March of the Lich King, the third expansion of the Year of the Hydra (2022), was released yesterday. While it didn’t come with any rotation, it’s the biggest release in the history of post-launch Hearthstone, with 203 new cards added to the game at the same time. That’s because we’re getting a brand new playable class – Death Knight. So it’s only natural that all of that has shuffled the meta (at least the early one). Just after Day 1, we’ve already seen a bunch of new, interesting builds. But are they any good? Did we already see any huge surprises, or maybe the new Tier 1 decks are yet to be discovered?
Check out our March of the Lich King early meta decks for every class!
I’ve spent most of the first 24h of expansion watching pro player streams and social media, adding their decks to the site (as well as playing some matches with the most promising builds myself), so I have a quite good idea of what’s commonly played, which decks get solid results and which builds have a chance to become a part of the meta. Below, I’ll list some of the lists that caught my attention. Just like every new expansion, remember that the early meta is very chaotic and it might look completely different in a few days. Decks are chosen based on my ladder experience, watching the steamers & pros, talking with other high ranked players and early statistics from sites like HSReplay.net.
These decks are only example lists – meta is adjusting very quickly and more optimized builds might be out at the time you’re reading it! The order of decks below is not indicative of their strength.
Death Knight – Is It Good?
So let’s first address the elephant in the room. Death Knight, the brand-new class, has turned out to be… a bit underwhelming. If you were worried about the Demon Hunter launch, it’s actually quite the opposite. While DH launched with an insane ~60% win rate across the board because it was so overturned, Death Knight is currently sitting at a middling 48%. Of course, this is just early data, and it’s worth noting that Death Knight is more complex than Demon Hunter was (building a good Death Knight deck is more challenging, and the class overall is a bit harder to play than DH was on Day 1 from my experience). But even in the best-case scenario, I don’t expect Death Knight to go over 50% without any sort of buffs.
And that’s… not perfect. While I appreciate the fact that DK wasn’t broken on release, one would expect a new class to be one of the best in the meta to make things more exciting. If I had to guess, we’ll see some buffs in the first balance patch (usually releasing ~2 weeks into the expansion). And until then – Death Knight is still playable, just not as good as many would hope.
If you want to play Death Knight, XL (40 card) versions of Blood and Frost seem to be performing best so far. Interestingly, the Blood Control build Old Guardian has theorycrafted before expansion seems to be the best performing Blood list so far (but do keep in mind). As fo the Frost, you can go for more “Control” or more “Combo/Burn” approach – but the deck ultimately lives or dies by getting in some chip damage early and then burning your opponent with spells / weapon attacks.
- Format: hydra
- Posted By:
18,640
- Format: hydra
- Season: season-105
- Player:
- 12,760
So far I haven’t found an Unholy list that performed really well, but like I’ve said, it’s only the first day so things might still change.
With Death Knight out of the way, let’s proceed to actual best decks from Day 1:
Arcane / Shockspitter Hunter
- Format: hydra
- Season: season-105
- Player:
- 6,720
- Format: hydra
- Season: season-105
- Player:
- 8,040
The best-performing new archetype is definitely Shockspitter Hunter. We have two competing versions – one with Arcane package and one without. According to the early stats (and my own experience), they’re quite evenly matched for now and only time will tell which build turns out to be better.
But let’s start with the basic premise and key card – Shockspitter. It’s insane how good it is – just a couple of weapon swings turn it into an incredibly powerful 2-drop (that you can discover extra copies of with Selective Breeder). Of course, given that it scales so well, you definitely don’t want to play it on Turn 2 – even more so in those lists. The idea here is to mulligan heavily for weapons (especially Candleshot) and start swinging as soon as possible and for as long as possible. In the perfect case scenario (Candleshot on T1 and then a weapon always equipped), you will reach massive numbers by the mid-game. And that’s when you want to start dropping your Shockspitters. On Turn 7, you can play Brann + 2x Shockspitter without any discounts. Assuming that you attacked every turn, Shockspitters will deal 8 damage each – so the combo is a whooping 32 damage. Of course, since things aren’t always that smooth and 32 is not enough to kill some decks, you have a way to play more of them. The best is definitely Devouring Swarm – after you play your Brann + Spitter combo, just pick a minion big enough, bump all of them into it and get them back in your hand. Next turn you can do the whole thing again.
And here’s where the difference between those builds comes. One of them focuses solely on the Shockspitter combo – so it runs cards like Youthful Brewmaster (it’s been a while since I’ve seen it in a meta deck) and Zola the Gorgon to get more copies of Shockspitter in case the initial combo is not enough. It also runs Warsong Wrangler to increase the chance of getting them in time for the combo. The other build runs Arcane package instead. The benefit of that is that it reduced the reliance on Shockspitter and can keep you longer in the game. The combo-only build has little staying power and it can get rushed by Aggro quite easily, while Arcane version has more ways to contest the board, such as Eversong Portal and buffed Ricochet Shot. Because of that, I feel like combo build is better vs slower decks and Arcane build is better vs faster decks. But both of them are performing really, really well so far.
