The Comprehensive TITANS Preview

Disciple of Golganneth

This card is not going to beat the Florist allegations. If you don’t remember, Florist was a 2 mana 2/3 neutral that reduced the cost of a Nature spell at the end of your turn. The card never saw any serious play because a modest cost reduction effect on one card just isn’t impactful enough without the ability to draw, generate or impact the board in some way. On top of it, Shaman is getting an amazing bulk cost reduction card in this very set, so why should we bother with Disciple? We don’t.

Score: 1

Turn the Tides

Baby, wake up, there’s a new hero attack buff in Shaman. Turn the Tides is even better than the meta defining Stormstrike from Madness at the Darkmoon Faire. Both spells grant +3 attack to your hero, but instead of dealing 3 damage to a minion, Turn the Tides summons a 3/3 Elemental with rush. This makes Turn the Tides stronger than Stormstrike as it does not require a minion being in play to target with the spell and provides a body you can develop irrespective of the situation.

Furthermore, Shaman now has Horn of the Windlord, which is even better and more flexible than Doomhammer. The days of Paladin outclassing Shaman in the weapon burst damage department are over. Shaman’s got its own enabler for Horn, and it’s guaranteed to use it. Turn the Tides is a superb early game board control tool when necessary, often dealing with 2 cards for the price of 1. Then in the late game, it turns into a Fireball with a Windfury weapon. Thrall hears the call.

Score: 4

Crash of Thunder

Crash of Thunder is both an AOE effect and a direct damage nuke, as it hits face! If we compare this to Consecration that deals 2 damage to all enemies, we can agree that Crash of Thunder becomes absurd if it’s cast for 3 mana, as it deals 3 damage to all enemies.

How hard is it to discount Crash of Thunder? Turns out it’s incredibly easy, as it simply requires us to cast Nature spells. This entire set supports Shaman’s ability to cast multiple cheap nature spells on the same turn, so we can see Shaman even fully discounting Crash of Thunder to 0 mana. This card is both a strong survivability tool, allowing us to eradicate an opponent’s advance with a big swing of mana reduction, as well as a late game damage nuke that could even serve as a combo piece of an OTK. Crash of Thunder’s power and flexibility are as clear as the sunny skies that follow a storm.

Score: 4

Lightning Reflexes

Lightning comes before the Thunder. This spell provides the perfectly flavorful set up for Crash of Thunder and is generally a crucial glue card for the entire Shaman set. Its effect is akin to Instructor Fireheart’s, but the cast chain is not infinite. The spell resolves after one additional discovery.

Some math. You have a ~45% chance to discover either Zap or Lightning Bolt, both are Overload Nature spells that are extremely cheap and make it very easy for you to get the additional discovery. Add Flash of Lightning to the list of desirable targets and there’s a ~62% chance that you will find a spell that costs 2 or less.

In a Flash of Lightning setup, Lightning Reflexes allows us to cast three nature spells in one turn for very little mana. This strongly enables both Crash of Thunder and Champion of Storms, which we will get to later.

Furthermore, you have a ~91% chance of finding an Overload spell in each separate discovery, so Lightning Reflexes can be considered an Overload-synergy enabler. It can juice up an Overdraft/Thorim or activate Altered Chord (and discover it).

The added consistency and versatility of this card is unmatched. We expect it to be a primary enabler for an emerging Overload/Nature Shaman archetype.

Score: 4

Tempest Hammer

This weapon is a bit strange to use. Its baseline stats are almost completely irrelevant, being nothing better than a 1/3 that’s going to kill nothing by itself in the mid-game. The ability is the stronger part of the weapon, dealing 3 damage to the lowest health enemy, which works like Fel Barrage and resolves after you finish your attack.

While you can manipulate the direction of the damage with the help of your baseline ping, there are going to be many situations where the damage is not going to be reliable for board control. If you think of an empty board, then Tempest Hammer can potentially deal 12 damage to face over 3 swings, which sounds very nice but isn’t very practical.

Moreover, we’re just not too interested in this weapon because it’s not Horn of the Windlord. This entire set is screaming at us to play Horn, as it has much better synergy with Turn the Tides. Tempest Hammer just doesn’t have the same impact, both in terms of reliable damage output and board control.

