The state of the HOA-TDP Constructed Metagame

Hey there, first time readers. My name is Mike Rosenberg. If you've found your way here, chances are you may have read one of my articles regarding the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. I currently write weekly single-card-strategy articles over at http://www.starcitywow.com/, and I've also written on various topics at wow.tcgplayer.com. The other way you may have stumbled across this blog is through one of my forum posts at any of those sites, or from the official WoW TCG web site. Regardless of how you found your way here, welcome! I hope you'll come back often.
One of the big concerns I've seen recently on TCGplayer's site is the dominance that Phadalus the Enlightened currently has on the game. A lot of players are concerned that perhaps the alliance shaman rush is a little too good. In case you haven't checked it out, head on over there to read Bryon Lyon's article "Is Phadalus Too Good", and then check out the comments regarding that article on the message board. You can find that article by clicking here.
The first point that Bryon brings up is that Shaman was considered the deck to beat and yet it still won at Darkmoon Faire: Chicago. I feel this is a bit of an exaggeration, since it appeared the the decks to beat going into the event were Cruelty (the Austin Darkmoon Faire winner), Telrander (the Frankfurt Darkmoon Faire winner), and Gorebelly (which gained a notorious reputation for having some really stupid opening hands after its appearance in Frankfurt). Phadalus was indeed a competitor at this time and was considered a top tier deck, but in terms of power level it did nothing that was overly fast or overly controlling. The problem going into Chicago was that Phadalus rush just ran a lot of good cards.
What do I mean by good cards? Consider this. Telrander has what is probably the most consistent fast kill in the game right now. Gorebelly has capabilities of putting fatal damage on an opposing hero as early as turn 4 and can do so on turn 5, but its inconsistency is what makes it less reliant than Telrander. The goal of Telrander is that you can just play a Cat Form (or Claw), play a bunch of pump effects that remain as ongoings for your hero, and scratch your way to a victory on turn 5 by flipping Telrander.
However, if you are playing Telrander, do you actually ever like seeing Nature of the Beast in your hand? Isn't Heart of the Wild always a somewhat disappointing draw? What about Rake? Sure, it can take down a Parvink if played at end of turn, but it feels dramatically underpowered against the likes of a Guardian Steelhorn or, even worse, if you don't draw a form. There are a lot of cards in the Cat Form deck that actually aren't that good. The reason they are played, however, is that they have good enough synergy with the goal of your deck that they warrant an inclusion, even if you don't necessarily like them. I personally hate ever drawing into Heart of the Wild after turn 2, and I hate seeing Nature of the Beast...well, anytime. Telrander runs a lot of what can be considered "bad cards" to success because the strategy it possesses is so powerful.
The concept is that your hero is an extra resource that can be used throughout the game as early as turn 2. Cat Form is extremely efficient at turning your hero into an attacker, where you turn a trade in damage and a commitment to very few resources into a monstrous attacker with no strike costs. With only two ongoing pumps, including a Nature of the Beast, your hero can be attacking at a level only seeing by Twig of the World Tree at an extremely early point of the game. Realistically, the best way to achieve this critical mass of ongoing pumps is to have one ongoing be Predatory Strikes, and the other to be any card. This means you spend between two to three turns to make your hero attack for 4 or 5 each turn. If you didn't play any other ongoing pumps at this point, that's already incredible.
The reason for running cards like Nature of the Beast and Heart of the Wild isn't because they're good. They actually aren't. It is for redundancy. Predatory Strikes is the example card of what you want your deck to do. It is what you compare every other ongoing pump for a druid form to, as it provides the biggest benefit for the cheapest cost. It is an example of a good card, and as such, is one of the cards that is involved in blowing an opponent out if you draw two of them in the first three turns with Cat Form. Nature of the Beast is a weaker Predatory Strikes, but it still makes your hero a threat. You want to make your hero attack for a lot early, so you run four copies of it to "simulate" what Predatory Strikes does. This goes for Heart of the Wild too, as it is expensive but provides the same benefit of that benchmark Predatory Strikes. This redundancy makes Telrander consistent at what it does: clawing the opposing hero's face off fast. However, it also leads to bad draws since you run the risk of drawing too many of your "bad cards" (the natures and hearts). They aren't good unless your hero is doing something. Without a form, they're useless. Without the option of getting your hero through to the opposing hero, they're pretty terrible. They serve a specific role in the deck and aid in making the deck as fast as it is, but they aren't actually desirable cards that you want to draw.
