Regionals Primer-Matchup Analysis Shaman

Today, I'm continuing my matchup analysis for the main decktypes at Regionals with the Shaman. This deck was good enough to take the top spot at the Darkmoon Faire Championship at GenCon SoCal, so it's a pretty solid deck. Let's see how it matches up vs. the field.

Hunter-This is your best matchup. When you go first this matchup is very much in your favor but on the draw it usually will be a pretty tight game. The key to this matchup is generating as many 2-for-1's early as possible. When you're on the play I usually mulligan for a Searing Totem in this matchup unless the hand I'm shipping is just incredibly powerful sans Totem. Playing first, the Totem just puts them in a deep hole. It will kill their one drop on turn 2 and they can't play a 2 drop because the Totem will kill it before it can attack. They will have to shoot it. If you can draw an Aimed Shot out for your Totem that's a very good thing. If they have the Arcane or Aimed Shot for your Totem on 2 you've still gotten the game to turn 3 with no damage on you. Going second the Totem isn't as important to mulligan for because while still powerful it's not crippling. The key to winning this matchup is understanding your role. In the early game you are strictly playing as a control deck. Your goal is to generate as many favorable trades as possible while stabilizing the board. This is very important to understand. Your only objective for at least the first four turns is stabilizing and putting yourself in a better board position than your opponent. Somewhere between turn 4 and turn 7 you will reach a point that I call The Shift. This is where you shift from control to beatdown. You move from stabilizing the board to actively seeking to end the game. It is important that you not shift roles too soon or you may open yourself up to a last ditch attempt by the hunter to end the game with Fury's and Aimed Shots. As an example, if you have Ghost Wolf in play, you don't want to start attacking with Annihilator until you know a Fury or Leeroy can't get through your other defenses. Overall, once you understand this matchup, you will be in a good position to win it most of the time.

Warlock control-This is where the versatility of the Shaman deck starts to shine. In this matchup you are generally going to play the aggressor from the start. The biggest advantage you have here is your heavy equipment. Your Deflectors are hard for them to penetrate and they don't have much in the way of dealing with your Annihilators. Don't put extra Annihilators in your resource row because if they are able to remove one, replacing it is very important in this matchup. If it's an Alliance Warlock deck make sure to save your Vanquishes for the top end allies and then use Ophelia Barrows to keep them from using Chasing A-Me to get them back. If they play Medoc Spiritwarden, Ophelia Barrows is a godsend in turning him into a waste of 5 resources. This is another good matchup for you as long as you can keep your equipment around. Even if you don't see any DoT's in game one, I would suggest bringing in Confessor Mildred from the board. I have heard seen a lot of Warlock decks bringing in Curse of Agony and/or Corruption from the board as a way to get damage through the armor of Shamans, Warriors, and Paladins. The important thing to remember here, is that your role has shifted to the beatdown.

Mage control-This matchup is very similar to the Warlock. One different aspect here is their Frost abilities. Your Draconian Deflector will essentially let you attack when they don't want you to. If you can make them use more than one Frost ability per turn to keep your hero from attacking, they will run out of cards. This deck has a better chance of getting a little more damage through your armor with its wide array of direct damage. Confessor Mildred out of the sideboard can make sure they don't keep any DoT's around to annoy you and can get rid of Polymorph in a pinch. Again, you're going to want to save your Vanquishes for the big guys and use Ophelia to keep them from coming back. Much like the Warlock, I think this is a pretty good matchup for the Shaman because of the Shaman's equipment.

Warrior-Now we find one of the Shaman's weaker matchups. In this matchup it is most important to come out hard and fast. The Warrior deck seeks to simply stay alive long enough to finish you with one big turn. You don't have much in the way of stopping that turn so you simply have to kill them before they get there. Mulligan any hand that doesn't have an Annihilator. The Warrior has more armor than any deck except the Paladin so you won't be able to reliably get damage through with your allies. You are going to want to try to play as many allies as possible so that they have to worry about killing them or getting overrun by them. Ophelia may not seem important in this matchup but having her in play is very significant. Having ready protectors eliminates one attack from their kill turn effectively eliminating one Rak Skyfury from the combo for every ready protector you have. For this reason, Kulan may be your best ally in this matchup since he can attack and protect each turn. Zygore Bladebreaker also serves double duty, eliminating a weapon and then being able to attack. Cleave is really bad for you in this matchup since it will usually eliminate 2 attackers with one card. If you can run out enough allies to force the Warrior player to use up Mortal Strikes killing them instead of throwing them at you, you have a very good chance in this matchup. If you allow him to sit behind his armor and build up the perfect hand you have no chance. Hur Shieldsmasher out of the board is really good here, since he can kill off early armor and then also attack allowing you to get some extra early beats in. This is one of your tougher matchups, and if you could avoid it all day you would have no reason to complain.

Paladin-This matchup is along the same lines as the Warrior with a few exceptions. The first is that this deck replaces the finishing combo with healing attempting to basically undo all the damage you deal early in the game. Since the Warrior needs several abilities and allies for the combo that the Paladin doesn't use, this deck replaces those with a more complete suite of equipment. This deck will generally run more armor, which means it soaks up even more of your damage and a toolbox of weapons. None of its weapons are as bad for you as say Flame Wrath is for Hunters, but the ones they are most likely to use are Annihilator, Thrash Blade, and Wraith Scythe. Until they find a Lionheart Helm, Annihilator is the only way they have to pierce your Deflector. They usually won't be attacking you early though since they will be concentrating more on removing your allies. The Thrash Blade will combo with one of the Seals to either heal 4 per turn or draw them 2 cards. It can also allow them to kill 2 of your allies per turn to stabilize the board faster. The Wraith Scythe can fill in when they need to heal and don't have a Seal of Light. Healing for them is important in this matchup because if they aren't healing, you can finish them off with your Annihilator since it will can't be prevented. The way this matchup has played out for me in testing is the Shaman can't apply enough pressure to force the Paladin out of its game plan of equipping armor from head to toe, picking off one ally per turn with its weapon and healing any damage that does make it through. Hur Shielsmasher out of the board makes it a little closer, but for the most part this seems like your worst matchup. Your only real shot is keeping an Annihilator in play and hoping they can't heal more than you can deal. If you have room in your sideboard you may consider Windfury and/or Rockbiter Weapons for the Paladin and Warrior matchups. Rockbiter let's you swing for 5 unpreventable, Windfury 6, and both let you swing for 10 per turn. Since most of your other matchups are already pretty good, using your sideboard slots to shore up these weaker ones may be a good idea.

The Shaman deck has a lot of versatility and is able to play both aggressively or as a control deck depending on the situation. I think it's a good choice for Regionals because it has good matchups vs. the decks that expect to be most popular. I hope this gives you more insight into the Shaman's matchups for Regionals.