It is a great time to play some Hearthstone. Two weeks ago, we got the new Into the Emerald Dream expansion and the start of a new Standard year, and on Friday, Blizzard released the 32.0.3 balance patch. And what a balance patch it is! Effectively, the new expansion was relaunched on Friday, and we started fresh again.
The key change is the total destruction of Armor Demon Hunter. With Arkonite Defense Crystal cost changed to 5, it can no longer be resurrected by Ravenous Felhunter, which means that Armor Demon Hunter ceased to exist. The deck’s win condition is no longer in the game. It is extremely rare for Blizzard to destroy a deck like this, and one can wonder if such a drastic measure was warranted.
However, I did point out in my previous meta analysis that Armor Demon Hunter is the deck that defined the Emerald Dream meta: it had the ultimate inevitability, and every deck in the Standard format had to have a way to beat it before it got the engine rolling or risk losing to it. Now, Blizzard stole the whole engine and left the chassis abandoned in the parking lot, where it will stay for all eternity.
With Armor Demon Hunter out of the way, all the rules have changed. We are at the very beginning of this new journey, and I expect innovation on a similar level to a full expansion launch in the coming days. We are already seeing a plethora of new archetypes, and the meta is only beginning to establish itself. What will be the new deck that the meta will warp around? We don’t know yet. Many of the decks that are performing well at the moment seem to have clear weaknesses, and a dominant force is yet to be established.
Let’s take a look at what is going on and who the current contenders are!
Death Knight
Death Knight’s Leech plan was also hit with a nerf, and Hideous Husk now only makes the leeches sucks 1 more health instead of 2.
Nonetheless, Leech Death Knight is still fine, although it no longer looks like the best Death Knight deck in Standard. Here is the the current best Leech Death Knight list:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
10,320
Sideboard
Wild Pyromancer now makes an appearance in the deck in combination with Poison Breath for a full board clear. The deck’s defensive capabilities have been enhanced, and it can now happily go for a long game with the help of Kil'jaeden – something it would have inevitably lost to Armor Demon Hunter before the patch.
However, more aggressive strategies look better so far. For Death Knight, as for many classes after the patch, this means Menagerie. Menagerie Jug has rapidly established itself as one of the key win conditions in the format. It goes into a variety of decks that use a number of different minion types to enable the Jug and then some other win condition specific to each deck.
There are two varieties of good Menagerie Death Knight decks, and we do not yet know which one will be the better approach: BBU or FFU.
Blood-Unholy Menagerie Death Knight looks like this:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 4,020
The Blood-Unholy variant of Menagerie Death Knight is able to use the Leech package, although the package was just nerfed. It finds the damage it needs between Leeches and various minion types that get buffed by Menagerie Jug.
For a different approach to the same theme, here is Frost-Unholy Menagerie Death Knight:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 3,600
The Frost approach does not have access to Leeches, but it has Corpsicles and Marrow Manipulators to give it some additional punch beyond the usual menagerie mix and Menagerie Jug.
Demon Hunter
Armor Demon Hunter is dead. However, Demon Hunter is still alive, it just looks different now. The current Demon Hunter decks all embrace an aggressive approach with some differences on how to pursue their goals.
First, there’s Crewmates:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 8,280
Crewmates were never quite strong enough in last year’s Standard format, but they were able to perform in the lower power-level Pre-Release Brawl. Now, there is a new opening for Crewmates again.
Ravenous Felhunter is used in the deck to resurrect Dirdra, Rebel Captain. They are both tutored by Tuskpiercer. Playing Dirdra once shuffles enough Crewmates into your deck to be drawn by all the subsequent Dirdras you will have during the game. It is a fun little combo, although you should be able to win without it much of the time just through the power of your Crewmate swing turns.
You can also do some similar things with Demon Hunter without Crewmates. This is Menagerie Demon Hunter:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 5,640
Here, you have some of the same tools, like Tuskpiercer and Ravenous Felhunter, but this time you’re resurrecting Dreadsoul Corrupters and Ball Hogs.