Now let's return to the Phadalus Rush deck. It isn't as fast as Telrander. It isn't as controlling as the Cruelty decks, Azarak solo decks, or the Pagatha control decks. However, it wins games and thus, wins tournaments (like Chicago). Why is this?
The answer is simple: Phadalus Rush doesn't play any bad cards.
Think about this. Even if you draw an Apprentice Merry when your opponent has a giant-sized protector out, you're not really that bummed. This is because you know Merry can still serve a purpose. If that big protector goes down, she's a 2 ATK beater that can't be taken out by normal means. The Defias Brotherhood can sometimes sit on the shaman player's field and be uncompleted. In this case, it's not being used, but it's still not a bad card. The shaman player can know to hold onto any untargetable allies it draws in order to use them for a critical turn in which the shaman player puts the required four allies into play (untargetables first, followed by targetables) in order to complete The Defias Brotherhood. The opponent may appear ahead, but they can't relax and let the opponent actually complete that quest since it's such a cheap source of card advantage that it can bounce the shaman player back into the game almost immediately.
That's what Phadalus is all about. Efficiency. While the Telrander deck is busy being redundant, since that's what it wants for its game plan of having their hero attack things for a lot, Phadalus is about efficiency. It wants to run the best cards it can. As an alliance shaman, Phadalus the Enlightened offers the untargetable ally line-up, which is arguably the best rush line-up in the game. They're annoying to deal with and force more decisions into the shaman player's hands rather than the opponents, who don't actually have many options to deal with them. Phadalus plays Parvink, arguably the best character in the game for it's the one character you are never disappointed at drawing. Leeroy Jenkins, while vulnerable in a format of Intercepts and Rakes, is an option Phadalus has for the most efficient ferocity ally in the game. If the shaman player decides it is necessary, King Magni Bronzebeard is an option available to the hero as the game's best late-game ally (no questions asked on this one. If Magni stays out there for more than a turn, you already won, especially in a format devoid of Vanquishes because of its hefty cost). "Chipper" Ironbane is the game's most efficient answer to any reactive threat the opponent can play that isn't an ally. While it isn't the be-all end-all solution that players think it is in solving any matchup, it is still the most versatile non-ally removal card in the game and can also be an efficient beater.
Now look at the abilities Phadalus has to offer. The shaman is all about efficiency! Lightning Bolt is a solid 4 damage for 3 resources, where 4 is a number that is much more important to deal with with Through the Dark Portal out. It's also more damage than you sink resources into, making it efficient at being aimed at an opposing hero as reach damage in the late game. Earth Elemental Totem is a solid 2/2 protector for 2, at instant speed. The instant speed trick pushes this card over the top. Searing Totem is one of the most annoying burn tricks in the game, capable of earning two-for-ones like no other card (well, except for Parvink). Above all however is Chain Lightning, the ultimate shaman ability. This card is either a solid two-for-one for a mere five resources, a devastating three-for-one, or a two-for-one and 3 damage to the opposing hero. This card is almost always good no matter when you play it.
Even Phadalus, as a draenei, offers what is arguably the best quest in the game to this deck. Rescue the Survivors is up there with Chasing A-ME01 in terms of power level. While it's not bringing back bomb allies from the graveyard, it is almost always causing a two-card swing in your favor. Either you draw two cards with it, or you draw one card and your opponent plays an ability to cack the other token off. If it's only giving you one card, chances are the other token was the target of an opposing ally's attack that could have been better placed at another ally on your field. It's like you drew a card and made the opponent give up one of their attackers.
