hearthstone Hearthstone Meta Discussion: Whispers of the Old Gods, One Month In

[L0rinda 307]

It seems like Whispers of the Old Gods has been with us for a long time, but in fact the set has only been out for a month, and the meta is still evolving. This article takes a look at how the game has looked in the last week.

As with the previous article, I’m still not going to put the decks into tiers. I will list the classes in order of most commonly encountered to least common, and then discuss the archetypes being played within each class.

Shaman is still the class that defines the rest of the meta. It has now split into two distinct archetypes. The most common by about a 2:1 ratio is Midrange Shaman. This archetype is typically defined by Thing from Below and Lightning Storm. Many other cards see play, Tuskarr Totemic,  Thunder Bluff Valiant, and Mana Tide Totem being three of the most common. The more aggressive version is usually recognised by Argent Horserider. With the early games of the two archetypes being so similar, it is often hard to tell them apart until it is too late. It is usually best to mulligan for a fast start against Shaman, and wait to see one of the cards mentioned above.

Warrior is seeing a lot of play, mainly because there are so many different archetypes available. People are still playing Tempo and Control, but you also have to look out for powerful Dragon Warrior decks, which play like a slightly faster version of Tempo. Pirates is also a deck to be feared. If you run into a Warrior, you should be sure to keep one early game card to defend against the aggressive archetypes. If you get too defensive though, you might struggle against Control variants, so don't overreact too much. While Patron still turns up from time to time, it is pretty much accepted that in the current meta, many of the other options are simply better.

Warlock is back to normal, and Zoo is running riot again. Players have started to get more aggressive, adding Soulfire and Mortal Coil to their arsenal. While RenoLock is seeing a decent amount of play in tournaments, on ladder there are too many Shamans around for it to thrive. You should mulligan as if your opponent is playing Zoo, but get suspicious very fast if they do nothing on turn one.

Those are the three main classes in the meta at this time. After a sizeable gap, Mage is probably next. This is because Tempo Mage deals reasonably well with Tempo Warrior, and can also be tuned towards beating Zoo too by using Flamestrike. Although you will encounter some Freeze Mage, it is hard to know you are playing against it, because if the Mage misses their Mana Wyrm on turn one, they often do nothing of note until turn four. Don’t presume your opponent is playing Freeze Mage unless you have seen an early Loot Hoarder, Novice Engineer or an Acolyte of Pain.

The big climber since the previous discussion is Hunter. Although the class hasn’t changed much, players have started to add Doomsayer for some extra early game in their mid Hunter. Hunter two drops are so bad, and their mid game is so good, that this is surprisingly effective. Mr Yagut went on a huge winning run with it in his Hunter to help the popularity of the class. Be aware that some players save the Doomsayer for turn five if they get a little behind, which helps them to play Savannah Highmane on an empty board. Although you see the occasional N'Zoth, the Corruptor, or Yogg-Saron, Hope's End in Hunter, these archetypes can be all but ignored at the current time.

Rogue is still being played, and is almost entirely Miracle. Paladin is also pretty one-dimensional at the moment, with N’Zoth still seeing some play, but aggressive decks being almost entirely eliminated.

Druid could potentially be the sleeper in the coming days. It is not seeing much play at the moment, but various streamers have started experimenting with Yogg Druid, with reasonable results. With so many variants of the few Druids you see, just be prepared to deal with an early Innervate into Fandral Staghelm. That is the most destructive thing that you will see on a reasonably regular basis.

Priest is seeing little play. Outside of control Warrior, control decks are finding it tough at the moment to be consistent enough to deal with the wide range of threats the metagame is posing. If the metagame polarises, then decks will be able to be better tuned to specific threats, and there are still plenty of avenues to be explored before we write control decks off!

As always, you can check out guides to most of these archetypes in our guides section.

[AptypR 8]

Great post! I think it's about NA server's meta. On EU there are not a lot of warrior, hunters, zoo and tempo mages are above them I guess.

[Casino214 2]

It's true that aggro hunters, aggro shamans and zoo warlocks are filling hearthstone at the moment, but what do you think will counter them? Because I've tried a bit of control with little success.

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, Casino214 said:

It's true that aggro hunters, aggro shamans and zoo warlocks are filling hearthstone at the moment, but what do you think will counter them? Because I've tried a bit of control with little success.

Unfortunately, those first few turns are always decided by mulligan and early draw. You have to mulligan so aggressively as control in order to make sure you draw, for example, weapons as Warrior.

[asherpen 1]

Thanks for your guides! Just want a reminder if any new deck is added to the guides, so that I won't have to check every class's page back and forth.

[positiv2 952]

3 hours ago, asherpen said:

Thanks for your guides! Just want a reminder if any new deck is added to the guides, so that I won't have to check every class's page back and forth.

If you go to hearthstone section of our site, you can see changelog on the right of the page (you might need to scroll down a bit, depending on your monitor). It includes changes made to decks and new decks as well.

[asherpen 1]

It's great! I used to bookmark the "Decks and Guides for Constructed Play" page, so I didn't notice that part on your homepage. Thank you!