Fade 2 Karma Meta Report #4

Introduction

Fade2Karma is a new professional eSports Hearthstone team that was formed recently. It consists of top players like Cipher, Hawkeye and Dethelor. (Gosugamers announcement here, F2K’s Twitter and LiquidHearth‘s announcement here.)

The F2K Meta Report focuses on the class/deck representation in the European Legend Ladder on a biweekly basis. Hundreds of ladder games played by our players allow us to determine which are the most popular decks on ladder and which decks have fallen out of favor by most.

To view sample decklists, scroll down!

The Ranking

Popular (Green) Average (Yellow) Out of Meta (Red)

Sample Deck Lists

• Control Warrior, Patron Warrior
• Midrange Hunter, Face Hunter
• Zoolock
• Secret Paladin, Midrange Paladin
• Tempo Mage, Mech Mage
• Combo Druid
• Dragon Priest

Analysis

1. Paladin: Paladin is still on top of the food chain. Secret Paladin is the most common ladder right now. Every 4^th game is against Paladin and for every Midrange Paladin there are 3 Secret Paladins. As the brief history of Hearthstone shows us, decks that are easy to play and still have a high win rate are always the most popular ones: Sunshine Hunter before Unleash the hounds nerf, Undertaker Hunter before Undertaker nerf, Mech Mage after Undertaker nerf and so on. Secret Paladin has a similar power level as those decks, because if it draws well it is nearly unstoppable.

2. Warrior: Warrior is slowly climbing back to the top of the ranking. Both Control Warrior and Patron Warrior saw equal amount of play this week. If Secret Paladin keeps being as popular in the future as it is right now, people might start playing even more Patron Warrior, since it has a favorable matchup against Paladin. Logically more people will pick up Control Warrior then, to compete with Patron, meaning Warrior could easily be on top of the ranking next time.

3. Druid: Not having many bad matchups, Druid stays in the top 3. The consistency double Wild Growth and Darnassus Aspirant provide to the deck, make it one of the best ladder choices. The fact that it has a great matchup against Control Warrior and a decent matchup against Patron and Paladin assures Druid a spot in the top of our ranking in the future.

4. Mage: Mage is in a good spot at the moment. Having two archetypes with Tempo and Mech Mage that do well against Paladin, Control Warrior and Druid, it is only a question of time until more people pick up the class. The main problem of the class is the lack of consistency sometimes, as it relies on a strong unanswered early game curve most of the times.

5. Hunter: As Warrior gained popularity this week, Hunter automatically decreased in popularity, because all of its archetypes have a bad matchup against Patron Warrior. That being said Hunter remains in the top tier of our ranking as it still is above the 10% threshold. This is the case because the class has good matchups against Paladin, Druid and Mage.

6. Warlock: It is weird to see Warlock at such a low rank. The class used to be constantly in the top 3 of any power ranking in the past. Zoo, the most popular Archetype, doesn’t have too many good matchups at the moment. Paladin traditionally does well against it. Control Warriors running double Brawl and Baron Geddon to combat the Paladins automatically do way better against Zoo. Patron Warrior is favored anyways. And Druids having a minion now that contests Zoo’s early board makes it way easier for them to transition in the midgame while not getting overwhelmed by the Zoo board. If Mage becomes more popular, Warlock will gain popularity as well though, as it has good matchups against Mech and Tempo.

7. Priest: It might not seem like it, but recently a lot of people started playing Circle Priest. That tendency could be observed in the last days, but hasn’t made an impact yet on our ranking. Circle Priest has good matchups against Paladins and Druids, and with the addition of Holy Champion to the deck, it has more midgame power to pressure Patron Warrior. Dragon Priest was the most common Priest build though the last two weeks. Its proactivity makes it a good choice for players that don’t like the reactive nature of other Priest builds.

8. Rogue: Rogue managed to climb a rank, but is still in a terrible spot right now. The problem is that all of the minion focused decks have more threats nowadays, which makes it so that Rogue runs out of answers more frequently than it used to.

9. Shaman: Shaman is back where it used to be pre-TGT: the least played class on ladder. Shaman relies on board control and all of the top archetypes are better at fighting for the board. In addition to that the Druid matchup has turned from a good matchup for Shaman to a pretty bad one, mainly because of Emperor Thaurissan allowing Druid to do unfair things, such as bursting you down out of nowhere, or developing more threats per turn than they should.

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