Mana Tide Totem

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Mana Tide Totem , in my opinion, is one of the coolest cards in the game. While it may look pretty simple on the outside, there’s a whole world of choices on how and why and when to play it. Here are some examples of the things I take into consideration when playing with Mana Tide Totem in my Shaman Control deck:

The Mulligan

When I draw Mana Tide Totem in my opening hand, there are a few things which I take into consideration on whether or not to throw it back:

How many Totems can I reliably have left alive in the early game? (the more Totems out, the easier to protect Mana Tide Totem)

• vs Rogue, for instance, they will be taken out relatively quickly.
• vs Warrior, I’m likely to be very low on Totems due to lots of early Minions.
• vs Hunter, Totems never live very long, I’m only looking for Minion removal and Taunts anyways.
• vs Druid, generally there will be enough early Minions that Mana Tide won’t live long.
• vs Priest, it’s often times good to keep. Lots of my minions are 3 or less power (Shadow Word: Pain), Mana Tide has 3 Health (goodbye Smite), and Priest doesn’t have a lot of other good ways to remove it. Normally a good keeper.
• vs Mage, when going 2nd, it feels a pretty decent to keep it. As long as the first Totem summon isn’t Searing Totem, it can be pesky to deal with.
• vs Paladin, lots of Paladin decks have quite a bit of early Minions, so I tend to throw back.
• vs Warlock, pretty undecided on this as of yet. Normally I feel like throwing it back - if Warlock is playing control, I want some more aggression in my early game, and if they are playing something like Murloc, Mana Tide Totem is too slow.
• vs Shaman, I like Mana Tide Totem reasonably well. The early game is so often a Totem war, with both players trying to save their spells until the other player overcommits. Mana Tide Totem often times makes them jump the gun on clearing off my side, which always results in them being Overloaded. Tempo FTW.

A lot of other things come into play when Mulliganing the Mana Tide Totem:

1. Do I know what type of deck I’m playing against?
2. Do I remember previous games vs this opponent?
3. What does my hand look like with the Totem in it already?
4. do I have other cheap cards which make a reasonable Mana curve with it?
5. do I have only end game cards with it when going first? (then always throw back)

Desperate?

If I am kind of in a tight spot, with not much else that can help me in a turn, I’ll often times put out the Mana Tide Totem just for the cantrip (replaces itself with another card in hand) effect.

Waiting for a Taunt

Mana Tide Totem has only 3 Health, so it’s pretty easy to clean up. Once I get a Taunt out that isn’t dealt with on my opponent’s turn, and there isn’t an obvious answer on the board (i.e, I have Sen’jin Shield Masta out, and I’m playing a Warrior with a simple 2/2 Minion on the board as well as some armor), playing the Totem can be amazing. To deal with the Totem, many times the player will have to get through the Taunt card first. With no obvious answer on the board, it means one of the cards in hand must help out, which uses up Mana for that turn, and makes it more likely that my Mana Tide Totem will remain alive for another turn.

Tempo Advantage

Sometimes I enter beatdown mode, where off an aggressive draw, my opponent may be a turn behind dealing with my threats. For instance, early on I throw out a Totem, then cast Feral Spirit. My opponent may be having a hard time dealing with both wolves right away, and then I cast out a Twilight Drake. On the next turn, if he’s kind of scrambling to deal with the Drake and 1 other Minion still, Mana Tide Totem can kind of overload(not the Hearthstone way!) him with problems to deal with. It’s hard to even say what the right choice is for him at that point.

If the Mana Tide Totem is left alone for a little bit while you have a Tempo and board advantage, you can (almost) wastefully empty your hand as quickly as possible. Casting everything as fast as possible is normally not the right way to play, but it’s pretty awesome when the Totem hasn’t been dealt with.

The End Game

End game Mana Tide Totems are pretty ballin. Normally lots of the removal from both sides has already been used on the earlier Minions, and what’s left is trying to be reserved for the big badasses that are going to be coming out soon. At this point, the way that I most like to play Mana Tide, is to drop a big scary guy, and then the next turn drop something that is also scary, but not as expensive (like a Twilight Drake or Earth Elemental), and the Totem as well. At this point, board clear isn’t really killing all of your Minions very efficiently, and its mostly spot removal left. Even if your opponent kills off one or 2 of the big guys you have, dealing with the Totem can be a little bit problematic.

While this isn’t a complete guide….
I hope it illuminated some of the thoughts that are in my head as I play with this awesome card. I feel like there’s so much to it, that every day I find a cool new little intricacy about how to properly use Mana Tide Totem to its maximum in a different situation.