Hearthstone Data Scientist Tian Ding has just posted an interesting tweet. He listed ten best performing decks from the first week of United in Stormwind meta – since today marks the week since the new set has launched. And
Here’s a full list:
- Face Hunter – 57.8% WR (60.4% going first, 55.2% going second)
- Elemental Saman – 54.8% WR (57.8% going first, 51.9% going second)
- Handbuff Paladin – 54.2% WR (58.0% going first, 50.4% going second)
- Aggro Elemental Shaman – 53.6% WR (57.1% going first, 50.2% going second)
- Rush Warrior – 53.3% WR (57.4% going first, 49.1% going second)
- Questline Zoo Warlock – 52.5% WR (57.0% going first, 48.0% going second)
- Spell/Token Druid – 52.2% WR (51.1% going first, 53.3% going second)
- Shadow Priest – 52.0% WR (57.6% going first, 46.4% going second)
- Poison Aggro Rogue – 51.9% WR (51.1% going first, 52.7% going second)
- Questline Shaman – 51.6% WR (53.5% going first, 49.7% going second)
Of course, not only it’s early data, but it’s unfiltered. We don’t know what ranks it comes from (Update: Tian confirmed that the data is from ~Top 1% of active players, which is actually pretty good!), it might include some poorly performing early builds of decks that got optimized later, it doesn’t take each deck’s difficulty into account and so on. However, what it does is dispels the notion that “solitaire meta” full of Questline decks and Turn 6-7 OTKs would be a thing in the long run. Most of those decks aren’t even on the list – they are just too weak and have mostly fallen off in high ranks already. Yes, Questline Mage is still the most popular deck overall, but it’s already only 4th in Legend. On the other hand, Legend got a huge influx of Questline Demon Hunters over the last couple of days, but that’s another story.
Of course, it doesn’t change the fact that meta is still very fast. Even if not mostly caused by OTK decks, all of the top decks are very proactive and try to finish the game quickly. Out of the entire Top 10, we don’t really have a single deck I would really call slow. And that’s probably what will be addressed in the balance update coming next week. The knee-jerk reaction to nerf Questline Mage, Warlock etc. that most of the players were proposing early would probably be a bad decision, since it would NOT make a real impact on the meta. Those decks are already on a downwards trend and it would just make their fall quicker. Hopefully, the balance update will do its job, because the current top decks really took off in terms of WR (nearly 58% for Face Hunter is HUGE when even 53-54% decks are usually classified as Tier 1 and often considered too powerful).
And what do you think about the current meta? Have you been enjoying it so far? If not, what are the things that you would change?
These are the best standard decks for United in Stormwind launch week. pic.twitter.com/4d6rUmds82
— Tian Ding (@sky_tding) August 11, 2021
Start first you win, nothing new about that.
I reached legend last sunday with elemental doomhammer shaman, hammer it’s good against mage and warlock, and lifesteal elemental it’s good against facehunter. Sure you are disadvantaged in the mirror against wack shaman, especially if you start second, otherwise good deck.
What do I think about the meta? I’m frickin done with it is what I am. FRICK MAGE. REALLY. I play a Questline Warrior and literally NO MATTER what I do, even if I play no minion, I always lose to them. like ALWAYS. Same goes for Warlocks. I don’t know what to do.
First step: stop playing shit decks.
Please help I’m losing my mind, there is NO counterplay. Every single game is the same I am not kidding
Except maybe Rush, Warrior is bad. Never play bad decks. All Shamans except Quest beat Mage. Poison Rogue beats it, too, but this deck is prolly on decline. Zoo Quest Warlock is usually faster than Mage. Face Hunter dumpsters Mages; this deck is too good at this point, tho. Quest Druid and Aggro Priest all have favorable matchups into Mage. Mage playrate is dropping a bit recently.
Shaman, Paladin, Hunter and QRogue are good vs. Warlock.
If you want to stick to your class, you can try to tech against them. Watch Posts, Cult Neophytes, Ogremancer and Robes of Protection can inteterupt them.
