Into the Emerald Dream meta is starting to stabilize. This stabilization is happening around a dominant force, Drunk Paladin, which is the most popular deck in Legend. Players in high ranks tend to either play Paladin or play a deck that tries to find some advantage against it.
If we take a game theory approach to the meta, the fundamentals are quite simple. As long as there is no overwhelming force without weaknesses, the meta should consist of whatever the strongest deck is as the most popular option, followed by decks that have some advantages against it, and then decks that have some advantages against those challenger decks. The exact percentages of each will change until everything evens out as closely as possible, and no one can gain an advantage. The meta is stable, and win rates between equally skilled players are at 50%. We have reached the system’s Nash equilibrium state. (I won’t venture deeper into pure and mixed strategies here.)
However, that is not how the Hearthstone ladder actually works. People are playing the game for fun. Obviously, you tend to have fun when you win, and powerful decks are always popular. But there is more to the story than just pure power. There are always decks and archetypes that see more play than their performance warrants, and decks that see less play than they should. Why? What makes people want to play specific decks? Why do they stay away from others? And what does that mean for the game?
The Control Player
No matter the meta, some people will always try to play control decks. Control Warrior, Control Warlock, and Control Priest are timeless classics.
What it means to be a control deck has changed over time. In classic Hearthstone, control decks were packed with the best removal tools of the day and with multiple big late-game threats. They tried to make their removal last just long enough to start dropping some bombs on the board, which in turn would overwhelm the opponent.
Later on, control decks were huge piles of removal tools that could overcome all of their opponents’ win conditions and win in fatigue. Now, control decks pack some kind of very late-game win condition like Kil'jaeden. It is generally not possible to run your opponent out of resources without a tool specifically designed for the task anymore, so the decks need specific support from Blizzard to give them that late-game win condition that they can build around.
The current meta is a tough place for control decks. Warrior players try to make control work, but with lukewarm results.
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Warlock players at least have their Wheel of DEATH!!!, but it has not found success as of late either.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
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There is an interesting twist to the Control Warlock idea with the recent Mill Warlock that is more of a control deck than an old-school mill deck:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
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With this Mill Warlock, you try to build up your Adaptive Amalgam with the help of Archdruid of Thorns so that it gains the Deathrattles of Prize Vendor and Gnomelia, S.A.F.E. Pilot. With these powers, you can make your opponent draw through their entire deck and deal some damage to them and to their entire board as you go. It is a comboish idea, but a very, very slow one. It also looks really hard to master (and I’m not sure it is good enough even if fully mastered).
The strongest control deck in the current meta is Blood Leech Death Knight, and it is not very good either.
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- Season: season-133
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Even with a thoroughly mediocre performance, and Death Knight being the fourth class choice among dedicated control players, Blood Leech Death Knight is the fourth-most popular deck on the ladder. That is far ahead of its performance level.
A slow, control playstyle has always attracted a sizeable crowd of Hearthstone players. Even though control decks have generally not been strong over the past couple of years, they remain popular.
While the game has moved in a direction where old-school control is not a valid concept, Blizzard has experimented with printing cards that support a control playstyle, such as Wheel of DEATH!!! and Kil'jaeden.
Priest, Mage, and Class Identity
Speaking of control, there are no viable Control Priest decks on the ladder right now. While some control players opt to move to another class that offers them the style of deck they want to play, players are also attached to class identity. Most Priest players simply want to play control.
Blizzard has offered Priest multiple aggro archetypes recently, and some of them have been top-tier powerful. Yet, their play rates constantly stay low. Whether it is Fishing Priest or Menagerie Priest or an aggressive Zarimi Priest, there is just no appetite for Aggro Priest decks. Aggro players don’t think of Priest as their go-to class. Priest connoisseurs want to play control.
Zarimi Priest’s evolution is fascinating. While the deck peaked in power during its more aggressive days, it has peaked in popularity as it has become slower. It is still no control deck, but it is the slowest Priest deck you can play right now, and something a Priest player can see themselves playing while waiting for better days.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
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Another example from the current ladder of a deck that sees play beyond its performance capabilities is Mage. Protoss Mage, and to a lesser extent Spell Mage, consistently maintains a noticeable ladder presence even though the performance just is not there. Mage is where all the old-school Hearthstone players started, and that spell-slinging fantasy remains at the core of the game for many.
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Blizzard has sometimes struggled with class identity. Priest is the clearest case where they have tried to push a class into a new direction over multiple expansions, but players don’t want to be pushed there. Other classes have had similar experiences on a smaller scale, such as Warrior being pushed away from its fatigue control style not only by the meta but also by Blizzard trying to entice Warrior players into Draenei or Taunt minions. And who even knows what Shaman’s class identity really is. Evolve?
Even when Blizzard is not trying to push a class in a new direction, the power level sometimes ends up short. Mage does not have anywhere else to go, but people keep playing it because they like to play Mage.
On one hand, the game needs to evolve, but on the other hand, class identities matter. Some of Blizzard’s most obvious failures have been attempts to push classes too far into a new direction.
The Tempo Player
Another style of play that always remains popular is tempo. Drawing through your deck, playing lots of cards, having tons of options available at all times, and having a profound sense of agency is a style that is especially popular at the top of the ladder.
These are decks that typically have a high skill ceiling: your decisions truly matter. Often, they are overrated in discussions compared to their measured performance: even if you can turn a 40% win rate deck into a 50% win rate deck with great decision-making, you’re still playing a 50% win rate deck. You could probably do better with an easier deck.
Still, these decks have a number of attractive features and a dedicated player base. The class with the most such decks, historically, is Rogue.
