The Evolve List

[Taan 46]

Hi, boys and girls!

I recently played Evo-Shaman again (Brian Kiblers version basically), after having a lot of fun (and frustration) at the beginning of Whispers of the old Gods with an Evo-Deck and trying the Jade version in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. But all the time I played it, it felt like I had a lot of bad luck with Evolve. Always getting something worse than I had before. So now I tried to prove myself wrong by doing some math (or counting). And I want to share my results with you! Enjoy!

 

First off the five different classes:

Bomb : possibly gamewinning. Overwhelming stats and/or powerful abilities. The best you can get for this price (e.g. Succubus, Savannah Highmane, Aya Blackpaw, Cairne Bloodhoof)

Better : better stats than before (e.g. 2/3 from evolving a Totem) or a some kind of useful effect (e.g. Deathrattle) (e.g. Kindly Grandmother, Ornery Direhorn, Argent Commander)

Mediocre : underwhelming stats or a downside / probably useless effect. (e.g. Scavenging Hyena, Frozen Crusher, Cabal Shadow Priest)

Bad : worse than before. Terrible stats compared to other cards of the same cost (e.g. Grimestreet Outfitter, Nerubian Prophet)

Awful : cards that can make you loose the game, are entirely useless in most situations or have extremly bad stats (e.g. Doomsayer, Ancient Watcher, Big-Time Racketeer)

 

And some important things to considerate:

• cards are evaluated like if you are ahead or equal to your opponent (e.g. Abomination is Aweful)

• cards with useful effects are evaluated compared to an every day situation with a somewhat aggressive Evolution-Shaman-Deck. Likewise minions like The Voraxx are Bad, because you will not be able to use there ability.

• Minions with one Health are most of the time Bad

• Minions are compared to other minions you can get. Likewise nearly any 6-drop is better than the 2/2 from Doppelgangster but getting a Fight Promoter is still bad.

• Minions are partly evaluated like you would evolve them at the end of your turn and/or after you played them (so with not much mana left), as you most of the time would do. Likewise minions with triggered abilities like Gadgetzan Auctioneer are most of the time Bad.

• Of course Battlecries doesn't matter at all.

• Jades can get pretty much any manacost, so they fit everywhere.

• Aya Blackpaw is evaluated like if you get her while playing other Jade-cards in your deck (as you normally do in Evo-Shaman) otherwise she is mediocre.

• Finally some cards are very debatable and fit more in between classes, so you might come up with different results sometimes (e.g. Nat Pagle)

 

Evolve List

Instructions

--------------------------------

Costs of the minion you want to evolve (examples in common Evo-Shaman-Decks) →

Class (e.g. Better) Number of cards ( I = one card, IIIII = 5 cards) (Best / Worse cards you can get) [chance of getting something aweful in %] - total number

---------------------------------

 

0-Mana: nothing

 

1-Mana (HP-Totems, Murloc-Tokens, Fire Fly, Patches the Pirate, Bloodsail Corsair) →

Bomb IIIII II (e.g. Millhouse Manastorm, Cornered Sentry) - 7

Better IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII - 45

Mediocre IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I - 21

Bad IIIII IIIII I - 11

Awful III (e.g. Doomsayer) [3,45%] - 3

 

Charge: 1 (1,2% chance)

Taunt: 7 (8,1% chance)

 

2-Mana (Flametongue Totem, Primalfin Totem) (3/3 vanilla is mediocre) →

Bomb IIIII III (e.g. Injured Blademaster, Shaku, the Collector) - 8

Better IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII - 30

Mediocre IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I - 31

Bad IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII II - 32

Awful III (e.g. Unlicensed Apothecary) [2,88%] - 3

 

Charge: 1 (0,96% chance)

Taunt: 10 (9,6% chance)

 

3-Mana (Mana Tide Totem, Stonehill Defender) (4/4 vanilla is mediocre)→

Bomb IIII (e.g.Flamewreathed Faceless, Twilight Summoner) - 4

Better IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII II - 27

Mediocre IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I - 26

Bad IIIII IIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I - 31

Awful I (Faceless Shambler) [1,11%] - 1

 

Charge: 2 (2,2% chance)

Taunt: 10 (11,2% chance)

 

4-Mana (Jinyu Waterspeaker) (5/5 or 5/4 or 4/5 vanilla is mediocre)→

Bomb IIIII I (e.g. Earth Elemental, Grimestreet Enforcer) - 6

Better IIIII IIIII IIIII III - 18

Mediocre IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII III - 23

Bad IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII - 20

Awful IIIII (e.g. Abomination, Bomb Squad) [6,94%] - 5

 

Charge: 2 (2,8% chance) (Doomguard and Leeroy Jenkins)

Taunt: 11 (15,3% chance)

 

5-Mana (Doppelgangster) (5/5 vanilla is mediocre)→

Bomb IIIII (e.g. Kabal Trafficker) - 5

Better IIIII IIIII IIIII II - 17

Mediocre IIIII IIIII IIIII IIII - 19

Bad IIIII IIIII - 10

Awful III (e.g. Big-Time Racketeer) [5,55%] - 3

 

Charge: 2 (3,7% chance)

Taunt: 9 + Hogger (16,7% chance)

 

6-Mana (Thing from Below) (6/6 vanilla is mediocre)→

Bomb I (Swamp King Dred) - 1

Better IIIII IIIII II - 12

Mediocre IIIII I - 6

Bad IIIII IIIII I -11

Awful I (Baron Geddon) [3,22%] - 1

 

Charge: 0 (0% chance)

Taunt: 4 (12,9% chance)

 

Summary:

It seems that you can get a lot of good stuff (mainly 2/3s and 3/2s) from evolving 1-Mana-minions like your totems and Primalfin-Murlocs. The danger of getting Doomsayer seems pretty low (1,3%).

