Hearthstone
SoU Wild meta
We do not have a Wild meta report yet, but we know SoU has carried many important cards for Wild meta.
So I'd like to have a discussion, according to your experience, about how you feel the meta has shaped or is still shaping, whether you think there are some critical decks now that might warp the meta or if everything will settle to Wild balance, eventually.
I bet we have all faced Secret Mages, and their unprecedented ability to deal both burn and board damage, while Even Shamans had their totemic synergy improved.
Many players started experimenting again with Highlander decks, while many others decided to complete the new Quests in Wild. Including at high ranks.
But what is the real powerlevel of all these new experimentations in the meta? Are Quests and Highlanders going to survive the meta? Is Secret Mage bound to be a meta tyrant?
What is your Wild Ranked experience after SoU?
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We do not have a Wild meta report yet, but we know SoU has carried many important cards for Wild meta.
So I'd like to have a discussion, according to your experience, about how you feel the meta has shaped or is still shaping, whether you think there are some critical decks now that might warp the meta or if everything will settle to Wild balance, eventually.
I bet we have all faced Secret Mages, and their unprecedented ability to deal both burn and board damage, while Even Shamans had their totemic synergy improved.
Many players started experimenting again with Highlander decks, while many others decided to complete the new Quests in Wild. Including at high ranks.
But what is the real powerlevel of all these new experimentations in the meta? Are Quests and Highlanders going to survive the meta? Is Secret Mage bound to be a meta tyrant?
What is your Wild Ranked experience after SoU?
I'm actually hoovering between rank 5 and 3, playing almost only my Reno Mecha'thun Lock. Here my impressions by looking at my decktracker datas:
Just my 2 cent.
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the world, and loses his own soul?"
I've climbed to Legend over the last week and from my experience, Mages rule the field right now. Res Priests completely disappeared at around rank 3, I encounter only a handful of Odd Rogues, Even Shamans, Mech Hunters and Odd Paladins between 3 and legend, which indicates that they likely just cannot keep up with Secret Mage's damage output and tempo, and from there, it's essentially just Secret Mages battling Reno Mages, and the occasional Control Lock (Reno or otherwise) trying to outlast/outvalue them both. Once you get to legend, it's obviously a different story, and people play all sorts of weird shit like Snip-Snap Zoo Lock or Inner Fire Prist, but in general, the same decks still float to the top. SoU definitely contributed to the renewed power of both types of Mages, and Zephrys alone seems to be enough of an incentive for some Warlocks to go highlander as well.
But as far as the quests go...they leave much to be desired. The Warlock, Warrior, Paladin, Priest, Hunter and Mage ones are either absolutely awful (most of them) or simply not good enough (Paladin), the Shaman quest is highly debatable, as I've tested my preexisting Shudderwock Shaman with it and it seems to perform about as poorly as it did before (as in, not even clawing its way to 50 % winrate because aggro eats you and you're too slow to outpace combo). I've seen the Rogue Quest used a handful of times by some tempo decks, but in all honesty, nobody plays weapon removal in Wild anymore, so a tempo version with Cutlass seems to do way better from my experience (at around 63 % winrate for my list, though the sample size is only around 40 games at ranks 5-3 and Legend). The majority of the wins are solely thanks to Cutlass, so the quest doesn't seem worth it here either. The only quest I'd say has some major potential and is being completely misused is Druid. I've built a "draw your whole deck" Jade Quest Druid and the amount of defense, removal and lategame power that deck has is insane. Never before have I had my Jades go over 20/20 in size in an actual competitive game, but with this deck, it happens all the time. Geist obviously completely annihilates the deck, so it can't get too popular, but seeing as most decks don't currently run it, Jade Druid has some serious surprise potential and can generate insane boards on the same turn it has spent 7 mana drawing (Overflow makes UI look like a joke). I think playing the deck as a token, board-flood version like it is in Standard is strictly incorrect. Being able to make your Jades 30 % bigger thanks to the Quest and having much more efficient card draw and removal in Nourish, Wrath, Raven Idol and Starfall seems to do the deck major favours and enable it to really tick.
Thank you Lightspoon and Marcus.
