The second season of Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 is underway this week, and this is the first chance we have to see what the Grandmasters think are the best decks after the balance changes!
We posted the full details on where to watch the games and how to get some free packs while doing so earlier, and in this article, I will take a look at what is being played now in the post-nerfs meta and what interesting card choices players have made.
Grandmasters Deck Archetypes
This is what the 192 deck archetypes brought by the 48 Grandmasters look like:
- 48 Warlocks (yes, everyone brought some variety of Quest Warlock)
- 42 Shamans (40 Quest, 1 Elemental, 1 Aggro)
- 26 Mages (Quest)
- 21 Hunters (20 Face, 1 Quest)
- 19 Priests (15 Shadow, 4 Control)
- 16 Druids (12 Anacondra, 4 Miracle)
- 14 Rogues (6 Kazakus, 3 Quest, 3 Garrote, 2 Poison)
- 6 Demon Hunters (3 Fel, 3 Lifesteal OTK)
- 0 Paladins
- 0 Warriors
Compared to last week, there is clearly more meta knowledge available. Grandmasters think that the best decks are Quest Warlock and Quest Shaman, and then they fill up the rest of the lineup with whatever they feel is best for that meta. Note that the format this week is Last Hero Standing and not Conquest, so lineup building is a little different when one of your decks can just beat up everything your opponent is bringing. Nonetheless, the rise of Quest Shaman and the fall of Handbuff Paladin have been drastic.
The Warlock Quest decks basically follow one of three plans. The most popular one this week is the quick Questline completion and OTK with Stealer of Souls (25), closely followed by the Giants build with Flesh Giant and Battleground Battlemaster (22). Muzzy is the only player who still brought a Zoo-like version of the archetype. I won’t feature any of the Warlock decks in more detail in this article: yes, they are strong, but there’s nothing new and you can find the meta lists from this site easily enough.
The Most Interesting Decks
For the most interesting decks, I’m looking for off-meta decks, decks with interesting tech cards, and new upcoming archetypes that may become meta but are not that popular yet.
Let’s see what the Grandmasters have brought us!
AlanC86’s Quest Shaman
5,280
Quest Shaman is all over the place on the ladder right now, but the refinement of the archetype has only begun with its rise to prominence after the balance changes. The two most promising recent additions to the archetype are Enthusiastic Banker and Earth Elemental, and AlanC86 is the only player whose deck includes them both.
In a meta where Silence effects and hard removal are absent, Enthusiastic Banker gives Quest Shaman something more to do in the early game and some card draw in case you cannot find the good stuff immediately and Earth Elemental is a big threat that can punch Quest Warlock in the face as soon as possible – while sometimes also refunding your Overloaded mana crystals if you manage to time it right with the Questline progress!
More data is still needed to determine the value of these new cards, but they might become mainstream eventually.
J4YOU’s Quest Hunter
I had great expectations for Quest Hunter, but it turned out that playing a Questline that requires you to have some minions to target is not that great when your opponent is a Quest Mage. However, Quest Hunter’s performance has clearly improved after the balance patch, so now there is only one obstacle that prevents it from being more popular on the ladder: Face Hunter is still better. Nonetheless, Quest Hunter is starting to look like a viable deck, if you enjoy it more than Face Hunter.
J4YOU is the only one who has brought the archetype to Grandmasters. Unsurprising, because most people just opted to go for Face Hunter instead.
For ladder play, the lack of Professor Slate in the list is surprising, as it is generally one of the better-performing cards in the archetype, so I would probably cut a Devouring Swarm for it if I wanted to journey to the open world with this deck.
Leta’s and Lnguagehcker’s Shadow Priest decks
Shadow Priest is fighting to stay relevant in the new meta. In the old meta, its forte was preying upon Quest decks before they can clear boards because, ironically, Shadow Priest needs minions to win the game, as it does not have anywhere near enough damage from spells and the Hero Power.