The Phadalus Rush deck isn't necessarily rush all of the time either. The deck can switch between being a tempo-mad rush deck or an attrition-based aggro deck that wears the opponent down with threats before putting an end to the opposing hero. It has fast tricks and lots of ways to earn barrels of card advantage. It's no wonder people think this deck can be too good!
Or maybe, just maybe, this is only an example of a deck that has lots of good cards and tools to use, and this is what you get for running them all together. Sure, this deck is consistent, it can do a lot of things, and it has a lot of solutions to lots of decks in the format. This is all true. However, it isn't doing anything that is actually degenerate. It doesn't really do anything fast either. For a rush deck, Phadalus Rush doesn't kill any heroes very quickly. Perhaps Phadalus Rush is better off being given the title of "Phadalus Goodstuff". After all, the deck is based on playing a lot of good cards. The good cards just happen to be the early-game stuff opposing players can have serious problems dealing with. While Phadalus is capable of explosive draws with multiple Apprentice Merrys and Jeleane Nightbreezes, it doesn't happen often. Most of the time, the deck simple out attritions players. Just look at all of the cards in the Phadalus deck. Almost every card in the deck offers both its user and the opposing player a ton of options. Rescue the Survivors is a mindblow. The player piloting Phadalus Goodstuff has to decide when is the proper time to complete the quest, whether or not it will be playing a weapon to attack with and considering this when removing survivor tokens, and what the opponent will do when the quest is completed. The opponent then has choices for what it can do to the survivor tokens. Is it correct to ignore them and focus on other things (which is almost always the correct choice), or do they deny the opponent an extra card and waste some attacks on the tokens instead?
Chain Lightning is another thinking-heavy card. How do you play this card optimally? Do you know all of the tricks to it? Do you know it only has one target? Does your opponent know this? There are lots of times when sending 3 damage to the opposing hero's face, and then taking out two allies is the correct play not only because of its ability to remove untargetable allies in such a fashion, but because it lets you maintain tempo by bringing your opponent's health closer to fatal damage. Even Chipper is a complex card, as it's not an optimal play to use Chipper when you are behind on tempo since you have no pressure to put the opponent under by taking away one of their non-ally threats.
Phadalus is a deck with a ton of decisions and a ton of options. It runs a lot of efficient and powerful cards, but at the same time doesn't do any one job better than any other deck. It just has the versatility of being a swiss army knife; it does lots of things and can do them well enough to get the job done. It isn't faster than Elendril or Telrander, or even Gorebelly, but it can certainly mount an aggressive start against the slower decks. It isn't as controlling as the warlock decks or as the solo equipment decks, but it can still win the reactive attrition war against aggressive decks with powerful board-clearers and card advantage shenanigans.
All in all, Phadalus isn't that bad of a deck for the format. The reason is wins games and, as such, wins tournaments is because the deck is good at adapting to an open format. There are a lot of threats available to play with in the current constructed format, and a good player piloting the alliance shaman has ways to minimize the damage these threats can deal against someone in a tournament. It is for this reason that the deck is so popular, not because it's too good, but because it offers its users the opportunity to outplay their opponents and to adapt under pressure. It still loses to the good draws from decks meant to do one thing extremely well, and it still loses to decks that are meant to control aggression if the shaman deck doesn't get an extremely good draw (which is harder for Phadalus to do since the deck is not meant to explode in the way Telrander or Elendril does).
You don't have to expect Shaman to be the only deck in the current constructed format. What you can expect is to see it played, and to see it contend for a few National Championship titles when piloted by good and adaptive players. If someone wins a huge event with this deck, think about all the decisions they had to get right to get that far and congratulate them for doing so well at navigating the tournament. It's not easy. Sometimes, playing bad to mediocre cards that work towards better synergies and strategies will simply be better than the deck that plays only good cards towards no real strategy. Sometimes strategies are more powerful than the cards themselves, but good cards played properly always give decks like Phadalus a shot at doing well.