Here are my points so far:
I think you'll see things very differently once you're around rank 2 3-4 stars. That's where Reno Mages REALLY take off. It's hard to tell whether they're stronger than Secret Mage or not in a vacuum, but I can assure you, ranks 2-1 are about outhealing secret mages with Reno and Jaina and then competing in who has a filthier, greedier Reno Mage. The greedier the deck, the better it seems to do against other Reno Mages, which end up being about 50 % of the meta in that rank section. It is downright vulgar how good Reno Mage is right now, and I don't think the Galaxy nerf is going to change that much in the near future.
Well, that's interesting (even moreso because I actually found Reno the Relicologist in packs).
Probably the by-product of a shapeless meta, but at some point I would expect the greedy rampage to implode against Combo/OTK decks (tbh I expected Secret Mage to be a counter against greediness?).
I am really curious (and a bit scared) of where this may lead our Wild meta.
If others have more details to share, we are glad to hear them.
Secret Mage is a counter to greediness in a way. The thing is, what beats secret mages isn't the greed. The later, slower section of your deck (say 7+ mana) doesn't really matter against Secret Mage. What beats Secret Mages is healing, ability to pop all their secrets (Zephrys does a great job with that), simply outlasting them or taking the tempo from their hands. Reno Mage does a really good job at duplicating Kazakus, Zephrys and Reno Jackson, and Reno the Relicologist can often sieze the board on his own. Add to that Ice Block and Arcane Artificer and you actually have a pretty decent suite of tools to split their attention. Artificer + Frost Nova or Kazakus Potion alone can already heal you up a little bit and force them to use their burn on your board instead of your face, they can't rightly risk leaving Reno Jackson, Kazakus or Zephrys up either out of fear you bounce or copy them, so that's more burn deflected...and then there's Malacrass to give you another Reno/Zephrys/Kazakus if you've survived their initial burst and Renoed, and they're trying to burn you down all over again through Aluneth. So really, you're fighting them mostly through the Highlander payoff cards more than anything else. Since these cards do a decent enough job at that that you can afford to have a few dead cards for the matchup, the remainder of your deck can be heavily dedicated to combating other Reno decks. I've seen greed at rank 1 you wouldn't believe (Echo of Medivh, Kalecgos, N'Zoth, Janalai, Dirty Rat, Deathlord, Conjurer's Calling and Elysiana all in the same deck, all of which are awful against aggro) and it positively spanks other Reno Mages that are less greedy.
Woah Hex Lord Malacrass! I can't deny I'm intrigued to try Renomage myself now. If only I had all those legendaries... I guess I'll try a version with Open the Waygate first.
Hex Lord is more of my own little flair (I can't play a meta deck without a bit of personal touch), there are so many possible Reno Mage builds that I'm sure you'd be able to put together a budget list for a fraction of the cost and find similar success. Though in that case, I'd say going the N'Zoth + Taunts + Pyros route might be necessary, as it's both the cheapest to craft and you get the most bang for your buck per card. But sometimes, if your opponent doesn't go too greedy, you can just include Elysiana and be done with it, let them die in fatigue. There's really a lot of options, you just change 3-4 cards and the deck can feel very different.
I usually bounce around R1-5 every month since I have no interest in reaching Legend again and most of the Meta decks just dont appeal to me.. I mostly play Reno Decks or stuff like C'thun.
The class which I have faced most the last couple of weeks has to be Mage. Some of them are Quest Mages but most of them are the new Tempo/Secret type and I really do not enjoy playing against neither of these archtypes.
Second highest has to still be priest.. Some of it put Quests in the deck and vary a little bit in the exact build but in the end its always the same Res stuff.. zZzZz
My impression between ranks 10-4 was about the same as yours. Secret Mage is the new cockroach... I suspect that BP players got tired of it and adhered to this new plague. The problem is that we have to tech against it, losing one, or even two cards in our deck, even when not playing a control deck.
I think people are sleeping on Reno decks, for two reasons: 1 - BP and other anti-control decks are more sparse now and 2 - Zephrys is THAT good! And, since secret mage is not so aggresive in early game, Reno decks may get the tools to withstand the burst power of those fireballs and Cloud Princes.
