A new new look at an old an older deck. Shamans 3.0
Shamans was a deck that did good way back when modern was infantile, and I have had a soft spot in my heart for them since Lorwyn. I have tried over the years to recreate the success of the old shamans to mediocre results. Here is my latest rendition, and I think it may be the best yet. Give me your thoughts and opinions!
The strategy of the deck is to overwhelm your opponent with card, mana, and boardstate advantage. It does this through upkeep triggers and top-deck manipulation most of the time, and a moderate amount of stacking knowledge is required to take full advantage of this.
Mana Advantage
Bosk Banneret Mana reduction is far better than a dork when it comes to wanting to cast multiple spells a turn like this deck does, without needing to tap and on a body that isnt afraid to block and possibly kill opponents smaller creatures. His ability is applicable to every creature except Burning-Tree Emissary, and that isnt a problem due to Emissary doing its own mana thing.
Aether Vial The card that makes tribal/aggro decks viable in the format. Uncounterable and instant speed is amazing, and add in the fact that it saves you the casting cost of the creature you vial in. Its a necessity in decks that cannot take advantage of it as well as this deck can.
Burning-Tree Emissary At the least he is a 'Free' 2/2 and mana fixing. But when combined with an Aether Vial he becomes ramp! There is amazing synergy between these two cards, allowing you to 'tap out' yet vial in this guy for the mana required to bolt or jet a threat they just played, or ramp yourself from 2-4 mana for the decks top end cards.
Leaf-Crowned Elder
Better than square girth and casts stuff for free! This bundle of joy is one of the powerhouses of the deck, providing all three of the advantages we are aiming for here. He is efficient, fairly resilient, and pretty self explanatory.
Oracle of Mul Daya The ability to drop extra lands is cool, and helps excelerate our deck nicely, but he is equally important, if not more so, for his ability to see the top card of our library. This is the #1 reason for running him, and I will explain more on that in a bit.
Card Advantage
Elvish Visionary He is the Silvergill Adept of the elf(and now shaman!) world. He doesnt 'do much' in the classic sense, but he does wonders at the same time. Tribal card draw, even in the form of cantrips have always been incredibly important for creature reliant decks. The only tribal deck that was successful without some, that I can think of, was Legacy Meathooks(Slivers).
Sensation Gorger
This is both the card that gave me the idea for the new direction for the deck, and also probably on of the worst cards in the deck at the same time. The downside is, obviously, that you are filtering cards for your opponent, giving them the option of the top 5 cards of their library(4+draw). That can be pretty vicious against some decks(but not twin anymore), lethally so. On the other hand, where your opponent may only be able to cast 1-2 of those cards, it should be very easy to drop most or all of them ourselves in a turn. With the help of aether vial, bosk banneret, burning tree, and oracle of mul daya, cards should be dropping like panties in a John Mayer concert.
Board Advantage
Wolf-Skull Shaman
He is a bear that makes bears, whats not to like? His is the first upkeep trigger we want to resolve generally, as his 2/2 is usually less important than other kinship triggers in the deck, and he leaves the card there for further triggers if successful. Wolf-Skull is used to 'test the waters' of your top card, and gives you a chance to respond and mess with your topdeck if needed.
Leaf-Crowned Elder
Sort of a bigger more badass
Wolf-Skull Shaman
, or the illegitimate child of Siege Rhino and Descendants' Path. Putting stuff from our library into play uncounterabely and for free is huge.
Burning-Tree Emissary Since our T1 plays are a little lacking if we dont have an Aether Vial(god forbid) or any worthy bolt targets, we need to make up for lost time on T2, and Burning Tree does this. We can chain him into more of himself if we are so lucky, but really, him into any other two drop is still value. Either way he helps set us up for chumps or mana/feild advantage.
Trigger Hitters
"But what if you dont hit kinship during your upkeep?"
That has been an issue in past builds of the deck, but through various tweaks I hope to have made it far more reliable. Here is how we keep shamans on top.
Wooded Foothills Im really not sure why I didnt think of this before. I honestly feel rather dumb for not. Its an instant speed free shuffle incase our first kinship trigger fails and we need to reshuffle before the next one resolves in hopes of a hit.
Madblind Mountain
This was my original shuffle effect, but Im really not that happy with it and am thinking of replacing it with possibly another fetchland. Its drawback is that it costs mana, and I need 2 of the 10 red permanents in the deck to be in play in order to be able to use it. And entering tapped is balls.
Oracle of Mul Daya The ability to view your top card, combined with the fact that you can play 'away' kinship problematic lands from the top of your library makes this card invaluable in the mid-late game. Being informed on your top card allows to best set up kinship triggers for maximum effect. Im thinking of possibly running 3x instead of two as I have found them to be very slick, but their low P/T keeps me wondering.
Magma Jet This card has seen fringe play in a variety of decks, from burn to delver and I feel it has found another nice home here. The instant speed scry allows me to cast it in response to my upkeep triggers and scry what I want on top before anything resolves, or in between triggers if necessary.
Temple of Abandon Im a bit on the fence with this card. The scry can be very useful for reasons that should be obvious at this point, but the entering tapped is a real bummer and the sorcery speed makes it less applicable than many other topdeck manipulations in the deck already.
Aether Vial + Elvish Visionary A little bit of nice synergy here allows us to flash in the visionary if our first kinship trigger wiffs, drawing the 'dead' card and hopefully revealing a shaman with the next kinship trigger.
Anyway, Id love to hear your thoughts on the deck, Im always looking to make it better!