You also have a wide variety of minion types and Menagerie Jug to give your board a big buff.
Druid
Travelmaster Dungar was hit with a nerf, and Dungar Druid is just gone. Its win rate fell by at least 4000 points, and that was it.
Druid is not in a good spot in the current meta, but it does have one playable archetype. Not a top-tier deck, but maybe a tier 2 deck. That deck is Imbue Druid. Given how the new Imbue mechanic fell flat for Druid at the start of Into the Emerald Dream, this relaunch of the expansion has at least made the new Druid cards relevant.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 6,360
Summoning big green men with your hero power, maybe to the tune of Sing-Along Buddy, is a strategy that can now win games.
Hunter
Spawning Pool and Amphibian's Spirit were both hit with some nerfs. However, Zer Egg Hunter was perhaps the best deck in the game before those nerfs, and it turns out that it remains a playable deck even after taking two direct hits. It might not be a top-tier deck anymore though.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 6,360
Sideboard
That said, Hunter has found not one, but two really good decks that have now overtaken the Zerg approach. First, we have a similar token strategy, but without Zerg and with Menagerie instead:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Player:
- 4,020
Sideboard
Menagerie Jug keeps coming up in these lists, and it gives a nice mid-game threat to end the game to an already scary deck that rolls on and on with its Egg power.
However, there is also a brand-new Hunter deck in the meta, and the early numbers indicate that it is the best one yet (subject to confirmation with more data). It is Handbuff Hunter:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 5,340
Sideboard
Unlike most handbuff decks, this one ends games surprisingly fast. Note how few minions the deck has. Reserved Spot will always hit a good target, and then it’s kaboom time. Whether it’s Mythical Runebear or the Twin Power Zilliax Deluxe 3000, your opponent has to have an answer to an early big pair of minions, or they will lose. I guess sometimes you’ll have Ranger Gilly in your hand, who can slow down your game plan.
The deck is a bit of a one-trick pony, I guess, so we’ll see if there will be good ways to counter it. If not, get ready for a beastly onslaught.
Mage
There is not much to write about when it comes to Mage. Protoss was hit with nerfs, and Protoss Mage was already just an OK deck. It is barely playable now.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 6,120
Imbue Mage might be a better option now, but there’s not enough data for it yet.
Paladin
Paladin has a couple of things going for it. It was the first class to build a Menagerie deck, already before the balance patch, and Menagerie Paladin is doing well.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Player:
- 7,740
Sideboard
There has also been experimentation on building “slower” Paladin decks, with the idea of Ursol casting Shaladrassil for you as an aura being the leading contender so far. You get three rounds of extremely powerful Corrupted Dream cards, which are usually enough to finish the opponent.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Player:
- 8,760
Priest
The Protoss nerf hurt the Protoss Aggro Priest, but Priest was quick to replace the Protoss cards and embrace the Jug:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 4,840
Aggro Menagerie Priest is one of the best decks in the game right now. Somehow, aggro is still the main way to play Priest.
There is a somewhat slower approach to Priest that is also playable, albeit far from the control roots of the class. Zarimi Priest is a midrange deck with the always dangerous Timewinder Zarimi that can end games on the spot. The perfect combo is playing Naralex, Herald of the Flights into Ysera, Emerald Aspect, two Briarspawn Drakes and Timewinder Zarimi. But any Naralex into Dragons into Zarimi combo is often good enough to close out the game.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Player:
- 10,900
Rogue
Rogue is in an interesting spot. There is a lot of experimentation going on with Rogue, and some of the lists have potential. All Rogue decks are some variants of tempo decks that are able to manipulate the tempo of the game to their advantage.
Protoss Rogue is the most established Rogue archetype.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 5,880
The deck moves Harbinger of the Blighted back and forth to activate effects and combos while building up Protoss forces to build an Archon out of Dark Templar and High Templar.
