A new expansion is always a huge opportunity for a card game: a chance to introduce a plethora of new ideas, mechanics, and archetypes to make the game feel fresh again. It is not quite a blank canvas because cards from the previous expansions still have an effect, but an expansion can significantly shape the player experience. In fact, an expansion should significantly shape the experience, or the game cannot remain interesting.
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire has some hurdles to cross to reach its goals: It is the final expansion of the year, which means that the Standard card pool is as big as it gets, and it is more difficult to have an effect when there are already lots of cards available in the format. It also follows two strong expansions, Ashes of Outland and Scholomance Academy, so there is only limited room left to just crank up the pure power level.
In this article, I will take a look at what Madness at the Darkmoon Faire has accomplished in objective terms, and also what the new meta feels like: evaluating a meta is not only science, it is also emotional.
Top Archetypes From Scholomance Academy and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
In the final days of Scholomance Academy, there were six decks that stood above the rest:
Our current estimate of the best Standard meta decks is a fair bit different:
- Pure Paladin
- Highlander Hunter
- Soul Demon Hunter
- Aggro Demon Hunter
- Evolve Shaman
- ETC Control Warrior
In such a superficial comparison, only two of the previous top-six archetypes remain on the top tier. However, to better understand the changes, we need to take a closer look at the decks being played.
How Have the Top Meta Decks Changed?
Pure Paladin has now become a stronger option than Libram Paladin, but the two were competing already in Scholomance Academy. In fact, one could argue that the very reason Pure Paladin has performed better has been the attempt to include more new cards, such as some of the Old Gods, into Libram Paladin. Pure Paladin uses High Exarch Yrel and sometimes Hammer of the Naaru, but other than that it remains unchanged. It plays and feels exactly the same as in Scholomance Academy, and the same applies to the more successful builds of Libram Paladin: returning to the usual Pen Flinger style without curve-topping Old Gods has made Libram Paladin more competitive and it threatens to overtake Pure Paladin once again. Both Paladin decks are essentially the same decks they were in Scholomance Academy with neither Old Gods nor tokens – the new alternatives from Madness at the Darkmoon Faire – able to make a lasting impression.
Highlander Hunter has been happy to incorporate some new cards into the mix, but Highlander decks are like the Borg: they assimilate and grab whatever is useful, but essentially remain the same. Sure, Mystery Winner, Petting Zoo, and Rinling's Rifle have become Highlander Hunter staples, but that is at the expense of them forming a new Secret Hunter deck. Their strength was assimilated into the formless jack-of-all-trades; they could not power an archetype of their own.
Soul Demon Hunter has evolved, but it still remains the same deck: it relentlessly pushes face damage, heals up with Aldrachi Warblades, and clears boards with Shardshatter Mystic and Blade Dance. Il'gynoth opens up an OTK path against slow decks, but even that is sometimes cut from the deck. The most influential new card is Bladed Lady, because, you know, a one-mana 6/6 with Rush can be pretty good.
Control Warrior has a new win condition: instead of filling your deck with bombs, they now combo you down in a single turn with E.T.C., God of Metal. For the most part, though, playing against Warrior is the same as it has been since January: they play Risky Skipper and some Armorsmiths and gain so much armor that even Priests can only watch in awe and wonder why their Hero Power cannot get them above 30. Warriors sometimes even use C'thun, the Shattered as a win condition, just because they can. Changing the win condition of a Warrior deck only makes a difference in the games that go that far without the opponent giving up. Soul Demon Hunters have started to tech in Platebreakers, by the way, which might tell you something.
Aggro Demon Hunter was never truly away, even though its Soul sibling kept it out of the top ranks in Scholomance Academy. After trying out some bad cards, like Acrobatics, early in the expansion, Aggro Demon Hunter has returned to its Skull of Gul'dan wielding ways and just taken the best parts of Madness at the Darkmoon Faire: Wriggling Horror, Dreadlord's Bite, and Stiltstepper. These new tools do not fundamentally change the way the deck is played, but they give it just enough speed to kill slow decks before they stabilize.
Face Hunter might not be a top tier deck anymore, but it is still around. It does not use any new cards by the way, and it is still better than the Secret version that got a bunch of new tools.
Galakrond Rogue is gone, but Secret Rogue remains pretty much the same list as it used to be. Sure, it added Foxy Fraud and Swindle, but they are support cards that do not change the overall plan of the deck.
The only completely new deck on the top tier is Evolve Shaman, and it is not completely novel either: Cagematch Custodian just added enough consistency to drawing Boggspine Knuckles that Shaman can now be reliably random. Evolve Shaman as an archetype has been pushed and been part of the meta several times in the past, so it feels more like a re-run than an original series.
What Happened to the New Archetypes?
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire promised much more than it delivered. For example, none of the top tier decks right now use any of the Old Gods. Remember the Old Gods? The Whispers of the Old Gods nostalgia trip that the expansion was marketed with?
- N'Zoth, God of the Deep has gone so deep undercover that you will be hard-pressed to find it. As an anecdote, it has not been played against me a single time during the expansion. I played a few games with it myself but quickly gave up.
