HearthStone’s The WitchWood expansion is out now and it introduces over 130 new cards. That means there are a huge number of new card synergies and strategies to play with.
One of The Witchwood’s new legendary cards, the Shudderwock, has the potential to create the most insane, powerful synergies ever seen in HearthStone.
The Shudderwock’s Battlecry is to play all other Battlecries you played in the game again. Careful planning can see this card become incredibly useful, but when played in a Shaman deck with a few other specific cards, Shudderwock becomes devastating.
HearthStone The Witchwood Synergy
If you’re a HearthStone player, you’ve obviously already got some ideas about how to best make use of the Shudderwock. Really, there’s no wrong way to use it, but there are some very effective synergies that can basically hand you the game.
The basis of, what I’ve found to be, the best synergy with Shudderwock and The Witchwood are the following cards;
- The Shudderwock
- Murmuring Elemental
- Saronite Chain Gang
- Grumble Worldshaker
You can play any of the cards, except for the Shudderwock, at any time during the match to make the synergy work. If you play Murmuring Elemental just before the Shudderwock the outcome is even more damaging.
To play Murmuring Elemental before the Shudderwock, you’ll need to reduce it’s cost to 1-mana, but with the help of Grumble Worldshaker that’s easy enough to achieve.
Playing the Shudderwock Synergy
As the Shudderwock is a 9-mana cost minion, it’s a late game strategy that you’re working towards. Playing the other Battlecries you want to repeat when you play the Shudderwock will likely come naturally as you play.
To get the most out of the Shudderwock’s Battlecry, you’ll want to make sure you have played the cards you want to be repeated. For now, let’s just focus on the basis of this synergy. With that in place, you’ll be able to build your own deck around it.
Murmuring Elemental’s Battlecry makes the next Battlecry you play in the same turn trigger twice. If you reduce the cost of Murmuring Elemental to 1-mana and play it before the Shudderwock, you’ll replay all of your previous Battlecries twice.
However, it’s not necessary to do so if you’ve already played Saronite Chain Gang and Grumble Worldshaker.
Double, Double, Double Up
If you play the Shudderwock after having played Murmuring Elemental, Saronite Chain Gang and Grumble Worldshaker, you’ll spawn copies of the Shudderwock that will be returned to your hand and only cost 1-mana.
With the 1-cost Shudderwock in your hand, and 1-mana left (if you’ve only played the Shudderwock) you can play it again and because of Murmuring Elemental’s Battlecry being in play, the 1-cost Shudderwock’s Battlecry will play twice.
That means you’ll spawn more 1-cost Shudderwocks which can be played on your next turn.
These four cards form the basis for the Shudderwock synergy, but there is a huge potential for the strategy. If you don’t want to play a Shaman deck, you’ll have to do without Grumble Worldshaker, but there are still plenty of synergies to experiment with.
None are as devastating or impressive to pull off though.
Your turn might take forever
Once you get this synergy going, your turn is going to take a long time to resolve, especially if you’ve played a tonne of Battlecries and are doubling up the Shudderwock’s.
On top of the four cards that form the basis for this synergy, adding cards that have Battlecries that damage the enemy hero or minions and heal your own will help to seal the deal.
In a couple of games I’ve played this strategy in, the opposing hero could still have come back and won, though they quit before they even tried because my turn was taking so long to resolve and they must have assumed they had no chance.
The Witchwood expansion has added some truly terrifying cards to HearthStone, but none can compare to the devastating potential of the Shudderwock.
HearthStone The Witchwood expansion is available now.
