Fun, Forced, Fringe, and Failed: A Look at Hearthstone’s Promoted Archetypes

Every new expansion season introduces new cards, new mechanics, and occasionally new archetypes to build around. In the past, we’ve seen the Hearthstone design team seem to push certain class mechanics with varying degrees of success. With Kobolds and Catacombs right around the corner, we felt it would be a good time to look back and assess some of the Hearthstone’s promoted archetypes.

The Archetype Scale

To review the archetypes the alliterative (and completely subjective) scale below was created.

• Fun: Fun archetypes are those that are not only enjoyable to play but offer rewarding deck building challenges along the way. Often, these archetypes develop over time until a breakpoint is reached and the deck has enough tools to compete with top tier decks.
• Forced: Some archetypes, on the other hand, find success through sheer brute force of cards revealed. While these decks can find some wins, typically deckbuilding involves doing a keyword search for the mechanic in question, which usually feels dissatisfying.
• Fringe: Fringe archetypes can be fun but, for whatever reason, never quite get over the hump of competitive viability. The decks can find some wins but are rarely the best choice for making your way up the ladder.
• Failed: Finally, some archetypes are simply too weak to even find their way into the fringe category. These archetypes either come with no support or work in an anti-synergistic manner preventing it from developing into a deck with a cohesive gameplan.

Beast Druid

For a time, the Hearthstone development team seemed dead set on making Beast Druid a thing. Thematically, it fits Druid’s Feral specialization, but it always felt that many of the Beast synergy cards would have been a better fit in Hunter.

Sure, transforming minions that happened to be Beasts, such as Druid of the Claw and Druid of the Flame, have long provided the class with an interesting mechanic to play with. It was the inclusion of cards like Druid of the Fang, Knight of the Wild, and Menagerie Warden, however, that left players a bit confused. These were cards that certainly had potential, but felt a bit out of place in Druid.

Assessment: Fringe

Beast Druid saw some play here and there, but not quite made its way into competitive viability. In large part, this was due to the continued success of Aggro Token Druid. Beast Druid was by no means a bad deck, but why copy a Beast on turn six when you can instead kill them with a wide board and Savage Roar?

In recent sets, Blizzard has continued to print Druid minions with the Beast tag but seems less focused on forcing synergy minions. This shift will likely be a good transition for Druid, both in terms of flavor and deck building.

Control Hunter

Control Hunter is everyone’s favorite meme. This seems especially true for Blizzard. Every set we get a card that begs the question “Why is this a Hunter card?”. With minions like Acidmaw to spells such as Toxic Arrow, Rexxar himself must be questioning Hunter’s class identity.

To make matters worse, the controlling cards Hunter does get are just less powerful than the tools other classes seem to receive. Compare, for instance, Explosive Shot to Meteor. Or Powershot to Volcanic Potion. The most egregious example, of course, is Crushing Walls to Psychic Scream. The examples are plentiful, but the point remains the same: Blizzard is clearly hesitant to give Hunter powerful controlling tools, yet continues to print weak removal spells.

Assessment: Failed

Perhaps the biggest reason for the lack of success Control Hunter has had is the class’s lack of healing and card draw. This is not without good reason, however. Healing would be out of place in the class and giving card draw to a class well-known for aggression is dangerous.

Deathstalker Rexxar found a pretty reasonable compromise and gives hope to the archetype but, thanks to a limited supporting cast, Hunter’s hero card alone isn’t enough to make the archetype viable.

Secret Mage

Since the release of Hearthstone, Mage has always had minions that synergize with Secrets. In the Classic Set, Kirin Tor Mage and Ethereal Arcanist have long been available, but didn’t quite offer enough on their own to form an archetype worth building around.

Little by little, additional cards were introduced that began to push Secret Mage to competitive viability. Medivh's Valet gave players additional removal or burst with a Secret in play. Kabal Crystal Runner rewarded players for playing several Secrets over the course of the game.

In the end, it was really Arcanologist that pushed the archetype beyond fringe play and into a potent deck. The ability to tutor for Secrets was well-known to be a powerful mechanic. While not quite as broken as her predecessor, Mad Scientist, this little gnome certainly provides a lot of value.

Assessment: Fun

Now, it could be that I’m a little biased, but I think Secret Mage is one of the instances where a promoted archetype was very well done. As such, I think it provides a good exemplar of how synergistic mechanics can be developed over time to form a viable archetype.

Check out our Secret Tempo Mage Deck List Guide!

