Weekly Hearthstone Roundup #4 (Dec 30 – Jan 5)

Previous weeks:

• #1 – 8th-15th of December 2016
• #2 – 16th-22th of December 2016
• #3 – 23th-29th of December 2016

Introduction

Weekly Hearthstone Roundup is a series summarizing last week in Hearthstone. By making a compilation of the news regarding game, teams, pro players, ladder, community etc. we try to make catching up easier for those of you who don’t follow the HS news every day.

If you feel that we’ve missed something important or that we didn’t properly cite the source, let us know in the comments and we’ll fix it right away.

General/Game News

• January 2017 (34th) Ranked Season has started – This month’s card back is Grimy Goons. We’re going to get another faction card back next week!
• Ben Brode has addressed the new players experience under a reddit post – He aggress that the new players experience needs more work, but at the same time he acknowledges us that they’ve been constantly working on it with a decent results. For example, new players are queued only against other new players in their first few sessions and their win rate have increased by ~15% overall after improving the matchmaking (because they don’t have to constantly fight against experienced players with big collections).
• This week’s Tavern Brawl is The Dark Wanderer – The promised 20th Diablo anniversary Brawl is here. You can win a unique card back for participating. The Brawl is a reference to the Diablo’s hidden Cow Level. Learn more about the Tavern Brawl on HearthPwn.
• Ben Brode responds about why there aren’t more Designer Insights videos – Apparently, he was doing those in his home, right now he’s on paternity leave and it’s hard to set up everything (amateur “studio” in the bedroom) with very little free time very day. Some responded that they understand, others that a company like Blizzard should afford to set up a room with camera somewhere in their company or that someone else can do it instead. I’ll leave the judgement to you.
• Community has discovered that Kabal Chemist doesn’t generate a Dragonfire Potion – In thousands of tests, the card didn’t generate the Dragonfire Potion even a single time, clearly being bugged. So if you were ever playing around it – you don’t have to! (you still might want to play around Felfire Potion, though). Yong Woo tweeted that they’re looking into it.
• Blizzard has released a new “Take This Inside” commercial – This time, there is no Guac Boy and the action takes place inside a coffee shop. While definitely being better than last one, it still has a pretty strong “cringe” feeling to it. Do you like it more than the last one? Do you like it at all? Just for comparison, here are the German and the Japanese adds for Hearthstone – I recommend watching both, especially the latter!
• “Happy Feast of Winterveil” emote has been removed from the game – Since the Christmas season is over, you can now again greet your opponents in a more classic manner.
• HearthPwn: A new, Android-only patch will be available for download in China – We don’t know what exactly it’s about, it might be just some testing. It doesn’t seem like any content patch.
• GosuGamers: Premier Chinese org World Elite leaves Hearthstone

Ladder/Decks/Meta

• TempoStorm: Meta Snapshot #20 (January 2nd) was released – Meta still remains pretty similar, the only big change is Reno Mage rising to Tier 1 and Control Warrior hanging on the top of Tier 2. The second one is a big surprise – the deck that was completely out of the meta early in the expansion seems to be coming back again. Currently, 8 strongest decks listed by TempoStorm are (in order): Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Midrange Shaman, Reno Mage, RenoLock, Miracle Rogue, Control Warrior and Dragon Priest.
• ViciousSyndicate: Data Reaper Report #32 was released – Meta seems pretty stable, with only a few minor shifts around. Right now, 8 strongest decks on the ladder are (in order): Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Dragon Priest, Dragon Warrior, Midrange Shaman, Midrange Jade Shaman, Reno Mage and Miracle Rogue. Among the higher tier decks, Dragon Warrior and Midrange Jade Shaman had the biggest rise (by about 0.55%), while RenoLock fell most (fell down to Tier 3 after losing almost 0.8% win rate across the board). Legend Meta looks similar, with only one big difference – Reno Mage being very close to #1 deck (Aggro Shaman) after getting +0.44% again, it might soon get into Tier 1.
• MetaStats: Meta Snapshot Week 52 (Dec 26 – Jan 1) was released – This snapshot still struggles with the sample size a bit, so take it with a grain of salt. The 8 most successful decks, according to MetaStats, are RenoLock, Pirate Warrior, Jade Druid, Midrange Shaman, Reno Mage, Dragon Warrior, Control Warrior and Tempo Mage. Even without a huge sample size, I have to disagree with RenoLock being at 62% win rate, Jade Druid being at 59% win rate and Tempo Mage even being in top 8 (at 55% win rate, while it’s one of the worst decks in the current meta).
• HearthstoneTopDecks: Compilation of the decks that finished in top 100 Legend last season (December 2016)

Tournaments

• GosuGamers: We know players representing NA in the clash against China this month – The third NA vs CN challenge is coming soon. It will take place between 16th and 22th of January. Players that will represent NA region are: Reynad, Chakki, Fr0zen, Cydonia and Dog. We don’t know the representants of CN yet, the CN qualifiers will take place between 6th and 8th of January.
• Zagreb Gaming Arena took place between January 2nd and 3rd 2017 – 16 amatereur players competed for 4 Finals slots, where they’ve faced 4 invited pro players – Lifecoach, Thijs, SuperJJ and RDU for their share of a 9,999€ prize pool. The event was casted by Lothar, Sottle and Raven. You can watch VoDs from the 2nd day (games vs pro players) on the Guru_Gaming Twitch channel.

Community/Podcasts/Videos

• Definitely the biggest Hearthstone drama of this year so far. Reynad has answered misconceptions regarding Tempo Storm’s Meta Snapshot, while undervaluing and dissing the competition – Vicious Syndicate’s Data Reaper Report a bit. Vicious Syndicate answered with a lengthy reddit post, explaining why and how much Reynad is wrong. After that, Reynad released a follow-up trying to explain himself and clear the air. If you’re bored and you like drama, grab some popcorn and jump in.
• In other news, Reynad got into the Forbes “30 Under 30: Games”
• New episodes of the most popular Hearthstone podcasts were released: The Angry Chicken #190, Golden Wisp #107, Value Town #102, Lightforge #74, The Innervated #69
• Reddit: Top Cards of the Week from /r/CustomHearthstone
• Yahoo Esports makes a compilation of Frodan’s best outfits of 2016
• Trolden has released a new episode of Funny and Lucky Moments – Best of 2016
• Legend Stuff has released a parody video called “Hearthstone Development Plan for 2017”
• L621 has released another parody video featuring Ben Brode called “Designer Insights with Ben Brode: Patches the Pirate”
• Shiju has released a guide on how to make a budget version of Malygos in Priest

Closing

If there are any more news from last week we might have missed, let us know in the comments. And, once again, if you have any suggestions for this series (or for the site in general!) we’d really appreciate if you’d let us know.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!