Top Standard & Wild Legend Decks – Perils in Paradise (Week 2) – August 2024

Perils of Paradise expansion has been out for nearly 2 weeks. It’s safe to say that the reception so far has been mixed. On the one hand, it seems pretty balanced, with only a few outliers. No deck is really uncounterable, and we don’t seem to have anything in “Tier 0” (so OP that it can’t be stopped). That’s good. But on the other hand, players are voicing frustration at certain strategies. Namely, Warrior’s infinite Zilliax Deluxe 3000 and Druid’s Concierge combos.

In fact, those are the two most popular decks right now. They aren’t the best decks in the game (I’d say Combo Druid is low Tier 1 and Control Warrior is mid Tier 2), but apparently players do enjoy playing them. Warrior’s strategy revolves around playing (or even better, cheating out) Virus + Perfect module Zilliax, then reviving it multiple times with Inventor Boom and Hydration Station (+in certain matchups Fizzle + Zola for infinite revives). This gameplay pattern is frustrating because once the revives start happening, the only way to beat Warrior is through OTK that can go over Taunts and not many decks can do it. Alternatively, you need to beat them quickly and pray that they don’t draw Zilliax.

Then we have Druid, which combines the strong early/mid game Dragon package with a powerful combo finisher. The idea is to play Concierge to reduce the cost of Seabreeze Chalice to 0, then get a bunch of Spell Damage on the board and blast the enemy. In slow matchups you can even play Mistah Vistah for even more damage if the initial burst is not enough. In theory, the deck can OTK as early as Turn 4-5 with perfect draws, but that’s very rare, and turns 6-8 are more likely. But thanks to the Dragon package and Swipes as removal, the deck is relatively hard to rush down, so while Aggro beats it, it’s not by a huge margin. Interestingly enough, the best way to counter Combo Druids are actually big minions, that’s why Handbuff Paladin is the best counter deck. If you drop multiple high health minions, most of the Chalice ticks will just land on them + many builds run Customs Enforcer as an anti-Druid tech. The deck has like a 70-75% WR against Druids, so if you really dislike them, it’s your best bet.

I’d say that the third force in the meta (in terms of popularity) is not so much a deck but a card – Lamplighter. It’s so good that it propped up multiple Elemental decks. Elemental Mage is probably the strongest one, with multiple ways to burn the enemy, a few cool synergies and Lamplighter finisher. Then we have Elemental Shaman, which is probably the most “basic” Elemental deck, but it can also pack a solid punch. And finally, the most controversial – Elemental Rogue. But I call it Lamplighter Rogue since it’s more of a combo deck focused on that one card rather than a full Elemental package. The deck plays some early Elementals then bounces around Lamplighter multiple times to either burn the enemy over 2-3 turns or just OTK them in the late game (often with the help of Sonya Waterdancer).

Interestingly enough, the two strongest decks in the game right now – Aggro Paladin and Aggro Shaman – are not the most popular builds. They are still pretty common (7% and 6% play rate in high Diamond) but not nearly as common as some of the builds I’ve listed above. They are your classic board flood Aggro decks, with multiple ways to get wide board and buff it. In both cases, the opponent has to clear the board constantly or else they might get blasted with tons of extra, unexpected damage (Zilliax’ Pylon Module, Crusader Aura for Paladin, Bloodlust for Shaman etc.) I honestly expected Aggro Shaman to be a bit more popular – the reason why Paladin is not is probably because it’s almost the same deck as the last expansion (but with Gorgonzormu, which is insanely strong in that build).

Other popular strategies I haven’t mentioned include various Rainbow Death Knights (with some Unholy and Freeze variants seeing limited play), Pain Warlocks, Aggro Demon Hunters, other Druid builds (Tempo/Ramp), Excavate Rogue, Zarimi Priest, or Spell Mages. All of those are more or less viable, but sadly many of them are just extensions of decks we’ve already seen in the last set.

I don’t expect any bigger organic changes in the meta, it’s mostly stable at this point. However, if you don’t like it that much, the good news is that we’re most likely getting a balance update next week. While the date wasn’t confirmed recently, the patch timing was already revealed before the expansion even released. My guess is that the update will drop either on Tuesday or Thursday. I suspect that they will nerf some of the most powerful and disliked strategies – not sure about buffs, since those early updates often don’t contain those. But I would like to see some of the underperforming Perils in Paradise strategies to get improved.

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

If you want to see all of the current top meta decks, go to our Hearthstone Meta Tier List post!

Hearthstone Standard Legend Decks of the Week