About secret mage, I was so sad when I opened hsreplay.net and found that it represented more then 20% of all archetypes. Since I try to climb with my homebrews, I crafted Aluneth as soon as the new secret synergy cards were revealed (I couldn't guess everybody would do the same). So I stopped playing it (hate mirror matches) and I'm now experimenting some other stuff. FYI, I climbed from 10 to 4 with an even pirate Rogue, but it wasn't enough to beat Secret Mage nor Reno decks. I was trying (and having fun with) some aggro priests but it was just a brief summer dream due to the Extra-Arms unbuff (Thanks, DS/IF misconception!!!)
My next experiment will probably be even (totem/overload/jade) shaman. OP, how is it performing? I still didn't play with it since I have to save some dust for the new weapon that copies the totems (BTW, did you try this weapon? Is it good enough?)
Went from rank 4 to 1 in a few days (27 games) because I thought odd warrior would be a good choice given the influx of secret mages (spoiler alert: it was).
40% of the games I've played were against mages, at ranks 4-3 most of them were secret, then at ranks 2-1 they mostly turned into reno mages, in addition to reno warlocks.
I've seen only a single odd paladin and a single even shaman. One odd warrior, one battlecry shaman, one mech hunter, one jade druid. No odd rogue, no big priest.
My two cents: Reno decks and secret mage got big buffs and are seeing higher amounts of play because of that. Probably too much play. Odd rogue, odd paladin and even shaman are still top decks but didn't really get much exciting new stuff, bar even shaman perhaps, which is why not many people are playing them right now.
If you wanna cruise to legend, play something that beats secret mages and reno decks. Odd warrior works, but prepare for long games against the reno decks. I heard that bolster warrior is also a pretty solid option and probably a lot faster.
Even Shaman performs well, slightly better than before I think, with Totemic Surge and the likes. I haven't tried the weapon, but I tried Vessina, and she's good enough (not sure I would reccomment the craft tho, you can probably replace her with the axe, which I haven't tried tho). This was from r9 to r5.
It is definitely not so strong as before against Secret Mage (but maybe some adjustments may help), and it may suffer against properly tuned Renodecks (although i have beaten some, despite their Reno Jackson, they were probably too greedy builds). Not sure of how it performs at higher ranks, as I am trying homebrews from r5-r4.
At rank 4 it's mostly Burn Mage or Reno Mage. Mage is the #1 class I see.
Lots of Reno Locks. Zephrys the Great has really brought Reno decks back in full swing. Pre-SoU, Reno decks weren't very viable anymore.
Hunter I'm seeing a lot of different variants of Reno, surprisingly haven't ran against a single Mech Hunter
Priest mostly Big Priest still, but the numbers have dropped. (no complaints) See a few people experimenting with the new quest.
Odd Taunt warrior is back and feels more powerful.
Shaman I have been playing the most since I'm trying to make the final push for my golden hero. Even Totem Shaman is powerful, but get wrecked by Burn Mage. Quest Jade decks I think are in a refinement phase, but have potential. I've been running a Quest Elemental Tempo deck (see signature) that feels amazing, but I need more testing with it still to determine if it is ladder viable. It seems Everyfin Shaman may still be the best ladder deck for Shaman. The couple new murlocs work great in the deck.
Rogue still mostly just Odd Rogue, but not very many that I've seen
Odd Paladin is still there, but not as many as before (which is a breath of fresh air!)
Druid has mostly been Jade or Token. I've ran into a couple of Quest Druids, but I usually beat them before I see what their deck is like.
SoU has definitely shaken up the Wild Meta, which is nice after RoS basically did nothing. My biggest concern is Burn Mage. The tools they received have made them have little to no weakness. Flame Ward in particular has made it so they can't be out-aggroed anymore. Secret tech is awful, doesn't help the matchup and just makes your other matchups worse.
Same, I haven't lost against secret mages with a Vessina even shaman build either. Although I have seen pro players say that even shaman is unfavored in this matchup. Also usually managed to burst down reno decks before they could stabilize (or even after they've played a reno) so the deck won't be falling down anytime soon.
