Weekly Hearthstone Roundup #6 (Jan 13 – Jan 19)

Last month in review:

• #2 – 16th-22th of December 2016
• #3 – 23th-29th of December 2016
• #4 – 30th of December 2016 – 5th of January 2017
• #5 – 6th-12th of January 2017

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

• Developer Insights: Livestream Q&A – Game Director Ben Brode and Game Designer Dean Ayala held a live Q&A stream. They’ve answered questions from viewers – about the ladder, new player’s experience, Arena and more. If you’ve missed it, I made a recap (with links to the full stream and short version if you prefer watching instead of reading).
• RSVP for HCT Bahamas – Everyone can book their visit and attend HCT Winter Championship in the Bahamas. Even though rooms at the Nellia Nasau Beach Resort are quite expensive, it might be worth it if you can afford to take some time off. Additionally, visitors will get a unique card back (for as little as few hundred dollars, totally worth it!)
• Game Designer Max McCall discusses Shamans – We don’t see blue posts on the official forums too often, but Max McCall took his time to explain how he feels about the current Shaman’s dominance. In short, he think that there is no Shaman deck that’s oppressive on the ladder right now. Even though Shaman is the most popular class overall, it’s not a single deck that dominates the ladder. There are faster, Aggro Shamans, Midrange Jade Shamans and other kinds of Shamans. Individually, no deck has big enough representation to feel bad, but since they are very similar in the cards they use etc. it feels like you face the same Shaman openings of Tunnel Trogg into Totem Golem all the time. He also mentions that if Shamans keep their popularity, they might get a nerf – however, they prefer people to find a strategy to counter it instead of pushing a nerf, because the deck also has its weaknesses.
• Catastrophic Hearthstone Failure In China, Blizzard Compensates – Even though EU serves is the one known best for crashing down, this time around Chinese Hearthstone players had really hard week. During a schedules maintenance, servers experienced a power loss that cause damage to the data. Maintenance took 40 hours, but in the end they couldn’t restore the data and had to roll-back over 2 days of progress. As a compensation, each player who logged into the Chinese server before maintenance will receive 1000 gold and 15 packs (5 Classic, 5 WoG and 5 Gadgetzan).
• Hearthstone Packs Hypothesis – Predetermined Rarity – A new theory has popped out after the issues on the Chinese servers. Players have been reporting that they’ve opened cards of the same rarity before the roll-back and after it. For example, if someone has opened a Golden Legendary in their 5th Classic pack, the 5th Classic pack they’ve opened after rollback also had a Golden Legendary. Cards themselves are definitely randomly defined, but there is a chance that the rarity is predetermined. What does it mean for an average player? Absolutely nothing, but it’s just pretty interesting.
• This week Tavern Brawl is: “Spellbook Duel” – Players are building their own decks. They pick 10 cards (1 copy of each), no restrictions. Instead of drawing your cards, you start each turn by discovering one of the cards from your deck. If you play an effect that would draw a card, you get a 1 mana spell with the same effect (discover a card from your deck). You can, however, still pull out the cards from the deck with the effects like Y’Shaarj, Rage Unbound or Deathlord. Very interesting Brawl with a lot of different, viable strategies. There is a reddit thread with decks for the Brawl, so if you don’t know what to build, you can check it out.
• Yong Woo has confirmed that the Kabal Chemist bug (card having 0% chance to give Dragonfire Potion) will be fixed with the next patch.

Ladder/Decks/Meta

• ViciousSyndicate: Data Reaper Report #34 was released – This week was a week of fall of the high tier decks and raise of the lower tier decks. Top 7 decks either stayed where they were or took a hit to their win rates. On the other hand, more niche decks like Reno Priest, Control Shaman or even Anyfin Paladin (which got more popular after the recent G2 success in the Trinity League) have raised a bit. However, it didn’t really shift the positions around. Top 5 decks on the ladder overall are: Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Dragon Warrior, Dragon Priest and Miracle Rogue. Top 5 decks in Legend are Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Midrange Jade Shaman, Reno Mage and Midrange Shaman. So no real surprises on that matter. What surprises a bit, however, is the Miracle Rogue’s popularity in Legend. It’s almost as popular (within the 1%) as the Aggro Shaman, even though the stats clearly show that the deck’s win rate isn’t too high. Most likely new player are trying to pick it up, but a lot of them fail, since the deck is really hard to play.
• ViciousSyndicate: Top Cards Played During the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Meta – vS releases more data. This time around on the top cards played in the Gadgetzan meta so far. The data is presented in a very organized manner, you can sort it by the card’s rarity, class and even set. 5 most popular cards overall are Patches the Pirate (2,83%), Small-Time Buccaneer (2,71%), Azure Drake (2,63%), Tunnel Trogg (1,40%) and Totem Golem (1,40%). Well, there is one deck which plays all of those cards. *cough* Aggro Shaman *cough*
• TempoStorm: Standard Meta Snapshot #21 (January 15th) was released – You can watch the Breakdown Video here – There are 4 decks in each of the two top tiers. Tier I: Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Miracle Rogue and Reno Mage. Tier II: RenoLock, Midrange Shaman, Control Warrior and Dragon Priest.
• MetaStats: Standard Meta Snapshot Week 2 (Jan 9 – Jan 15) was released – The sample size of this snapshot has significantly improved, and so the results are getting more and more precise. However, there are still some questionable decks that scored really highly. Top 8 most successful decks right now, according to MetaStats, are: Pirate Warrior (56%), Dragon Warrior (56%), Aggro Shaman (55%), Reno Priest (54%), Midrange Shaman (54%), Reno Warlock (53%), Miracle Rogue (52%) and Control Warrior (52%).

eSports/Tournaments

• HearthPwn: The Trinity Series – A Hearthstone Team League – The Trinity Series, first Hearthstone Team League in a while, has finally started. 8 teams will compete for their share of $130,000 prize pool. Games can be watched on the esl_hearthstone Twitch channel every Wednesday and Thursday at 10AM PST (7PM CET). VoDs available on the same Twitch channel.
• CN vs NA has begun a few days ago – 5 players from North America (Reynad, Chakki, Fr0zen, Dog, Cydonia) face against 5 players from China (JasonZhou, OmegaZero, Lovelychook, Lvge, Xhope). So far, the score is tied at 1-1 after 2 rounds. You can watch the last round live tomorrow at 2AM PST (11AM CET) on the Firebat’s Twitch channel. You can also check out the VoDs on the same channel.
• WESG 2016 Hearthstone Grand Finals – Playoffs – The event took place between 14th and 15th of January. 8 players fought for their share of $300,000 prize in the biggest Hearthstone tournament of 2017 so far. In the end, Filipino player Staz won 4-3 against Swedish player Orange. You can watch the VoDs on the starladder_hs_en Twitch channel.

Community/Podcasts/Videos

• New episodes of the most popular Hearthstone podcasts were released: The Angry Chicken #192, Golden Wisp #109, Value Town #104, Lightforge #76, The Innervated #70
• Reddit: Top Cards of the Week from /r/CustomHearthstone (01/14/2017)
• HSReplay: Popular Legendaries in Gadgetzan
• Video: [Trolden] Funny And Lucky Moments – Hearthstone – Ep. 212
• Video: Kripp plays arena, but every time he complains it gets faster
• Video: Kibler On Current Issues: January 2017
• Video: A Tribute to BRM, LOE and TGT
• Video: [Disguised Toast] TRAPPED by Yogg-Saron – Is there Lethal?
• Video: Hearthstone – Anime Opening
• Video: Hunter in a Nutshell
• Video: Lore of the Cards: Fandral Staghelm

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!