Reworking the shamans/totems archetype

[iLikeCookies]

The shamans deck has very polarized matchups, where it is very strong vs control, but very weak vs aggro. The deck spends a lot of mana on cards that don't do anything immediately, which naturally explains its weakness to aggro. If the deck gets the time to bring the totems online however, it becomes absurdly powerful, with endless draw and swift damage.

The current shamans deck gets most of its power from a single card: Offering Yard Priest, and then other cards that recycle him. ie, Reanimate and Swamp God Emissary.

I'd like to suggest changes to a few cards, with the goal of splitting the power of the shamans archetype across several good cards (including a new card). This instead of focusing it all in the currently busted swifted Offering Yard Priest. At the same time these changes can help make the deck's matchups less polarized, allowing for player decisions to have a higher impact on the outcome of the match, instead of mostly what deck it queued into. Keep in mind that the goal of these suggestions ins't necessarily to nerf the shamans archetype.

I'd like to change Totem of Swiftness, Offering Yard Priest, and then introduce a new good shaman card as well.



With this version of Totem of Swiftness you can't easily swift out creatures with incredibly high attack anymore.



This version of Offering Yard Priest gives the shamans archetype more defensive power. He can block 2 creatures, and he cannot be pinned by an attacker. Example, if 1 creature is attacking him, he must block that creature regardless of its speed, and may still block another creature. If 2 creatures attack him, he must block them regardless of their speed, and he may not block any additional creatures, as he is already blocking 2.

With these changes, we can print another good shaman card:


These things combined would turn the shaman archetype into a more midrangy value deck, rather than a very slow to start up but extremely powerful swift-to-kill deck.

[PopeShine]

In my opinion Shaman Totems is symptomatic of a growing problem with recent design and new card releases, which is the synergy and power level of non-creature permanents. The "hate" or tech cards to fight non-permanents isn't efficient enough. Cards like Gnome Power Engineer, Haunt, Hearld of Despair, Goblin Fireworker, et al. are too narrow in their targets or too slow/ineffective to disrupt an engine that's gone online. Nature has a decent card in Bark Convoy in terms of flexibility but is quite slow. If you're adding these cards to control or mid-range decks, it's really hurting your aggro-match ups for a marginal increase in beating a deck like Shaman Totems.

These non-creature engine decks have very little to fear outside of aggro-rush match ups, which they can in turn easily tune their decks to beat. I really think the game needs non-creature sweeper cards that can disrupt these engines in a timely manner. As it is now, knocking out one piece of a blessing/curse/artifact engine does little to swing the game. Engine pieces are easily replaced or recurred.

Which leads into the next concern, recursion. Right now, it feels to me that "bomb" recursion is too easily achieved in SW. As you pointed out Shaman Totems has 4 copies of their win condition in addition to 8 virtual (for a total of 12). Once again, it's a issue of not having the right "hate" or tech cards in the game. There's no exile mechanic in SW, so even if you manage to move a card from the graveyard back to the deck to prevent recursion, they'll eventually find it and play it again. Soldier decks abuse the graveyard like crazy with cards like Soldier's Memorial, it's pure upside for a very minor deck building constraint.

We can brainstorm ways to change cards or reword things, but in my opinion the simpler solution is to introduce better "hate" and tech into the game. I hope the new set releases will give us these answers in the months to come, otherwise the game will probably end up being Combo/Engine Deck vs Aggro, with Mid-range and Control being pushed out of the meta.

[iLikeCookies]

As it is now, knocking out one piece of a blessing/curse/artifact engine does little to swing the game. Engine pieces are easily replaced or recurred.

There are quite a few artifact removal cards which remove artifacts as a side effect. Dragonfire, Bark Convoy, Fireworker, and Underworld Scourge. If you get these cards in time, and you kill every totem of legends that you see, shouldn't the game be winnable? Running out of cards is a thing for the totems deck when you run 4x Swiftness totem for example.

Ruination is also in the game. But nobody ever plays that because it only works against the totem deck and the wisdom artifact creature deck. And against the latter Dragonfire is already better.

I'm not really sure if I agree on whether running artifact removals makes your aggro matchup worse. Look at Fireworker, who is a 2 drop that will contest the board on turn 2. That doesn't make your aggro matchup worse. The same holds for detonate, which can double as a 1 damage ping to all creatures. Dragonfire is so good that you run it even if are playing vs aggro. Underworld Scourge destroys a 2 cost creature, which is also not bad vs aggro, esp when people stack might emblems on their 2 drops.

If you make good artifact removal at low opportunity cost too prevalent, then the totems deck will just be unplayable. If things that already destroy creatures or spells, also destroy artifacts, you would run those cards anyway, regardless of shamans being meta.

Isn't making the shamans archetype more "fair" in the way that it tries to win a better plan. I don't like super polarized matchups. It's better if matchups are as even as possible with small favor leaning towards one side.

[PopeShine]

Ruination is also in the game. But nobody ever plays that because it only works against the totem deck and the wisdom artifact creature deck. And against the latter Dragonfire is already better.

I'm not really sure if I agree on whether running artifact removals makes your aggro matchup worse. Look at Fireworker, who is a 2 drop that will contest the board on turn 2. That doesn't make your aggro matchup worse. The same holds for detonate, which can double as a 1 damage ping to all creatures. Dragonfire is so good that you run it even if are playing vs aggro. Underworld Scourge destroys a 2 cost creature, which is also not bad vs aggro, esp when people stack might emblems on their 2 drops.

It's not that any of these answers are bad, but they are largely ineffective because of the turn which you can play them and the tempo you lose when you do so. Dragonfire is probably the best of the cards you mentioned but it's a Turn 5 play at the earliest and for many of these permanent stacking decks, you're not getting full value for your Dragonfire because they aren't running any creatures (or at least not high value ones). Detonate has some flexibility, but a 1 dmg ping is really only good against Elves. I can't think of any other deck that truly fears that type of effect. And Scourge is deceptively weak against Totems and aggro. It's also a Turn 5 play and it can't even target the truly valuable totems. Against aggro it'll usually be a 3/2 and you risk losing the game if you use it's ability as those 2 points of lifeloss often puts you in burn range.

My point is that Totems does what it does because there's nothing checking it. None of these answer cards are omnipresent in the meta and so it's a bit of rarity for Totems players to go up against effective hate. Totems often beats itself due to a bad draw more so than the opponent being ready and tech'ed for the match up.

It is a balancing act when introducing low cost hate or fast sweepers, but it's a necessary part of most games/metas. When the answers aren't threatening enough to deter deck builders from all-in strategies then decks like Totems, Pre-Nerf Book, or even Purple Priest will exist and create all those polarized matchups. Tuning down one specific deck is kind of like treating the symptom and not the disease. For the health of the game I feel there needs to be more cards introduced that are less narrow, tempo efficient and/or affect non-creature permanents in the early turns.

[Lord_Xenon]

When 'meta' shifts to totems because 'meta' don't have anti-totems or it being slow/useless against other things, then deserves it being 'meta'?

[Pentallion]

Since I first started playing SW it's greatest weakness is that one deck or another always takes over meta for the EXACT SAME REASON. Artifact and enchantment removal or too limited to certain colors and unable to keep up with whatever deck is breaking the meta.

We can make a HUGE list of Blessings that have been nerfed for this reason.

The complaint is one that should be addressed IMO with new cards that take out artifacts or else boosting the ones we already have.