- C'thun, the Shattered was initially experimented with in Rogue. Just think about all that infinite value! However, it turns out that value is not that important when you’re dead. It still sees occasional play in Warrior, because Warrior can afford to flex with it when they get tired of killing people with ETC.
- Y'Shaarj, The Defiler can give you a huge swing turn, but only if you manage to Corrupt some cards first. Which you won’t, because it takes so long to be able to do that. Tickatus was to be the scary fatigue deck of the expansion, but it turns out that Warlock’s preferred move is just to roll over and die.
- Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate can end the game in a single big turn, but you will never play the ten spells and get to ten mana to actually play it, so it won’t.
All the Old Gods share one key similarity: they cost ten mana, so they are slow. Very, very slow. Hearthstone has always been a tempo-based game, and ten-mana cards are rarely part of top-tier decks. Madness at the Darkmoon Faire set the expectation that this time things would be different, but the basic game design remains the same, and it favors tempo over value. The Old Gods lack the support structure to enable them to shine, and that means that much of the design of Darkmoon Faire that was built around the Old Gods is simply irrelevant for the meta.
Some of the more tempo-oriented new archetypes simply do not have what it takes to beat their existing counterparts. Secret Hunter is simply worse than Face Hunter and Highlander Hunter. Token Paladin is just inferior to Pure Paladin and Libram Paladin. Evolve Shaman shines way too bright for Totem Shaman or Enhancement Shaman to stand a chance.
Finally, some of the new archetypes barely had a chance. Greybough? Maxima Blastenheimer? G'huun the Blood God? Of course, not every card is designed to be competitive, but classes such as Druid, Priest, and Mage really drew the shortest straw in this expansion.
Hope on the Horizon?
So far, Madness at the Darkmoon Faire has not delivered a new experience. Most of the top meta decks are largely the same as they were before with just a couple of new additions that do not significantly change the way they are played. Warrior’s new win condition is not a big deal when the overall playstyle of clearing everything repeatedly while armoring up has not changed at all. Evolve Shaman is once again a re-run of the only Shaman archetype that keeps getting support year after year. Adding a couple of new cards to a deck does not make for a new experience, so the meta feels the same.
Yet, there is always hope. Blizzard has been more active in balancing the game this year than ever before, and we can reasonably expect the first balance patch soon, perhaps even as soon as next week, when the rewards track changes are coming. Giving the new archetypes a chance would require extensive changes to weaken the current top tier decks, so there might be too many changes needed to really make it happen, but it is possible. There is also the new mini-set coming during the expansion that can add more support for unused archetypes.
If all else fails, there is always the Standard rotation coming in April. Demon Hunter Initiate set is rotating out of Standard and that means that Blade Dance, Twin Slice, and Altruis the Outcast will be gone. Risky Skipper is also going away, removing Warrior’s top tool for gaining unfathomable quantities of armor. Zephrys the Great will leave, rendering Highlander decks obsolete. The game will look a lot different in April, and there is even a slim chance that the new Old Gods will eventually succeed in the next Standard year, even if they have failed to make an impact on the meta right now.
I mean as you said it’s very difficult to make that much of an impact on the game as the last expansion of the year. Having to compete with 5 expansions for relevance is always going to make things difficult, a common misconception that I’ve seen is that the new old gods just plain suck compared to the old ones which isn’t strictly true.
Y’shaarj and Yogg are both much stronger than their previous incarnations with Cthun and Nzoth being a fair bit weaker but what’s the real problem is the power creep. We’re dealing with 4.5 years of power creep and putting out old gods on the same power level as the old ones during the last expansion of the year.
They’ll have a much stronger effect next expansion but it is a rather annoying waiting game.
so its a win for free to play player? ihope the mini set is good and will bring some support for recent archetype and not for things rotating out in april.
I wouldn’t call it a win for F2P players – most of them still opened lots of packs from Darkmoon because they didn’t know how much impact it will have on the meta, so it’s not like they saved much. And there’s still a few Legendaries from the expansion you might want to craft as they improve older decks.
Plus, a stale meta is not a win for anyone – yes, it’s technically cheaper if you don’t need that many cards from new expansion and still have success with many decks, but so what if the game isn’t that fun because it didn’t change much. Maybe mini-sets is something they’ve accounted for and didn’t want to make base expansion too powerful, who knows.
So, if you have some darkmoon pack it’s better not open right? To complete at least common & rare.
Terrible expansion. Almost new card being use cause that all suck. Almost no new legendary being use and winning in anyway. The fact that no new class specified legendary is getting any play tell you how bad this expansion is, even pure paladin don’t bother playing yrel because you are beating every one with your old deck. The point of a new expansion is that it counter or better than the old one. Instead made demon hunter and paladin impossible to beat. I been trying new stuff like elemental mage or demon only warlock. But they cant win against dh and paladin. And the old gods are pretty useless. Anytime I see someone playing cthun on turn one, I am like ” ok, I going to win” the card is so bad and slow, and the final shuffle is just dumb. The new mini expansion better be free, cause I am not paying any gold, real or fake
Gala Rogue is meta again ?
No, it was meta in late Scholomance Academy, after being absent for most of that expansion too, but now it’s gone again.