Top Standard & Wild Legend Decks - Perils in Paradise (Week 10) - September 2024

By Stonekeep - September 29, 2024

The patch is finally here and it turned out to be much smaller than players have expected. It only had two nerfs to Big Spell Mage and a single buff to Shaman (mostly Reno Shaman, as that's the only deck touring into Hunter, others still prefer Demon Hunter). However, I have to admit that it did its job. Big Spell Mage has dropped from low Tier 1 to mid Tier 2. Its popularity has also decreased. Just before the patch, it had around 20-25% play rate in Diamond, right now it's at ~15%. It's still the most popular deck at those ranks, but no longer by such a huge margin. I'd say that it's still a bit too common in comparison to other meta decks (the second-most-popular deck sits around 7%), but it's definitely better than it was before.

On the one hand, one could argue that the patch was successful at what it aimed to do. It nerfed Big Spell Mage without outright killing it. We have some new variants popping up, such as versions cutting Surfalopod and Under the Sea, but most players still use the old builds (that's common shortly after the nerfs, and in this case they seem to still be viable). On the other hand, the scope of the patch was really small and many people would enjoy a bigger meta shake-up instead. I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer for that (or even much longer, more about it later).

Normally I skip the weekly decks roundup after a balance update, because pre-patch decks often don't work very well in the post-patch meta. But in this case, it's not really necessary, as the patch has shifted some power and popularity levels around, but it didn't make any decks that were previously viable unplayable. Long story short, it's still mostly the same decks we had a week ago, and two weeks ago, just with a little bit more room to breathe now that Big Spell Mage is no longer THAT popular (but most of the strong decks still target it given that it's still the most common matchup). Decks that were mostly played as Mage counters (such as Pain Warlock) have seen a small drop. At the same time, decks that were previously held back by Mage are a bit better now (like Odyn Warrior and Reno Warrior, although those two are still quite weak). Reno Shaman also has seen a noticeable increase in win rate as Turbulus is now a way better card. But that's pretty much it.

Overall, if you don't enjoy the current meta, I can't say that I have good news. I expect Patch 30.6 and the expansion announcement to happen within the next few weeks (early-mid October). That patch will have a new free Legendary card, but it's impossible to say whether it will be impactful (the last one we got - Marin the Manager - was amazing, but for example Colifero the Artist we got in Whizbang's Workshop was pretty bad). Then we might get a balance update a couple of weeks later, at least that's what happened in the last few sets. So there are probably about 4 weeks until the next balance update if we get it at all. So we'll probably have to wait over a month until the next expansion (early-mid November) for a bigger meta shift. Of course, all of that timing is just a guesstimate based on previous sets and the timing in this expansion so far. I'll definitely let you know as soon as we have any official info.

Below is a full list of the Legend decks from last week, sorted by the highest placement.