Armor Druid (Ramp, Celestial)
- Format: hydra
- Season: season-105
- Player:
- 20,200
- Format: hydra
- Season: season-105
- Player:
- 20,920
Oh Ramp Druid. Many people love the deck (including me), but probably even more hate it. Ramp Druid overall has been in a pretty decent state over the last few expansions – it wasn’t always Tier 1, but it was usually staying comfortably in Tier 2, waiting for another opportunity to strike. Even though it lost Spreading Plague at the end of the Knights of Hallow’s End event, it gained some more tools to more than make up for it. I’m talking about Armor package.
Ramp Druid is a late game powerhouse, but its main issue is that it takes a while to get there. You usually spend your first 4-5 turns doing basically nothing, and that’s enough time for an Aggro deck to get you low enough or even outright kill you. A big Miracle Growth + Earthen Scales often came in clutch to swing the game around, but 10 mana is quite a lot even for Druid, that’s why it was often too late. But thanks to the new Armor package, Ramp Druid gains a lot of extra survivability. Starting with Chitinous Plating – 8 armor for 2 mana with no other effect might not have been great in another class, but it’s really solid if you really, really need to survive until the late game and then you can beat nearly anyone. Underking is also a new MVP – a total of 12 Armor gain on top a 6/6 body with Rush, that’s just insane. With Underking vs single medium-sized target (or just to gain armor vs Burn deck) and Scale of Onyxia vs a wide board, Druid can consistently start coming back around 7 mana (so usually around turn 5). And finally – Anub'Rekhan is a mix of Armor gain and a tempo tool. While destroying your Armor might not seem like the best idea against Aggro, if you can pop off with a few minions right then while still leaving yourself with enough health to survive, you probably won. Aggro decks usually have no way of clearing a few big minions.
While those builds are quite similar overall, they play a bit differently. Celestial Alignment version is a bit more swingy – it can pop off much earlier, but it comes at a risk of one extra turn of doing nothing + it can be beaten by bad draws. However, that is sort of reduced thanks to Anub’rekhan. Previously you really, really wanted to have Lady Anacondra ready for your pop-off turn. Right now Anub’Rekhan serves a similar role, but in reverse. Instead of free spells and minion costing mana, you can drop basically as many minions as you want (since they all cost 1 Armor) but your spells still have a cost attached. Still, it’s usually good enough to swing back the board and give you enough time to ramp up, draw etc. Or even just win the game right then and there – if you drop a few minions and follow them up by The Jailer, unless you face specific decks that can destroy the whole board, that’s often game over.
The regular version relies on the good, old “get to 20 mana and do crazy stuff” strategy. In this specific build, Luna opted for two new win conditions – Astalor Bloodsworn and Lor'themar Theron. The former is just a really good card overall, but it gets even better if you have access to more than 10 mana, because you can combo it with Brann. You can even play Brann and go through all three stages for 18 mana in total (and you will still have one 5-mana and one 8-mana versions ready in your hand). Heck, in a longer game, you can even Brann + Innervate + 8-mana Astalor + Sire Denathrius. It’s overkill 99% of the time, but it might be useful. The second new win con is Lor’themar Theron – with many high stat minions in the deck, doubling them again gives you a lot of power in slower matchups. Even a silly Prince Renathal becomes a 6/8 minion that your opponent can’t really ignore for long, not to mention 12/12 Underkings or 0 mana 8/12 Crypt Keepers. Instead of being able to wait a bit longer for Druid to amass the board, every single minion has to be answered in some way. Maybe Lor’themar will not be necessary in the end, but I’ve played around with it and it worked quite well so far.
Of course, the current power level of Ramp Druid has a lot to do with many, many people trying out slow Death Knight builds that have almost no way of keeping up with Ramp Druid in the late game (well, Patchwerk hitting Denathrius is a big deal, but Druid can still win the match without it quite often). While the deck is better against Aggro than it was, it’s still not good and you will still fold to early pressure a lot of time, so keep that in mind.
Concoction Rogue
- Format: hydra
- Season: season-105
- Player:
- 10,560
- 0Preparation2
- 0Shadow of Demise1
- 0Shadowstep2
- 1Blackwater Cutlass2
- 1Concoctor2
- 1Door of Shadows1
- 1Ghostly Strike2
- 1Gone Fishin’2
- 2Ghoulish Alchemist2
- 2Maestra of the Masquerade1
- 2Potion Belt2
- 2Potionmaster Putricide1
- 2Serrated Bone Spike2
- 3Shroud of Concealment2
- 3Sinstone Graveyard2
- 4Edwin, Defias Kingpin1
- 5Necrolord Draka1
- 6Wildpaw Gnoll2
Concoctions are a new Rogue mechanic and their focus in this expansion. While people had mixed feelings about them before launch, it turns out that they are really, really strong. While they didn’t lead to a brand new deck, they supplemented already existing archetypes quite well. The best example is Miracle Rogue, a deck that was… controversial at launch. It wasn’t overpowered on average, because it had many games where it just didn’t draw correctly and couldn’t do much. However, when it worked, it had two Stealthed 10/10’s on the board and a 10-attack weapon equipped by Turn 5. It got slightly nerfed and wasn’t a common archetype throughout Castle Nathria, even though it did get some support in the mini-set. But it might be time for its big comeback.