I'm with HULKBiceps and I play a lot of fun, wacky C'Thun things in Wild. Currently around 10-9 playing a Reno Galaxy C'Thun deck. It has the current Standard Reno Mage shell updated with a few Wild spells and putting in a small handful of C'Thun buffers and the Eye himself, with the ideal play being Galaxy with C'Thun still in the deck, then later you can play Brann Bronzebeard, C'Thun, and Zola the Gorgon to get two golden C'Thun's in hand. If you draw C'Thun before Galaxy you can also just use Brann for doubling some of your C'Thun buffers' battlecry effects or just try to win with a crazy King Phaoris board, etc, much like the current Standard version of Reno Mage. I think I'm currently 7-6 with it so not great, but a lot of fun!
Anyway, at these ranks I'm seeing a more diverse range of opponents, nothing sticks out as super oppressive in terms of facing a specific deck(s) over and over again. One big thing I've noticed since the expansion released: There has been a huge decline in the Time Warp Mages! This is likely due to the Secret Mage rising in popularity and just winning faster than the slower, but often guaranteed win of Archmage Vargoth, Time Warp, 2x Arcane Giant.
I'm happy about this change, because with the deck I described above I at least have a chance to maybe survive against Mages, gain some semblance of board control, and play Reno Jackson after they've used a large amount of burst. If you can pull that off they often don't have enough steam left to kill you quick enough, where as the Time Warp Mages just stall stall stall until you're helpless to stop their win condition.
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
I reached rank 5 with Pirate Warrior very quickly. My focus on Wild was lower this month, and to be honest, I wasn't able to distinguish a difference or novelty in the meta, because most games ended by turn 5-6. Yet, what I hear, things have changed considerably. Experimentation with many different, new and old, decks. Mages are S-tier. I'm 50-50 with Secret Mages, although they say it's not a good matchup. I kill those that doesn't run Ice Block. And try not to draw Patches.
I'd like to try Odd Warrior, but I never know what's the best version. Last month I got destroyed even by aggro, when I was playing the anti-combo version with Loatheb, Oracle, Brann... Then I chose Taunt heavier version, similar to Standard and I was killing aggro but would give all to have Elyisana against Reno and slower... I know the deck is polarizing, but what's the best version for you? Is Elyisana fine to include? And what about Boom nerf?
i climb from rank 9 to 3 with around 70% winrate with the new taunt warrior build
i feel so good a non-control archetype of warrior finally is able to compete at high lvl of wild ladder
new cards such as Armagedillo, Into the Fray, Frightened Flunky and Infested Goblin alongside some unused card from past like Target Dummy, Public Defender and Bolster formed a soild tier 2 warrior deck
The list I was running included Brann Bronzebeard, double Coldlight Oracle and Zola the Gorgon. These cards help you mill a lot of cards against the slower decks. With reno decks having quite a few key cards, getting 4 mills in a turn can often win the game. I've milled quite a few Archivist Elysiana and Frost Lich Jaina to win me these matchups. Elysiana I run because half of the matches later on were against other slow decks so you usually need the additional cards. If you want to go even greedier you can also add Azalina Soulthief but she was a dead card for me too often so I switched her out for a second Supercollider.
I didn't run Loatheb because combo can't really stay alive against all these secret mages so the card isn't really all that useful.
Honestly, I often find myself not using Dr. Boom, Mad Genius in faster matchups as Tank up! is generally just better to stay alive. So the only time you'd want to use it is in slower matchups, in which the increased mana cost shouldn't be as impactful. I'm not sure if it's still good enough at 9 mana to be used in wild, though.
