The Darkmoon Faire Mini Set is literally around the corner and we're very excited about it: the Standard meta does not have a tyrant like Evolve Shaman anymore, but Darkmoon Faire hasn't been the most impactful of the expansions and a few new cards are what we need to shake up the meta. The Mini Set will launch tomorrow, on Thursday 21st, but in the meantime you want to get to those rank floors so that you'll be able to freely experiment with the new toys.
For that purpose, we rounded up a bunch of decks, quite the mixed bag we could say: we have strong lists, emerging archetypes and fun memes - no matter your tastes, you should find yourself at home!
Felsteel Demon Hunter
This list is particularly popular in the high ranks of the China servers. While some cards it runs are fairly popular, it has some rather amusing inclusions. For example, Insatiable Felhound, Escaped Manasaber, Bone Wraith and Felsteel Executioner are not cards you see everyday. In particular, the last one seems to be one of the most performing units in the list. As Geyuan, the CN meta reporter that provided us with this deck, said: it is "a key card".
We suggest to always be sure that you'll have a 4-drop to corrupt your Felsteel Executioner, especially if you're on coin, given that a 3 mana 4/3 weapon can be incredible for a class like Demon Hunter. Here's a more value-oriented build that gives up Bone Wraith for Zai, the Incredible's incredible value.
Vkim's Highlander Demon Hunter
Since Demon Hunter has so many good aggressive cards at their disposal, it would be a shame for Illidan to not be able to run them all. But hey, Zephrys the Great has still a couple of months in Standard and it is a complete powerhouse of a card, able to carry deck on its shoulders by itself. This deck has a gameplan pretty similar to Highlander Hunter: aggression with Highlander cards to close the game. Demon Hunter does not have a top-end card like Dinotamer Brann, but it has 3 Far Sights for the cost of 2, Mass Dispel on a stick and Kibler's worst nightmare, so you should not have a hard time winning games.
Face Hunter
Another deck that is rising in popularity after the recent wave of nerfs. Compared to its last iteration, this Face Hunter runs the new Rinling's Rifle (players realize it's too good not to be run) and especially Knife Vendor: pretty much like Prince Keleseth Zoolock of a few years ago, you don't really care about your life total, because your opponent is going to die before you anyway.
Highlander N'Zoth Paladin
Remember the Standard Rising Decks article of a few days ago? Back then we included a Highlander Paladin list provided by HSReplay, but we also suggested that you should've operated a few changes in order to make it more performing. Well, here's what we were thinking about! This list runs a very interesting Menagerie package that will ultimately result in a great N'Zoth, God of the Deep late-game swing. Kobold Stickyfinger is not as necessary as it was a few weeks ago, but Bomb Warrior is rising in popularity, so for now Acidic Swamp Ooze and Zephrys the Great should be more than enough.
SKYTBS's Pen Flinger Rogue
Hey, loser! Tempo Rogue got nerfed, but if you still want to play lots of spells in a single turn and be rewarded for it, then Prize Plunderer and Questing Adventurer are not the only friends you can count on. Pen Flinger your opponents to death like Reno Priest does in Wild and, if you really need more time, you can always chill in the darkness with Cloak of Shadows and start chipping damage again on the following turn.
On a side note, when a Hearthstone deck starts running Stonetusk Boar you know something weird is going on.
Vicious Syndicate's Aggro Shaman
Boggspine Knuckles' nerf was a heavy hit for Shaman, but Thrall is far from being out of the meta. As Evolve Shaman goes down, Aggro Shaman rises. This list, featured in the last Vicious Syndicate meta report, is all about damage. While it includes many new cards like Inara Stormcrash (basically a Doomhammer with a body), Cagematch Custodian (one of the best cards in the last and and for the metas to come) and Stormstrike (board control and burst together; Shadow Bolt is crying in a corner), you also have the chance to play some niche cards like the very forgetful Cumulo-Maximus and the good old Rockbiter Weapon for great Doomhammer/Inara burst turns.
Ike's Menagerie Aggro Warrior
Ringmaster's Baton is a sleeper of the set and no one can convince me otherwise: the card is potentially a 2 mana ping three times and +9/+9, which is nowhere near bad. Warrior currently has way better tools and way too few reasons to go all-in on Menagerie and not play Risky Skipper the way she's been played since January 2020, but this does not mean that said deck is unplayable.
In fact, if you manage to get a decent mulligan and stack a couple of buffs on minions like Faerie Dragon, Stage Hand and Southsea Deckhand, you can snowball all the way through the victory pretty easily.
Ike's N'Zoth Warrior
There are two ways of playing Menagerie Warrior: one is the aggressive way with Ringmaster's Baton and lots of cheap units (see above), and the other one is here in front of your eyes.
N'Zoth, God of the Deep is such a sweet card: it's the least played Old Gold, but it is by far my favorite one. This deck heavily relies on its effect as any non-aggro Warrior,.This list runs a wide variety of removals, mixed together with a rather large Taunt package with Into the Fray and Armagedillo as the most representative units - being able to land a +2/+2 on Carnival Clown is quite good, believe me. You should be able to stick at least one big body per turn and, when your opponent is out of removals, you drop N'Zoth can close the game.
What do you think of these decks? Have you met any of them on ladder yet? What are you playing right now? Share your own deck creations with the community by adding them to our deck database via our deckbuilder and sharing them in the comments below.
Comments
Haha thanks for the pen flinger rogue deck. Its hilarious! Flinger must the most annoying card so far, those voice lines....
I've had good weapon opening luck this year. Since I have the felsteels, I'll give that list a whirl. The ringmaster's Baton... I've got em, they're fun, but I gas out all the time playing a deck like that. I don't have watley, so that'd help. Will still whirl that deck too. Whirlings, commence!
Ringmaster Whatley is a super sweet card - I'm very disappointed we didn't get any Menagerie support in the mini set, but the card still has room to grow in the future.
I ran into that Aggro Shaman list yesterday. Doomhammer + Stormstrike + Rockbiter Weapon is a lot of damage! I lived through two turns of that and thought I had scraped by enough to survive one more and then he dropped Inara on me. Just crazy.
Bomb Warrior got me up to D3 last week but it feels like the meta shifted to counter it more over the weekend. I'm at 991 wins for my 1000 portrait. Don't think I'm quite going to get there before the miniset!
[Hearthstone Card (Kibler's worst nightmare) Not Found] made me laugh! The mini set seems good enough to shift the meta, except for Libram Paladins, that'll shurely stay.
I haven't played DH in a while, but that Felsteel list looks cool. Will try it out tonight. Thanks for the article!
That does not seem correct :D
You know what's funny? I wrote this article before the mini set got announced, so I had to edit the intro.
For some reason though, my brain farted pretty hard and failed that task.
Anyways, thanks for pointing that out ;)
Tomorrow is Thursday. Sorry :D
Avalon's brain is just on holidays, excuse him: he's a really nice guy.
Don´t worry. Eat this and you´ll be fine again :)
Great article anyway :)
I've fixed it again, since tomorrow (21st) is not Friday.