Wow! HSReplay.net dropped a stats bomb this evening looking at the current winrates and popularity of Hearthstone's classes in the Standard meta and the results may or may not surprise you.
If you've been laddering at all in Standard this expansion, you've seen your fair share of Mages and Paladins so it should be little surprise that these classes are at the top, but did you know together they are responsible for 50% of decks played at Diamond to Legend? Of course, these stats aren't official and they only look at the higher-end of the ladder, but HSReplay has enough data to make a solid conclusion that these classes are doing too well so far in Forged in the Barrens.
We don't know what Blizzard is thinking about it yet, or if nerfs are even needed yet since it is still very early in the meta and solutions could still be discovered by players, but we do think this is a bit on the crazy side. Here is the breakdown of popularity and winrates on the Standard ladder for each class.
What do you think about Standard's ladder so far in Forged in the Barrens? Have you been on the Mage and Paladin hype train? Let us know your thoughts on the current meta in the comments below including cards you think could be potential nerf targets.
Quote From @HSReplayNet Yes, you read that right.
Over 50% of decks played since Forged in the Barrens' release have been Paladin or Mage.(Delta is in comparison to the week previous to FitB's release)
Looking to Join the Club?
Well, we'd be silly to not include lists to further increase the popularity of Mage and Paladin so here are up-to-date lists for all the fun flavors that are worth playing.
Secret Paladin
Libram Paladin
Libram Broom Paladin
No Minion Mage
Comments
How do they not have the proper time to fully test everything? They're working on sets in advance and have to be aware of what has the potential to be broken and abused and what doesn't.
The simple fact we have these problems and they are quick to change them shows the broken decks are unintentional. That doesn't mean they didn't intend to make Refreshing Spring Water and Sword of the Fallen strong, just that they hadn't been able to play test enough to see how strong they would be in the resulting meta.
There are many factors in that failure, not just time. The whole HS team is a bit over 100 people the last I heard, but only a fraction of those are in final design and have any say in the power of cards. Then ask that handful of people to play test the entire set in <4 months, with cards being tweaked the entire time so the internal meta is shifting just like it does with buffs and nerfs in the meta we see, and it is easy to see how difficult it can be for them to get everything right.
Let's do a bit of maths to help show the challenge they're up against: let's suppose there's 10 people in final design, and an active player-base of 10,000 (certainly an underestimate!) in the first week of an expansion. 4 months is ~122 days, but they're working hours, so we're looking at (122 days)*(8 hours per day)*(10 players) = 9760 hours of testing per expansion (maximum!).
Compare to 1 week in the hands of players (assuming an average play time of 2 hours a day in that time): 7*2*10,000 = 140,000 hours = 14 times more than final design had. In other words it takes players about half a day to test as much as the devs can in 4 months. If I had been more realistic with my numbers it would be even faster.
Tl;dr: you'd think 4 months is long enough, but it's not even close.
The other factor here is rotation. I've been trying to play Taunt Druid on ladder (without much success), and I've noticed that Teacher's Pet has a much better deathrattle nowadays because of how small the 3-drop beast pool has gotten.
I think Mage and Paladin have been similarly improved on the fringes thanks to rotation, which is really hard to fully account for in testing. Combine that with great new stuff like "0 mana draw 2" and you get this kind of mess. Still, this is egregious enough that I'm surprised they didn't see it coming.
Let's be honest, they should definitely have foreseen a card that is better than Pot of Greed would be a problem. You don't even need to look at the context to know that; it's like the cardinal rule of TCG/CCGs.
Not seeing/fully appreciating the problem specifically with Deck of Lunacy is easier to forgive, likewise with Sword of the Fallen. Secret pally has been pushed twice and failed twice between TGT and Barrens, so it makes sense they'd push the power higher this time.
I think they must have assumed No Minion Mage would be less popular/strong. Refreshing Spring Water is a much cooler card in a deck with some minions, and becomes a more interesting potential inclusion that you really have to think about.
They were obviously wrong, but I can kind of see why they might have thought that. They removed a lot of the best face damage in Mage, and added in a Hero Power package that uses a lot of minions and seems like a cool control finisher. Also, the archetype a) wasn't oppressively strong or powerful before rotation, and b) didn't gain a ton of new stuff. (The most common list for this deck only runs two new cards - 2x Runed Orb and 2x Refreshing Spring Water).
That's a big part of why I think the rotation plays a major role here. This deck is really strong in the context of what a lot of other classes are trying to do right now with their archetypes post-rotation, and it blows them out of the water.
I completely agree that set rotation is another huge factor that I had missed, despite not saying so explicitly in my previous response (I gave you an upvote for it instead).
I still think The Spring Water was obviously overtuned even in a deck with minions. Mage is the most spell-focused class after all, and though I don't know the statistics, I expect normal mage decks will be at least 50% spells. At which point Spring Water is on average a 2 mana draw 2 without even trying to make it work. If it cost 5, then it's an Arcane Intellect on average, which is much more reasonable, but even then I'd be uneasy with it just because of how easy it is to make a spell-dominated mage deck.
