Control Shaman Deck List Guide

Table of Contents

• ×Control Shaman
  • 1. Aim of the Archetype
  • 2. Strengths and Weaknesses
  • 3. Key Cards and Crafting
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Control Jade Shaman Deck
  • 1. Card List
  • 2. Mana Curve
  • 3. Strategy
    • 3.1. Synergies & Combinations
    • 3.2. Mulligans & Matchup Specific Strategies.
    • 3.3. Card Swaps
  • 4. About the Author
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Wild Malygos OTK Shaman Deck
  • 1. Card List
  • 2. Mana Curve
  • 3. Strategy
    • 3.1. Synergies & Combinations
    • 3.2. Mulligans & Matchup Specific Strategies
    • 3.3. Card Swaps
  • 4. About the Author
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Wild N'Zoth Control Shaman Deck
  • 1. Card List
  • 2. Mana Curve
  • 3. Strategy
    • 3.1. General Playstyle
    • 3.2. Key Skills
      • 3.2.1. Knowing your matchup
      • 3.2.2. Managing AoE
      • 3.2.3. Evaluating Random Effects
    • 3.3. Mulligans & Matchup Specific Strategies
    • 3.4. Card Swaps
  • 4. About the Author
  • 5. ChangeLog
• +Wild Wall Shaman Deck
  • 1. Card List
  • 2. Mana Curve
  • 3. Strategy
    • 3.1. Synergies & Combinations
    • 3.2. Mulligans & Matchup Specific Strategies.
    • 3.3. Card Swaps
  • 4. About the Author
  • 5. ChangeLog

Control Shaman is an unconventional Shaman archetype that aims to take advantage of some of the overlooked healing and AoE effects available to the Shaman Class. There are a broad range of strategies and win conditions that can be used within Control Shaman, however the core cards remain the same.

By using strong board clears such as Lightning Storm and Volcano, Control Shaman decks can easily deal with aggressive opponents while also having access to Hex as one of the most Mana efficient answers for large minions. Jinyu Waterspeaker can be used to recover any damage that does get taken in the earlier turns and to some lesser extent Hot Spring Guardian can achieve the same.

Jade Golems are the most commonly used strategy to defeat opponents as the control cards provide the necessary time to allow Jade Golems to snowball out of control, a similar result can be achieved by using many Deathrattle minions throughout games so that they can eventually be resurrected using N'Zoth, the Corruptor to finish off opponents.

Below, you will find link to our deck lists for Control Shaman, starting with our featured deck, which we consider the most common variant.

This Control Jade Shaman Deck combines the slow playstyle of Control Shaman with Jade Golems to gain ever growing value over the course of a game. Every Jade Golem card possible is played in this variant to ensure the maximum value is possible over very long games.

This Wild Malygos OTK Shaman Deck takes the shell of Control Shaman and turns it into a powerful Combo deck. It aims to stall out the game while assembling combo pieces to eventually use Ancestor's Call as a cheap method of summoning Malygos in combination with many cheap damage spells to burst down opponents in a single turn.

This Wild Wall Shaman Deck is a variant that aims to create an impassable wall of Taunt minions to starve opponents out of games. It aims to take advantage of powerful cards like Ancestral Spirit and Faceless Manipulator in combination with powerufl minions like Earth Elemental to create minions powerful minions that are almost impossible to remove.

This Wild N'Zoth Control Shaman Deck is a consistent Control Shaman variant take uses many high-value Deathrattle minions to contest the board. N'Zoth, the Corruptor is used as a final win condition to resurrect all Deathrattle minions to finish off opponents.

1. Aim of the Archetype

The aim of Control Shaman is to use powerful spells to stall opponents and prevent them from dominating the board throughout the earlier turns. Once the late-game the aim is use high-value cards to pressure opponents and force inefficient use of resources out of opponents until they are unable to keep up with the threats being played.

2. Strengths and Weaknesses

Shaman has some of the best board clear tools in the game, however they all come with a high Overload cost which takes away most of the initiative that comes with board clear effects. This makes Control Shaman particularly weak against decks that are able to consistently develop strong boards many turns in a row, which is often the case with Midrange decks.

The large number of AoE effects and heals makes Control Shaman a great choice for stopping Aggro decks. Conversely, it is also solid against other control decks as the late-game strategies used will often out-value them in long games of attrition.

3. Key Cards and Crafting

Bloodmage Thalnos is the only Legendary minion consistently used in Control Shaman decks and although it is a very solid card used across many archetypes, it is not essential and can be replaced if you do not have access to it. N'Zoth, the Corruptor and Aya Blackpaw are used in some builds of Control Shaman but are completely dependent on the build being used.

There are no Epic cards consistently used in Control Shaman however the broad range of tools used are primarily made up of Rare cards and are incredibly important to have. The most important examples are Mana Tide Totem to enable more consistency with draws, Lightning Storm as a cheap and efficient AoE, Jinyu Waterspeaker for a solid heal, and Thing from Below as a highly efficient minion that synergises with high use of the Shaman Hero Power throughout games.

4. ChangeLog

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• 08 Aug. 2017: Added new guide format for the Control Shaman Archetype.