One of the main events of Hearthstone esports, the Masters Tour Spring Championship, was played during the weekend. 16 players qualified for the tournament through exceptional ladder performances and they met on the battlefield of a best-of-five Conquest-format tournament with one ban. Therefore, each player brought four decks to the tournament.
While tournament decks are not necessarily great ladder decks, they tend to be some of the best decks around. The main difference is that a tournament lineup may target a more limited set of decks: they do not need to be all-rounders. Taking such decks to the ladder will work only if you meet a lot of the decks that they are tuned to fight against. Another factor that may affect their success is balance patches. Blizzard has often patched the game soon after a tournament, rendering the tournament decks obsolete almost immediately. This time, there is only one small balance change coming this week, the nerf to Umpire's Grasp from three mana to four mana. Thus, these tournament decks may have a slightly longer lifespan, if you take into account the upcoming change in the status of Demon Hunter.
With those caveats, let’s take a look at what the best of the best chose to play when there was money on the line!
Masters Tour Spring Championship 2024 Meta
There were five clear favorite classes among the players. The class distribution in the tournament was as follows:
- 15 Demon Hunters
- 12 Warriors
- 11 Priests
- 10 Shamans
- 10 Warlocks
- 2 Death Knights
- 2 Mages
- 2 Rogues
- 0 Druids, Hunters, and Paladins
It was not a particularly diverse meta, and Demon Hunter was the clear favorite class. In fact, only one player chose to not bring Demon Hunter, and that was MoleStar who brought a lineup that targeted Demon Hunter instead! A crazy-looking strategy on the surface, but it brought us some great games.
Nobody brought Druid, Hunter, or Paladin.
On archetype level, the meta looked like this:
- 11 Zarimi Priests
- 9 Nature Shamans
- 9 Naga Shopper Demon Hunters
- 8 Painlocks
- 7 Odyn Warriors
- 6 Aggro Shopper Demon Hunters
- 3 Brann Warriors
- 2 Reno Warriors
- 2 Rainbow Mages
- 2 Playhouse Rogues
- 2 Rainbow Death Knights
- 1 Sludge Warlock
- 1 Wheel Warlock
- 1 Shudderblock Shaman
A deck like Painlock is not currently very popular on the ladder, but if you do not take Demon Hunter into account, it becomes a more attractive option. In a Conquest tournament, you can ignore a powerful deck, if you believe you can win against the other decks because each player has to win with all of their decks to win the match! Therefore, this tournament can also be seen to herald the times that are coming after the Demon Hunter nerf with the Zarimi Priests and the Painlocks that are trying to counter them.
But how successful were the various strategies in the tournament? Here is the archetype performance throughout the championship:
- Zarimi Priest: 22-11, 67% win rate
- Aggro Shopper Demon Hunter: 10-5, 67% win rate
- Brann Warrior: 5-3, 63% win rate
- Rainbow Death Knight, 5-3, 63% win rate
- Shudderblock Shaman: 3-2, 60% win rate
- Playhouse Rogue, 4-3, 57% win rate
- Sludge Warlock: 4-4, 50% win rate
- Painlock: 10-11, 48% win rate
- Reno Warrior: 4-5, 44% win rate
- Odyn Warrior: 9-12, 43% win rate
- Nature Shaman: 11-17, 39% win rate
- Naga Shopper Demon Hunter: 7-12, 37% win rate
- Rainbow Mage: 3-7, 30% win rate
- Wheel Warlock: 1-3, 25% win rate
Zarimi Priest got a lot of games in because while it is strong, it was not a deck people specifically targeted and therefore it was hardly ever banned. The deck did not disappoint and it performed admirably.
Of the two Demon Hunter variants, the Aggro version performed far better than the Naga variant. Simply showing up and winning games turned out to be a superior strategy compared to more complex mid-game combos. In a similar vein, Rainbow Mage and Wheel Warlock were at the bottom in performance in the tournament. Many of the decks that are favored by top Legend players in a narrow meta were not able to deliver even in the relatively limited tournament meta, whereas the general ladder performers did a good job in the tournament as well.