You do know pirate warrior is, and always has been, a solid warrior deck that can easily get one to legend, right?
yeah. but experience of playing pirate warrior is not something unique to me
i always felt like pirate warrior was less powerful, less consistent and outclassed by similar aggro decks like even shaman/odd paladin/odd rouge (just a personal opinion) so if i want to climb with a aggro deck i prefer to play one of those decks
Someone really loves to downvote people here. :D Anyway from my ladder experience, I can say the following:
Secret Mage has the biggest impact on the meta. When the entire SOU set was revealed, I knew this deck would be very dominant, but I didn't expect to see mech hunters, odd paladins and odd rogues to disappear from the ladder and Reno lists to take their place. Here's a list of the different decks I played against between rank 6-Legend:
I can't foresee what decks will remain popular until the next expansion, but for now I will repeat what others have said before me - Burn Mage and Reno Decks are here to stay. Boulster Quest Warrior has a lot of potential imo, same goes to the new version of Even Shaman. Healing and armour gain are the natural counters to burn, so maybe Odd Warriors will appear again, but I am curious to see how they will outvalue Reno decks.
Thanks to everyone for their contribution.
I'd like to slightly steer away the topic and ask you: how exactly do you deal with Secret Mages?
Is there some strategy to apply, other than changing deck to have a favourable matchup?
Most of us seem to agree that adding anti-Secret tech is highly sub-optimal.
Depends on what you're playing. Some decks, such as Reno decks, or Quest Shaman, can easily accomodate some anti-secret tech, as can Spell Hunters (just make sure your Flare doesn't get countered or it won't go into your Zuljin pool). As a bonus, it also helps against Odd Pallies and Reno Mages, since those also run some key secrets. Ziliax and weapon removal aren't particularly intrusive tech and also sorta work against Secret Mage. But in general, if you're playing a deck that has a straight up bad matchup against Secret Mage, no amount of tech is going to save you. The majority of the ranking up I've done this season (from 7-2) was done with spell hunter, and you're just straight up dead to Secret Mages no matter what you do. You don't run enough minions to pop their Mirror Entities/Explosive Runes, so they always have something up for Cloud Princes, you run absolutely no healing outside of Zuljin's 5 armor, you got a bad time recovering mid-sized minion boards from behind. It's not pretty. At that point, switching is really the only way. It's simply not a deck that can be countered with one or two techs, like say a Shudderwock deck can with clutch Dirty Rats/Deathlords or Jade Druid can with a single Geist. In that respect, Secret Mage shapes the meta at high ranks in the same way Res Priest does at ranks 5-4. If you're playing a deck that has no answer to Res Priest at those ranks, don't even bother. On the plus side, Secret Mage isn't nearly as prevalent past Legend, so it's not the whole meta, mostly the climb.
I also think that anti-secret techs are suboptimal, but what else can you do to fight burn mages? If your deck isn't suited to deal with them optimally, you either add some tech cards or go for a different playstyle.
Burn mages can ruin the opponent's tempo in various ways - burning or copying enemy minions, cancelling spells, dealing with durable wide boards. So swarm decks like odd paladin, that can't buff their minions on time, will lose their board rather quickly, spell heavy decks like big priest can't handle the ammount of pressure their opponents will generate. What is left are some minion-based control decks with a lot of sustain and some mid-range decks (who won't be unlucky enough to take a lot of damage from losing small minions to Explosive Runes and letting their bigger threats getting copied by Mirror Entity). High health, low-cost minions could also appear more often, because those counter the aforementioned secrets quite nicely. If I follow this logic, then maybe IF priest will gain popularity again (although this will be kinda hard to do with the nerf to Extra Arms).
A few days ago I created a budget token dudu deck and played some games with it in casual. My very first game was against burn mage and I won that match thanks to the gross amount of buffs I could apply to my mininos. I didn't rush my units into the opponent's face prematurely, so that I wouldn't proc Flame Ward and lose my board. I'm not promoting this deck or anything, I was lucky that the opponent didn't draw Arcane Flakmage on time, but I've noticed that they couldn't deal with wide and tall boards as well.
Normally when a deck is super popular, I take a look at the stats but in this case ...
Looks like it wins its worst matchup is almost 60% of the time, which is hilarious. This is a 41k sample size, so it's not some kind of fluke. I've played a few decks that have been fair against mage, but those are by no means counters. If anyone figures out how to do it reliably, I'd love to hear about it too
With reno decks returning in full force, I wonder if Warriors will start to incorporate the bomb package to nullify/delay highlander cards. Maybe an aggro warrior with the bomb package sprinkled in? Warrior is my least favorite class, so it's not one I'm great at theorycrafting.
