponent from the first turn. Look at these beautifully aggressive cards that have been "unnerfed"!
If you're into Classic Hearthstone and you haven't seen their first report on the meta, you should definitely go and give it a read. It can be a great refresher of what is going on in the format and shows them some love for the great things they're doing.
Comments
I think I remember playing that in Classic.
It wasn't as refined though
If you play a lot of Shaman in Classic, you're going to realize that Lava Burst & Al'Akir don't fit in the same deck because playing Lava Burst makes Al'Akir unplayable next turn, and Al'Akir combo being a huge swing in tempo toward your opponent.
Thus why Windfury works better. Especially with a 6 drop your opponent doesn't want to clear. And Leeroy combo leaves no mana left for Lava Burst, thus why a sturdy body makes for a more reliable combo.
Your feelings vs data. There is a reason they have found this deck and it's because classic up to this point has been based on feelings instead of what actually performs the best. Next you will be telling us how Tickatus is still a problem that needs nerfed right and how control priest is too weak. Cause it's what you feel right?
Weird how you ostracize feelings considering your use of anecdotes on the standard meta toward an experienced Classic player.
"They" found this deck way after deck trackers, & it was inevitable that deck doctors like myself tried a more aggressive variant of midrange.
Wouldn't you rather utilize a win percentage between two or more popular shaman decks that swap out Al'Akir for Windfury, Leeroy for Sylvanas, Sylvanas for Argent Commandeer? Or even bringing up each of those cards win-rates when drawn might suffice.
Please save your gripes about Standard balance for those articles, they are a lot more popular to the player-base and ripe with discussion.
I suppose it depends on what anyone means by "new deck" - the list is a few cards off of the old Aggro Shaman builds that were featured in ESGN Fight Night, during the Beta. Typically, in the "olden days," aggressive decks playing Argent Squire would also often play Abusive Sergeant, as the AS buff would allow the Squire to kill an enemy 2/3, while the 1/1 remained on the board. The Fight Night Shaman decks often featured Ragnaros, rather than Al'Akir, as the latter was only thought to be good enough to play in combination with Rockbiter, while Rag was just good. They also played Shattered Sun Cleric, rather than Harvest Golem, as there were often totems in play that could receive the SSC buff. Mid-rangey versions would often play Defender of Argus for the same reason.
If "a few cards different from a Beta deck" qualifies as "new," then it's a new deck, I guess . . .
Considering the talk was shaman is trash in classic and has terrible classic set before classic mode launch. I'm inclined to disagree with you. Even if the deck did exist, card for card, the perception of its power level was never aligned with its actual strength and lead to it being under played to the point where it may as well not have existed. Now that we have data on the deck, it might actually influence the meta in a way it never did before. You are just being petty.
I think you misunderstood the post.
Given that the topic under discussion was whether the version of Aggro Shaman presented by VS was new, I thought that it would be relevant, and interesting, to point out that it's a few cards different from decks that saw tournament play at the time. I didn't reach any conclusion, other than stating (twice) that it's a matter open to interpretation - "the VS deck was kind of played seven years ago, but not entirely...here are some of the differences."
Nothing petty was intended. Perhaps my outrageous ellipsis rocked your world way out of orbit . . . good luck in coming back down to earth.
It's Classic, we can't expect "god knows how many" changes :)
I was not playing in Beta, so this slight innovation is new for me
I am a simple man - I see VS content, I like it.
Maybe its just me, but this really isn't anything new. The fact of the matter is that Doomhammer has always been good even back in the day, more so when Rockbiter Weapon was still 1 mana, nearly everyone played harrison because of it. Remember how everyone once thought that Al'Akir the Windlord was a bad card and needs a buff, only for the devs to tell everyone (this was back when data wasn't available) that he had the best win rate of all of them. Hell, Feral Spirit was once one of the most fearsome card in the early game. So its bewildering that classic shaman is only now being thought as legend-viable, when it always had been.
I look forward to seeing news about concede shaman again. For those who might not had the pleasure, concede shaman was just two cards; Earth Elemental and Ancestral Spirit. Times have changed alot hasn't it?
Nothing in classic is going to feel new. These cards are very old now. What matters is that it was underrepresented in spite of it's performance. The general consensus was that priest, shaman and paladin were all basically unplayable in classic with bad core sets, but that isn't entirely true and shaman could be a tier 1 class which is mind blowing.
Not tier 1, easily locked up by freeze mage, outpaced by combo druid, out of lethal range by control pally, and overwhelmed by face hunter
I remember when playin in 2014 I thought "I mean, Al'akir may be not as good as some other cards, but Windfury+Charge combo looks good huh?", but my friends were like, bro what are you talking about, Alakir is awful.
it is nothing new for us now... but this type of deck didn't exist back in 2014, these styles of decks were figured out in 2016 or so...
I think its because there wasn't any hsreplay and hearthstone tournaments was at its infancy. You can only bring 4 decks, 3 very obvious candidates, and the last is usually freeze mage, midrange priest or druid. Its a bit like warrior in that there's absolutely playable lists out there, but is largely shadowed away from the big 4.
But for those who did, this was not a new style of shaman. Back in the day, it was known as midrange shaman. Feral spirit, flametongue totem on the early game, al'akir and doomhammer for the end. Looking at the midrange list here, the only difference was that windspeaker was in, lava burst was niche, and every shaman always fits in harvest golem.
No.... can't be that far back. That aggro burn list looks more like the spell damage shaman that was invented during scholomance last year
well it took a lot of inspiration from burn deck from Gadgetzan meta