The Winning Lineup
In the end, uikyou finished as the winner with a clean 3-0 sweep over PRTHNCA in the finals. Competitive Hearthstone can be fickle, as the two met in the group stage, where the score was the exact opposite. That group stage match was uikyou’s only loss in the tournament, but he was able to recover from it and advance to the top-8 playoffs regardless.
Uikyou brought a fairly standard lineup to the tournament: Aggro Shopper Demon Hunter, Nature Shaman, Painlock, and Odyn Warrior. Nothing too fancy or extreme. The more straightforward version of Demon Hunter was one of his key weapons, and he had a fairly good lineup against all the Zarimi Priests as well.
Aggro Demon Hunter is going to be nerfed tomorrow, so this deck’s future is uncertain. As of right now, it is the pinnacle of Hearthstone. Zilliax in the deck below is Haywire Module + Power Module.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
10,800
In Nature Shaman, uikyou opted to go for the JIVE, INSECT! and Conductivity version, which trades some performance against Demon Hunter for improved capabilities against other decks. This was a tournament choice, but given how Demon Hunter is about to get nerfed, this specific version of Nature Shaman may have some good times ahead on the ladder in the very near future.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 7,080
Painlock is another deck that is expected to shine after the Demon Hunter nerf. Zarimi Priest is the early favorite for the next best deck, and Painlock is its best counter. Zilliax in the deck below is Pylon Module + Ticking Module.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 9,420
There were several variants of Warrior in the tournament, but uikyou trusted in one of the most traditional lists. Nothing fancy or special, just cycle through that deck and win with Odyn, Prime Designate
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 8,280
The Best Interesting Decks from the Masters Tour
Zarimi Priest is obviously a deck that people expect a lot from once Demon Hunter is nerfed. 11 players brought Zarimi Priest to the tournament, but despite the deck’s admirable win rate, only four of them made it to the top-8. Strategies that worked around the most popular decks had better than average success. That said, Zarimi Priest did manage to reach the number two spot in the tournament in the end.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 13,620
Rainbow Death Knight was one of the top performers at the tournament. It only faltered at the very end, when uikyou scored two wins against the deck in the finals. A well-rounded competitor that you can happily take to the ladder as well. Threads of Despair has established itself as one of the premium board clear cards in the format and is run in two copies in this list. Zilliax Deluxe 3000 consists of the Twin Module and the Perfect Module.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 11,640
This deck was also responsible for perhaps the most memorable moment from the tournament. It might not be a Plague Death Knight, but with the right sequence of cards drawn, it can kill opponents with Plagues drawn every turn. It may have been less than a 1% chance for that to happen, but it did.
The most interesting, and most successful, Warrior variant in the tournament was Brann Warrior. Tobyka managed to reach the top-8 with this deck. The deck includes a number of duplicates, but it still manages to make use of Reno, Lone Ranger. It is also already equipped with a Speaker Stomper tech card that will come in handy if Nature Shaman becomes popular on the ladder. The ETC includes Dirty Rat, Ignis, the Eternal Flame, and Harth Stonebrew.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 11,520
Rogue has usually been a tournament favorite, but this time only two players brought Rogue in their lineups. Both Rogues were fast cycle decks that win the game through Playhouse Giants and Everything Must Go!. Tobyka managed to reach the top-8 with this deck in his lineup.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 4,680
The most interesting lineup in the tournament was without a doubt brought by MoleStar. Choosing to target Demon Hunter was a bold move, and one that carried him to a top-8 finish. Rainbow Death Knight did a good job, but Rainbow Mage and Odyn Warrior were the weaknesses in his lineup. The star of the lineup, however, was this Shudderblock Shaman that specifically targets Demon Hunter and attempts to make their lives miserable. If you like to play control decks and you plan to ladder before the balance patch, this could be just the deck for you.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-121
- Posted By:
- 9,000
The Zilliax Deluxe 3000 consists of Twin Module and Perfect Module.
The deck brought back some old-school control vibes with the way it simply ran Demon Hunters out of resources. You don’t expect to see that in modern Hearthstone, but sometimes it can still happen!
Even though the above decks are tournament decks, many of them look promising for some ladder play as well. Some of them, like Shudderblock Shaman, should be good now before the patch, while other decks from lineups that banned Demon Hunter showed us a glimpse of the possible future ladder!
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
