The Meta Report #24

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The ladder has reset and it is time to grind to Legend again! This is a really interesting time because some players are using the decks they used last season to rank up, while others are using decks that they were told dominated last season. And then there are others that are just trying out new decks at the higher ranks. You have a mix of experienced and less experienced players during this time and it can be really exciting! So, without further ado; let’s see how the Meta has unfolded on Day 1.

Here’s Team DKMR’s weekly Meta ranking. Keep in mind, it’s about which classes and archetypes are played the most, not about which are the strongest. Most of the times, the strongest decks will also be the most frequently played, but that’s not always the case. That’s just part of how the Meta works.

Rogue is at the top of the list this week. You will find a variety of both Miracle Rogue and Aggro Rogue climbing the ladders this season. Miracle Rogue has one of the highest win rates in the game making it extremely popular climbing to the high ranks. Aggro Rogue is a direct counter to miracle rogue which is why you can expect to see this deck a lot aswell.

Druid is still a very popular deck. Innervate and Wild Growth help the deck start putting down its big drops a lot earlier than any other deck which can be extremly hard for them to keep up with. All in all, druid is a very powerful and consistant deck and you should expect to see a lot of druid on the ladder for a long time.

 

Warlock comes in at the third most popular deck on the ladder. Both Handlock and Zoo have still been popping up a lot. It seems at he higher ranks, most Warlock players play Handlock, and at the lower ranks, most people run Zoo. Handlock is a very powerful deck against both Druid and Miracle Rogue which is why it sees a lot of play. The problem with Handlock, though, is that it gets hard counered by both Hunter and Mage, but these decks havn’t been seeing much play on the ladder.

Shaman has been seeing a decent amount of play lately. It has a strong match against Warlocks and Druids but struggles a bit against Miracle Rogue. Shaman has a pretty strong match against Aggro decks because their spells cost so little; they can be used it a turn to both remove enemy minions and obtain tempo from the opponent. Shaman is a solid deck to ladder with but it might be pretty difficult to obtain a high legend rank due to all the Rogue players.

Warrior comes in at number 5. Mostly Control Warrior, but you may occasionally run into an Aggro Warrior. Control suffers against a lot of the decks in the current meta which is why it isn’t as popular now as it has been in the past. Aggro Warrior has an extremely high win rate against Miracle Rogue due to it’s lack of taunts, but suffers against most of the other decks being played at the moment. This all being said, we would recommend to stay away from Warrior until the meta shifts to more controlly decks.

Hunter hasn’t been seeing too much play but it has a pretty decent spot in the meta at the moment. The only deck that’s been seeing a lot of play that counters Rush Hunter is druid, making this deck hard to play in the current meta. Bare in mind, Control Hunter tends to do pretty good against druid though. The only problem with playing Hunter at the moment is that it’s hard to find a balance of both Control cards and Aggro cards to stand a chance against the entire meta. When making a Hunter deck, you need to give up the Rogue matchup when playing Control or the Warrior and Druid matchup when choosing to play Aggro.

Mage hasn’t been seeing too much play but you may run into it occasionally. It does well against all Warlocks, Miracle Rogue, and decent against Druid and Shaman. If you que into a Warrior with freeze mage, you might as well just press the concede button. Now that the ladder has reset, we don’t recommend playing this deck since the games take so long.

There isn’t too much Paladin going around on the ladder, both Aggro and Control are the 2 versions run. Although Paladin has extremely good AOEs, it lacks powerful core minions that can help push damage. If you que into a Paladin, usually it’s best just to mulligan as if it’s Aggro. If you get stuck with expensive drops against this deck, they will usually draw several cards from Divine Favor which makes it hard to win the match at times.

Priest is at the bottom. It has powerful AOEs with the Auchenai and Circle of Healing combo, but it is so hit and miss. With a deck like Rogue, you rely on drawing 1 card, Gadgetzan Auctioneer; playing priest you rely on drawing 2+ card combos or you lose the game. This makes the deck inconsistant and which is why you don’t see many players play this deck.

Deck of the week:

This week we are looking at a midrange Warrior Control deck. This is a deck that [DKMR]Kisstafer has been running in tournaments with greats success. It moves a bit faster than its predecessor. Create the deck on Hearthstats and start keeping track, see how you do with this deck!