There are two approaches that the archetype has taken to solve this problem and both of them include cutting Void Shard for even more minion pressure.
Leta’s deck attempts to augment its early minion pressure with Kazakus, Golem Shaper. With the help of some big Golems – or sometimes just small buff Golems – Shadow Priest can attempt to fight for the board for a longer period of time.
Lnguagehackr’s deck shows the other modern approach: Disciplinarian Gandling together with the zero-cost minions Desk Imp and Murloc Tinyfin. The free minions can also synergize with Voidtouched Attendant for some impressive damage right at the start of the game, but overall those 1/1 bodies are not that impressive and they are the weakest cards in the deck.
However, when the deck hits the good Disciplinarian Gandling combos, it can build a big board very early in the game and proceed to win from there.
Right now, it looks like the Gandling version is the strongest, followed by the Kazakus version, both of which seem to outperform the original Void Shards. Of course, the patch is still too fresh to say for sure what will be the mainstream variant.
Grr’s Poison Rogue
Poison Rogue has turned out to be the strongest Rogue archetype after the balance patch, at least for now, when people are still refining their decks for the new meta.
What is there not to like? There are hardly any minions for Warlock or Mage to target and you can just hit them in the face with your weapon and eventually move on to Garrote them. Just pure damage, nothing else.
Che0nsu’s Quest Rogue
Rogue is perhaps the most interesting class in Hearthstone right now. Not because it’s the strongest, but because it has the widest variety of viable decks. Fine, they might all be tier two decks, but there are just so many ways to play Rogue right now: the pure aggro of Poison Rogue, the explosive burst of Garrote Rogue, the what-expansion-I-saw-no-new-expansion Barrens tempo of Kazakus Rogue, and the new, sneaky tempo of Quest Rogue.
Quest Rogue can be a super fun tempo deck when it hits the right draw. You need to find a bunch of SI:7 cards, and then you get some sweet Spy Gizmos that allow you to disrupt your opponent in all sorts of ways, and ultimately Stealth a 9/7 minion that will then go face next turn. Twice, if you can find your Battleground Battlemaster.
I like Che0nsu’s version of Quest Rogue because I think it hits just the right balance of SI:7 cards with the single copy of SI:7 Infiltrator and it includes Prize Plunderers for some additional board control.
DimitriKazov’s Miracle Druid
Miracle Druid’s ladder performance has jumped from abysmal to below average after the nerfs. But hey, when I see a deck with a ten-mana card in the current meta – C'thun, the Shattered – I have to give it some credit. There are only minor differences between the four Miracle Druid decks brought by DimitriKazov, DreadEye, Gaby, and xBlyzes, and this version has had the best success on the ladder so far.
Ramp up, go through your entire deck, give your opponent the bad eye, and win. In style.
CaelesLuna’s Lifesteal OTK Demon Hunter
Well, I did not see that coming. With Il'gynoth nerfed from four mana to six mana, I expected this archetype to die. Perhaps it is already dead, but CaelesLuna, GivePLZ, and Shaxy brought it to Grandmasters anyway. They all have slightly different versions, with CaelesLuna incorporating one copy of Glide into the deck. Glide can serve as insurance against bad luck as you can redraw your cards after completing the Questline to guarantee discounts on combo pieces. That feels awfully slow for the current meta, but it is interesting to see this archetype still being brought to serious competition.
Have fun!
If you want to win, decks such as Quest Shaman, Quest Warlock, Face Hunter, and Secret Paladin should still serve you well in this early post-patch meta. However, I hope that these highlighted decks from Grandmasters can help you have more fun in the game!
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
Devs when Galakrond Shaman too OP
“We’re nerfing 5 Shaman cards and it’s our responsibility that we killed the deck outright, so we improvise by buffing them again near the rotation”
Devs when Questlock Darkglare Giant too OP
“We’ll see”
I much prefer the later approach. I’m glad the developers have changed how they handle balancing