Aggro Face Shaman vs Nzoth Control Paladin

[Kerean 1]

Is aggro face shaman vs Nzoth control paladin considered an unfavourable matchup?  The paladin has numerous board clears and healing that gives aggro face shaman an obstacle.  What should the aggro face shaman do in such a situation to maximise his chances of winning?

[Damien 1,514]

This month, on the ladder, I've played Zoo mostly and N'Zoth Paladin. I'm rank 6. I didn't encounter a lot of Face Shamans, but looking at the deck, I can tell you what would be annoying to deal with. The biggest threat in the Paladin's arsenal is Wild Pyromancer + Equality. The only minions in your deck that can survive that are Argent Squire and Argent Horserider so I guess you can give them a higher mulligan priority when you're facing a N'Zoth Paladin. Other than that, it's a difficult matchup, with all of the healing the deck features (at least in the version we have on Icy Veins).

[VaraTreledees 138]

Ideally you want something like trogg into totem golem into another two drop.  Try to curve out and close out the game fast before they can stabilize.  It is definitely a favored match up for the paladin.  You should also attempt to play around pyromancer + equality if you can, but it isn't always feesable, a lot of the times you just have to YOLO and hope they don't have it, since letting the game drag on will drastically decrease your chance of victory, so you need to carefully consider if you can afford to play around it, or just sort of pray.  Also, don't be afraid to aggressively mulligan for your trogg and golem, since the match up is pretty lopsided your chances of winning with a decent hand are pretty low.

[Damien 1,514]

@VaraTreledeesDo you know that if you want to include card links to your post, you can simply click the Hearthstone button in the editor. In the dialog window that appears, start typing the name of a card and it will auto-complete with suggestions :)

[Kerean 1]

Thanks Damien and Vara for their insights.   This confirms my feeling that it is an unfavourable matchup and as Damien pointed out, the Equality Pyromancer combo kills my shaman deck totally.  Based on your inputs, it appears that an all-out no-holds barred FACE strike is the only way to try to lucky a win out of such a matchup.

As a second question, would Zoo have a better matchup against Nzoth paladin?  Being a F2P player, I only have enough to make either Zoo or Face Shaman (which I already made with my limited dust) and was wondering if I should invest what little left I have into Zoo.

Thanks!

[VaraTreledees 138]

paladin is still favored in the zoolock match up I believe.  Miracle rogue (What I play the most) has a very strong match up against Nzoth paladin, and also coincidentally a strong match up against zoo (but a quite abysmal one vs face shaman, I hate face shaman).

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, VaraTreledees said:

paladin is still favored in the zoolock match up I believe.  Miracle rogue (What I play the most) has a very strong match up against Nzoth paladin, and also coincidentally a strong match up against zoo (but a quite abysmal one vs face shaman, I hate face shaman).

Agreed. The problem, as Damien states above, is the Pyro + Equality. Although it is a 2-card combo, it will completely decimate your board, regardless of what you try to do. 

Vs. other decks with board clears, you often have time to push enough damage face before they can efficiently board clear. This isn't the case with Paladin, unfortunately. Early game they can clear your board comfortably with Consecrate, Eq+Pyro, while getting insane value on their Solemn Vigil. 

Miracle does well vs. Nzoth because it doesn't rely on early minion pressure to win, while still being able to maintain huge kill-potential through a Tirion on board (Sap).

[VaraTreledees 138]

4 hours ago, Blainie said:

Agreed. The problem, as Damien states above, is the Pyro + Equality. Although it is a 2-card combo, it will completely decimate your board, regardless of what you try to do. 

Vs. other decks with board clears, you often have time to push enough damage face before they can efficiently board clear. This isn't the case with Paladin, unfortunately. Early game they can clear your board comfortably with Consecrate, Eq+Pyro, while getting insane value on their Solemn Vigil. 

Miracle does well vs. Nzoth because it doesn't rely on early minion pressure to win, while still being able to maintain huge kill-potential through a Tirion on board (Sap).

The other big part of the rogue advantage is that miracle is still a hugely tempo focused deck and paladins suck at both killing things and playing minions on the same turn in general.  Plus you can burst people down from 20+ life pretty regularly, specially if you play the version with Leeroy.