Important to note, that devs don’t like fatigue strategies, so there is no support for fatigue control archetypes. If you try to build a control deck, you need to think of a win condition. That can be Silas OTK, Big Minions with Battlemaster etc. If you decided on a win condition you should also think about if it is a realistic one and if you found one thats working, you can build your deck around it and tech accordingly. Thats all I can give for advice.
I’ve found Robes of Protection to be a wonderful idea, since all Mages can do against it is Fire Sale, and they need two without spell damage. Unfortunately this has still proved to be unreliable since I only have two Robes and sometimes Mages discover an extra Fire Sale.
However I hadn’t considered Watch Posts, thank you for the suggestion!
About win condition, typically my win condition is the warrior questline, and it does work against most classes but not against those that can deal damage to me regardless of board state, which Mages do. The problem with Warrior is that he has so many ways to deal with minions efficiently, but he can’t do sh*t against being fireballed in the face over and over again. And Mage consistently cleans my board every turn, so playing normally just fails. However Robes + Troublemaker tends to be a win unless Mage has already managed to complete their quest, which is what is difficult to prevent.
Warrior has just a bad matchup into mages. You have to accept that. The only really way is to play really big minions in combination with Robes of Protection and finish the game with Battlemaster to give your big bois windfury. This is a strategy that might work against mages, but if you build a deck like that, you probably lose to everything else. Still you can’t completely negate class identities. Hunter for example is supposed to lose to Warriors. So yes mage might have a broken deck now, but even without, Warrior is not necessarily supposed to win that much against Mages regardless.
It’s interesting that it is this way because I remember that not so long ago I used to crush almost all Mages with Warrior, because they simply lacked ‘pure’ removal like Warlocks, Warriors, and Rogues have. Instead they had only damage, which wasn’t enough against strong, buffed minions. Perhaps it was a particularly weak point for Mages too, that possibly helped.
I’ll seriously consider that suggestion. Thanks again
There are at least a half a dozen viable decks out there and my matches have been pretty competitive. I don’t think they really even need a balance update at the moment.
In the comments to the tweet, Tian Ding explains data shown represents top 1% of all active players, so it is not unfiltered.
Good to knows, thanks. The comment wasn’t there yet when I was posting it (I specifically looked for some data). That’s actually good – Top 1% is much more representative of what’s actually strong than looking at 100% of the players.
We still don’t know e.g. whether the data filters out bad builds that were only played during the first days. For example, first Questline Zoo Warlock builds have really poor WR according to HSReplay, but the new ones created a few days after launch are one of the best decks in the game. Not sure how the original data counts those.
The data is still very useful, but all I’m saying is that we would need a bit more info on how it’s gathered to really interpret it correctly 🙂
I think Facehunter just profits from all the combo decks that keep control decks in check. Once people realize what decks perform best, control will be more prevelant, also Rush/Tempo Warrior seems very strong into the listed topdecks. Therefore over time, I think meta will balance itself and Facehunter will drop a bit. Hard to evaluate Shaman or Paladin though. I hope they don’t change the meta too soon. Doesn’t seem necessary changing meta at all as long there is so much movement going on still, at least in my Opinion.
Agreed. Face Hunter just has to go face, doesn’t need a huge minion presence. I think so many people are trying for Quests that the face damage just snipes them off easily.
I know I’m not the best player around but I’m regularly at diamond and hit legend a couple of times. I can’t find a deck that works for me, face hunter as ever when I try it I can’t seem to win always run out of resources.
I’ve been getting beaten by quest Warlock and Quest mage I might win 10% of those match ups. I really enjoyed playing handlock for a bit but couldn’t really compete, garotte rogue tailed off in wins as did handbuff paladin. I think they need to nerf battlegrounds battlemaster Maybe along the lines of at the end of the turn give adjacent minions windfury for one turn or just simply up the cost by 1 or 2, the burst damage is too much.
i have a zoo list( not questline) and a Handlock (and yes i usually easily climb to legend) which i think are top contender in this meta. if you wish i can share
Which elemental shaman deck are we talking about here? There are several.
Looks like both the doomhammer variant(aggro) and the regular one are covered as 2 and 4 on the list. Just curious, which type of elemental shaman do you think is missing?
Aggro label is meaningless. One deck runs Doomhammer, another Whack.