It is the holiday season throughout all of Azeroth. Players of the MMO are kissing Winter Revelers, [The Abominable Greench] is getting spawn-camped, and we are all getting that same Mince Meat Fruitcake from Smokywood Pastures. Cryptozoic has also decided to get into the Winterveil Spirit, bringing us the Feast of Winter Veil event this December, and giving players an opportunity to get their [Red Rider Air Rifle]. Since everyone else seems to be in the holiday spirit, what kind of deck builder would I be if I didn't bring you a Feast of Winterveil deck idea?

While it would be easy to cite you a deck list with the classic [The Abominable Greench] win condition, I figured you all would like to see something a little more exciting. How about a combo deck that allows you to draw every card in your deck in a single turn? That sounds like a gift that keeps on giving.

The deck is going to start with my favorite Cervidae, [Metzen the Reindeer]. Although most deck builders used to laugh and call him names, I am going to let this poor Metzen play in all my Reindeer games. [Metzen the Reindeer] provides a unique and relatively cheap power to ready a hero or ally simply by exhausting him. The drawback, unfortunately, is that this power comes at the cost of giving your opponent three 1/1 ally tokens which turn off Metzen's main activation. Luckily though, Metzen has elusive, allowing him to survive long enough for you to clear out those pesky pirates.

The power of Metzen is going to shine the brightest when combined with another rarely used card: [Tidal Infusion]. Once Metzen's power is online, an attached [Tidal Infusion] will create a cycle where you are able to exhaust Metzen (targeting himself) to draw a card, and then your Reindeer will ready and be able to do it again. This simple two card combo allows you to draw a card as many times as you wish, giving you the power to draw your entire deck in one turn.

How do we get Metzen online? Shaman, luckily enough, has numerous ways to deal damage to three separate allies. [Lightning Arc] and [Lesson of the Elements] are the two most straightforward ways of doing it, while cards like [Chain Lightning], [Thunderstorm], [Primal Totem], and [Surge of Lightning] are effective, although slightly less efficient. We also have the frequently used Shaman Totem combo of [Squall Totem] and [Wavestorm Totem] to rid ourselves of the tokens. Lastly, if you wish to include ability removal in your deck, the Worldbreaker card [Ancestral Purge] allows you to kill an opposing ability while clearing out all the Pirates. It should be noted that all of these cards are also quite good at slowing down aggressive decks that are going to try to kill you before you get your combo active.

The allies are also capable of clearing out those scurvy Pirates. On the Alliance side, we have [Marundal the Kindred] available (who instantly kills all tokens), while on the Horde side we can make use of the Hardiness keyword. Since the opposing tokens all have one attack, a solid ally with Hardiness will be able to attack them without taking any damage back. [Kino the Cold] is probably the best option, as he is not only the cheapest Hardiness ally, but is a Protector and a Shaman. Since he is also a Shaman, he can be exhausted to play [Lesson of the Elements] to immediately clear the three tokens.

Now that you have an active [Metzen the Reindeer] with [Tidal infusion], how do you win? While you could simply play an attrition war where you continuously outdraw your opponent, wouldn't it be more exciting if we blasted them all the way to the Nobelgarden Festival? At the end of a turn where you draw 50 cards in your deck, it is quite likely you are going to need to discard most of them to get down to the maximum 7 cards. Let's use this to our advantage.

By putting four [Uruka the Cutthroat] and four [Incendiary totem] in our deck, our end of turn discard step will be filled with Death Rattle effects that could easily one-shot your opponent. In the event you don't kill your opponent immediately, you could easily use a shuffle quest like [The Restless dead], [Blueleaf Tubers] or [Everfrost] to do the combo again next turn.

The weakness of most combo decks is the ability to draw the right cards at the right time. Shaman again allows us to get around this restriction with their underused filtering cards. [Far Sight], [Eagle sight], and [Elemental Vision] all allow us to quickly go through our deck to find the combo cards that we are missing. Meanwhile, quests like [Information Gathering], [The Name of the Beast] and [It's a Secret to Everybody] serve similar functions. In the event that our combo has been disrupted in some way, [Earth's Bounty] could be an option to return a combo piece we have lost.

[Wind Shear] is another one of those versatile cards that we should probably include, as it allows us to interrupt ability based removal for [Tidal Infusion] or [Metzen the Reindeer]. If the [Counterspell]ing Mage is an issue in your local playgroups, we also have access to [Antonidas's Aegis of Rapt Concentration] to ensure that [Tidal Infusion] isn't interrupted or [Spell Suppression]ed. Remember, it's just as important to be able to protect your combo as it is to complete it.

Feel free to try this deck out at your Local Gaming Store's Winter Veil event, and let me know how it works out for you on the Daily Metagame forums. This Winter Veil, I hope you all remember that “The Reason for the Season” is great food, sweet presents, and good times with friends and family. May [Greatfather Winter] fill all of your stockings with [Red Rider Air Rifle]s, Crashin' Thrashin' Racers, and Clockwork Rocket Bots.

-Chris “Jedion” Reilkoff

Chris “Jedion” Reilkoff is currently the top rated Canadian player in the game, and one of the primary deck builders for Team East Coast. He has numerous good finishes at high-level WoW TCG events, including a top 8 finish at DMF Seattle. His recent finishes include 10th place at the 2010 North American Continental Championship, where he piloted the now well-known Zorak'tul Control deck.