Alter
lab report ᐛ
the reason it's so busted is because, alongside maelstrom, it basically gave shaman the key to its biggest weakness beforehand: dealing with a bunch of smaller/sticky minions at once. prior to karazhan, shaman had a reasonably unfavoured matchup vs zoo, but the ability to deal with all those early-game minions and stabilise board for minor health loss with claws means it can spiral out of control quickly (and deal with zoo properly). 1 mana 1/3 isn't inherently awesome, but the spell damage boost is so stupidly easy to obtain. there are a bunch of decent minions you can chuck in (e.g. bloodmage thalnos) to turn it into an effective 3/3 weapon, which is insane.does anyone else think spirit claws is busted? like most decent cards feel busted in shaman so it's hard to look at it objectively but it feels impossible for anything to stick early-game against other shamans unless you're shaman too and you slam totem golem. midshaman is impossible if you cant keep up with their early board cuz then they just spiral out with thunderbluff unless you're warrior and pop a brawl, and with spirit claws (and bolt + rockbiter + sticky early drops) it feels impossible to contend their board. but i mean spirit claws basically made midshaman an archetype so it's an easy thing to point to and say that this is the cause of this specific issue with shaman, obviously there are many.
top this onto the fact that you'll have anywhere between a 25-100% chance of getting the spell damage boost by clicking your hero power (because you can't summon a totem you already have), or the fact that it makes another advantageous outcome for tuskarr totemic and you've got a really good weapon for a class that already had a great early game (see: trogg, totem golem).