Welcome to Ravenholdt! After the mindful patch was released, the nerfed Galakrond Shaman disappeared completely in ladder. The pattern of ladder has shifted from the top 3 of Rogue, Warrior and Shaman to only Rogue’s domination. Before the patch, many decks suppressed by shaman gradually find their position in ranked and continued to refine their constructions. Still, many more decks will be suppressed by the new King.
Class Analysis
After a month, people finally realized why Rogue’s decks are always strong: Togwaggle and Galakrond. The quality of the 0-mana cards they drew almost determine a win or lose. Basically, these drawn cards are more or less good to play, but sometimes one or two good cards may be the victory of this game. Before the patch, Highlander Galakrond Rogue was more popular because of its fun and resistance towards different decks. But after the patch, as more Highlander Rogue appeared and Galakrond Rogue decks made some improvements, some top players noticed that Galakrond Rogues has the upper hand when facing Highlander Rogues and the improved Galakrond Rogues can play against the aggro decks as Highlander Rogues do. Many players have reached high ranking with Galakrond Rogues. They include the limit pursued Galakrond Rogues with “Spirt of the Shark” represented by “童话” in China, and the tempo Galakrond Rogues constructed by Gyong. He reached the top 1 in AS and EU server. No matter how you construct the deck, Rogue is just too overpowered. Hearthstone is now called “Roguestone.” Because of its playability, rogue’s appearance rate reached 30% in ranked play from 5 to legend. Rogue is absolutely the Tier 0 class.
Warrior was also nerfed in this patch. The nerf of “Ancharrr” made Pirate Warrior disappear in ranked. However, the Galakrond Warrior already tended to be aggro before the patch, so the nerf of “Scion of Ruin” didn’t hurt it very bad. New added cards like “Temple Berserker” and “Cruel Taskmaster” made Galakrond Warrior more aggressive at the beginning. Still, occasions like the dying opponents survived after the Galakrond Warriors played their hand are not rare, which means that the aggro Galakrond Warrior still needs improvements. Also, the emergence of Highlander Warrior might be the hope for warriors. Depending on the development by Mr “小米锅巴” and propagation by us, Highlander Warrior popularized both in CN and other servers. Because of its slight advantage towards rogue, Highlander Warrior is at least a Tier 2 deck. In fact, instead of calling it “Highlander Warrior”, we would rather call it “Alexstrasza + Many good Removals Warriors.”
The nerf of Galakrond Shaman was so crucial that we think, for a long time, we won’t see Galakrond Shaman in toped ranking anymore. In AS, the win rate of Aggro Overload Shaman has reached the top in all rankings. It is because of its two cores: “Spirit of the Frog” and “Thunderhead.” In EU, Hoej reached good ranking by using a normal Overload Shaman. Also, the Overload Shaman with “Doomhammer” finally can reach to face after “dragon’s pack” was nerfed. At least for now, Aggro Shaman has the potential, but its win rate is still very dependent on the drawn rate of these two cores.
Just a few days before the patch, warlock even reached the end of Tier 1 classes in ranked, but the nerf of shaman and warriors made warlock’s status dropped a bit. Both of Galakrond Zoo Warlock and Galakrond Warlock are good against Highlander Rogue, but they are still slightly inferior to the Galakrond Rogues. Besides that, Hand Warlock (not include Galakrond) and Aggro Warlock appears in ranked sometimes, but they are still too bulky. In a word, warlock is a relatively stable class in the current meta. Although it can’t deal with opponents’ wide boards, if you don’t make mistakes, you can win most of the matches, so it is still not a bad deck for laddering.
After the patch, as rogue and warlock dominated the ranked play, hunter, known by face damage, has a very suitable laddering environment. In fact, hunter does benefit from the patch. Either Highlander Hunter or Face Hunter decks, despite when the opponents’ hands are good, both can hardly deal with it, can steadily suppress their opponents. Many CN players like to use hunter for laddering in every ranking. “清欢丨祁洛爱叶叶” almost got to the top 1 with Highlander Hunter. We believe Highlander Hunter is strong enough to be one of the Tier 1 decks in the current meta. Our one-sentence summary for Highlander Hunter is: Win like a Face Hunter, lose like a Control Hunter (don’t have such deck). For Face Hunter, the Build by WEHap is nearly perfect. We don’t think it can add or delete any card, especially not taking the “Rat Trap.”