Evolving 2-Mana-Minions seems pretty good too. You get a decent chance of getting real big bombs and high-value-cards, but there is also some pretty bad stuff. Also you have to evolve your valuable totems (these are your 2-Mana-Minions most of the time).

Evolving 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-Mana-minions are pretty much 50/50. They got a lot of awesome stuff, but also some pretty bad results.

Especially the 5-Mana Evolve is important, since you will often get three 6-drops from one 5-drop (Doppelgangster), so getting a bunch of 4/5s is still awesome.

Jades will probably turn into something similar or worse most of the time.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Taan

[FanOfValeera 253]

So, 1 mana evolve has 40 better and 8 bomb results, two of which you already mentioned. I didn't quite get it sorry.

[Taan 46]

55 minutes ago, FanOfValeera said:

So, 1 mana evolve has 40 better and 8 bomb results, two of which you already mentioned. I didn't quite get it sorry.

Yeah sorry, I should have explained it better:

If you evolve a minion that costs 1 Mana you get one of 87  2-Mana-Minions. 6 of them are considered "bomb". The cards that are stated there are just examples of the (probably) best cards you can get there. I could have linked to every minion you can get, but I thought that would be a bit to much...but maybe making a list of at least all the best and worst minions could make sense...

 

...oh and I forgot some Basic-minions. I added them, so this changes the numbers a bit.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Taan

[KingMe 289]

This is a pretty neat list. My only suggestion would be to add numbers instead of the tally marks, it would be easier for others to read and understand it. 

[Dustintime 7]

Anyone that plays evolve shaman or quest rogue has no skill whatsoever

you can almost reach legendary with a deck like this blind.

[KingMe 289]

2 minutes ago, Dustintime said:

Anyone that plays evolve shaman or quest rogue has no skill whatsoever

you can almost reach legendary with a deck like this blind.

The statement holds absolutely no truth whatsoever. Both decks have a higher learning curve than most of the other decks currently out. 

[Mursilis 34]

12 hours ago, KingMe said:

The statement holds absolutely no truth whatsoever. Both decks have a higher learning curve than most of the other decks currently out. 

I have to disagree with you on Quest Rogue, I rarely see anyone struggle with that deck as it's so straightforward to use.

This evolve list is interesting.  I've seen more and more of it appearing lately but never tried it myself.

Edited June 28, 2017 by Mursilis

[FanOfValeera 253]

12 hours ago, KingMe said:

The statement holds absolutely no truth whatsoever. Both decks have a higher learning curve than most of the other decks currently out. 

The problem with evolve shaman is that, RNG is a huge part of the deck, its like Yogg Druid. Of course it has win condition with cards like Bloodlust on a full board. However, outcome of both Devolve and Evolve are not the things that your opponent can play around. Doppelgangster + Evolve is 6 mana, meaning, it can be played fairly early in the game. And there are not many ways that you can stop the combo.

[Allegro 40]

Now this is really handy information!

Its statistics like this that move your play from just "play evolve and hope for the best"; to being able to look at whats on your board and know when you can expect better than average results.

[KingMe 289]

List looks much easier to read now with the numbers added. Good job. :)

[zifmia 14]

One other set of counts that might be interesting would be chances to get charge/taunt minions for those desperation evolves that need to hit something perfect to get lethal (charge) or survive (taunt).

Yes, I know I could do it myself, but your post clearly demonstrates that I am much lazier than you.

I'm not sure if there is anything that would actually affect gameplay, as opposed to post-game analysis. If you need to evolve to win, you play it whether the chances of success are 20% or 70%.

[Taan 46]

3 hours ago, zifmia said:

One other set of counts that might be interesting would be chances to get charge/taunt minions for those desperation evolves that need to hit something perfect to get lethal (charge) or survive (taunt).

Yes, I know I could do it myself, but your post clearly demonstrates that I am much lazier than you.

I'm not sure if there is anything that would actually affect gameplay, as opposed to post-game analysis. If you need to evolve to win, you play it whether the chances of success are 20% or 70%.

Hmm, that could be interesting...and it is probably not a big deal to evaluate it.

I think I will add this and maybe a complete list of the best and worst stuff you can get for each class.

 

...

...

So yeah, in general it seems that your chance of hitting something with charge or taunt becomes higher with rising manacosts (with the exception of evolving Thing from Below, which will never give you a charge-minion).

A lot of the taunters are exceptionally good in all Mana-classes. Chargers on the other hand differ (and they are rare anyways). You can get the most powerful ones by evolving your 4-mana-guys (and the next better not until evolving 7-Mana-dudes with Charged Devilsaur, Al'Akir the Windlord and Grommash Hellscream [whooping 20% chance])

Sadly 4- and 7-Mana-minions aren't played in most Evolve-Decks. But for Jades it is still possible, of course.

 

Edited July 3, 2017 by Taan