DKMR Faramir Shaman Guide

Jan “Faramir” Engelmann: Twitter | Twitch | IHearthU Coaching

Hey Guys, its Faramir and I want to show you one of my favourite decks of all time today, my Bloodlust Shaman Deck. Its the deck I won GosuCup #17 with and beat RDU in the finals with small changes.

Shaman is in a really weird spot in the meta right now, with the rise of the Hunter again, it got a lot weaker as when it was when they were only Miracle Rogue and Handlock. With Handlock falling out of the Meta due to the rise of Hunter, one of the really strong matchups for Shaman falls off leaving only Warrior as a strong matchup.

With this Deck however, I actually managed to achieve a high win rate against Midrange Hunters as well
as Miracle Rogue while leaving my performance against Warrior unchanged. The idea behind this Deck is to race your opponent while aggressively fight for board control in the early game with cards like Nerubian Egg, Knife Juggler, Argent Squire and Feral Spirit. As Shaman you need to plan out your turns more carefully than with any other class because of the Overload Mechanic. You cant afford a lot of dead turns where you just Heropower and Pass. While sometimes that’s acceptable when you already have a board and you don’t want to overextend into AoE, you dont want to be forced into it.

For example, a Doomhammer on Turn 5 seems like a decent play, but the problem with that play is that you make your Turn 6 really weak with only 4 mana to use, Turn 6 is normally an important turn for Shaman because of Fire Elemental or something like Violet Teacher + Rockbiter / Lightning Bolt / Flametongue Totem. You get to remove your enemy’s board while strengthening yours and Shaman does that very well so be careful on which turns you chose to overload yourself.

If you decide to Coin into Feral Spirits, be sure to have a 1 Mana Spell like Rockbiter/Lightning Bolt on your hand to have options the following turn. With decent draw you should win the early game most of the time and then you have great minions to follow up with, Violet Teachers, Azure Drakes and Fire Elementals are top tier drops on their respective turns.

As finishers you obviously have the very powerful Doomhammer + Rockbiter combination and the card that makes this Deck so unique : Bloodlust. A lot of people think that this card is a “Win More“- card but I disagree. It catches your opponent off guard, you suddenly have 12 dmg on the board when before there were only totems. It synergizes really well with Violet Apprentices, Totems and Nerubian Eggs, if you have Bloodlust on hand and a decent board, always look out for possible lethal, it is rather easy to miss if you are not used to a card like Bloodlust.

Class-specific things to pay attention to:

Against Miracle Rogue you want to play something that is really resilient and is probably going to survive a turn against the strong removal of Valeera. Something like a Knife Juggler can easily be killed by a combo-ed Si7- Agent or a Backstab. Cards like like Spirit Wolf, Argent Squires and Nerubian Eggs are more durable and can get buffed or protected the following turn. In this matchup, use your Flametongue Totem aggressively, you might not ever get the full value out of it but this matchup is a race and Miracle Rogue has strong removal to deal with your minions, so use it while you still have minions on the board!

Its totally fine to play it on turn 2 and buff your Argent Squire to push for damage. If you are lucky he might just have to hit the Squire twice and you get a lot of damage in early, the most important thing in this matchup though is to not overextend into Blade Flurry. Its the one card that makes or breaks that matchup for the Miracle Rogue together with the Backstab + SI7-Agent on turn 3. If your opponent has a 3 damage weapon equipped, try to hold your Feral Spirits until he has used it. They are really strong and not that easily removed and Deadly Poison is the best way for the Rogue to do it. You should also always be able to establish a strong board from your hand in case your board gets removed by Blade Flurry.

Against Hunter, as i was touching on earlier, its all about early board control. One thing that i found was that you should save your Earthshock for Haunted Creepers and Mad Scientists instead of throwing it away for a Webspinner. In the Rogue matchup its Blade Flurry, in the Hunter matchup it is Unleash the Hounds.

Don’t overextend into it after turn 5 when he can play it together with Starving Buzzard, Rather sacrifice a low health minion with higher attack than maintaining a board with a lot of low health minions. Try to keep the Health of your minions above 2, its really uncomfortable for the Hunter to clear them if he doesnt have Hunter’s Mark. You also dont always have to do the trades, be aware of the threat of Houndmaster and play around that and be careful of the various Traps that Hunter can place and you should win that ma
tchup with your superior removal and strong early minions.

Against Warrior, you of course want a good early start to apply pressure but its not quite that important as in the other Matchups since Warriors normally start out slow. The goal here is to protect your minions with Taunt Totems, Defender of Argus and Feral Spirits. You don’t want to overextend into Brawl, about 6 Damage worth of Attack Power is usually enough. Try to make use of your Heropower as often as possible and use the Nerubian Eggs as protection from Brawl and other AoE damage. This matchup usually ends with 1 Hero running out of cards and getting ground out, still be careful of his burst with Grommash Hellscream though. Its alright to use Hex for Tempo but dont waste it, its your strongest answer to things like Ragnaros the Firelord or Caine Bloodhoof.

Alright guys, i hope you will enjoy this Deck as much as i do and if you are frustrated with all the Hunters on the Ladder, this might just be the Deck for you! If you wanna give me a feedback for this Guide or have any questions, just contact me on the various social media channels.

May the Elements guide you!

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