Masters Tour Dalaran is currently underway, including many notable participants along aspiring up-and-comers. The broadcast itself can take up to 11-12 hours just for a single day of competition, so it will be a while yet before we can see who starts coming up on top. This time we won't even have the final answers until Monday.
Will European players manage to stay awake during all these grueling Swiss rounds? Many of them have attempted to alter their sleep schedules just for this event. And they have to maintain perfect focus all the way through. So maybe Americas might benefit from their evening hours? They sure could use a win. Competitors from Asia are already used to fighting at weird times (and doing well at that, despite everything), so hopefully they won't be thrown off by the supposedly more convenient circumstances.
We have seen all lineups being released for public viewing now, and decided to jump in and highlight some of the more interesting trends. Let's have a closer look:
Following Along
If you'd like to find out who brought which decks or track their personal results as they go, head to one of these places:
- Official Battlefy brackets, that's the platform everyone uses for their matches (clicking on any name will take you to their lineups)
- d0nkey.top, for a very convenient list (you can view specific lineups, with easy to copy deck codes)
- NPH Pasca, diligently retweeting lineups and comments as personally shared by the competitors.
- Off Curve, for all your relevant spreadsheets.
With so many players out there it's definitely a tough task to keep track of all the lineups. Many of them invest countless hours into all kinds of testing and preparation, often as part of larger practice groups (which is why we might see many similarities across the board). This weekend will show who managed to predict tournament meta trends and react accordingly. Or just get there by playing the most agreed upon best decks.
HSEsports is already keeping in character, appropriately changing their Twitter avatar to that of Dalaran Mage, and posting cheeky stuff:
Quote From Hearthstone Esports Welcome to Dalaran everyone! Keep calm and no running please! Horde to the left. Alliance to the right. Behave or be sheeped!
Touché.
Popular Choices
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the most common lineups for this event tend to include:
- Control Priest - often with N'Zoth, God of the Deep or another Old God card, occasionally with a Flesh Giant package; guess just which class is the most likely to draw most bans again?
- Rush Warrior - a staple pick; some players include Archdruid Naralex or even go Overlord Saurfang route
- Miracle Rogue - darling of many competitors everywhere, you should know it well by now
- Lifesteal Demon Hunter - another darling for top players across the globe, the "most skill capped deck" in existence?
- Token Druid or Clown Druid - the latter to try to counter all these rushing Warriors
Besides that, barely any Paladins (such a huge fall from grace). Mages, Hunters and even Shamans have some fans, and a few people are trying to get lucky with Warlocks. All in all, not a particularly varied or unexpected spread of classes.
(Source)
One other clear trend? The big hungry murloc is (almost) everywhere. Mutanus the Devourer has found its way into the vast majority of all Priest and Warrior decks (and some other classes as well). Let's all enjoy eating Il'gynoth for breakfast.
As for the decks themselves, here is a handful worth a more detailed mention. If something captures your attention, do keep in mind that it doesn't necessarily have to translate well to ladder (you can't ban your worst matchup, after all). If you keep running into a specific deck that seems to counter your current pick, switch to something else! It's all about flexibility.
Demon Hunter
Lifesteal Demon Hunter remains the same as always, with the main choice being between Spectral Sight and Acrobatics, or whether to include Throw Glaive or any Sigils.
But not everyone is on board with that, and a few brave souls have decided to put their faith in the Deathrattle package instead. Below is one take from Silvors, with Kranich and BabyBear using slightly different variants.
Druid
Boring Gibberling and Carnival Clown aside, Jambre has recently tweeted about his top 100 NA climbing with this Maly-Owl Druid, jokingly telling people to play it to win Masters Tour Dalaran. He may not be participating in this event, but his spirit lives on as apparently Languagehacker and Monsanto (along with a few others) have decided to take "the bait". Welp.
Hunter
Moonfang is the name of the game. Orange seemed convinced that's the spicy tech to use, doing better than Zixor, Apex Predator. He even credited Hunterace for the assistance. Resizing Pouch is there as well, and players like Paradox, Meati, and PocketTrain have also jumped on this Moonfang bandwagon.
Priest
Imagine any possible take on Control Priest, and somebody has probably brought it. Any of the Old Gods, or none of them. Plus the real honorary Old God that is Mutanus the Devourer. WiRer went one step further and threw in his favorite Clockwork Giant card in there, following the theme from Dalaran Qualifiers. It is a Mech after all, so N'Zoth, God of the Deep might resurrect it. Right? At least BabyBear also thought that's a fine idea.
