It is time for Hearthstone World Championship 2021! Eight qualified Grandmasters will fight for the ultimate crown on Saturday, December 18, and Sunday, December 19.
The action is streamed on HS Esports Youtube starting at 8:15 am PT (5:15 pm CET) on Saturday and viewers can get up to two Fractured in Alterac Valley packs for watching the streams for a total of four hours. Streams and drops are only available on Youtube. Full details and links to streams in other languages can be found in the official announcement blog post.
The decks for the competition have been revealed in advance, which gives us a chance to take a look at the meta and what the Grandmasters think are the best tournament decks in the early days of Fractured in Alterac Valley.
The World Championship 2021 meta
The World Championship 2021 meta is something that has never been seen in Hearthstone before. Just take a look at this archetype spread:
- 7 Garrote Rogues
- 7 Lifesteal OTK Demon Hunters
- 5 Anacondra Druids
- 3 Face Hunters
- 2 Bolner OTK Shamans
- 2 OwlTK Warlocks
- 2 Quest Warriors
- 2 Libram Paladins
- 1 Mozaki OTK Mage
- 1 Quest Hand Warlock
That’s a whopping 19 OTK decks out of 32 possible, and 24 combo decks when you count Anacondra Druid! Glory is the only player who did not bring at least three combo decks and Tianming brought four! This level of combo madness has never been seen in competitive Hearthstone, and the viewing experience is going to be interesting, to say the least.
Here are the lineups of each player:
Nalguidan:
Tianming:
Frenetic:
McBanterFace:
KZG.Xiaobai
Glory:
Posesi:
Gaby:
Deck Archetype Deep Dive
With only ten different deck archetypes brought to the tournament, we can take a deeper look at each of them.
Garrote Rogue
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Garrote Rogue is probably the highest-skill deck ever in Hearthstone. In professional hands, the deck is capable of APM-like one-turn-kill combos where you need to keep drawing and find a way to discount and get rid of your cards without filling your board too soon. The core combo of Garrote getting buffed by Ethereal Augmerchant and the bleeds getting drawn with Field Contact is simple enough, but the complexity comes from pulling it off when you still have several cards left in the deck.
Garrote Rogue has generally not enjoyed widespread success on the ladder. It became a lot easier to play shortly after the Deadmines mini-set with the introduction of Blackwater Cutlass to help with the discounts, but the subsequent nerf to Garrote itself meant that putting together enough spell damage to OTK became more difficult and the deck’s overall win rate dropped again.
The introduction of Shadowcrafter Scabbs for increased survivability has made the deck stronger again in Fractured in Alterac Valley, but only a few players have been able to find competitive success with it.
All seven Garrote Rogue decks in the tournament closely resemble each other. Gaby, Xiaobai, and Tianming have chosen to include a Rustrot Viper tech against weapons and Tianming has an Animated Broomstick to potentially fight against aggressive decks.
Lifesteal OTK Demon Hunter
Lifesteal OTK Demon Hunter is not a deck you would expect to see in top competition, as the deck’s ladder performance is rather mediocre. However, it has one strong reason to be here: it is the strongest counter to Garrote Rogue! Garrote Rogue really does not like to have their cards Glided away, it seems.
All seven Lifesteal OTK Demon Hunter decks are very similar. Glory and McBanterFace are bringing Need for Greed instead of a Rustrot Viper tech, that’s it for differences.
Anacondra Druid
Anacondra Druid is another strong counter to Garrote Rogue, as it can lock the game with Celestial Alignment unless the Rogue has an Efficient Octo-bot ready.
A classic Druid deck, Anacondra Druid ramps up, does some crazy stuff and wins the game. With Celestial Alignment to make everything cost one and then Lady Anacondra to make most of Druid’s cards cost zero, the deck is capable of insane swing turns. If the game goes on after Celestial Alignment, the Druid can always play another one in the near future to reset the opponent back to one mana.
Posesi is the only player who brought an Anacondra Druid that is capable of a true one-turn kill: Mr. Smite, Survival of the Fittest, Solar Eclipse, and Germination can be combined to provide lethal amounts of Charge damage. The others just jam their stuff on the board, lock you out of the game, and wait for the concede.
Face Hunter
Glory, Posesi, and Gaby trust in the power of some old-fashioned pure aggro. They all bring Face Hunter as part of their lineups!