Maybe Jade quest shaman with Kezan Mystic and [Hearthstone Card (Antiquated Healbot) Not Found]? I was thinking about this earlier and I will try it soon. I was playing it an unteched version a few weeks ago, wrecking everything until I started seeing Secret Mages. Then came the losses.
Wow, that's just disgusting. I am curious to see how the meta will look like in a couple of weeks and I really hope wild doesn't have that AK74 problem again.
Btw, the new SoU Secret cards are completely useless in Standard atm.
If Secret Mage was a meta deck in Standard, I bet they would have also released a new powerful series of techs or soft techs to deal with it.
So, while they do build archetypes in several expansions, also in Standard, the neat result for now is null in Standard, while it revamped a deck that now threatens to nuke the Wild meta into some kind of ridiculousness.
Was it really necessary to release all these powerful Secret cards together (if at all), with no counterpart?
In the meanwhile, I'll try and adjust my own decks to deal with Burn Mage. Let's hope we can find a solution that makes everyone fairly satisfied.
I've been playing Jade Quest Shaman with Eater of Secrets instead of Kezan and without Healbot (double Lifedrinker though) and I don't think it's a good matchup. Even with healbot, the issue is most frequently both completing the quest before you die (you essentially have to get both Sludge Slurper and Cable Rat in order to do so in time) and, above all, controlling the board. You can Antique Healbot all you want but they're not really spending that many spells burning you down, they just beat you up reoeatedly with minions and nothing you play sticks. Secret Mage has an absurdly fast early game while Quest Shaman barely does anything impactful until turn 4. Once they start landing their Crystal Runners and Cloud Princes, all you got is a hope and a prayer that you've had your Hagatha's Scheme in hand from turn 1 and that the secret they have up isn't Counterspell (cause you don't really have that many cheap, throwaway spells, nor the time to play them). My Jade Shudder Shaman has been doing very well a day or two ago and over the entirety of its existence it has lost exactly one game to Warlocks (and I play against them all the time, so that's an amazing statistic), but Paladins (mech handbuff, Flying Machine variety) and Secret Mages started appearing a lot more now and keep holding me down. My Mage winrate with that deck is tear-inducing, despite beating up on Reno Mages.
They released a new secret tech with the new classic cards. SI:7 Infiltrator. But too bad it's the worst secret tech ever. I have a feeling because they added secret tech to the classic set, they feel they don't need to print more.
I've been playing Jade Quest Shaman too, and have had a few matches I was able to keep Burn Mage under control, but for the most part don't stand a chance. It comes down to drawing either Antique Healbot or Eater of Secrets. If you can bounce the eater back to your hand with either Zola the Gorgon or Bog Slosher, it's GG. Otherwise, you don't stand a chance.
I knew it was bad, but this is just wow...
Is Zola and Bog Slosher even desirable for that deck? I ran Zola before the quest came out to get more fuel but with the new hero power I have more than enough gas to overwhelm enemies, and Zola thus felt both redundant and terribly slow, and Slosher seems to make the Shudder boards worse, as it both fills my hand with Lackeys and then mills the bounced Jades.
If you ask me, this isn't that much of a problem. As long as you play a lot of jade summoners prior to Shudderwock, you will have plenty of jades on the board, which will threaten the opponent. Personally for me, both of those cards are fine, as it doesn't hurt to gain extra value from Sludge Slurper, EVIL Cable Rat and Jade Spirit against Reno or Taunt Warrior. Sometimes I play Shudder, in order to refill my hand and protect my value from an annoying Dirty Rat. Oftentimes I copy/bounce Loatheb, in order to shut down the opponent's board clears.
But this is only regarding all matchups beside burn mage. I agree with you, as I've said it before, that jade quest shaman isn't good in a meta, where burn mage is running rampant.