Rogue
Everyone loves Mutanus the Devourer, so why not put it in Rogue as well? Masters Tour Orgrimmar's champion Gaby saw no reason not to. Bunnyhoppor, Casie, and Lunaloveee also agree with this cute tech.
Shaman
Sprinkling some Elementals on top of the Doomhammer package isn't a brand new concept, but a fair number of people figured it's the way to go for this tournament. Kranich primarily among them, followed by okasinnsuke. They are in good company, with DreadEye not wanting to play Priest at all and bringing a fuller Elemental Shaman package instead (not too optimistic about his chances, however).
Warrior
Last but certainly not least, Rush Warrior is enjoying a truly great representation (in comparison, there are only a few Control Warriors trying to prove their superiority - see: Fled and Jarla). Most lists are very similar to one another, with Mutanus the Devourer being a prime pick, and Archdruid Naralex sometimes finding his way in. Usually without N'Zoth, God of the Deep. Players like Rase and Pascoa believe in the power of Moonfang.
Masters Tour Orgrimmar runner-up Viper and a few others took the less popular route, throwing in with Overlord Saurfang and Kresh, Lord of Turtling, while avoiding the one true Murloc (such sacrilege). Place your bets on which direction will come out on top.
The Rest
Mage is reasonably respected, but it's all the same old Spell archetype we know all too well. The only question is whether Deck of Lunacy is included. Kranich and Silvors seem to believe in its power, along with many others.
Nothing particularly new for Control Warlock either. Jarla is of course bringing it. Fled too, just adding in the beloved Mutanus the Devourer.
As for Paladin... it has pretty much become what Shaman was during the previous Masters Tour event. Only a few people thought to give it a shot this time. Oh, how have the tides turned.
Everything more or less as expected, or anything in here that stands out to you? Have any favorites to try out for yourself or particular hot takes to share? Let us find out below!
Comments
Its kinda sad but yet again we see that nearly everyone is bringing priest so the mandatory rush warrior is required as well, because nearly everyone will be banning priest. Which leads us to lifesteal dhunter and token druid bring because rogue and deathrattle dhunter are bad vs rush warrior.
Not alot of shaman, likely because of its linear gameplan which most pros tend to shirk away from. Which is baffling, because doomhammer shaman is legit. Maybe its the fear that face hunter will be everywhere.
So we're once again stuck with the same lineup before wailing caverns, despite shaman's top form. And at this point I can't really see anymore nerfs incoming unless Il'gynoth and Mindrender Illucia are being on the line. So guess its going to be quite a linear 2 months until the next expansion.
Honestly I feel like Druid (specifically Token) will have to get the bat sooner or later because it's the actual definition of uninteractive.
It's probably the only Standard deck I can remember that can literally win within the first 3 turns with legitimately 0 counterplay.
Also fuck Il'gynoth, that thing should never exist and is the main reason why I can't be bothered to watch tournaments. Literally nothing more boring than watching people draw their entire deck and then see the casters go "OOOOOOH IL'GYNOTH OFF SKULL, CRAZYYYY" every other game. OTK Demon Hunter is basically what people who no longer play Hearthstone feel like the game has turned into.
I think Il'gynoth is making tournaments insufferable to watch as well. Mostly because it is uninteractive, and the player either gets screwed because he couldn't draw cards or wins because he had exactly the cards he needs. Meanwhile the casters trying their very best to make the match look exciting by constantly reminding us what the player has got to do to outcast his skull.
It shares a similar vibe with druid decks. Doesn't seem to matter a whole lot what your opponent is doing, the deck largely gets beaten by itself.
But druid has been in this funk for a long time. Most top level druid decks is mostly single player; draw the exact cards you need or get shat on by everything and anything. At some point team5 have got to realise that a good druid's gameplan is cancerous, and start printing actual good cards for them while removing Innervate and Lightning Bloom from the game.
Got stomped by that Druid list and had no idea what the fuck that was even supposed to be.
After looking at the list I suspect I might have been highrolled into submission.
Hah, I would have never expected to see another unknown Druid deck (just relying on tempo or some such?), let alone find out it actually wins some games.
Heard Gaby talking about his choice and why he made them, interesting points were :
I think it sums up what all pro players feel and why, whatever the meta, all tournaments are stacked with the same 4, sometimes 5 and very rarely 6 decks.
Thanks for the extra context, that's very enlightening! I definitely can't find any fault with this reasoning as a whole.