I was recently playing Wild ranked, and noticed that despite facing a decent number of different decks, it was still a lot less enjoyable to play in than the pre-Stormwind meta. Digging deeper, I discovered that despite a large number of decks seeing play, there is one aspect of the meta that has become very low. Specifically, that is Archetype Diversity. Although there are different decks viable in the meta, they are overwhelmingly combo and aggro decks, and those two archetypes are the most played by far as well, with Control decks and Midrange decks close to nonexistent.
Why Archetype Diversity Matters
Why does Archetype Diversity matter? Although you do have different experiences fighting against different Aggro or Combo decks, it's generally pretty similar. You lose out on having a feeling of variety in your gameplay, which can make it get boring faster.
Specifically, when there are four main archetypes seeing common play, Aggro, Midrange, Control, and Combo, there are 10 different possibilities for matchups:
- Aggro v Aggro
- Aggro v Midrange
- Aggro v Control
- Aggro v Combo
- Midrange v Midrange
- Midrange v Control
- Midrange v Combo
- Control v Control
- Control v Combo
- Combo v Combo.
Right now, with the vast majority of the meta being only Aggro and Combo, there are only 3 possibilities that are not extremely rare:
- Aggro v Aggro
- Aggro v Combo
- Combo v Combo
Yes, it does feel different facing different types of Aggro and Combo decks, but the meta is missing the other types of gameplay that used to be common as recently as the Barrens meta and added more variety to the way your games can go. This is why despite there being a lot of viable decks, the disappearance of Midrange and Control is limiting the variety of gameplay you can encounter and thus potentially enjoyment of the game, at least to some players.
Can you as one person choose to play a Midrange or Control deck and do well with it? Yes, you can and I have done so. However, due to the overall meta where it's so much easier to succeed as an Aggro or Combo deck, you will still have way less variety in your matchups - you will, for example, only get Control v Aggro and Control v Combo in the vast majority of your games as a Control deck and miss out on Control v Midrange and Control v Control gameplay which can be quite different.
Quantifying The Issue
How can we quantify this? Other than my personal experience of having Control and Midrange be less than 5% of matches in Diamond 5 and Legend, I did some research.
Based on HSReplay stats, the top 30 most played decks in Wild Diamond 5 - 1 are all Combo and Aggro. The 31st deck is Control. The first Midrange deck comes in at number 43. This image shows the top 5 which are all Aggro and Combo. You can see the full stats here.
In the most recent Tempo Storm meta snapshot (which isn't perfect, but gives a good understanding of what decks are played enough to make it into a meta report) 22 decks are featured. Out of those, 8 are Aggro, 9 are Combo, 3 are Control, and 2 are Midrange. Furthermore, out of the tier 1 decks, three are Combo and one is Aggro, while two out of the 3 Control decks are in tier 4 as is one of the midrange decks. This image shows the top 5. You can see the entire Tempo Storm Wild Meta Report here.
Based on this, we can see that despite there being many viable decks, digging deeper and looking at Archetype Diversity there is a clear issue. The meta leans heavily towards Aggro and Combo decks with Midrange and Control both being less powerful and seeing a lot less play. As discussed earlier, this general meta will then lead to less variety in your games, even if you personally decide to play a Control or Midrange deck.
Causes of Low Archetype Diversity
How can this be fixed? As recently as 2 expansions ago, in the Barrens meta before Stormwind came out, all 4 archetypes were common in the meta. There was plenty of Aggro including Secret Mage, Pirate Warrior, Even Hunter, and many other decks. Midrange had Handbuff Paladin, Galakrond Shaman, and more. Combo had Mozaki Mage, Combo Druids, and others. Control had plenty of Reno decks and others like Odd Warrior. All of these archetypes, in addition to having multiple decks, could be found quite often in the meta.
Since the Wild meta had a good level of Archetype Diversity as recently as 2 expansions ago, it's not inevitable for Wild to have Combo and Aggro being so dominant.
Specifically, what are the key issues that bring Midrange and Control down compared to Barrens?
1. Pirate Warrior
The Juggernaut from the Pirate Warrior Questline introduced in Stormwind gives Pirate Warrior, which was already a tier 1 archetype in Wild, tempo and damage every turn and makes it a lot harder to run them out of value. It's possible, but stats show that Pirate Warrior now dominates most Control decks, while before many of them had Pirate Warrior as a good matchup.