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- Season: season-133
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The Combo Player
You can also make the improbable happen in Hearthstone. Sometimes. While combo decks are only occasionally relevant in the meta, there are also players that enjoy pulling off inevitable victories seemingly out of nowhere. Even though these players don’t show up on the statistics websites, they show up in the continuing popularity of channels like MarkMcKz.
Hearthstone, Your Way
There are many ways to enjoy Hearthstone. While the biggest factor in what any specific Hearthstone meta shapes out to be is deck performance, the game is not an Excel simulator. People have a variety of reasons for playing, and they enjoy different playstyles. Sometimes, performance and these preferences collide, and it is not always performance that wins.
Blizzard has shown some level of understanding of this with their attempts to support a wide variety of playstyles. Sometimes, they push against established class identities for an extended period of time, and sometimes they’re just as confused as the players are as to what Shaman is supposed to be like. As the card pool and power level have grown over the years, some early strategies have also become irreversibly outdated. Still, Hearthstone continues to support multiple ways to play the game.
And that is what it is really about, isn’t it? Playing the game to have fun. What do you think, have you still been able to find the fun in Hearthstone?
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
Thank you for this article Old Guardian!
I think the question what makes the game enjoyable and fun for the players is the most important question for all parties involved, the players, the developers and the company that wants to earn players’ money by giving them interesting new game content.
Winning may be one important factor, but it only fully applies to a certain percentage of the player base. The best thing blizzard ever did to the game is allowing players to get to diamond 5 with a constant 40-45% win rate as long as they play often enough. This allows players to EXPERIENCE THE SENSATION OF SUCCESS. This can be winning, but is not limited to it. It can be just executing a certain plan successfully after trying several times, or playing that special combo that you were tinkering with for days.
Personally, I have spent a lot of time recently trying to complete as many gameplay achievements as possible. Of course I liked the puzzle achievements best, but even the grinder achievements had the appeal that I had to find out ways to accumulate the vast numbers quicker, e.g. by copying cards or by bouncing battlecry minions. The only achievements that I do not enjoy are the casino achievements (snake eyes, oh my yogg, party up, and several others) that are completely rng based and have to be played over and over again, frustrating me every time the stars do not align.
That being said, the big question for developers has to be: how can the game be fun for a player that loses more games than he wins? Well, achievements are one option. Another important thing is making the games different, a.k.a. keeping the meta diversified. I do not mind losing 4 out of 7 games if I lose to 4 different strategies, but I do mind if all 4 losses come against the same decks or the same cards. Overpowered neutral cards are the worst, because you will face them against multiple classes and strategies. Recent offenders include Reno Lone Ranger, Yogg-Saron Unleashed, The Ceaseless Expanse, all cards that seemed to be in almost every deck and were quite frustrating to play against. I did not mind Marin the Manager and Gorgonzormu that much, because despite being powerful cards their effect was not that immediately gamebreaking.
Faster and more frequent nerfs against excessively played cards (especially neutral ones) to keep the meta fresh are very important to keep the playing experience entertaining.
There’s a couple nuances that I’d like to bring to the table of finding the fun in Hearthstone.
One aspect of being able to have fun in Hearthstone is not only the sort of decks you like playing – but more importantly, in my opinion, having access to the resources that enable you to succeed. As a F2P player since open beta, if I feel like I have to burn arcane dust on multiple expensive cards to have complete, reasonably functioning decks, or just to feel like I’m getting somewhere in that set’s meta, it’s not a fun time. Perils in Paradise might be a good example of that, where the reliance on so many legendary Tourists made budgeting a miserable experience. Feeling like you low-rolled badly on multiple free Rewards Track legendaries feels terrible knowing that you’re going to struggle to make progress.
On the other hand, there’s also been metas where even when you do have what you need, you end up running into the same deck(s) over and over that it becomes a chore even when you do enjoy the deck. Slow Rainbow Death Knight during Whizbang’s Workshop before the mass nerfs is my favourite example of this. Every match became “build a board, watch it get wiped multiple times”, not helped by Team 5 experimenting with winning 10 matches on Standard. I imagine for other players it was the same for Starcraft meta, Year of the Odd and Even decks and so on. Being able to enjoy a versatile range of decks can help contribute to having fun, surely, because it gives you the ability to switch to other decks when your current favourite is taking a beating. But that also relies on a fine balance – not only do you need the resources to make multiple viable decks, if you keep switching decks and losing anyway, you’re going to feel worse.
Perhaps the value of versatility is always having the option to stop and try something else. There was a time when I had a blast playing Mill Rogue unranked at any opportunity I could; now the Wild format has become increasingly inhospitable to that archetype I no longer do it nearly as frequently. But I’ve found other archetypes to enjoy like Blood/Unholy Leech Death Knight and Starship Wheel Warlock that scratch the itch of whittling another player to death. Do I regret crafting Kil’jaeden and Headless Horseman on an early 2025 meta whim? Maybe. But am I having fun? Yeah.
This note is great Old Guardian! I love it. I struggled yo have fun this expansion (Hearhstone traditional and BGs), two months playing more suffering than other thing. And mostly because i can’t find a deck that i can enjoy (Tempo style, but more midrangie/even a bit aggro) and Control DK plaguing ladder on Americas don’t help at all. On BGs side, Anomalies just destroyed it all for a casual players that enjoys knowing what he is doing (pure caos and hiper highrolls aren’t fun).
As a main Priest, i pray (No ironically) that blizzard give us a win condition, i don’t care if that one is just tier 3, but at least make priest a control class playable, in HS replay there is a version of imbue priest that have 48%, maybe make stronger the HP imbued, Make Priest Great Again. 👻