Across the Timeways, the final Hearthstone expansion of 2025, is here, and there is a lot riding on this one. The meta has been a little dull recently, and Across the Timeways has a ton of really fun-looking cards that fit their classes like a velvet glove. But are they strong enough?
With the utmost confidence of 24 hours of experience of the new expansion, I will delve into this question. While we always see some changes, especially in the first week, the first day typically already gives us the majority of the strong archetypes. It’s just refinement from there, maybe a couple of decks that will be invented in the coming days, and then balance patches that turn things around.
Aggro Power!
Across the Timeways has some strong aggro decks.
One of my favorites is No Hand Hunter, a Hunter deck that makes use of several cards that want you to empty your hand, and also gives you tools to get some more cards into it. The deck really captures that old Face Hunter feel, but with a more modern twist. A real old-school Face Hunter would not have enough damage to get the job done in today’s game. No Hand Hunter has more sustain, so it is able to keep attacking better and has some more board control without giving up that feel of aggression and time pressure to get to the finish line.
This is currently the best-performing deck of the archetype as well as the best Hunter deck on the ladder:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Player:
6,400
Another incredibly fun and powerful aggro deck is Shred Warlock. You want to get some Shred of Time into your deck as soon as possible, and that will open up a 4-mana 7/7 Fatebreaker and two 5/5 Ruinous Velocidrakes for 5 mana. You can get a lot of stats on the board early, and you also have some reach from Corpsicle and Horizon's Edge, which makes defending a major challenge for the opponent.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 4,680
Shred Warlock has just one small problem. The old Warlock decks have not gone anywhere. Quest Warlock and Egg Warlock have been among the very best decks on the ladder at the start of Across the Timeways. With the Warlock package so focused on Shreds, the two old decks use no new cards, and they are still outperforming Shred Warlock, which is capable of climbing the ladder itself. Warlock has three viable decks, and the new one is the weakest of them.
For reference, here are the two old decks. Quest Warlock (no new cards):
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-139
- Player:
- 7,080
And here’s what Egg Warlock looks like (no new cards):
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-139
- Player:
- 9,480
I’ll Have One Husk to Go, Please
A similar phenomenon happens with Death Knight. There is a new Death Knight deck, or at least Herenn Death Knight has undergone some amount of rework to incorporate the Bwonsamdi package. It’s a good deck, too. Just blasting away with those Bwonsamdis and sometimes bringing them back. Interestingly, it is the Memoriam Manifest that seems to be left out in order to run Stitched Giants more comfortably.
If the deck is not completely unheard of, it does incorporate a significant package of new cards:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Player:
- 13,060
However, there is competition within the class. Control Death Knight is putting up a fight, and so far it looks like both BBB and BBU variants are slightly outperforming Bwonsamdi.
The BBB variant at least uses Husk, Eternal Reaper, and the card looks really good in the deck too.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 15,000
Sideboard
To Broxigar or Just Win, the Demon Hunter Dilemma
Demon Hunter also makes some use of new cards. Peddler Demon Hunter has reinvented itself with Broxigar and Perennial Serpent in its toolbox. Something old, something new.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 13,420
Sideboard
At the same time, the Peddler deck is only the second-best Demon Hunter deck on the ladder. The old Aggro Demon Hunter with no new cards is a little bit ahead.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 11,880
Sideboard
What a Deja Vu, I choose Fyrakk
For Rogue, the new expansion is condensed into Deja Vu. People still play Fyrakk Rogue, it is still good, and it added one new card.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Player:
- 16,360
Sideboard
The Old Path or the New Path for Paladin
And we see this over and over again, also at Paladin. There is a brand-new Aura Paladin on the ladder. There is also an old Aggro Paladin on the ladder. This is one competition where I can see Aura Paladin winning soon, because it looks quite promising and can still be refined further.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Player:
- 13,240
Sideboard
The New Zarimi Priest or the Old Protoss Priest
Like so many classes, Priest also has competing new and old decks on the ladder. For Priest, the new deck is a modified version of Zarimi Priest that runs Murozond, Unbounded and the rather impressive Whelp of the Infinite.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 17,940
Protoss Priest and Wilted Priest remain as options, but here I think Murozond is getting the upper hand.
Shaman Loves Muradin
Muradin, High King is one of the most interesting and potentially powerful new Legendary cards, because High King's Hammer is part of his Fabled package, and it brings a scary inevitability to the game. If you let your opponent whack at you long enough with that Hammer, you are going down, and the Hammer is not going away.
Shaman does not have a strong old deck to compete with the new ones, so it is embracing the new packages wholeheartedly. There are two ways that Shaman attempts to build around Muradin: either as a Nature package, or as an Aggro package.
Both decks have some potential and are a little over that magic 50% win rate, but neither looks like a contender for the top tier.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 8,800
Sideboard
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 6,460
It Has Chrono-Lord Deios, So It’s a New Deck
Warrior has wholeheartedly embraced Chrono-Lord Deios. The card is a great fit for Dummy Warrior to make Testing Dummy really go brr.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-140
- Posted By:
- 7,980
Is Across the Timeways Good?
This is one hard question. What is good, anyway? The final expansion of the year always struggles to change the meta. If it is strong enough to overpower all other five expansions in Standard, it will be a problem next year. If it does not make a mark, it is a disappointment right now. Being the third expansion of the year is a poor role to play.
From that perspective, Across the Timeways gives me hope. You can look at the top winrate stats and see that we have Egg Warlock, Aggro Demon Hunter, Control Death Knight, Quest Warlock, and Fyrakk Rogue leading the ladder. They use only a couple of new cards, Husk, Eternal Reaper and Deja Vu.
But if you look a little bit deeper, there are new decks too. Aura Paladin, No Hand Hunter, Shred Warlock are completely new, and all of them are viable, right behind those top decks. Some may still be refined to reach the top tier. Meanwhile, Murozond, Unbounded and Broxigar have caused some changes to existing archetypes. Muradin, High King is undeniably powerful as well. Druid and Mage have so far fallen flat, unfortunately.
Overall, I think we are close to having a new meta. It will take a balance patch to truly make the new expansion shine, but this is no Lost City of Un’Goro. There are perfectly playable new decks on the ladder. All they’d need is a small nudge to become great decks. That’s not bad for the final expansion of the year.
Old Guardian
Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