But this is far from the extent of Rogue experimentation as there are also other combo-using lists, and even a recent #1 Legend list that uses Playhouse Giants:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Player:
- 6,600
Shaman
Unfortunately, I was unable to find a single good Shaman deck. Murmur was nerfed, and Nebula Shaman lost its main reason to exist with Armor Demon Hunter gone. Some players are trying out the recently buffed Imbue Shaman, but as of right now it looks like it’s going to need more to be viable.
Warlock
Warlock still has Location Warlock, but its strength in the new meta is still uncertain. Seaside Giant is now much harder to bring down to 0 mana (you need 9 location activations instead of 5).
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Posted By:
- 8,520
There is also another highly experimental Warlock deck. A deck that has reached #1 Legend in the new meta. A deck that can give the Deathrattle of Adaptive Amalgam to an Archdruid of Thorns and then start piling up more Deathrattles on it. You will get all the Deathrattles and it will keep shuffling itself back to the deck.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-133
- Player:
- 9,840
Sideboard
We don’t have any stats for this specific list yet. There is an earlier version of the same idea, which is 10 cards different, and that one has a 30% win rate. I am equally scared and intrigued by this concept.
Warrior
Warrior has also found it difficult to survive in the new meta. Food Fight Warrior not only got nerfed, but also lost its best matchup (Armor DH). Terran Warrior is the best thing going on for the class for now, and it is thoroughly mediocre.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Player:
- 17,760
Sideboard
Conclusions
This has been one of the most impactful balance patches of all time. The expansion was basically launched anew. Everything is different. It will take some more days for the meta to settle and it is difficult to see the long-term winners yet.
Menagerie decks look promising. Rogue looks good, but there is a lot of refinement going on in Rogue, so I don’t know what the best list will be like yet. Hunter remains strong and also has some new archetypes. Everything is in play, it’s like we got another expansion launch only two weeks after the last one!
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
Two things astonish me:
1. Zerg, Protoss and Terran decks remain in the meta (like they did before the expansion) and nothing really new appeared as strong decks and you people celebrate “a relaunch of the expansion”. Like…no. There is no “relaunch”. They straight up killed the innovations and possibilities and went straight back to the old meta. There is nothing to celebrate.
2. Before the expansion launch, there were several ideas of news decks like Dragon Warrior, Dragon Priest, Imbue Hunter, Imbue Shaman and nothing of that stuff seemed to be working. Why is that? Why does Blizzard or the community default to boring old ideas instead of new experiences?
I returned 2 months ago and were excited about the new expansion. That excitement is gone.
My experiments and attemps to create new decks failed (cant climb out of silver anything thats “off-meta” and the “meta-decks” are all dull and boring.
Guess I am gone again. Make me sad tho.
Not sure what you are talking about. Dragon (Zarimi) Priest is one of the most popular decks right now. Imbue Druid, Tree Paladin, and Cliff Dive DH are all new and good decks.
Protoss Rogue, is a good/popular deck, but Rogue amazingly has SEVEN other archetypes to play right now (Pirate, Startship, Ashmane, Cycle, Inciidus, Ysera, and Combo). Protoss Mage is popular. But Zergs are limited to one of many Hunter archetypes, and decks using any of the Terran cards are far and few between. Most DKs don’t run them.
In short, this is probably the most diverse meta HS has seen in a long time. Sorry you won’t be around to miss all the fun.
But I guess whining is your forte.
They may fool you with the name. But this Shaladrassil/Paladin deck can only be named: Shaladin!!!
I tried Crewmates in place of Arkonite Death Crystal so you wouldn’t have to. It was fun and competed for board well, but couldn’t finish.
In another timeline, maybe Team 5 could have made Ravenous Felhunter and Ferocious Felbat only resurrect Demons? It would have been more in line with what they wanted out of the Big Demon DH list – summon more Spirit Peddlers and Omens and the like. It would probably not have been good but at least it wouldn’t have kneecapped Starship decks either. (Your opinion will vary on whether that’s also a good thing, but it feels good to know that Among Us DH gets to be a thing.)