It's popular to rip Hearthstone right now (and understandably so), but this was an incredible tournament. Great players throughout the Top 8. GM spots on the line. Hakkar in multiple decks. A completely deserving winner.
Highlander Secret Paladin reminds me a lot of Even Paladin after the Call to Arms nerf. It's a bad deck. It doesn't do anything impressive. It should be relatively easy to beat...but it is surprisingly good at top decking into answers.
apropos of nothing, I have a suspicion that, once things settle down a bit, Control Warrior should find itself in a prety good spot in this metagame. It has the tools to beat Aggro Shaman and Combo Priest. And with Emperor, 2x Elysiana should beat all but the greediest of priests. There's also completely viable Mecha'Thun variants.
There are Druid and Quest Shaman problems, but nothing is bullet proof right now.
I am also done with certain matchups. So basically Priest and Paladin I auto conceide. My deck targets shaman so that one I am happy to try. Those other two "not so much".
What deck that targets shaman is autolose to Secret Paladin?
Rule #1 of Resurrect Priest - it doesn't matter how many other minions have died this game, Mass Resurrection will always play the maximum available number of Psychopomps.
The version of highlander hunter I meant was the version that cuts the secret package. That version has been the worse of the two for about 2 weeks now.
- Evolve Shaman and Combo Priest are the aggro decks of choice IMO. Not sure which is better. Spirit of the Frog turned Evolve Shaman into a more consistent deck.
- Druid is again trying to figure out what its best win condition is. It probably won't settle on something until the metagame settles.
- Highlander Hunter is well positioned as probably the best midrange deck.
- Holy Wrath Paladin is in a decent spot at the moment with all of the greedy AF N'Zoth decks and it has an okay mu against Priest/Shaman.
- At least one of these greedy N'Zoth decks feels like it could be a high T2 deck. They shut down the game really quickly if they make it to the right point.
- I wonder what will happen to Quest Shaman. The aggro evolve ones feel better to me at the moment.
- Tempo Rogue is certainly better than it used to be.
- Not a fan of any of the variants of Flamewaker mage as of yet.
- Secret Paladin is fine. Not scared of it though.
I do not think it is straight trash but more a first attempt. The coming weeks will lead to more consistent variants is my expectation. I tried one variant with secret package and one without; both are fun but I always kept Antonidas to close the deal late game. I think I will now first try some mecha'thun combo against all that n'zoth trash.
i agree it will improve. I was just saying that the the all in otk thing thats popular right now is not a good or sustainable build,. Flamewaker, generally, is the nuts, and I'm sure better versions will be found.
Perhaps I'm seriously misremebering, but for someone who joined HS well after Renounce Warlock was in Standard, I could have sworn seeing people talk from time to time about how good/strong/fun it was. Was that all in my imagination and the deck was always a hot mess?
Trying it out today and whoo boy - aside from that 50% of the time I don't draw the card at all, the other 45% when I do play it delivers usually a trash fire of mismatched nonsense. I've seen some other people luck out some crazy synergies (one particular person had about 4 rush cards on top of a Spirit of the Rhino so nice for them), but in probably 10 games I don't think I've won a single one.
Was there some secret to playing this deck in that past that I'm missing?
It was your imagination. It was never good or strong. It only came close to like T5 status based wholly on the back of Barnes+Y'Shaarj
It's popular to rip Hearthstone right now (and understandably so), but this was an incredible tournament. Great players throughout the Top 8. GM spots on the line. Hakkar in multiple decks. A completely deserving winner.
Just awesome.
The meta is still young. Shaman is far from unchecked. We just need to get there.
Highlander Secret Paladin reminds me a lot of Even Paladin after the Call to Arms nerf. It's a bad deck. It doesn't do anything impressive. It should be relatively easy to beat...but it is surprisingly good at top decking into answers.
Ah makes much more sense. But yeah - that deck dumpsters lategame decks that don't play maly.
I wonder if it can ever find a good enough balance to have more reasonable game against aggro. It'd be a terrifying deck at that point.
what do you need the backstab for?
What are you playing? Is it a deck that can pressure Priest well enough for the extra Zihi turns to matter?
The best way to beat priest is to play one of the decks that don't care about attacking them until you win.
So you're playing Warrior?
apropos of nothing, I have a suspicion that, once things settle down a bit, Control Warrior should find itself in a prety good spot in this metagame. It has the tools to beat Aggro Shaman and Combo Priest. And with Emperor, 2x Elysiana should beat all but the greediest of priests. There's also completely viable Mecha'Thun variants.
There are Druid and Quest Shaman problems, but nothing is bullet proof right now.
What deck that targets shaman is autolose to Secret Paladin?
Rule #1 of Resurrect Priest - it doesn't matter how many other minions have died this game, Mass Resurrection will always play the maximum available number of Psychopomps.
I would rather play against a degenerate evolve shaman than a degenerate resurrect priest every day of the week.
The version of highlander hunter I meant was the version that cuts the secret package. That version has been the worse of the two for about 2 weeks now.
Some thoughts from Day 3/4 of our new meta:
- Evolve Shaman and Combo Priest are the aggro decks of choice IMO. Not sure which is better. Spirit of the Frog turned Evolve Shaman into a more consistent deck.
- Druid is again trying to figure out what its best win condition is. It probably won't settle on something until the metagame settles.
- Highlander Hunter is well positioned as probably the best midrange deck.
- Holy Wrath Paladin is in a decent spot at the moment with all of the greedy AF N'Zoth decks and it has an okay mu against Priest/Shaman.
- At least one of these greedy N'Zoth decks feels like it could be a high T2 deck. They shut down the game really quickly if they make it to the right point.
- I wonder what will happen to Quest Shaman. The aggro evolve ones feel better to me at the moment.
- Tempo Rogue is certainly better than it used to be.
- Not a fan of any of the variants of Flamewaker mage as of yet.
- Secret Paladin is fine. Not scared of it though.
I am SHOCKED that Blizzard's plan of "keep pretending this hasn't happened" isn't working for them....
Personally, I would find it enlightening. But I understand that some people don't want to read as many paragraphs about HS as I do.
Am I blind? Or is Boar not playing N'Zoth in his DR Rogue but is playing Emperor+ Scheme...
Great insights. Especially for people like me who only play arena once every few months
I really like your articles. It's good to show people how to actually build decks and why things are in a deck as opposed to others.
i agree it will improve. I was just saying that the the all in otk thing thats popular right now is not a good or sustainable build,. Flamewaker, generally, is the nuts, and I'm sure better versions will be found.
TBH I think that Flamewaker deck is straight trash. But, kind of like Murloc Paladin, sometimes you high roll pretty easy wins.
It was your imagination. It was never good or strong. It only came close to like T5 status based wholly on the back of Barnes+Y'Shaarj
It may have been "fun" I guess.