The last Masters Tour of 2024 and the final tournament opportunity to earn a spot in the World Championship was played over the weekend. 16 players from Europe, Americas, and Asia-Pacific had qualified for the event where the best Hearthstone players competed for glory, a $50,000 prize pool, and especially for the invites to the $500,000 World Championship tournament. The World Championship will be a major event this year with the Chinese players again able to participate, not to mention that a spot in the tournament guarantees a $15,000 prize even in the worst case.
With as much on the line as there can be in competitive Hearthstone, players brought their best lineups and leaped into action.
Masters Tour Summer Championship 2024 Meta and Results
The meta in these small events tends to be fairly narrow. This time, players brought a total of 13 different archetypes from 7 classes, whereas in April’s Masters Tour, we got to see 14 archetypes from 8 classes. The lowest variety was seen in April 2023, where only 11 different archetypes from 7 classes were present.
Class distribution:
- Priest: 13
- Druid: 12
- Rogue: 12
- Warlock: 10
- Paladin: 8
- Shaman: 5
- Death Knight: 4
- Demon Hunter, Hunter, Mage, Warrior: 0
Archetype distribution, win-loss, and win rates:
- Overheal Priest: 13 players, 15-7, 68%
- Sonya Rogue: 9 players, 9-7, 56%
- Insanity Warlock: 9 players, 15-18, 45%
- Handbuff Paladin: 8 players, 17-14, 55%
- Tempo Druid: 8 players, 13-12, 52%
- Playhouse Rogue: 3 players, 5-2, 71%
- Rainbow Death Knight: 3 players, 3-11, 21%
- Evolve Shaman: 3 players, 3-8, 27%
- Concierge Druid: 3 players, 5-2, 71%
- Nature Shaman: 2 players, 1-7, 13%
- Frost/Unholy Death Knight: 1 player, 3-0, 100%
- Highlander Druid: 1 player, 4-4, 50%
- Painlock: 1 player, 2-3, 40%
The tournament was played over three days: the first two days were the group stages, from which 8 players proceeded to the single-elimination playoffs: Furyhunter, McBanterFace, maxiebon1234, KT8298, gyu, Maur1, Incurro, and GamerRvg.
While some less common picks performed well in their individual games, originality was no recipe for success in this event. Three of the top-4 players brought the four most popular decks as their entire lineup. The only exception was Maur1, who brought three of the most popular decks and Highlander Druid. The Frost/Unholy Death Knight brought by OgO won every game, but was still unable to take him to the top-8 because his Evolve Shaman could not keep up.
Maur1 and McBanterFace lost in the semi-finals, which meant that maxiebon1234 and GamerRvg secured the spots in the World Championship and maxiebon1234 prevailed in the final and won the Masters Tour Summer Championship 2024.
The Best Decks from Hearthstone Masters Tour Summer Championship 2024
Tournament decks don’t necessarily make for good ladder decks, as the ban in Conquest format tournaments means that you can leave a vulnerability in your lineup and not suffer the consequences. On the ladder, you need to take every single deck into account, at least if they are popular, as you cannot avoid any matchups. That said, some of the top tournament decks are likely to have ladder potential as well.
OgO’s Frost/Unholy Death Knight
The one, the only, the 100% win rate deck from the championship. Frost/Unholy Death Knight is not nearly as popular on the ladder as Rainbow version of Corpsicle Death Knight, but it is a viable ladder deck with an above-50% win rate all the way to Legend. If you want to play Death Knight a little differently, this deck can be a great pick.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-125
- Posted By:
9,660
Furyhunter’s Concierge Druid
Furyhunter went out in the quarter-finals, but he was let down by his Insanity Warlock, not his Druid, which cleared the top-8 game just fine. Concierge was recently nerfed, and Tempo Druid is now the more popular ladder deck, but as long as Druid can ramp, the class is never off the table. The combo may now be a little slower, but it can still take out opponents in a single turn.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-125
- Posted By:
- 6,100
Incurro’s Playhouse Rogue
Incurro also lost in the quarter-finals, but Playhouse Rogue got him an early 1-0 lead in the series. Again, it was Insanity Warlock that ended up struggling. Rogue as a class is having a hard time on the ladder, but many top players prefer the intense card-flinging playstyle of the class. Sonya Rogue is the more popular Rogue archetype on the ladder, but Playhouse Rogue is very close in performance and you may be able to catch some opponents by surprise with this one.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-125
- Posted By:
- 7,620
Maxiebon1234’s Overheal Priest
Zarimi Priest is the dominant Priest archetype on the ladder, but Overheal Priest was a strong tool in maxiebon1234’s toolkit to take the championship. The deck is dominant against Handbuff Paladin, and also has fine matchups against Warlocks, Rogues, and Death Knights. Looking at the tournament meta, it turned out to be a great pick.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-125
- Posted By:
- 8,760
Maxiebon1234’s Sonya Rogue
Sonya Rogue is the most popular Rogue archetype on the ladder, but as a skill-intensive combo deck, its ladder performance generally leaves much to be desired. The top players are able to get everything possible out of the archetype, which is just enough to make it competitive. The ladder stats for this deck show a 45% win rate in Diamond-Legend and a 46.6% win rate in top 1000 Legend. It’s safe to assume that the win rate would be even higher only among the very best players, but we don’t have access to that kind of stats. I guess that’s still not very attractive as a ladder deck for the majority of players, even though it is a rare deck where the win rate goes up as better players pilot it.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-125
- Posted By:
- 6,780
Maxiebon1234’s Handbuff Paladin
Handbuff Paladin is a respected ladder deck, although this version is more teched towards a tournament meta.
With two copies of both Razorscale and Cult Neophyte, you play this on the ladder if you really, really hate combo decks. Usually, you would drop them for something like Amitus, the Peacekeeper, Yogg-Saron, Unleashed, Astral Serpent, and a second copy of Southsea Deckhand. That said, this build proved its worth in the tournament where many people had combo decks in their lineups.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-125
- Posted By:
- 9,840
Zilliax: Twin Module + Power Module
Maur1’s Highlander Druid
As the only less common archetype in the top four, Maur1’s Highlander Druid deserves a shoutout.
Maur1 went 4-4 with the deck, so its performance was just OK, but it got to see play all the way to the top-4, and it got a win in its only game in the semi-finals too. It is also the only competitive deck that runs Night Elf Huntress, one of the free Warcraft Rumble promo cards in Hearthstone, so that is an additional reason at least for me to play it.
- Format: pegasus
- Season: season-125
- Posted By:
- 17,960
- 0Zilliax Deluxe 30001
- 1Giftwrapped Whelp1
- 2Trail Mix1
- 3Gorgonzormu1
- 3New Heights1
- 3Pendant of Earth1
- 3Tortollan Traveler1
- 3Trogg Gemtosser1
- 4Griftah, Trusted Vendor1
- 5Night Elf Huntress1
- 5Puppetmaster Dorian1
- 7Doomkin1
- 7Marin the Manager1
- 7Sleep Under the Stars1
- 10Reno, Lone Ranger1
- 10Yogg-Saron, Unleashed1
Zilliax: Twin Module + Perfect Module
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