Irondeep Trogg has made the buff-style Face Hunter even better in Fractured in Alterac Valley. Get an early Trogg on the board and buff it up, and many opponents will struggle to find a way to get rid of it.
Posesi and Glory are using Cult Neophyte techs to slow down combo decks, whereas Gaby just uses more damage in the form of an additional Piercing Shot and Trueaim Crescent to power through the opposition.
Bolner OTK Shaman
Bolner OTK Shaman is one of the few Fractured in Alterac Valley decks in the tournament. Its win condition existed already in United in Stormwind, but it was not until Shaman got more stalling tools in Fractured in Alterac Valley that the deck has become part of the meta.
The OTK itself is Bolner Hammerbeak followed by Lightning Bloom to play Y'Shaarj, The Defiler. Y’Shaarj will then give you free copies of Dunk Tank and Circus Medic that you have played earlier, and Bolner will make each Circus Medic repeat the Y’Shaarj effect. From there, you’ll just keep casting all of your Dunk Tanks, refill with Circus Medic, and repeat for as long as the opponent has health remaining.
Fractured in Alterac Valley’s contribution is the Freeze package that keeps you alive long enough to play the combo. Windchill and Sleetbreaker stall and draw cards, while Snowfall Guardian and Brilliant Macaw can lock down the board for multiple turns.
OwlTK Warlock
OwlTK Warlock is the most Fractured in Alterac Valley deck in the tournament. Here, it is the exact opposite of Bolner OTK Shaman: the deck uses the old combo Warlock core, but with a new win condition from Alterac Valley.
The goal of the deck is to play and kill off a Humongous Owl. Then, you want to summon a boardful of Imps with Wicked Shipment, give them the Owl’s Deathrattle with Tamsin's Phylactery, and kill them off with School Spirits. Optionally, you can add Tamsin Roame to cast Tamsin's Phylactery twice for even more damage (up to 112). For more bonus points, do it all, including the Owl, in a single turn thanks to multiple discounts from Runed Mithril Rod.
Quest Warrior
Quest Warrior was the king of the late United in Stormwind meta, and it is the only deck that has survived to Fractured in Alterac Valley without any new cards. The deck of choice for players who do not want anything to do with new cards, Quest Warrior is still a strong midrange deck that keeps up unrelenting pressure and always has the threat of Mr. Smite – randomly generated or real – hitting the board to give everything Charge.
Libram Paladin
Libram Paladin is currently the best-performing deck on the ladder. Therefore, it is a little surprising that only Xiaobai and Glory are bringing it to the World Championship. Then again, OTK combo decks are some of the worst opponents for Libram Paladin, so if you are expecting a combo meta, you might want to leave it home. It’s not that combo decks are an unsurpassable obstacle for the Paladin, the matchups are generally not worse than 45-55, but a small edge is an edge nonetheless.
Xiaobai has clearly had combo opponents in mind with his Battleground Battlemaster tech, cutting an anti-aggro Animated Broomstick, and making his Libram Paladin just a little faster.
Mozaki OTK Mage
Tianming is the only player to bring Mage to the tournament. Mozaki Mage is not known for its defensive prowess, but it is one of the faster OTK decks, and capable of taking down OwlTK Warlocks and Bolner OTK Shamans very reliably. It has a really bad time against Face Hunters and Anacondra Druids though, and cannot boast of a favorable matchup against Garrote Rogue either. If it hits the right matchups, it can be a good choice for this tournament, but there are several threats around as well.
Quest Hand Warlock
Bringing Quest Hand Warlock to an OTK meta is a brave move, we’ll have to see how it works out for McBanterFace. At least this list is the anti-combo tech list with Altar of Fire and Mutanus the Devourer
Quest Hand Warlock does not need a lot of new cards. In this list, it’s just Dreadlich Tamsin. Some of the other versions also include Full-Blown Evil, but overall the deck plays exactly as it did in United in Stormwind.
Oh, and one more thing…
Yep, here we are. Balance changes will come, as promised. Many of those decks will be getting hit.
— Celestalon???????? #ABetterABK???? (@Celestalon) December 16, 2021
Enjoy the combo games now, for, in the near future (next week?), the wheel of time will turn again!
Old Guardian
Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
why does this say batman? ngl I always thought rexxar will get a batman skin
Because I’m old enough to have watched the classic Batman series, from which the holy Batman meme is from.
Looking forward to seeing Gaby win the title!