Secret Mage offers a powerful, synergistic shell that still presents players with important deckbuilding challenge. Rather than simply jamming every Mage Secret into their deck, players must ask themselves the following questions:

• How many Secrets are optimal?
• Which Secrets are most valuable in the current metagame?
• What does my top end look like?

The second question, in particular, that offers a small edge to players that make an accurate read on the metagame. Throughout the lifespan of the archetype, we’ve seen Ice Block, Mana Bind, Potion of Polymorph, and Spellbender all effectively flex into Secret Mage lists to directly address changing threats in a varying meta.

Silence Priest

There is a non-zero chance that the release of Purify caused some Priest main out there to quit Hearthstone. At the time One Night in Karazhan was released, Anduin was already the laughing stock of Hearthstone heroes and this card only made matters worse.

As he always does, however, Ben Brode got the last laugh on this one. By the time Journey to Un’goro was released, cards like Humongous Razorleaf and Radiant Elemental gave players a reason to include Purify in their decks (yes, on purpose). With the support introduced in earlier sets, such as Faceless Shambler and Kabal Talonpriest, the Silence package combined well with the Divine Spirit + Inner Fire combo of yore.

Assessment: Fun

Silence Priest is another example of an archetype that was well implemented and (eventually) well received. Certainly, in isolation many of the cards are quite weak but, together, they came together into a moderately competitive deck.

Check out our Silence Priest Deck List Guide!

Perhaps the most exciting part of Silence Priest was watching it develop over time. What started out as something of a meme quickly became a potent threat. Yes, this was due in large part to a favorable meta but players were rewarded for some of their innovation within the Priest class and were able to find themselves with a handful of favorable matchups.

Divine Shield Paladin

Divine Shield minions and synergies have been around for some time. Since early beta, players have tried to make use of Blood Knight to assemble a DIY Edwin VanCleef in Paladin. Unfortunately, the lack of consistency in finding a single card isn’t enough to create a reliable win condition. Couple that with the prevalence of Silence in the metagame (I’m looking at you pre-nerf Ironbeak Owl and Keeper of the Grove) and you were stuck with a fragile game plan.

Eventually, more synergies (and stronger Divine Shield minions) were introduced. Still, there were never quite enough tools to make for a viable archetype. Sure, Rallying Blade is a mainstay in Paladin at the moment, but this has less to do with the effect and is more about the necessity of removing 3-health minions.

Assessment: Fringe

Recently, we’ve seen cards introduced that receive a buff when a Divine Shield is removed (i.e., Bolvar, Fireblood and Light's Sorrow). The problem, however, is that this mechanic works antagonistically with the benefit of Divine Shields. In reality, the best part of including Divine Shield minions in a deck is the immediate and lasting effect they have on the board.

Trading into early game minions without losing your own can quickly snowball a board state into a victory. However, this game plan doesn’t have the time to wait for cards that rely on the removal of Divine Shields to ramp up.

Long term, there is certainly some potential in a Divine Shield-oriented Paladin, but for the deck to find success, the primary mechanic involved needs to be adjusted to fit the build. Personally, something Tempo-based like Rallying Blade offers is probably better suited, but a little stale in terms of Hearthstone class distinction.

Burgle Rogue

There are few mechanics more fitting of a class than Burgle in Rogue. Cards like Swashburglar and Burgle itself mirror cards offered to other heroes, but provide a unique thief spin on things.

That said, the mechanic is not without its problems. RNG isn’t necessarily bad, but the wide range of potential outcomes makes it impossible for the player to rely on and frustrating for opponents to play against.

Still, cards such as Swashburglar and Shaku, the Collector have found their way into Rogue decks for some time. Burgle as its own archetype, however, never quite took off, despite the potential for massive Tempo swings in Ethereal Peddler and Obsidian Shard.

Assessment: Fringe

Despite community outcry, new cards revolving around the Burgle mechanic continued to be introduced and (fortunately) the deck never became competitively viable. Certainly, there were a few hidden gems that nabbed cards from the opposing class, but too much reliance on the random nature of the effect doomed the archetype from the start.

Luckily, the inclusion of Lilian Voss appears to be the last instance of the Burgle mechanic. This means that despite, Blizzard’s heavy-handed introduction of the mechanic, B U R G L E B O Y S will hopefully soon become a forgotten meme. Rogue players can instead return to enjoying some of the best Legendary class cards in Hearthstone.

Freeze Shaman

With all the excitement centered around the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion, there was an archetype introduced that left players a bit befuddled: Freeze Shaman. Sure, Frost Shock has always been a thing, but the inclusion of Freeze synergies in Shaman came out of nowhere.