I've been building my jade quest shaman the other way. That is, making it faster in attempts to prevent the early chip damage and threaten lethal myself sometimes rather than take damage and try to heal it after. I find that a lot of mages even at high ranks are wasting burn on my scary minions. My winrate has been fair, but like I said earlier, I'm looking for something that counters mage a bit harder
The typical secret mage hard runs 3*4+6*6=48 points of direct face damage, not including variable explosive runes damage. Even druids and reno decks are going to struggle out healing that amount of damage, especially considering that their secrets are preventing you from reliving minion pressure easily. I suspect the control strategy of trying to turtle up might not be the best way to beat them. If you really want to go with this line though, I suggest adding Doomsayers as most lists run two Mirror Entity and otherwise healing for 7+ is not bad
Priest and warrior are classes to look at. A lot of the mage minions have a 3 HP statline and those classes have great ways of dealing 3 along with the ability to play a tempo game with well statted minions. Zilliax should be an inclusion in any deck trying to beat mage as it lines up well, heals for a bit and somewhat deals with runes
Eggs might be another thing to look into because of their interaction with mirror entity and runes, though egg based decks are pretty sketchy in a competitive context. I've tried to test out a bit of egg priest. It absolutely stomps control mage and beat the one secret mage I queued into but amount of losses I racked up vs other classes told me beating mage (which I haven't gathered enough data to suggest it does yet) wasn't worth it
I have found them both useful in many situations. Helping finish your quest faster with your Lackey generators, shutting down opponents turn after turn with Loatheb, Eater of Secrets, getting ridiculous heals from Antique Healbot, more Jades from Jade Spirit, and shutting down aggro boards with additional [Hearthstone Card (Sandstorm Elementals) Not Found]. Most of my games aren't won with Shudderwock anyways, and I have never felt it negatively effect my Shudder boards in any ways.
Class matchups aren't very reliable though. It destroys any and all forms of OTK paladins and (I guess) it's slightly unfavored against odd paladin. Which is why its winrate is still positive. Deck to deck winrates are far more reliable, but unfortunately hsreplay doesn't offer those for wild.
@RavenSunHS: Best option is to switch to druid or warrior who can out-armor their burn, yeah. Secret tech doesn't seem to help much.
I've been told Big Priest was the best and only deck that can be played in wild. What's this about Mage? Priest is the only wild class.
SoU changed everything. Barnes nerf came too late. I barely run into Big Priest anymore. I don't know about lower ranks, 15-10 might still be BP (though we'll see what happens with the Barnes nerf), but 5+ they are a rare breed.
I, for one, am actually relieved there is a new deck to beat. Getting burned down by a Secret Mage is lot less annoying than slowly getting killed by a Big Priest. Also winning from a Secret Mage is a lot more compelling to me. One, because the deck is "new", and two, because the strategies involved are more intriguing than just flying underneath the radar or killing the same minions a million times.
Arena > Wild > Standard
Reviving this thread, because it seems to me we are approaching some shape of a meta in Wild.
Surely Secret Mage keeps shaping the meta, primarily contested by the plethora of Reno decks.
However, I think Secret Mage is losing part of its initial traction, if anything because people are now used to play around Secrets, and toppling that skill with a Secret tech can often be game winning.
On the other hand, I noticed pretty soon a surge of Handbuff Mech Paladins, but today, curious about these Paladins being probably more common than Odd Paladin, I looked for them in HSReplay, and indeed, they appear to be incredibly consistent, at least in the current meta.
https://hsreplay.net/decks/#playerClasses=PALADIN&gameType=RANKED_WILD
https://hsreplay.net/decks/Vod0Nr3NxaOiWT4m62PV1f/#gameType=RANKED_WILD&tab=overview
I find them incredibly vulnerable to my typical Wild decks, because I appear to prefer decks that happen to include techs against Buffs (Devolve, Freezing Trap, Spellbreaker), but looking at those charts, the decks seems to be the new Meta Enemy. So I wanted to ask, how can this deck be so apparently consistent, given all the efficient techs that Wild can include against it, starting from the neutral and evergreen Spellbreaker himself?
Also, this deck uses no new cards from SoU, but I don't remember seeing many of them pre-SoU. What happened here? Secret Mage can't account for this alone.