2. Disruption Resistance
In the Barrens meta, Control could have a good chance to beat Combo decks using Dirty Rat and Mutanus the Devourer. Currently, many of the top combo decks have a high level of resistance to this and make it very hard for Control decks to compete. To give an example, Questline Hunter can complete its quest and play Tavish, Master Marksman on the same turn, thus avoiding the chance to have it disrupted, and then proceed to burst down the opponent with the hero power and spells. There are some niche techs that work against this specific deck, but unlike Dirty Rat they are too specific to this deck and not worth running as they make your other matchups a lot worse. As another example, Mecha'Thun Warlock is now impervious to Dirty Rat hitting Mecha'thun as it can later use Tamsin's Phylactery, a non-rattable spell, to give its board the Mecha'Thun Deathrattle. Inner Fire Priest can use spells to steal an opponent minion, silence all Taunts, and create lethal without having any board presence or needing any minions to do so, making Dirty Rat and Mutanus ineffective. There are other decks like this as well.
In general, aggro is faster than ever, and Midrange doesn't have the tools to compete. It gets crushed too early against most aggro decks, and is often too slow to beat combo. Control can beat most aggro, but has major issues with the Juggernaut from Pirate Warriors and Combo decks.
Possible Solutions
To increase Archetype Diversity and create a more enjoyable meta, Hearthstone can do two things:
1. Nerf the most egregious offenders among Aggro and Combo decks. This might mean nerfing The Juggernaut to come down later, or only be active for a certain number of turns (like 3).
2. Print new tools for Midrange and Control that allow Midrange to be better able to deal with Aggro and Control to be better at disrupting Combo. This could look like more disruption that works against spells - Loatheb as a Legendary card is not enough or drawn consistently enough against spell heavy decks.
There has to be a balance - if you go too far, you might get a Midrange and Control meta which would be just as bad for Archetype Diversity. The goal is to have a meta similar to Barrens where all four main archetypes see a good amount of play.
Overall, Archetype Diversity is a key part of having games feel less repetitive and to create a varied gameplay experience. Hopefully, Wild's lack of Archetype Diversity can be addressed in the next expansion. What do you think about Archetype Diversity in Wild? Would you like it to be higher, and if so what ideas do you have for increasing it? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Why is control never allowed a time to shine, but Pirate Warrior and Questline Hunter get to dominate the meta for multiple expansion cycles? It's ridiculous and so frustrating for a control player like me, to have to lose over and over to these decks that are zero fun to play against.
Control kinda died with discover/infinite resource generation. I miss having to manage resources carefully.
It is really sad that the warrior quest had its focus on pirates when it should have been focused on managerie. They already had a bridge card in Tent Trasher and a big payoff card in N'zoth. But of course let's not give any real support to midrange or control ( outside of a useless Paladin quest and way too slow priest quest). Aggro needs more love obviously. Meanwhile, we have to live with this crap until team 5 eventually and reluctantly has to admit to their mistake. Don't worry though guys it won't happen anytime soon as someone else at Blizzard just reminded Dean again how good he is at designing cards!
Because of the lack of diversity once you reach Diamond ranks, I often just play to Diamond and then goof around with weird decks and sometimes I have success with them. Like the Odd Big Demons DH deck I built and briefly played a little bit ago. Looking at my stats in HDT right now it is actually 9-4 some how. LOL
Wild mode players (mostly Warlocks and Shamans) began to put a Skulking Geist in the decks to disrupt QL Hunters.
That card only helps the hunters lmao. Bad wild players have always had a weird love for Skulking Geist despite the card being terrible.
This is something they've been doing pretty consistently lately: creating effects that should not exist. It doesn't matter what mana cost you slap on top of it. If it's sufficiently broken, it will find a way to be relevant. To list a few:
Hunter Questline - recreating the Raza Anduin effect, which also should not exist, but making it even faster...facepalm
Warlock Questline - turning a class' downside into its win condition
Warrior Questline - giving infinite value and infinite damage to an aggro deck...facedesk
Shaman Questline - doubling from-hand burn damage in a from-hand burn deck...all in favour of interactivity!
Darkglare - cause mana cheating was never an issue...facewall
Incanter's Flow - cause mana cheating was never...sigh
Runed Mithril Rod - cause mana chea....really? You nerfed it twice and it still sees play, devs, doesn't that tell you something?
Stealer of Souls - cause mana...
Celestial Alignment - cause...HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU NEED TO LEARN THIS LESSON?
Parachute Brigand - apparently having Pirates start the game with +1/+1 on their first minion in Neutral wasn't stupid enough, so they doubled down on the stupid (literally, you can run twice the number of Parachute Brigands than you do Patches and they're twice as large)
Then there are the smaller offenders like:
Polkelt - tutoring, except it also tutors for the rest of the game if you build your deck right
Samuro - one-sided board-clear that generates board presence= so fun
Flurgl+Tox - one-sided board-clear that...forget it
Snowfall Guardian - board-stall that generates one-sided board presence...what an interesting twist on the formula!
I could go on. Pretty much the only way these effects become balanced is if the meta becomes such that those strategies are either too slow to remain competitive (the problem is not fixed, it's just hidden behind a fast meta...you can expect Questline Shaman to resurface the moment the meta slows down by about 1.5 turns) or there are even more broken ways to achieve the same effect (Darkglare vs Stealer of Souls vs Runed Mithril Rod).
And that's not even talking about the other broken shit that can be fine in theory but not with the mana cost they gave it (e.g. Raise Dead, Animated Broomstick etc.).
Can't wait for the 2022 expansions that don't see play because last year was so broken.
And then aslo made guff for druid, tied with thrall with the cheapest hero card with deathseer thrall, and it baislcy rules of the game by being abelto have 20 mana, a betetr wild growth as a hero power (whichb was deemed to good and was nerfed to 3 from 2 ) and guff has it as heor pwoer but even better siince full mana crystal.
Shadowcrafter scabbs is another board wipe with board pressence anda FREE mana cheating hero power
and for raise dead, is aslo taminsin roame (the 3 mana one) and nerfing raise dead to actully cost mana would be sort of buff due her
And parachute brigard is even more nuts in druid, with embiggen they can have 12/13 stats on, turn or even 14/15 on turn 1 width double embiggen, Corsair that pulls patches and 2 parachutes, into coin mark of lotus and all for only 2 mana
I’m convinced the pirate warrior quest would see play even without Rokara as it would still be a 1 mana tutor for Ancharrr and 4 random damage which is still quite powerful.
Quest Warrior definitely having an oppressive impact on the meta. It's so consistent. With other quests, you can brick draw or whatever, but by tutoring out more draw (pirates/weapons) and having the quest go face if your opponent doesn't have a strong board? It has no downside.
There are decks that can beat it, but none of those are as consistent as what they're trying to counter.
This is very true, and if you look at something like Questline Hunter it’s very consistent as well. Compared to Reno Priest with the combo, Quest Hunter always has its Raza + Anduin type hero power combo enabler start in hand while most of its deck is interchangeable damage spells.
most of the standard nerfs everytime are on control/combo decks (the last nerf to warrior quest is been done just because most of the playerbase at low ranks was complaining)..... plus all new cards added everytime make more sinergy with each others and this make games last less and give advantage to aggro, its normal and its the same in every card game.
it can't be helped, even in standard the most played archetype is aggro ( its cheaper, easier to play ecc.) a bounch of nerf to the most popular aggro decks would be really useless imho (meaby i'm wrong) for exemple in wild i'm actually using a rogue aggro deck not so much popular and i'm destroying pratically everything i match https://hearthstone-decks.net/aggro-rogue-69-legend-jogenthylacoleo/ (the list)
I will agree that wild around diamond 5 has fewer types. You can tell just by playing. I think its more healthy than standard where it seems that way in every part of the ladder. Pirate warrior is a problem, it needs a big nerf hammer taken to it.
My personal wild meta experience (not claiming statistical significance):
As I said no statistical signifcance here, but this is how it feels for me. How to solve it? Well in the short to medium-term only nerfs will have some effect and I doubt that they will do it just for wild. In the longer term we need more tech / counter cards printed. You already mentioned Loatheb, which is the best ever tech card for me. Remember when Secret Mage was one of the most popular decks and many people complained? While it was pretty strong you could relatively easy tech against it, which is much more difficult against the current quest top decks. So yes, print more disruption cards. Just look over to MTGA which has a lot of hate cards. That being said holding the balance will always be a problem and not overdoing counters is also a challenge.
I played 10 games of Wild the other day after hitting D5 in Standard, and 9 of them were against Questline Pirate Warrior. Small sample size, but very off-putting.