I think the idea of the card is cool, but the execution was obviously flawed. It can absolutely be salvaged though. If it refreshed 1 mana each time and still cost 4 then the whole card makes sense power-wise and doesn't lose any flavour.
I played DH release and Galakrond Shaman meta and I find the current meta much worse.
The more highroll-y nature of pally and mage drawing specific cards in the first few turns can make it feel worse, certainly, but I'm not sure it actually is. At least I have more hope when they don't highroll than I ever did against the more consistent DH and Galakrond Shaman.
In the end the human brain is pretty bad at comparing emotions separated by a year, and usually treats present emotions as stronger than past ones, even if they actually aren't. That is not to say "I'm right, you're wrong", just that it's probably not possible to compare them fairly.
I must be a really bad paladin player coz I have no idea how that secret paladin list made it to tier 1. All my opponents play around my secrets and I never have enough secrets for any real Cannonmaster Smythe value. The 2 libram lists above perform so much better, so clearly I'm doing something wrong 🤷♀️
You just need to avoid netdecking garbage decks/lists. Here's the good one:
### Secret Libram Paladin
# Class: Paladin
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Gryphon
#
# 2x (0) First Day of School
# 2x (1) Aldor Attendant
# 1x (1) Avenge
# 2x (1) Galloping Savior
# 2x (1) Knight of Anointment
# 2x (1) Oh My Yogg!
# 2x (1) Pen Flinger
# 2x (2) Hand of A'dal
# 2x (2) Libram of Wisdom
# 2x (2) Sword of the Fallen
# 2x (3) Northwatch Commander
# 1x (4) Cariel Roame
# 2x (5) Aldor Truthseeker
# 2x (5) Libram of Justice
# 1x (5) Taelan Fordring
# 1x (7) Lady Liadrin
# 2x (9) Libram of Hope
#
AAECAaToAgSEwQOR7AOoigTIoAQNyrgD/bgD6rkD67kD7LkDysEDns0Dn80Dg94DzOsDzusDz+sD2+4DAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
I think the real issue here is unfortunately Cannonmaster Smythe is currently bad. If you're not going the libram route, its better to go for early game and burst late game with weapons like Hammer of the Naaru. Your early game tempo and secrets should be enough to handle mage so your late game just steamroll past their mana cheating bs while against other paladin there's early game Crabrider, Crossroads Gossiper and Conviction (Rank 1) which should be enough to pull through to the finish line.
Exactly don't understand that WR at all and even I have faced almost no secret paladins last 3 days.
The deck dominates at lower ranks where people don't know how to play around the secrets. People I play against constantly pop the secrets when it's not necessary to, which allows me to snowball with the tempo gained and the Crossroads Gossiper. However, a friend of mine who plays at above 500 legend says the deck is trash because people realise that the deck doesn't actually have much gas as long as you don't pop the secrets. The only way the Paladin gains tempo is by constraining your plays, but if played correctly, they won't have much they'll be able to do.
This is my experience, too. Secret Paladin is powerful, but it's definitely the people who don't feel like interacting with your secrets patiently that make the winrate skyrocket. It will also be much less powerful if Control Warlock gets the opportunity to play anti-aggro instead of full greed.
same here
Yeah, this state of the game is absolutely unsustainable. A few days ago it was even more Mage, but people have realised that Paladin is even stronger. Last saturday over 80% of my games were against Mage (the rest being against Paladin), now it's about 60% mage 30% Paladin 10% other. Add to this the huge amount of bugs (friends list, disconnects, Oh My Yogg!) and the game becomes nearly unplayable. We need balance changes today, before all the players who came back for the Core Set and FitB leave again. I've already seen it happen with some friends. Excited to try out the game again, get their face beaten in by endless Mages and Paladins, uninstall. These are the changes I would make:
Deck of Lunacy: 2 mana -> 4 mana (or spells that cost 3 more -> spells that cost 1 more)
Refreshing Spring Water: 4 mana -> 6 mana (or refresh 2 mana crystals -> refresh 1 mana crystal)
Sword of the Fallen: 3 durability -> 2 durability
Pen Flinger: deal 1 damage -> deal 1 damage to a minion
Aldor Attendant: 1/3 -> 1/2
don't forget Murloc Crabrider.
Why the fuck is there a 2-mana 1/4 with Rush AND windfury that just so happens to perfectly scale with Hand of A'dal.
Also, why are Caravans 1/3s. Buff those to 1/4 for fuck's sake
I don't know if it would be sufficient if Pen Flinger could only target minions. Most of the time it's used to clear your board after the your value trades or to get through that taunt minion you played. And having Rogue in mind this card has to be shut down completely by making it 2 mana imho.
Additionally I would propose that Librams should cost at least 1.
I think that would be fine, I don't think Pen Flinger needs to be killed outright. Making it only target minions would block the lategame Libram of Wisdom + Pen Flinger infinite damage combo, and would make it so Rogue can only use it for tempo and not as a finisher. Making it 2 mana would kill the card completely, which would be a shame since it's still an interesting card. I do like your suggestion of making Librams cost at least 1 mana, it's another example of why 0 mana cards are usually a very bad idea.
While they're at it, maybe they could speed up the animation like 90% for Pen Flinger.