Into the Emerald Dream is now one week old, and plenty of Hearthstone has been played in the new Standard format. In our day 1 meta analysis, I showcased the trio of Armor Demon Hunter, Leech Death Knight, and Zerg Hunter as the early top meta contenders. One week in, and those three archetypes are the most popular decks you meet on the ladder. They also complement each other nicely, as there are no decks that would be strong against all three. That said, there are several serious contenders, and the early trio is close to losing their grasp of the meta. In higher Legend ranks, there are already new decks in the top three.
Let’s take a look at Into the Emerald Dream meta, one week in!
Armor Demon Hunter
I still see Armor Demon Hunter as the deck that has defined this expansion. It is one of the most popular decks in the game, although its play rate has fallen to just above 10%. Nonetheless, you need a plan on how to answer it: either beat it through pure aggression (Zerg Hunter), an early swing turn (Dungar Druid), or by destroying its ability to produce value (Nebula Shaman’s Hex or Terran Warrior’s Food Fight). If you try to go for a long game against Armor Demon Hunter, you are out of luck.
This day 1 deck remains the most proven Armor Demon Hunter deck:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Player:
10,080
While there are other lists that may eventually prove to be better – for example, replacing the Mixologists with Spectral Sights seems somewhat promising – this deck has now proven itself over tens of thousands of games, and is a solid performer.
Zerg Hunter
After the first day, the Discover variant of Zerg Hunter was more popular, but it was already visible that the token approach was performing better. Over the past week, this has been conclusively proven, with the Discover version disappearing almost entirely.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 6,360
Sideboard
There have been no changes to the Zerg Hunter list since the first day. This is currently the most popular deck in the game, and also the strongest one. It is strong against Armor Demon Hunter, which in turn keeps decks that could counter Zerg Hunter out of the meta. Leech Death Knight and Location Warlock are two rare exceptions: they are unfavored against Armor Demon Hunter, but not unplayable, so they can survive and pose a challenge to Zerg Hunter.
Leech Death Knight
Leech Death Knight continues to be split into two different decks: either you bring the full power of Legendary cards to the table, or you bring your Starship. Both approaches still look viable, and are popular on the ladder.
The Legendary version of the deck has not changed since day 1:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 18,000
Sideboard
The same goes for the Starship version. What worked on day 1, still works:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 11,280
Both of the above Leech Death Knight decks are good against Hunter and weak against Armor Demon Hunter, thus completing the trifecta.
The Leech package itself seems to be versatile and able to be included in different archetypes. There is also a third notable Leech Death Knight, although this one is the polar opposite of the Legendary and Starship decks: it actually beats Armor Demon Hunter and can also take on Hunter, but loses miserably against the other Death Knights. It is the BFF Aggro Leech Death Knight:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 8,520
Sideboard
Nebula Shaman
The fourth-most popular deck on the ladder is Nebula Shaman. After the first day, it looked like Nebula Shaman might have something going for it because Hex is still a card that can deny resurrectable resources early in the game. I just was not sure what to make of the rest of the deck.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Player:
- 16,740
- 1Pop-Up Book2
- 2Triangulate2
- 3Fairy Tale Forest2
- 3Hex2
- 3Lightning Storm2
- 3Turbulus1
- 4Baking Soda Volcano2
- 4Hagatha the Fabled1
- 6Shudderblock1
- 7Murmur1
- 9Nebula2
Now, we know much better. Nebula Shaman is great against Armor Demon Hunter. It is not nearly as great against the rest of the early top contenders because it is unfavored against Hunter and also slightly unfavored against Death Knight. However, it is slightly favored against Location Warlock, which is becoming more important all the time.
There have been some minor improvements to the list. Lightning Storm gives the deck a bit of a survivability buff over Blazing Invocation. Still, the deck would need some more innovations to become less dependent on having Armor Demon Hunter to prey upon: the more Demon Hunters on the ladder, the better the Shaman deck is. If Demon Hunter numbers go down, Nebula Shaman goes down with them.
Location Warlock
Putting it all together, Location Warlock comes out as the second-best deck in the game. It is one of the few counters to Zerg Hunter, which is the top deck, and while Location Warlock does not enjoy going against Armor Demon Hunter and Leech Death Knight, it can somewhat hold its own in those matchups. It also beats just about every mid-tier deck. It has already become popular in Legend and is the most popular deck in the top 1000.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 8,520
Location Warlock is a deck that is going through some refinement. The original Gift version is gone, and the Zerg approach is the one that survived. Further refinement over the past week has seen this deck add more early survivability tools as well in the form of Mortal Coil and especially Hellfire. This is similar to the development seen with Nebula Shaman, as decks tech towards being able to better answer Zerg Hunter.