I shot to rank 5 pretty quickly with a budget token Druid with a Beast twist (See here https://outof.cards/hearthstone/decks/7553-budget-tokenaggro-druid , look, upvote, give me presents! I'll write a guide eventually). I'm currently Rank 4, and climbing, albeit slowly. What I've found so far:
1) Secret Mage is strong, but definitely skill dependent. Some matches I dominate, some matches I lose hard, and I feel a basic level of skill in the mage player is the deciding factor. I don't think Flame Ward is the biggest concern, but printing Arcane Flakmage and Ancient Mysteries in the same set was a mistake. I'm managing a slightly over 50% win rate against them, but it's always a tough game.
2) Reno decks, especially Reno Mage have gained a lot, as well as fitting in well as a counter to Secret Mage.
3) Weapon tech is back on the menu. A lot of Reno decks I've played in the last few days has been running an Ooze.
4) There's not a huge amount of board clears being run at the moment, so I'm anticipating decks like Even Shaman and Odd Paladin to make a comeback. The main board clears I've seen have been Arcane Flakmage, Flame Ward and stuff generated by Kazakus/Zephyrs. This is helped by a lack of Warrior and Priest.
5) Quest Druid seems to have fallen off hard.
Guys, forget about secret mage
There is a new cancer from 5 up, that's Sn1p-Sn4p/Mecha'Thun combo.... if you like playing Reno decks, like me, then you'll find a hard time against it, since they run at least 3 different combos in it and can trample you as soon as turn 6.
About hand-buff paladin, it is beatable with Reno decks...
Good luck with that...
It's popular because, much like mech hunter, it snowballs really early and really hard. It's great for picking up quick wins, which is best for climbing, too. Additionally, it's also pretty cheap.
The reason it hasn't seen any traction before is because wild is extremely slow to develop. It takes far longer in wild for a deck to catch on (unless it's extremely obvious it will be busted from day one, i.e. secret mage). I know it's climbing up on multiple tier lists, hence why it's probably gaining a lot more traction.
Since the majority of tech slots are currently being spent on secret hate, mech paladin doesn't have to worry about that either.
Btw, Zilliax and SN1P-SN4P are basically EVERYWHERE, from Aggro to Renodecks, compelling for even more Mechs to be included in any deck.
Not even unnerfed Patches the Pirate reached that point, as at least the Pirate package was restricted to Aggro decks. Yet he was nerfed because of overpopularity...
Zilliax is a very powerfull card for every kind of deck, since it provides so many good thing for a decent cost. It's a nice balanced card that will remain for a very long time with us. On the other side SN1P-SN4P is far more situational and I don't think it'll stick around for long.
I agree that expecially Zilliax is going to surpass any other card in terms of longevity and presence, but I hope they'll not nerf it since it doesn't really need any change actually (or at last since some crazy interaction may pop up in the future).
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the world, and loses his own soul?"
This is why I love wild <3
You are probably right about SN1P-SN4P, the card is bound to the popularity of Mechs in the meta.
imho, they should remove from Zilliax one of these: rush (removal), lifesteal (sustain) or magnetic (Tempo). As you can see, each of these spreads in opposite direction, put together they make for the most versatile and staple card in HS history, despite the card being quite balanced for its cost.
In general, I think there is an insane amount of healing in Wild right now, including efficient neutral healing (Antique Healbot, Khartut Defender, Reno Jackson, Zilliax). So I would honestly remove lifesteal from Zilliax. Maybe buff it to (4) in the process.
The impression I have right now is that the game is consistently delayed to infinity/OTK (giving one more chance to Big Priest to stay in the meta btw), and while many players may like it, many others do not. I'm not sure Mech Paladin and Burn Mage can counter that. Maybe Miracle Mage is bound to resurge and bring balance in the Force...
I dare to say that this expansion is the most impactful in the last couple of years, regarding wild. Every week there are new deck ideas. I like it.
Witchwood says hi.
This. I'm playing a (kind of meme) Reno-Yogg mage and went up against a quest druid yesterday. This happened (look at the size of his deck compared to mine, I'm at 7 or 8 fatigue at this point). Not sure how any control deck beats this without running Mecha'thun or DK Uther (or teching Geist.)
Communism is just a red herring