Of the Freeze cards introduced, Brrrloc and Voodoo Hexxer had the most potential. The former gave up little in stats to better manage the opposing board state while the latter seemed to offer an interesting combination of Alley Armorsmith and Water Elemental.

Unfortunately, the other cards introduced with the set were too weak to lend support to these cards. Not only that, Moorabi, Cryostasis, and Ice Breaker all seem to take the archetype in different directions, giving players no clear incentive for packing Freeze synergies into a deck.

Assessment: Failed

Typically, the Freeze mechanic offers two potent interactions: the ability to buy extra turns while assembling a powerful combo (a la Exodia Mage) or to reduce the opponent’s ability to utilize their initiative in dictating trades (like Glacial Shard). Most of the cards included for Freeze Shaman did neither.

Value cards, such as Cryostasis and Moorabi simply take too much time to develop towards a win condition. Similarly, Ice Breaker is relatively useless without a way to Freeze minions, which the class has limited access to.

Thus far, it seems that Freeze Shaman is a one-off endeavor placing it firmly in the Failed category. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem as though Team 5 is looking to print more cards for the archetype. Hopefully, this means we can happily move on and pretend it never happened.

Discard Warlock

Discard Warlock is another archetype that has a long history. Since the Classic Set, Gul’dan has been able to pay cards for tempo with Soulfire, Succubus, and Doomguard. Eventually, Malchezaar's Imp and Silverware Golem joined the party to reduce the impact of pitching away cards from hand. During the One Night in Karazhan meta, Discard Zoo builds were viable, but the random nature of the Discard mechanic quickly became frustrating.

Check out Brian Kibler’s Quest Discard Warlock!

With Journey to Un’goro, Lakkari Sacrifice came to further incentivize the Discard archetype. The quest, however, counter-intuitively paired a value-oriented reward with tempo generation tools in the Discard minions. Blood-Queen Lana'thel further confused the matter once again appearing to push Discard towards a slower game plan. Cataclysm, again, suggests a slower, controlling build of Discard and may be the final tool necessary to make it happen.

Assessment: Forced

As mentioned, Discard Zoo builds have seen some on and off viability since introduced in One Night in Karazhan. Lately, however, neither the tempo builds nor the slower, quest-oriented lists have seen much competitive play.

In part, the lack of focus in the cards released can be to blame for this. While supporting an archetype is great, progressing towards a single game plan is critical. Early on, Discard Lock had a clear nature: give up cards in hand for stats on board. After the release of the Lakkari Sacrifice, the archetype seemingly did a complete 180*. With new cards supporting the slower gameplan, time will tell if the Quest variants will make their way out of mediocrity.

Taunt Warrior

From a lore standpoint, Taunt Warrior makes sense. A large part of Protection Warriors role has always been to maintain enemies attention through the use of Taunts, which the Hearthstone keyword came from. Early iterations of the Taunt Warrior archetype, however, failed miserably to capture this Warcraft flavor.

Bolster, for instance, seemed strange in a class that, at the time, had few class-specific Taunt minions. King's Defender continued to be a worse Fiery War Axe and I Know a Guy was introduced in the same set as Public Defender which diluted the Discover pool.

Quest Warrior Deck List Guide!

Things changed dramatically with the release of Fire Plume's Heart in Journey to Un’goro. Simply offering a clear path to victory propelled the deck from joke to juggernaut, giving players reason to dust off their previously ignored Alley Armorsmiths.

Assessment: Forced

While there’s no denying that Taunt Warrior became an overnight success, the archetype remains extraordinarily uninteresting. As much as the quest is to thank for Taunt Warrior’s ascension, it is to blame for the deck’s dull play style.

In the past, Control Warrior (and especially mirrors) were skill-intensive match ups. With Taunt Warrior, the deck’s game plan quickly became far too linear: play Quest, play Taunt minions, complete quest, press hero power until opponent is dead.

Likewise, the quest took out any challenge to deck building. Eventually, the archetype became very nearly a Fire Plume's Heart and a curve of Taunt minions.

In the end, the quest was a bit too heavy-handed in terms of injecting viability into the archetype and felt much less fun than even less successful archetypes.

About the Author

A card game veteran, Roffle has been infatuated with Hearthstone since closed beta. These days, he spends most of his time tinkering with decks on ladder or earning gold in Arena (f2p btw). In particular, Roffle has a wealth of experience in competitive Wild Hearthstone, including a top 16 finish in the inaugural Wild Open Tournament and numerous high end of season finishes since the format’s inception. Follow him on Twitter or check out some of his articles on Roffle.net.