Conspiracystone: The Freeze Shaman Substitution
I’m back to cut through the unending lies of Team Five and their shadowy masters, in a new Conspiracystone article. In these confusing times, it’s hard to know who to trust, and you might feel Frozen in place. Which is exactly what the sinister forces of Activision-Blizzard want.
Shaman is class with many archetypes. Totems, Murlocs, Jade Golems, and others have risen and fallen, leaving Shaman players spoiled for choice. But in Knights of the Frozen Throne, a new archetype was brought into existence. An unnatural new way to play Shaman, created from liquidized Mage cards. I talk, in hushed tones, of none other than Freeze Shaman.
Like many new archetypes, Freeze Shaman was, predictably, terrible. Dragon Priest, Taunt Warrior, Secret Mage and others all started weak and underdeveloped. Each failed to meet that critical point where the decks could actually win. Eventually, Team Five filled out these decks with overpowered, high impact super cards, because they are sinister and evil. Yet this has not happened for Freeze Shaman. Strange. But stranger still is the undeniable proof that Freeze Shaman had cards taken away from it!
Consider Thrall, Deathseer’s entry line. “I’m am the frozen heart of The Scourge!“. Consider his concede line - “Take cold comfort in your victory“. His card art’s background is a snowy ruin, and Thrall himself looks a little frosty. There’s an obvious aesthetic theme here - snow and ice and cold. Very fitting for a Death Knight based around the Freeze mechanic. Less so for the Evolve mechanic, which was first introduced with the flesh-warping Old Gods. There can be only one conclusion: until late in development, Thrall, Deathseer was based around Freeze. But for some reason, Team Five suddenly changed direction, despite the art and voice asserts already being complete. Bizarre behavior, indeed.
Another piece of evidence is Snowfury Giant. Why does something made of snow get discounted by Overload? Why does Overload discount a snow minion? It doesn’t make sense! What would make sense would be a giant who’s cost is reduced by freezing minions. A Freeze-discounted Snowfury Giant would certainly be useful for closing out matches, after freezing your opponents minions in a tomb of ice.
So why the sudden change? And more importantly, why so late a change? Perhaps the original Death Knight was too strong. A poweful combo discovered late in the development cycle could send Team Five into a panic, looking for a new mechanics set that could be fitted into the current flavour. But this doesn’t quite explain Snowfury Giant. Why change that? Sure, nerfs have been heavy-handed in the past, but the set was unreleased. It doesn’t quite add up.
But perhaps the opposite problem was found. Freeze Shaman is currently abysmal. It just doesn’t come together, with weak payouts such as Moorabi defining it as a failure. Maybe Team Five realized this, but again too late. Shaman’s card set in Knights of the Frozen Throne was going to be a dud. A complete failure. And with such a focus on Death Knights, a truly unplayable one would be a disaster. So a last minute fix happened. Without the ability to get new assets, there wasn’t much choice for mechanics. Evolve was picked, since it would require minimal design work. And in order to salvage at least part of the set, Snowfury Giant was changed to be discounted by Overload instead of freezes.
Either way, Team Five could not hide the changes. There should be no doubt that they did this late in development, past the point where this really shouldn’t happen. Each set chips away at the illusion of competence, and one day, the facade will collapse entirely.
Another foray into guesswork and unstable allegations. But remember: It’s not pronoia if they’re really out to help you.