The era of Combo Priest has ended. We don’t even want to recommend a Combo Priest deck this week. In this tempo-first environment, Combo Priest with “Magic Carpet” revived. With the tempo play by Carpet, Combo Priest has more operate potentials and board controls. Meanwhile, Resurrect Priest is still tepid, mostly because it can’t defeat rogues and it feels boring, but at least you can play while watching twitch, laughing about Kripp’s silly play and having fun with Face Hunter. While you must realize you will raise rogue’s win rate when playing priest.
After the patch, a player named “destiny” won the championship of Power Series League (a Chinese Hearthstone Match Series) by using Highlander Mage and igxc has reached to the top 2 by using Cyclone Mage. It seems to be a hope for mage. However, these two decks rely on key cards too much, and even they have the key cards, they still cannot guarantee to win. But anyway, you can play mage in ranked.
Token Druid has some stable and overpowered cards, ensuring the lower limit of it. But when considering its weak board return ability, let’s just skip this deck. For mid-range, druid has Embiggen Druid and Dragon Druid, but both rely on luck. Again, in this tempo-first environment, they are not qualified enough. For Quest Druid, well, it’s Descent of Dragons expansion now. It is just an outdated deck.
Paladin is still at the bottom of the class rank. Even though players construct many decks like Highlander Paladin, Mech Paladin, Dragon or Murloc Paladin, their biggest problem is tempo. In many cases, although you have used all mana in every turn, you still cannot stick to the board and defeat opponents. For Holy Wrath Paladin, it disappeared completely in CN’s ranked.
Tier List and Method
Tier 0
The one deck that control the enviornment, with extreme power. Most of its matchup except the mirror have a repressive advantage.
Tier 1
Highly environmentally competitive decks, with high strength and upper and lower limits. The only possible disadvantage is the players’ proficiency and lack of understanding of the game; after skilled use, the winrate is 60% nearly.
Tier 2
Decks with high strength in the meta, and one of the upper or lower limit is high; after skilled use, the winrate is around 55%.
Tier 3
Decks with a certain level of strength in the meta, generally decks that can be used for special matchups. it has strong stability but is not as versatile as T2 Decks.
Tier 4
Decks that can be used to climb the ladder, but the stability is poor or the construction is not complete, and the versatility is also bad.
Decklists
T0 Decks
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Galakrond Rogue(with Shark)
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Galakrond Rogue(without Shark)
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T1 Decks
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Highlander Rogue
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Highlander Hunter
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T2 Decks
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Face Hunter
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Galakrond Handlock
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Highlander Control Warrior
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Galakrond Warrior
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Galakrond Zoolock
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Malygos Rogue
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Hand Warlock
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T3 Decks
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Face Aggro Shaman
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Token Aggro Shaman
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Cyclone Mage
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Highlander Mage
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Treant Druid
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Murloc Paladin
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Resurrect Priest
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Embiggen Druid
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Dragon Hunter
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T4 Decks
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Pirate Warrior
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Holy Wrath Paladin
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Combo Priest
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Midrange Hunter
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Quest Druid
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Mech Paladin
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Contributors
Chief Editor: 造物者 | 小瑜豆子
Associate Editor: 十年饮冰
Editors: 影踪 | 聪与喵喵, 清欢 | 惘闻, 萌萌哒浅白、, 清欢 | 食盐, JrsConley, AjjCloud, 冰火 | 风凌, 能抽能匹小水怪
Specially Invited Advisor: 斗鱼小象夕尘残枫
Translator: 梦之郡 | 无月封
General Superintendent: 小海螺
Operations Managers: 五言好帅
Proofreader: 小尉同学
Publisher: 水分子