Score: 1

Thorignir Drake

Thorignir Drake sends its whelps to do the job. Whenever it attacks, a couple of 3/1 whelps spawn to attack the enemy first. Note that this requires board space for them to spawn and that if the enemy doesn’t die from the whelp attacks, the main body will attack the target as well. This is quite relevant as the Drake will die if you rush it into an 8/8 giant, for example.

Another important thing about this ability is that Drake is a devastating threat if left alone, since it can hit face for 12 damage, while summoning two more whelps.

The main issue with Thorignir Drake is where it fits. We’re not sure which Shaman deck is going to play this card as it’s quite expensive and the rest of the set doesn’t really encourage Shaman to play a high curve. This is a nice minion to draw off Prescience, but it might take some time for its inclusion to make sense. Another case of a decent card in a non-existent archetype.

Score: 2

Flash of Lightning

Flash of Lightning is an incredible setup card. For 2 mana, you’re both drawing a card and have all nature spells cost (1) less the next turn. This is an “aura” discount, which means the discount doesn’t just apply to spells in your hand or your deck, it also applies to any spells you discover through cards such as Lightning Reflexes.

This means that thanks to Flash of Lightning, you can cheat out so much mana and play through so many nature spells in one turn that cards such as Crash of Thunder and Champion of Storms become very easy to leverage to extreme power levels. Flash of Lightning can also become an OTK setup card, or at least a card that allows you to burst your opponent down for a lot of damage.

And the worst-case scenario is that it draws you a card and allows you to gain a discount on a single spell or two, which is still very much worth running. The baseline power of this spell is constructed-worthy. The ceiling? Strategy defining.

Score: 4

Champion of Storms

Champion of Storms is a cracked-up version of Violet Teacher or Thunderhead. It has the same baseline stats of these 4-mana summon cards, but it summons a 4/2 elemental every time you play a Nature spell. Forge it, and those 4/2’s gain rush!

Let’s think about the opportunity cost. The rush ability is easily worth one mana on a 4/2 minion, so it’s enough to cast a couple of Nature spells in the Champion turn to make forging a strong investment. Forging also becomes much more tolerable in the early game when Champion helps you come back from falling behind. It’s one thing to forge a greedy card that doesn’t impact the board immediately upon entrance (we’re looking at you, Lab Constructor), but it’s another thing when forging can swing you back in the game in a way that more than makes up for the initial investment.

And since we’ve already gone through the rest of the Shaman set, you can see how Champion of Storms can get crazy. Through Flash of Lightning and Lightning Reflexes, it’s not such an unlikely outcome to have Champion of Storms summon almost a full board of rushing elementals, which is certain to devastate any kind of board development from the opponent. The card could even be an enabler for late game Bioluminescence OTK combos since it’s a single minion that can potentially fill an entire board for relatively little mana.

Champion of Storms is a massive comeback card and potentially an important piece of a new win condition. Shamans are going to enjoy it.

Score: 4

Thorim, Stormlord

Thorim is the best Overload unlock tool ever printed. On top of a baseline body of a 3 mana 3/4, Thorim unconditionally unlocks your overloaded mana crystals and draws you cards for every mana unlocked. It turns your overload, a drawback, into card advantage.

The possibilities here are mind blowing. We can envision a Flash of Lightning/Lightning Reflex turn in which we discover a couple of Overload cards, use them to clear an opponent’s board or develop our own, then end the turn with Thorim to draw us a bunch of cards.

It’s so easy to make Thorim a worthwhile play, since it’s good enough even when it draws 1 or 2 cards. This card is very unlikely to sit dead in your hand in an Overload deck and provides Shaman with both Overdraft redundancy and incredible reload ability. Shaman’s card draw options and late game consistency just became so much stronger thanks to this legendary.

Score: 4

Golganneth, the Thunderer

Golganneth is just as mind blowing as the rest of the Shaman set. If the class gets such an incredible set, then surely the TITAN needs to be insane. It is. It very much is.

Golganneth is a 6 mana 5/7, which are stats that are almost as good for the cost as a Boulderfist Ogre! Furthermore, it does have some perks that offset its size inferiority to the Ogre. Upon entrance and for every subsequent turn, the next spell you play costs 3 less mana. This means you can play Golganneth on turn 6 alongside a spell that costs 3 or less, for free. This ability already makes Golganneth a must-kill target, as the opponent cannot afford to let you gain so much free mana in subsequent turns. Next, let’s look at the abilities.