Concoctions solve one of the biggest issues with the deck – “value”. While true that it could pop off, it was usually one time and that’s it, no more, you had an empty hand and you were drawing one card per turn most of the time. Of course, that was often good enough to win the game, but if it wasn’t, you could just concede 90% of the time. With Concoctions, it’s not exactly like that anymore. The deck has A LOT of card draw and generation now. I was playing against Concoction Miracle Rogues who started popping off around Turn 5-6 and then had a big turn after big turn until like Turn 11 when they finally ran out of cards. It’s almost impossible now to run them out of cards in their hand. And the best thing is that those Concoctions aren’t some pure value plays either, they’re actually easy to generate (while often doing other stuff at the same time) and they’re pretty high tempo. Maybe not solo concoctions, but mixed ones are great mix of value & tempo at 3 mana, and then you can play them for 0 with Ghoulish Alchemist.
You can, of course, run Concoctions in Thief Rogue too. They would probably replace the Secret package. However, there hasn’t been much testing done for this archetype yet, so I won’t include it here. I assume that’s what Concotions will ultimately end up as – a support package for many different archetypes. They are so flexible that they fit into basically any Rogue build, so I expect many of the best Rogue versions to use them in the coming expansions.
Old Builds
So far, it looks like some of the old, pre-expansion builds are performing quite well too. For example, Imp Warlock, Naga Priest, and Aggro Druid with no changes at all are some of the highest win rate decks in the meta. But it’s honestly quite expected – those are fast and aggressive builds that can easily punish unprepared decks. With so much Death Knight experimentation going on, and people leaning towards slower, greedy, unoptimized decks, those already established, high-tempo archetypes are easily preying on them. It’s hard to say whether they will still be viable after the meta settles, but for now, if you’re playing on budget and don’t want to craft anything (or you don’t like any of the new decks), they might still be good options.
Well, you can all relax now. they DID nerf shockspitter, but just made it a 3 mana drop (for now). Sadly, they only did it because of the tournament lol…they didn’t want it to be a blowout…..they also made sire “infuse 2”.
The thing about shockspitter popularity is that it’s actually a budget deck that uses new cards and is viable on day one of the expansion. It felt good as a F2P player to participate in the opening day while opening only two crappy legendaries.
I tend to come less so for the decks and more to appreciate the detailed insights given alongside. And that again did not disappoint. 🙂
From what I’ve seen so far, Shockspitter Hunter is pretty insane. I think Shockspittee will be harshly nerfed soon, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they just removed the ability to go face. I don’t think anyone predicted just how strong they would be and Blizzard didnt playtest enough for them: the result is honestly one of the most powerful combo decks that ever existed in standard. I have played a bit myself and I had a 100% winrate for like 5 or 6 games. I hope it gets addressed soon.
Out of 6 matches I’ve seen 1 win by it I’m not that impressed.
I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t need a nerf.
I think at most we’ll see the card go up to 3 mana 2/2 with the same effect.
I could also get behind nerfing it to a 1 mana 1/1 with changed text to minions-only **if** the control hunter archetype had more support. Alternatively, changing it to 5 mana spell that has the text “Summon 2 2/1 shocksplitters with rush”, and they’d trigger the minions-only text on-summon as mentioned. Here you’re looking at a 5 mana to deal roughly 4 attack to 2 minions immediately, and 4 damage that can only immediately go to minions as well. 5 mana deal 12 across the board feels pretty balanced in the current meta.
I don’t think the latter will be the change they make though, since at this point it’s not a buff/nerf, it’s a complete change to the card (which I don’t think we’ve seen before).
I honestly don’t know in what meta are y’all playing. I watched my friend try to get to Legend, which he did, with that deck and it’s absolutely unfair. Having lethal turn 6-7 by doing that kind of dmg from hand is not the kind of meta I wanna play in, and the only deck against the which it may lose is Armor Druid, which is one of the craziest and most powerful decks I have ever seen, since they can reliably get to more than 10 mana and more than 50 health. The issue with Hunter though is that it was clearly not the intended way of playing that card. The whole idea behind taht deck, being this weird combo burst deck, is not what Blizzard was going for, and that makes sense since it’s very toxic and basically uncounterable. All in all, I hope they are going to completely gut the deck, making it so the Shockspitter can’t go face anymore, or at least make it 4 mana or something like that. Making it 3 mana would probably suffice as well, since it would slow down the deck quite a bit, but I honestly don’t look forward to a deck which kills you on turn 10 rather than on turn 6, it doesn’t seem like that much of an improvement to me.
Agreed, getting 40 something-ed to 0 without any way to prepare or interact with isn’t fun. Overturned IMO and needs to be reeled in a bit. I am sad that Death Knights are not more powerful. I was super excited about their potential and identity being brought into HS. Disappointed by its early performance.
Yeah, Shockspitter is way too strong. Armor Druid and Shockspitter Hunter are the best decks no doubt.