It's been just over a week since the recent balance patch slightly shook up the meta, and with the May season still in its early days it's once again time to take a look at the decks at the top of the Standard meta. Here are the 5 decks for you to take out on the ladder and win with!
Or, if you're a contrarian, we've once again included a counter-pick for each meta deck, an off-meta (or off-off-meta) strategy that appears to do well against it - this brings our total to 10 decks for your viewing pleasure.
Unholy Death Knight
A new face has made it to the top of the pile: Unholy Death Knight, which uses a large swarm of creatures to overwhelm the opponent, take control of the board, then win the game with a big finish from either Grave Strength or Astalor, the Flamebringer. While many Unholy lists are experimenting with Famished Fool for card draw, the list we're spotlighting uses Gorloc Ravager in that spot to grab Murmy, Amalgam of the Deep, and Murlocula.
Counter-pick: Control Priest
While not necessarily great against most of the decks in the meta, Control Priest has a promising win rate against the current builds of Unholy Death Knight thanks mostly to its massive amounts of AoE removal and healing. This version of Control Priest also gets a little into larceny with Hipster and Identity Theft, and has Thrive in the Shadows and Dispossessed Soul to help it find the right answer at the right time.
Pure Paladin
Pure Paladin has been bumped from its spot atop the meta, but still clocks in as a respectable number two. While most of the cards in Pure Paladin builds remain the same from week to week, there's still room to experiment - as we can see from this list, which runs Anachronos as a panic-button removal option and The Garden's Grace for a huge buff (which works great with Kotori Lightblade).
Counter-pick: Spooky Mage
Mage makes its first appearance as a counter-pick, with ol' reliable Spooky Mage demonstrating that it has a decent advantage in games against Pure Paladin thanks to Freeze effects like Nightcloak Sanctum and Glacial Shard locking down big minions and Solid Alibi keeping the damage to a literal minimum. This list also shows off the newly buffed Infinitize the Maxitude for all of your infinite value needs.
Undead Priest
The swarm continues, unending. Undead Priest is once again relying on an army of Undead to feed its various Undeath payoffs. This list, for the most part, is unchanged from the previous week's, except that it adds in a single Bone Flinger for more tempo and the increasingly popular Pozzik, Audio Engineer.
Counter-pick: Hybrid Hunter
Why choose between Face Hunter and Big Beast Hunter when you can be both? This Hybrid Hunter uses Prince Renathal to give it extra Health and an excuse to run more cool cards like Dragonbane and Trinket Tracker. The extra Health tends to help against the aggressive Undead Priest, as does large Rush Beast Mister Mukla. ("Please, Mister Mukla is my father. Call me King Mukla.")
Frost Death Knight
Frost Death Knight is still kicking around, but hasn't adapted much to the changes in the meta or the nerfs to its cards. That's mainly because it's still a reliable ladder deck, leaning on the power of Frostwyrm's Fury to end games. This version of the deck swaps in an Astalor Bloodsworn for an extra way to win, now that it can't Discover extra copies of Fury.
Counter-pick: Menagerie Warrior
Those buffs certainly made an impact, and we're excited to finally see Warrior show up as a counter-pick. While Menagerie Warrior isn't yet a name to be feared across the meta, it has shown in recent days that it can win in a pitched battle against Frost Death Knight. This list uses buffs from the Beastly duo of Snapdragon and Party Animal to give its Battlecry Menagerie even more Oomph. For card draw, it has the appropriately-rated Roaring Applause for massive reload and Murloc maestro Gorloc Ravager to tutor Mistake, Amalgam of the Deep, and The One-Amalgam Band.
Big Demon Hunter
Big Demon Hunter is a deck that likes to be large and in charge, using cheats from Raging Felscreamer and Felscale Evoker to summon Brutal Annihilan and Illidari Inquisitor, then bring them back when All Fel Breaks Loose. This version of the deck can double up on key tools with a Snapshot from Photographer Fizzle, which will help feed the alternate win condition of Lady S'theno.
Counter-pick: Totem Shaman
If you want to beat Big Demon Hunter (who wouldn't?), the best thing to do is to keep generating a wide board until they run out of ways to get rid of your little minions. Totem Shaman excels at that sort of thing, with buffs from The Stonewright and Grand Totem Eys'or bulking its little Totems up, then Bloodlust will finish off an opponent who couldn't find that final piece of removal.
What top decks are you playing in Hearthstone this season? Share them in our deckbuilder and show them off in the comments below.
Comments
I think this is the correct Paladin Recipe, & it's even fun to play.
There's actually quite a nice variety of archetypes going around atm which is refreshing. Dare I say this meta is still evolving?
Seemingly every Totem Shaman I go against has The Stonewright in their opening hand; it can be disheartening after multiple games of it in a day. Guess that's what I get for playing Rogue during this rare moment of time the class isn't good 😕