Darkmoon Races, the first mini-set in Hearthstone’s history, was released last week after a very short “reveal season” (we’ve seen all the new cards in just a single day – which honestly was a pretty fun experience). Like expected, it didn’t bring a massive meta shift, but it did have a solid impact on the most played decks. Not only some of the older decks got stronger with new support, previously off-meta decks like Ramp Paladin or Token Druid have risen to the top. At least for now – keep in mind that it’s still quite early after release and things might change.
We already had a balance update, but it didn’t really impact Standard format. Hysteria got nerfed (now it can only target opponent’s minions), but the card is still good if you use it for what it was supposed to be – a removal. The nerf, however, made Wretched Tiller combos in Wild no longer possible. Early after release, the Wild ladder was full of them – both Warlocks and Priests – and while might not have been overpowered (frankly it was just too early to tell), having an OTK combo you could often drop as soon as Turn 6-7 was quite annoying.
I think that a short reveal season has something to do with it, but the experimentation period lasts for longer than I’ve anticipated for such a short expansion. Normally, between the reveal season and then a few extra days between knowing all cards and expansion’s release, players get a lot of time to theorycraft. This time, we’ve only learned how all the cards look like less than 48h before release. We didn’t even bother writing theorycrafting posts, because they were pointless – by the time we would get them out, mini-set would also be released (and then we can just test the decks and write actual guides). Of course, because it’s only 35 cards (and not the usual 135), and because it’s literally the last content release before rotation (so the pool of cards in Standard is already huge), it could only do so much. But overall I feel like it was a nice change of pace, and if other mini-sets will look (and be priced) similar, I’m on the board.
Now I just hope that we’ll see a balance update or two after the meta stabilizes.
Below, you will find a full list of the Legend decks from last week, sorted by the highest placement.
If you want to see all of the current top meta decks, go to our Hearthstone Meta Tier List post!
If you’re looking for the best Wild Format decks, check out our Wild Meta Tier List!
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It was not too early to tell that a nerf was needed to tiller otk. The nature of the combo was far more trivial to pull off than any other otk.
Well yeah, but the deck had a pretty low win rate overall despite that. Zoo Warlock / Reno Priest still had a higher WR than Tiller builds.
And I felt the same when playing against them – they were more annoying, not necessarily overpowered. They focused so much on drawing and didn’t have THAT much removals, so you could often kill them before the combo happened.
They would most likely turn out to be better after getting optimized, but early stats didn’t indicate that they were a problem (WR-wise, not popularity-wise).
I’m just saying I don’t think the devs (or anyone) want any combo to be possible just by having 10 mana and 4 cards in-hand without any other conditions required. Mozaki mage requires mana reduction, maybe a biscuit or two in-hand, sometimes a favorable evocation, enough spells to pump up Mozaki, and ideally 8 specific cards in-hand (2 apprentices, mo, evo, and the missiles & frostbolts, but the damage spells are the flexible part), plus obviously surviving before that takes cards which are bogged down by the combo cards. Just one example but for any otk that wasn’t nerfed I’m sure you can see that it’s not just having 4 cards and 10 mana. If it’s that easy the deck would just run a control shell and be the most overpowered deck in the game.
Also phenomenal job on the website, just wanted to say 🙂
Aaaaah I miss Nozdormu / 2x Tip the scale / 1x Clown to craft ramp paladin, not sure if I should invest but it looks sooooo fun
I’d be inclined to say : GO FOR IT, the deck is fun and Clown is not a bad card. Even Nozdormu can have some fringe applications I guess.
Worst thing is Tip the Scales is an Epic that WILL rotate soon though, so it kinda depends if you’re willing to invest to play it a lot until the rotation.
(but then again my own subjective feel is the deck is really a blast so do it ! )
The deck is fun to play and powerful, but that’s a lot of Dust. I would probably go for it only if I had a lot to spare Dust given how likely it is to get nerfed + that it rotates out soon :p