With the Hearthstone Wild Open running this month, it is the best time for you to try out the Wild format. Throughout the month we will be bringing you the easiest-to-understand guides to Wild’s most popular decks. Right now, we are looking at the king of Wild, Even Shaman. Shaman has long been the highest-win-rate class in the Wild format due to the strength of Even Shaman, and it stands above other classes by close to 4 percent in overall win rate.
Key cards
The two best cards in Even Shaman are Murkspark Eel and Totem Golem. Both cost two mana and are some of the best cards in the game by mana. Totem Golem is a rock in this deck, beating out nearly all other openers with its sheer strength, whereas Murkspark Eel is used more as a counter to the opponent’s opening plays.
Other tools such as Maelstrom Portal and Flametongue Totem are great tools Even Shaman has at its disposal. Being able to use Flametongue Totem to set up great trades to preserve board control is one of the key play styles Even Shaman uses to win. Maelstrom Portal, however, is most powerful when used with the Wrath of Air Totem, which is the spell damage option of Shaman’s hero power. Back in the day, the effect of Maelstrom Portal was so strong; people played many spell power tools in their midrange Shaman decks to have access to more powerful board-clearing effects.
Play style
The play style of Even Shaman is to fight for the board as much as you can, most of the time. Using the strong bodies of the minions in our deck, many opponents will have a hard time keeping up with the way Even Shaman can flood the board. There are however matchups where trading away the board becomes more of a risk than an advantage. This is often the case against decks such as Reno Warlock and Reno Priest. The strategy against these decks is to set up as high of a hit in one turn as you can accomplish through the use of a Windfury effect, or a spell such as Crackle or Jade Lightning.
Against a deck such as Big Priest specifically, which plays almost only board-clearing effects and resurrects minions too large for us to fight, going as aggressive as possible is key. Our window lies in turns 1-5 where Big Priest is weakest.
The decks
List 1:
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The first list we wanted to share with you today is the most commonly played list for Even Shaman. It is as basic as it can get, and has a very low overall crafting cost. Using only one Legendary card and two Epic cards, this is as cheap as you can make the deck. We highly recommend trying out this list due to its simplicity. It doesn’t use cards targeting specific matchups; it just plays strong minions and strong tools to go with it.
List 2:
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This list is a lot more my style. Even Shaman is unique in the way that it can be both an aggressive deck and midrange deck depending on the opponent. This list has more tools to be better off against the control matchups you might come up against. On top of that, with the tech card Golakka Crawler, you massively increase your chance to win against the Pirate decks that can be quite common in the Wild format. With Odd Rogue, Pirate Warrior, and Kingsbane Rogue all being popular early in the month, this is a list worth trying out once you are a bit more experienced in the Wild format.
The downside, however, is the increased cost of the deck. Using three Legendary cards, of which two are Wild-only, the cost to create this deck is much greater than that of the first option. While Aya Blackpaw is not played in many other decks, crafting her does give you access to a deck we will discuss more in the future, Jade Druid.
If you got this far, we want to thank you for reading, and we hope you found some helpful information to get started in the Wild format. If you haven’t already, check out this article for more information about how to qualify for the 2019 Hearthstone Wild Open! Also, make sure to check out our basics guide to Pirate Warrior!
