All Quiet On the Classic Front: A Meta Report From the Trenches

It’s been two weeks now since Classic Mode went live, giving ample time to the data crunchers and the stat nerds to get a handle on things. Here’s what I’ve seen on the battlefield so far – interestingly enough, it’s been a little different than how I remember the good old days.

Check out best Classic decks for every class to try out!

The Classic Trifecta

It seems like we’re slowly entering the tryhard phase of the Classic meta. Early on, everyone flocked to the fancy decks we never had a chance to play back then, most notably Miracle Rogue topping the play charts, but current winrates seem to suggest that the community opted to return to the old boring faithfuls of Midrange Druid, Control Warrior and the two big Warlock archetypes, with Valeera barely behind them gunning for a podium spot.

Surprisingly enough, the oft-maligned Midrange Shaman deck boasts a very similar winrate to that of Miracle Rogue so far, though the much higher skill ceiling of the latter would suggest that a strong player should still be able to get more mileage out of the Gadgetzan Auctioneer-fueled shenanigans than most of the alternatives. In fact, it’s the games where you don’t draw the bastard which separates the average player from the elite. Making something out of nothing (known as “bullshit” in the parlance) was not as easy back then as it is today with all the Discover options.

It’s still early days though and it seems most players are still chewing their way through the new ladder system, not yet aided by the copious amounts of bonus stars usually afforded after the first successful climb – at least the lack of Legend winrate date on HSReplay seems to suggest as much, even though the Classic leaderboards on the official website are already populated by the top 200 players. (I’m still grinding away at the Diamond ranks, safe in the knowledge that it’s still a whole lot less ridiculous than the old ladder system used to be.)

Of the 79 matches I played so far this season, 18 were against Warlocks, 17 against Druids and 16 against Rogues. Of the classes you’d expect to see more of based on winrate data, only 7 Warriors and 5 Shamans came my way. I’ve encountered every class along the way, though admittedly just the lone mad Priest player so far.

All in all, variations on Midrange Druid seem to be the archetype to beat – and considering the many battle-tested builds with a good record against it, it’s somewhat odd to see its continued dominance.

Other Choices to Consider

Though Druid is a pretty damn good deck, the class is susceptible to aggression, either in the form of relentless burn or a more tempo-based variety. Both Face Hunter and Zoo do very well against Malfurion regardless of the build in question, and it’s odd that they haven’t been picked up yet by a larger portion of the Classic Mode playerbase. For instance, this fairly standard Zoo deck offers above 60% against Druids so far:

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This phenomenon, in turn, has also led to the lesser adaptation of Control Warrior, which would then allow some of the greediest decks (thinking Control Priest and Healadin) into the meta in a more meaningful manner.

If you’re running into Druid after Druid after Druid, these classes are definitely worth considering. Even some of the more janky tier 2 options like Shockadin or Aggro Rogue can succeed if you pilot them well enough, with marginal benefits from poor mulligan decisions from your opponent to consider as an added upside.

Though archetypal innovation hasn’t happened yet – quite understandable considering how long we had to figure out this meta back then even without the statistical analytics tools – you can still make some fancy card inclusion choices to find an edge over your opposition.

The most popular Druid build at the time of writing, with a recorded winrate just above 61%, is of the token variety, slotting in two copies of Violet Teacher alongside Argent Squires, Loot Hoarders and Power of the Wilds alongside the core cards, including the double Force of Nature+Savage Roar combo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it still features Big Game Hunter.

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What I’m Playing Right Now

Right now, with Arena and Standard both plagued by readers of the Watchington Post, Wild being a Paladin-infested hellhole, not to mention the stale BG and Duels metas, Classic is arguably the most fun option out there, especially if you haven’t had the chance to experience OG Hearthstone in all its glory back then. If you’d like to get a step ahead of the competition, you could do worse than to nick my take on Midrange/Ramp Druid:

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The marginal loss of value and stickiness in swapping Harvest Golems for Mind Control Techs is more than worth it to shore up the Zoo matchup and find the occasional bullshit comeback win. Crowbarring in a Naturalize for The Black Knight is perhaps more controversial, but a deck aiming to leverage a small tempo edge on the way to a finisher combo could to a lot worse than to remove a big obstacle for one mana before setting up lethal for the following turn (not to mention the potential ten mana plays to pull it off in one go alongside Force of Nature and Savage Roar).

These sneaky changes help a lot against both Warlock matchups and provide marginal benefits against Freeze Mage and Miracle Rogue. It’s also a ton of fun to play. I’ll leave you with this match replay, an intense struggle against a Zoolock for board control where I’m convinced it was correct to cast Naturalize on a Voidwalker – exactly the sort of plays I missed making over the last six years of Hearthstone.