Roaring Oceans deals 3 damage to all enemies (goes face too) and restores 6 health to all friendly characters. So, we’re playing Crash of Thunder and Divine Hymn on top of a 5/7, for just 6 mana?! This ability is an incredible option for Golganneth to enter the board and immediately swing the game. Devastate your opponent’s board, heal up and stabilize while developing a TITAN that needs to be killed by the opponent immediately.

Lord of Skies deals 20 damage to a minion. It just makes sure they’re dead. If your opponent has a big threat on the board, Golganneth takes care of it. It also kills every TITAN, except for the incredibly resilient Amitus (that one is so hard to deal with!). This ability is quite important because TITANS are going to be popular, making single target removal precious.

Shargahn’s Wrath draws three Overload cards. Just like that, every Shaman deck now needs to run an Overload package because this ability is very powerful and worth investing in. What’s particularly strong about this ability is that it synergizes perfectly with Golganneth’s baseline ability. Lightning Storm becomes a very enticing spell to run in Shaman decks since it can be drawn and cast immediately with Golganneth. This means we can cast this ability upon Golganneth’s entrance and gain card advantage, without needing to use Roaring Oceans to clear a board.

Golganneth is the cherry on top of the delicious cake that is Shaman’s TITANS set and likely a core inclusion in every Shaman deck. Yes, even Totem Shaman is going to try to make room for this TITAN.

Score: 4

Final Thoughts

TITANS Set Rank: 2^nd

Overall Power Ranking:  6^th

The TITANS Shaman set is spectacular and could be as transformative to the class as the set it got in Alterac Valley. Back then, Shaman froze its enemies with an avalanche. Next week, it’ll be time for lightning and thunder. A storm is coming to Hearthstone.

Overload Shaman may have whimpered at Festival of Legends, but the archetype has now received a multitude of powerhouse cards that could ensure its arrival at a competitive level with a thunderous roar. It’s getting intense swing turns, a flurry of card draw, huge burst damage potential and bulk mana reduction effects. These are the ingredients of a powerful late game strategy centered on burn.

Flash of Lightning and Lightning Reflexes are a pairing you will become familiar with. Together, they enable Shaman’s biggest swing turns through Champion of Storms and Crash of Thunder, allowing the Shaman to devastate an opponent’s advance. This combo could go as far as setting up at an OTK with Bioluminescence.

Turn the Tides might have the greatest impact on the class. Its synergy with Horn of the Windlord means that Overload Shaman can dish out an obscene amount of sustained damage, softening up an opponent and reducing the need for the deck to rely on a full OTK. We expect that in most matchups, Shaman will just pound the opponent’s face until it explodes. The OTK possibility is most important in matchups against defensive powerhouses with a great amount of life or armor gain.

Some question marks remain. Overload Shaman looks promising, but it also seems like a very difficult deck to build and master. Even though the deck carries a lot of burst, it doesn’t look like an aggressive deck by any means. This is a deck that’s going to be quite passive in the early game, relying on carefully setting up swing turns to beat faster decks. The timings of Flash of Lightning are going to be critical and late game resource management will be intense. This deck might take a while to be fully unlocked and may not produce the best results in the short term.

But this set is not just helping one deck emerge from nothing. Turn the Tides could also find its way to other Shaman decks. Considering how busted Golganneth is, every Shaman deck will want to run the TITAN. His card draw ability highly encourages decks to run some overload package that can be tutored by him. Our prediction is that every Shaman deck, including board-based decks such as Totem and Evolve Shaman, will run Golganneth alongside a package of Overload spells spearheaded by Turn the Tides and Horn of the Windlord.

This gives these decks a new dimension. Instead of solely relying on board-based threats to provide all the damage, they can add the off-board Horn/Tides finisher to their toolkit, making them much more difficult to beat through removal. The evolution of Pure Paladin, following the release of Audiopocalypse, could happen to Shaman too.

These are exciting times for Shaman players. The Elements are calling. They beckon you to blow your horn.