hearthstone Sottle's Weekly Meta Analysis - Week of 08/02/2015 - 15/02/2015

[Sottle 221]

 

Sottle's Weekly Meta Analysis - Week of 08/02/2015 - 15/02/2015

 

Hello again friends! Welcome back to a weekly article where I discuss what's hot, what's not and how you should be building decks to fight back against the meta.

 

Common Decks & Cards

 

Since we last visited the Meta, one deck has emerged as a serious contender, namely Oil Rogue. Oil Rogue is a deck that built on the early groundwork laid by the initial Control Rogue deck that emerged soon after the release of GvG. Using combinations of cards like Tinker's Sharpsword Oil and Blade Flurry to create huge burst damage and clear even the biggest of boards, Oil Rogue is a deck that has very few losing matchups and completely dominates certain decks like Midrange Paladin and Ramp Druid. The emergence of this new Rogue deck has led to a few significant shifts. Firstly, the Druids that were previously running Ramp builds, are now switching to Fast Druid decks in order to create enough pressure on the Rogue players. Secondly, Control Warrior has re-emerged in the meta, since that deck is one of the few hard counters to Rogue available, usually Warrior can simply armour up throughout the match and outlast the amount of damage in the Rogue's deck. Thirdly, Mech Mage has taken a small hit in popularity, since Rogue is able to quite comfortably deal with their fast starts with cards like Backstab and SI:7 Agent.

 

In terms of card choices, both Harrison Jones and Loatheb have increased in popularity this week due to their strength against Rogue. Since Ramp Druid has decreased in popularity, The Black Knight is being included less often, while the decrease in Aggro decks like Mech Mage has led to less Zombie Chow's being played.

 

The arms race between Big Game Hunter (BGH) and cards with 7 or more attack has stabilised this week. Previously, deck builders were in a state of turbulence, with some people including two copies of BGH in their decks in order to counter the frequencey of Dr. Boom and other high priority targets, which led to others cutting BGH targets from their decks entirely. However, this game of tug of war has settled down to the point where a single BGH is the norm in many decks, and Dr. Boom is very often the only BGH target to be found.

 

The other new deck to emerge this week is Aggro Mech Shaman. This deck shares a lot of cards, and good and bad matchups, with Mech Mage, but has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. Time will tell if this deck is a new contender, or just a flash in the pan deck, but for the past week it has been posting some impressive results with many people achieving high Legend ranks.

 

Class Power Rankings

 

 

1. Rogue

 

 

 

Rogue takes the number 1 spot this week. It is extremely well rounded, with only Control Warrior offering a hard counter currently. As the deck that people are having to consider when building their own decks, it is fully deserving of the number 1 spot.

 

 

2. Mage

 

 

Although Mech Mage has taken a small hit this week due to the strength of Oil Rogue, it is still a high power deck, capable of winning any matchup with the right draw. Freeze Mage has also emerged as a significant contender due to the drop in Aggro. Aside from Fast Druid and Warrior, which are both very poor matchups, Freeze Mage is very well placed to deal with everything else in the Meta, including Oil Rogue.

 

3. Druid

 

 

Druid continues to be a consistently strong performer. Although the two most viable archetypes, Ramp and Fast Druid, are quite similar in terms of card choice, the drastic difference in matchups between the two usually means that one or the other will be well positioned in any given meta. In this case, it is Fast Druid that is well positioned, with strong matchups against Warrior and Oil Rogue, and the ability to blow any deck out of the water with the right draw.

 

4. Warrior

 

 

Warrior comes in at a healthy 4th this week, mainly due to its powerful winrate against the most dominant deck in the meta. The strong matchup against Oil Rogue is enough to cement it as a decent choice, despite its weaker winrate against Fast Druid. It also offers a few other nice perks, such as a complete shutout win vs. Freeze Mage and strong matchups against most Aggro decks.

 

5. Priest

 

 

I'll hold my hands up on this one. My experience with Priest still echoes my recent sentiments in previous meta reports. I find the class to be uninspiring, and generally just underpowered in relation to what other classes are doing. However, two players, Zetalot and Pavel have held Rank 1 Legend with Priest this week, with the latter holding it for almost an entire week. That sort of dominance doesn't happen without the deck being appropriate, so I have to accept that I may be wrong on my evaluation and give Priest a reasonable 5th.

 

6. Paladin

 

 

Paladin take a huge hit this week, due mostly to the horrible matchup the deck has against Oil Rogue. Rogue is able to pick apart the early game of the Paladin far too efficiently, with clean answers like Fan of Knives and Blade Flurry to the Paladin's usually intimidating board states involving Muster for Battle. Although the deck is relatively well positioned against other decks still, the inefficiencies against Rogue are far too severe to overlook.

 

7. Hunter

 

 

Oh how the mighty have fallen! What was once the absolute terror of the ladder has now been relegated almost to a sideshow deck. With the destructive power of Undertaker gone, most Hunter decks now have too many answers to be a dominant deck. Face Hunter loses outright to Control Warrior and struggles to keep up with the damage output of Oil Rogue. Midrange Hunter is picked apart by Rogue's efficient removal, and is outpaced by Mech Mage. While there is a new version of Control Hunter that is starting to make a splash in tournament, it is yet to prove any significant impact on the ladder meta.

 

8. Shaman

 

 

Shaman is a relative non-mover this week. Although Mech Shaman has come along and made a splash on the ladder, it still struggles to show any particular benefits over Mech Mage. It has strong matchups against Druid, and is perhaps more favoured against Oil Rogue than the Mage version is, but overall, the strength of the Mage cards like Snowchugger and Goblin Blastmage make it a vastly superior choice.

 

9. Warlock

 

 

I promise this is as shocking to me as it might be to you, but I think Warlock may actually be the weakest ladder class right now. Zoo is still struggling to find a foothold. Without the oppressive Undertaker openings at its disposable, it gets picked apart by Oil Rogue, or outpaced by the starts of Mech Mage and Mech Shaman. Handlock on the other hand is struggling to combat the amount of speed, burst, and Big Game Hunter in the meta, leaving Warlock in a poor place overall. Perhaps the most successful Warlock deck currently is a hybrid Demonlock deck, that plays a large amount of Zoo style early game cards, but piles in additional late-game. Even this deck however, is struggling to make a significant impact on the meta.

[KevinGarnett 0]

That would explain why my mid-range hunter has dropped a few ranks! How would you recommend altering the mid-range hunter deck that you've listed on the constructed hunter page to handle the current meta? should i turn it into a control hunter? has anybody tried using a mech hunter to keep it aggressive?

Edited February 19, 2015 by KevinGarnett