Priest = Aggro?
Priest’s transformation into an aggressive class continues. At the start of Into the Emerald Dream, an aggressive version of Protoss Priest looked like the most promising Priest deck. However, it turns out that you can just ditch the Protoss apart from Chargelots, and build an even more successful Priest deck!
The current top Priest deck, which also happens to be the third-best deck in the game behind Zerg Hunter and Location Warlock, is Aggro Fishing Priest:
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 6,940
Sideboard
The refinement path of Protoss Priest has been interesting. Protoss Priest is still a competitive deck, and it has actually become slightly slower since the start of the expansion. It cannot both run Mothership and out-aggro decks that don’t, so it is now slightly more midrange with a measure of aggression still.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 8,800
If you’re looking for a Control Priest list, you will not find one here. The very slowest Priest deck that you can play on the ladder right now is Zarimi Priest as a slow version. That’s nowhere near control, but at least it is midrange and not aggro, if that helps any of you. Its performance has also been going down and is barely at 50% anymore. Aggro is the current way for Priest to succeed.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Player:
- 10,420
Something New!
There are also some decks that have come up during the week. I already mentioned the aggro version of Leech Death Knight, and here are another three archetypes that I did not cover in the day 1 report but that look competitive right now:
First, Menagerie Paladin. I actually saw this deck on the first day, but I did not take it seriously. Mother Duck? Menagerie Jug? Really? Really!
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 5,880
- 0Wisp2
- 1Fire Fly2
- 1Murmy2
- 1Scarab Keychain2
- 2Busy-Bot2
- 2Creature of Madness2
- 4Mother Duck2
- 4Vacation Planning2
- 5Menagerie Jug2
Menagerie Paladin relies on cheap minions that flood the board and then get buffed by various means, the most important of which is Crusader Aura. An army of recruits, properly trained and equipped, can take down a mighty hero. The deck is still not very common on the ladder, but with more than a thousand games recorded, I have to start believing that this is real. Not ladder-dominating real, but more than three sigmas above a 50% win rate real.
Second, Food Fight Warrior. Food Fight is a surprisingly good card for this meta because it pollutes the resurrect pool of Armor Demon Hunter. Instead of Arkonite Defense Crystals, they may end up summoning more copies of Entrée. When Food Fight is played before Defense Crystals can be resurrected, the consequences are devastating.
There are two varieties of the deck. First, you can go all in on the Food Fight synergy, and blast enemies with Briarspawn Drake. Succumb to Madness and Clutch of Corruption then bring the Drake back for round two (and three, and four…)
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Posted By:
- 4,800
Alternatively, you can also make Food Fight one part of a Control Warrior deck and proceed to slowly win the game now that you have a tool to prevent Armor Demon Hunter from gaining near-infinite value.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Player:
- 16,560
Sideboard
Third, the most competitive Druid deck in the meta is Dungar Druid. Yes, it’s Travelmaster Dungar again, summoning powerful minions from different expansions from your deck. This time, the main targets are Carrier, Runaway Blackwing, and the new Briarspawn Drake that we already saw in Food Fight Warrior.
- Format: raptor
- Season: season-132
- Player:
- 10,000
Conclusions
Many of the top meta decks were established already on the first day of the new expansion. Armor Demon Hunter, Zerg Hunter, and Leech Death Knight have seen no changes during the first week. That said, their position in the meta has changed.
Zerg Hunter is the best deck in the game. It is a powerful aggro deck with only a couple of weaknesses.
The second-best deck is Location Warlock. The idea was discovered on the first day, but the deck has gone through a couple of iterations since before arriving at its current form.
The third-best deck is Aggro Fishing Priest. This deck was not found on day one, but is the result of Protoss Priest splitting into a more midrange version, and a faster version that cuts the expensive Protoss cards and only keeps the Chargelots.
Behind these three decks, there is a group of competitive archetypes as featured above. We have a mix of decks that were built right at the start, decks that have been refined further, and also some archetypes that have been built during the first week, but after the launch day. I’m sure there is also more to come as the new Standard year goes on.
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
