So for the last several years I’ve abstained from wild as much as possible with periods here and there entertaining the format just to see if things are still God awful or if I can actually play in it. As much as I enjoy Twist, I do feel like the current Twist format has gotten a bit stale (the metagame is very stifled with an oppressive top-end).
Wild right now feels the healthiest it’s ever been in terms of archetypes being balanced but those archetypes have very little deck representation amongst all the classes with each class having 1-2 viable decks at most. Wild really does feel like a “if you’re not first, you’re last” type of environment but has shifted away from combos you can’t contend with that are played from hand.
Instead, Wild has a VERY strong presence of highlander and aggro decks and I think that’s in part to Reno as well as how efficiently midrange decks can cantrip for card advantage without losing too much tempo. Actually, midrange decks right now have a pretty strong pool of powerful early game cards that allow decks to stabilize the midgame and push for their wincons in ways control decks can’t.
So elemental shaman fits in with having some of THE BEST early game minions and cantrips in the game, competitive buff spells, and tutoring for nature spells that the current standard rotation has really pushed. Badlands cemented the elemental strategy by supplying a small package of very good minions that can pressure damage while looking to remove threats from the board. It’s also not uncommon to draw 20 cards by the time turn 7-8 comes around which feels significantly stronger than discovery or random generation.
To put it into perspective, yesterday I started the Wild season with no star bonuses in bronze rank (I had not played wild in about 3 months), and made it to diamond rank 2, 1 star(s) this morning with 4 losses totally through my run as of posting. I expect to hit legend tomorrow which is possibly the fastest I’ve hit legend, assuming I don’t goof it. Since hitting diamond I’ve actually gone through that division with no loses as I’ve refined the deck more and more to suit the portion of the ladder I am on and the types of decks I expect to see moving forward.
I think elemental highlander is generally a more powerful deck than the lockdown focused build that has been popular for a while. It tends to be my worst matchup and of my 4 loses climbing, 2 of them were to that variant of shaman highlander but the elemental package tends to push upwards of 15 damage by turns 4-5 and shuts down their Shudderwock via Mojomaster Zihi (Zihi I attribute to the majority of my wins in this particular matchup since you will reset their mana 2-3 times).
The elementals are very loaded in stats and have immediate on-board effects that deal with 90% of strategies either by polluting their graveyard pool via transmuting their minions, pushing damage, tutoring on demand removal and other elementals, turn-by-turn card draw, and proc’ing overload synergies.
So while Wild is not as inclusive to many strategies I’d like to see (this is my hope for the future of Twist), I actually think elemental highlander for shaman might be a competitive tier 1 deck for Wild and something anybody who likes the class should check out.