Control Shaman

Shamans are shockingly good at keeping the board clear.

Control Shaman is a Shaman deck focused on long-term board control and value plays, looking to defeat the opponent using cards like Zephrys the Great, Swampqueen Hagatha, Shudderwock, and Hagatha the Witch to generate more cards and value and eventually wear the opponent down. It uses a large number of board clears to survive into the late game.

History

Control Shaman (known as Shudderwock Shaman at the time, due to its Combo focused nature) first became a popular deck during The Witchwood, which saw the release of Shudderwock. It was way more of a Combo deck than it ever was a Control deck (like many competitive decks of its era) relying on just drawing its combo pieces, playing them to stack their battlecries and then playing Shudderwock to automatically win against any deck the turn/turns after with infinite 1 mana Shudderwocks.

The deck used Lightning Storm, Volcano, Primordial Drake, and sometimes Hagatha the Witch to keep the opponent's board clear and stall so they could draw cards and eventually assemble a strong Shudderwock to finish the opponent off. This was accomplished through Saronite Chain Gang, Grumble, Worldshaker, and Lifedrinker. It punished fast swarming decks like Aggro Paladin and Zoolock through its high amount of efficient board clears, taunts, and heals. Like any combo deck, it also punished slower/reactive decks as there was no way to stop a "completed" Shudderwock and,by nature, these decks often couldn't pressure it fast enough to win before Shudderwock came onto the board to automatically win the game the following turn/turns.

Due to balance changes applied to Saronite Chain Gang on December 19, 2018, it's no longer possible to copy infinite Shudderwocks using that, but it's still possible with Doppelgangster.

Following the Year of the Dragon rotation, the deck shifted gears into a true Control archetype. In the Year of the Phoenix, the archetype lost its Shudderwock win condition, instead transitioning into Highlander builds to use Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza. The deck (and Shaman itself) initially faltered at the start of Ashes of Outland, but surprise buffs to Torrent and The Lurker Below and large nerfs to Aggro Demon Hunter gave it some relevance. It gained more traction in Scholomance Academy with the powerful addition of Diligent Notetaker, although it still lacked a solid win condition to beat other Control decks. While C'Thun, the Shattered eventually gave it a much-needed way to close games, the deck was slower and less flexible than Control Warrior. As such, it remained a low-tier pick.

Common cards

The following cards are usually in this deck:

Core Cards

The following cards are played in most or all versions of the deck:

Galakrond Package

The following cards are played in the Galakrond variation of the deck:

Optional cards

The following cards are played more than occasionally, but not always:

Shudderwock Shaman

This section concerns content exclusive to Wild format.

The following cards are played in the Shudderwock combo variant.

Wild cards

This section concerns content exclusive to Wild format.

Wild cards that fit well into this deck type: