New Viable Archetypes in Saviors of Uldum?

I'm wondering what predictions people have for new archetypes that will be competitive or somewhat competitive with the coming expansion. My current guesses include Malygos Druid, a midrange Lackey Warlock, and Combo Priest with High Priest Amet. Honorable mentions that could have success as well are Zoo Priest, Murloc Paladin with Chef Nomi, and Tempo Warrior.

I don't think the Lackey Warlock will take roots (at least with the current support).

Combo Priest will be the flavour of the first week (as with Nomi), but I suspect Deathrattle-Tempo Rogue being pretty strong. (As a new flavour, obviously the 'old' lackey rogue will be good as well)

Personally, I will try to establish a Control Warlock as the Quest as well as the Plague seem to be quite useful in this endeavour.

BUT: Usually there is at least one card in the last reveal stream that renders this prediction completely useless :D

I will try two mage variants: spells/tempo and complete random casino fiesta with the most random spells in one game.

Oh and I will definitely try to make those obelisks and mogu cultist work.

I think we're going to see:

1. A shift in Control/Dr Broken Warrior to be more taunt-focused given all the new cards that feed into that

2. Heal Druid is finally going to make an appearance is a real way - I don't expect it to be Tier 1, but it's definitely going to crawl out of the T4/5 pit.

3. Anka, the Buried + Mecha'thun OTK Rogue will make a splash - the combo is just too easy to pull off, especially with Myra's Unstable Element to wipe out their decks.

4. Priest might finally come back into the mainstream with the High Priest Amet + Buffs & Boar OTK

Also, I don't expect them to get big, but I'm definitely going to give a few decks a(nother) try:

1. Silence Priest - was *okay* before, but now with more cheap big minions like Sunstruck Henchman and Mortuary Machine it *may* be more consistent.

2. (maybe highlander) Secret Mage - all 3 mage minions revealed so far fit the archetype, so I'm expecting/hoping there will be a new secret revealed. You could reasonably run highlander as well if needed given all the ways to refresh a hand with Mage atm.

I don't see any new powerful archetype getting into the meta after the first few weeks of experimentations, but some cards will indeed find a space in some of the already existing one empowering them even more.

But we're still missing some Quests, so maybe there may be "hidden gems" that can create totally new decks.

I'd like to see at least 1-2 new dragons, so I can play Dragon Druid just for fun :)

I'm betting on Quest Druid as a strong midrange/control deck and Hunter Singleton deck with secrets looks promising from Trump's stream although it might be outvalued with regular secret package. I think the most overrated quest will be a Priest one and the most underrated a Mage one.

I don't know if they are new or not but;

Quest Tempo Rogue, Battlecry Shaman (maybe with Magic Carpet), Control Warrior, Quest Token/Midrange Druid, Tempo and Conjurer Mage will be in the meta i guess.

Battlecry/Quest Shaman might be the deck which people hates this expansion. Kobold Lackeys and Weaponized Wasps seems busted in it.

I expect we will see a good number of quest rouges and secret mages (which might settle at T3).  I also think a strong priest deck type will emerge. Unfortunately Dr. Boom still seems OP. OTK rouge is a thing too which has the possibility to hold back contol warriors but i am not so happy if a strong OTK deck is the only way to counter control warrior.

I think Mecha'thun Rogue will be the strongest new archetype (with Anka, the Buried obviously). With its ability to slaughter Control Warrior it will be the bane of the new meta. If they don't nerf or rotate Divine Spirit, then OTK Priest with Stonetusk Boar and High Priest Amet will be right there next to Mecha'thun Rogue.

Most new archetypes, while fun, won't be able to stand up to Control Warrior and Conjurer Mage -- but they might be able to rush down the combo decks above and therefore have a place in the meta.

Other than combo decks, the best "new" archetypes will be Aggro Shaman, and some variety of Quest Shaman. Aggro (!) Quest Priest, Lackey Zoolock, Freeze Mage, Quest Rogue, and Secrets Mage will be ok too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to try a lot of other decktypes in case I'm wrong -- highlander decks, Heal/2TK Druid, Quest Hunter, Quest Paladin, Deathrattle Rogue, Tempo Taunt-Combo Shaman, Watcher-Lock, Tempo Enrage Warrior, and more. As long as I can get the cards for them.

But I don't really think any highlander decks (in Standard), any sort of Druid or Hunter or Paladin, Reborn Priest, Deathrattle Rogue, Quest Warlock, or Taunt Warrior will really be prevalent in the competitive meta. I may look back on this post and laugh about how wrong I was on some things, but these are my best guesses pre-release.

So just to go class by class:

Druid - Token druid will still be a thing, and got a couple of cards that might make it better than it is now.  Probably tier 2 or tier 3.

Quest druid looks pretty good and will have a ton of late game value.  Will probably work quite well against control warrior, though it's early game is necessarily weak because of the quest.  Unlikely to be more than tier 2 because of that.

Combo druid ?? Elise is definitely a strong card, but hard to see what sort of combo would work here.  I'll leave that to people who are far more creative in their deck building than I am to try and figure out.

Mage - Cyclone mage will continue to be powerful.  Probably will remain a tier 1 deck, I don't see any big counters to it coming out.

Secret mage seems a bit iffy, but probably playable.  Maybe cusp of tier 3 to tier 4.

Big spell mage I'm not sure on.  Could be playable, probably will end up tier 3 because of a weakness to aggressive strategies.

Freeze Mage will continue to be an alternative to the cyclone mage if you want to do better against slower decks like control warrior.  It didn't really get many new tools in this expansion though, but might be able to murge somewhat with the big spell mage so that you're playing big minions and big spells.  Probably tier 2 either way.

Hunter - Mech hunter will continue to be around, but with no new cards will likely just be a fair bit weaker.  It was already pretty mediocre and just played because it was simple, fast and easy to secure victories against bad players/poorly refined decks at lower ranks.  With the expansion it will likely drop down to a tier 3 aggro deck no one wastes their time playing.

Midrange got a few new tools to play around with, but will probably stick to being at the tier 2 level.

Quest Hunter initially looks pretty bad, but there are some pretty good cards printed for the quest and it's actually not as hard for them to summon 20 minions as it might initially seem.  The hero power is also pretty insane if you can pair it with charge minions from unleash the hounds, leeroy jenkins, or with tundra rhino.  Probably tier 3 but could make it into tier 2.

Secret Hunter could either end up as singleton or as a more normal secret hunter deck, but will undoubtedly be a powerful deck.  Either tier 2 or tier 1, it will still have a big weakness to control warrior though.

Paladin - Holy Wrath will remain playable.  I'm curious to try out a more midrange version that uses Tip the Scales in order to clear out the deck and create tempo to stay alive rather than strictly control tools to stabilize.  Might still just be a tier 2 deck.

Mech paladin didn't get anything new and wasn't that great to begin with.  Might fall down to a tier 3 deck, or remain at the tier 2 level.

Quest Paladin forces you to run a bunch of bad reborn cards in order to get an effect which is only good if you're ahead.  Which you won't be, since you'll be playing garbage cards for most of the game.  Tier 4.

Priest - Quest Priest (?) might be a thing.  Priest got a lot of really powerful cards, but I'm having trouble envisioning what sort of deck will be built from all of it.  Priest might still be trash if it can't all come together well.

OTK Priest will be a tier 4 garbage meme deck and nothing more.  If it was going to be good, people would already be playing Stormwind Knight + Power Word: Shield x2 + Divine Spirit x2 + Topsy Turvy for the same amount of mana and the same number of cards.  It will die to aggro before it can get the combo off, it just hard loses to any sort of deck that has lots of taunts, control warrior will almost always have enough armor to survive it... I just don't see how this deck could possibly be competitively viable.

Resurrect Priest will maybe see some more life because of psychopump, but will probably stick to the tier 3 category.

Rogue - Quest rogue will probably be pretty good, it's very easy to activate and always having a 3/2 weapon with immune is insane.  Probably tier 2, could be tier 1.

Tempo rogue will stay as a tier 1 deck most likely, it's getting a few new cards and there's not much reason to expect it to get worse.

Deathrattle/mecha'thun rogue (?) maybe becomes playable, I have no idea.

Mogu Cultist combo rogue will be a tier 4 meme deck.  Too hard to pull off against anything with any aggression, and even against control warrior the end result will only deal 20 damage to them.  It's too much work for too little pay off in most situations.

Shaman - Battlecry shaman looks quite strong, though it remains to see how it stands up against other decks currently in the meta.  Most likely a tier 2 deck, has the potential to be tier 1.

Aggro shaman using overload, tokens and some of the new tools like Plague of Murlocs will likely still be as good as it is now, if not better.  Probably a tier 2 card.

Control Shaman will be dead just as it is now.  Earthquake is good against reborn minions, but no one will be playing reborn minions much at all and it isn't enough to kill giants.  It's worse than control warrior which means there's not really much of a reason to try to make it work until April.

Murloc Shaman got a few new tools, but will likely be overshadowed by the other new shaman cards that buff up aggro and create battlecry shaman.  Probably tier 2 or 3 aggro deck.

Warlock - Lackey Zoo looks to be pretty good.  Lackeys are strong, turning lackeys into 5/5s for 3 mana while also getting a 3/3 is pretty insane.  Some of the other new cards like Neferset Thrasher and Diseased Vulture might make a more midrange zoo warlock pretty good.  I find Dark Pharaoh Tekahn questionable.  While he'd be insane on his own, you might as well just turn your lackeys into 5/5s with EVIL Recruiter.  I don't know if there will be enough lackeys for both to make sense.

Carpet Zoo doesn't really get much that's exciting.  It will likely be overshadowed by the lackey zoo deck, if either of them is viable.  Maybe ends up as a tier 3 aggro deck that sees competitive play in some specific circumstances because it's strong against decks like token druid and murloc shaman.

Quest/Plot Twist Warlock does seem to get quite a bit of support with the quest, Plague of Flames and a few other neutral cards such as [Hearthstone Card (King Phaorsis) Not Found] but will any of it be enough to resurrect it from the absolute trash tier deck that it is currently?  Probably not.

Warrior - Control Warrior isn't going anywhere.  It may not have gotten many tools in this new expansion, but it got a few and frankly?  It doesn't need any help to stay Tier 1.

Bomb Warrior is the same deal, pretty much.  Stays at Tier 1.

Taunt Warrior could be a pretty strong deck.  It remains to be seen if there will be a separate taunt warrior deck that goes all in on creating a bunch of massive taunt minions with buff cards that can be cloned by Bloodsworn Mercenary in order to easily outvalue and out tempo opponents or if we will see a control warrior that has a smaller taunt package in order to use the buffs and then the rush from Dr Boom + Tomb Warden for some pretty big board swings.  Probably tier 2 for a solo taunt warrior deck.

I didn't include every possible deck out there, but anything that's viable in the current meta will probably still be viable in the next, albeit a bit weaker if the particular deck didn't get enough support.  I also don't expect any of the other quest or highlander decks to be viable.  Highlander decks are just too easily countered by bomb warrior and difficult to make consistent.  Secret hunter is pretty much the only one that looks like it can pull it off.  But what do I know?  We'll see in a few weeks.

Quote From Aidan0816

Quest druid looks pretty good and will have a ton of late game value.  Will probably work quite well against control warrior, though it's early game is necessarily weak because of the quest.  Unlikely to be more than tier 2 because of that.

Mage - Cyclone mage will continue to be powerful.  Probably will remain a tier 1 deck, I don't see any big counters to it coming out.

Big spell mage I'm not sure on.  Could be playable, probably will end up tier 3 because of a weakness to aggressive strategies.

Freeze Mage will continue to be an alternative to the cyclone mage if you want to do better against slower decks like control warrior.  It didn't really get many new tools in this expansion though, but might be able to murge somewhat with the big spell mage so that you're playing big minions and big spells.  Probably tier 2 either way.

Hunter - Mech hunter will continue to be around, but with no new cards will likely just be a fair bit weaker.  It was already pretty mediocre and just played because it was simple, fast and easy to secure victories against bad players/poorly refined decks at lower ranks.  With the expansion it will likely drop down to a tier 3 aggro deck no one wastes their time playing.

Quest Hunter initially looks pretty bad, but there are some pretty good cards printed for the quest and it's actually not as hard for them to summon 20 minions as it might initially seem.  The hero power is also pretty insane if you can pair it with charge minions from unleash the hounds, leeroy jenkins, or with tundra rhino.  Probably tier 3 but could make it into tier 2.

OTK Priest will be a tier 4 garbage meme deck and nothing more.  If it was going to be good, people would already be playing Stormwind Knight + Power Word: Shield x2 + Divine Spirit x2 + Topsy Turvy for the same amount of mana and the same number of cards.  It will die to aggro before it can get the combo off, it just hard loses to any sort of deck that has lots of taunts, control warrior will almost always have enough armor to survive it... I just don't see how this deck could possibly be competitively viable.

I can tell you've been listening to Trump ... or at least you make some of the same arguments he makes.

Quest Druid: What's its win condition? That was where I stumbled when theorycrafting it myself; it doesn't seem to have a good one.

Cyclone Mage: Well, there are big counters to it coming out, most prominently Plague of Murlocs. But I share your opinion that the counters won't be common enough to knock Cyclone Mage from Tier 1.

I'm not sure Big Spell Mage and Freeze Mage are different decks anymore. RDU's combination of the two looked pretty strong.

I've also seen the suggestion that Mech Hunter and Quest Hunter get combined into one ... Does adding a Magnetic minion to a minion already on board add to the Quest's counter? Anyone know?

OTK Priest: You made a very interesting argument; I had to think about it for a while. I'm ultimately not persuaded by it, though.

First of all, a combo using 1x Power Word: Shield is innately easier to pull off than a combo with 2x [Hearthstone Card (Power Word Shield) Not Found], because it means you can use one of your Power Word: Shields before the combo turn, which is one of Priest's best sources of card draw.

Second, why not run High Priest Amet + Stonetusk Boar and Stormwind Knight, for redundancy in drawing your combo?

Adding a second way to perform the same combo doesn't make the combo any better. Combo priest should exist already since the pieces are already there, yet it doesn't. Because it's slow, inconsistent and priest doesn't have any good tools to survive until they can pull off the combo.

Good work on your post, Aidan. That was a lot of work, and pretty interesting to read through.

If you want to envision how a quest priest might end up being built, here's one that I threw together.

Druid: Maybe Quest Druid and Token Druid will be Tier 1 and  Heal truid will Move from T3 to T2

Hunter:Mech Hunter but I would like to see Reno Secret Vesrsion

Mage:Probably freeze/cyclone mage will be most playable

Paladin: Mech Paladin maybe Hybrid with Quest Reborn minions.

Priest: OTK combo Priest T1, resurrect priest T2

Rouge:Lackey Rouge with 1,2 new cards included

Shaman:Lackey shaman is so aggresive maybe Murloc shaman will be High tier too

Warlock:EZ Lackey Warlock top Tier

Warrior: Control Warior with some new cards but Maybe Quest Bomb Warrior will be a thing 

Quote From CaptainKaulu

Quote From Aidan0816

Quest druid looks pretty good and will have a ton of late game value.  Will probably work quite well against control warrior, though it's early game is necessarily weak because of the quest.  Unlikely to be more than tier 2 because of that.

Mage - Cyclone mage will continue to be powerful.  Probably will remain a tier 1 deck, I don't see any big counters to it coming out.

Big spell mage I'm not sure on.  Could be playable, probably will end up tier 3 because of a weakness to aggressive strategies.

Freeze Mage will continue to be an alternative to the cyclone mage if you want to do better against slower decks like control warrior.  It didn't really get many new tools in this expansion though, but might be able to murge somewhat with the big spell mage so that you're playing big minions and big spells.  Probably tier 2 either way.

Hunter - Mech hunter will continue to be around, but with no new cards will likely just be a fair bit weaker.  It was already pretty mediocre and just played because it was simple, fast and easy to secure victories against bad players/poorly refined decks at lower ranks.  With the expansion it will likely drop down to a tier 3 aggro deck no one wastes their time playing.

Quest Hunter initially looks pretty bad, but there are some pretty good cards printed for the quest and it's actually not as hard for them to summon 20 minions as it might initially seem.  The hero power is also pretty insane if you can pair it with charge minions from unleash the hounds, leeroy jenkins, or with tundra rhino.  Probably tier 3 but could make it into tier 2.

OTK Priest will be a tier 4 garbage meme deck and nothing more.  If it was going to be good, people would already be playing Stormwind Knight + Power Word: Shield x2 + Divine Spirit x2 + Topsy Turvy for the same amount of mana and the same number of cards.  It will die to aggro before it can get the combo off, it just hard loses to any sort of deck that has lots of taunts, control warrior will almost always have enough armor to survive it... I just don't see how this deck could possibly be competitively viable.

I can tell you've been listening to Trump ... or at least you make some of the same arguments he makes.

Quest Druid: What's its win condition? That was where I stumbled when theorycrafting it myself; it doesn't seem to have a good one.

Cyclone Mage: Well, there are big counters to it coming out, most prominently Plague of Murlocs. But I share your opinion that the counters won't be common enough to knock Cyclone Mage from Tier 1.

I'm not sure Big Spell Mage and Freeze Mage are different decks anymore. RDU's combination of the two looked pretty strong.

I've also seen the suggestion that Mech Hunter and Quest Hunter get combined into one ... Does adding a Magnetic minion to a minion already on board add to the Quest's counter? Anyone know?

OTK Priest: You made a very interesting argument; I had to think about it for a while. I'm ultimately not persuaded by it, though.

First of all, a combo using 1x Power Word: Shield is innately easier to pull off than a combo with 2x Power Word Shield, because it means you can use one of your Power Word: Shields before the combo turn, which is one of Priest's best sources of card draw.

Second, why not run High Priest Amet + Stonetusk Boar and Stormwind Knight, for redundancy in drawing your combo?

 

I had the same question about the quest and the mech Hunter deck. The nice thing about it is all the deathrattle cards that summon multiple 1/1's. And the cards, like explodinator, that summon multiple minions for one card. Even if you finish the quest fairly late, a board of bombs via Flark that can attack sounds annoying to deal with at least, if not powerful. I dunno. Gonna have to find out though. 

Quote From ArngrimUndying

I think we're going to see:

1. A shift in Control/Dr Broken Warrior to be more taunt-focused given all the new cards that feed into that

2. Heal Druid is finally going to make an appearance is a real way - I don't expect it to be Tier 1, but it's definitely going to crawl out of the T4/5 pit.

3. Anka, the Buried + Mecha'thun OTK Rogue will make a splash - the combo is just too easy to pull off, especially with Myra's Unstable Element to wipe out their decks.

4. Priest might finally come back into the mainstream with the High Priest Amet + Buffs & Boar OTK

 

Also, I don't expect them to get big, but I'm definitely going to give a few decks a(nother) try:

1. Silence Priest - was *okay* before, but now with more cheap big minions like Sunstruck Henchman and Mortuary Machine it *may* be more consistent.

2. (maybe highlander) Secret Mage - all 3 mage minions revealed so far fit the archetype, so I'm expecting/hoping there will be a new secret revealed. You could reasonably run highlander as well if needed given all the ways to refresh a hand with Mage atm.

 

1. Nah why change what's broken? Warrior will add the mummy and the shaggy card and play the same deck. 

2. Heal druid got so many mediocre cards... The deck is mainly only getting overflow.

3. It's not easy to pull off when you are searching for 3vlegendary cards in your deck.

4. That combo already exists and nobody plays it (4 mana 2/5 charge in basic) 

Silence priest is bad as long as you don't have tonnes of draw or a card like shadow visions.

Saw gameplay of secret mage, not a big fan.

Here saved you a lot of dust. 

Quest Priest is the only really innovative deck that i think will pass the meta test (in Standard). To be seen if more Reborn or Combo oriented.

There may me more, but they are still variations of older archetypes. eg Quest Rogue is just a Tempo Thief Rogue, Lackeylock is just a Zoolock, etc.

Surely some of the new names will take roots nonetheless.

Quote From CaptainKaulu

Quote From Aidan0816

Quest druid looks pretty good and will have a ton of late game value.  Will probably work quite well against control warrior, though it's early game is necessarily weak because of the quest.  Unlikely to be more than tier 2 because of that.

Mage - Cyclone mage will continue to be powerful.  Probably will remain a tier 1 deck, I don't see any big counters to it coming out.

Big spell mage I'm not sure on.  Could be playable, probably will end up tier 3 because of a weakness to aggressive strategies.

Freeze Mage will continue to be an alternative to the cyclone mage if you want to do better against slower decks like control warrior.  It didn't really get many new tools in this expansion though, but might be able to murge somewhat with the big spell mage so that you're playing big minions and big spells.  Probably tier 2 either way.

Hunter - Mech hunter will continue to be around, but with no new cards will likely just be a fair bit weaker.  It was already pretty mediocre and just played because it was simple, fast and easy to secure victories against bad players/poorly refined decks at lower ranks.  With the expansion it will likely drop down to a tier 3 aggro deck no one wastes their time playing.

Quest Hunter initially looks pretty bad, but there are some pretty good cards printed for the quest and it's actually not as hard for them to summon 20 minions as it might initially seem.  The hero power is also pretty insane if you can pair it with charge minions from unleash the hounds, leeroy jenkins, or with tundra rhino.  Probably tier 3 but could make it into tier 2.

OTK Priest will be a tier 4 garbage meme deck and nothing more.  If it was going to be good, people would already be playing Stormwind Knight + Power Word: Shield x2 + Divine Spirit x2 + Topsy Turvy for the same amount of mana and the same number of cards.  It will die to aggro before it can get the combo off, it just hard loses to any sort of deck that has lots of taunts, control warrior will almost always have enough armor to survive it... I just don't see how this deck could possibly be competitively viable.

I can tell you've been listening to Trump ... or at least you make some of the same arguments he makes.

Quest Druid: What's its win condition? That was where I stumbled when theorycrafting it myself; it doesn't seem to have a good one.

Cyclone Mage: Well, there are big counters to it coming out, most prominently Plague of Murlocs. But I share your opinion that the counters won't be common enough to knock Cyclone Mage from Tier 1.

I'm not sure Big Spell Mage and Freeze Mage are different decks anymore. RDU's combination of the two looked pretty strong.

I've also seen the suggestion that Mech Hunter and Quest Hunter get combined into one ... Does adding a Magnetic minion to a minion already on board add to the Quest's counter? Anyone know?

OTK Priest: You made a very interesting argument; I had to think about it for a while. I'm ultimately not persuaded by it, though.

First of all, a combo using 1x Power Word: Shield is innately easier to pull off than a combo with 2x Power Word Shield, because it means you can use one of your Power Word: Shields before the combo turn, which is one of Priest's best sources of card draw.

Second, why not run High Priest Amet + Stonetusk Boar and Stormwind Knight, for redundancy in drawing your combo?

 

On quest druid, the win condition is pretty simple.  Make big plays with the doubled choose one cards and kill your opponent's face.  Same win condition most decks have.  The main question I have is if the quest reward is really as unfair as some of the other conditions in other decks, such as making a board full of giants or 10 mana minions.

On OTK priest, the addition of Amet would slightly improve the consistency of the combo, but I'd imagine the deck would need to start out already in the tier 3 or tier 4 category for that to make it somewhat playable.  Going from so unplayable its completely off the radar to a strong deck just because of a couple extra chances at drawing the combo.  Maybe it makes it into the tier 4 category?  Guess we'll see soon enough either way.

I'm excited to try something that looks like this. Probably my first deck I'll play