Weekly Hearthstone Roundup #20 (Apr 28 – May 4)

Last month in review:

• #16 – Mar 24 – Mar 30
• #17 – Apr 7 – Apr 13
• #18 – Apr 14 – Apr 20
• #19 – Apr 21 – Apr 27

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

• May 2017 Ranked Season Has Started – Sunwell Unleashed! – You can earn a new card back for reaching rank 20 by the end of the season. Good luck in the new season!
• Hearthstone has reached 70 million players! – Also, Hearthstone has broke a record for the most users logged in at the same time around the world. To celebrate those feats, Blizzard has rewarded everyone with 3 card packs. Enjoy!
• Glixel: ‘Hearthstone’ Director Ben Brode Talks Surprise Success and Tough Choices – It’s a pretty long interview with our favorite dev, Ben Brode. He talks about game design, upcoming “single player adventures” (first coming with the second expansion this year), about his position etc. We don’t really learn anything new, but it was still a nice read.
• First Official Wild Tournament Incoming! – As Blizzard has promised few months ago, this year they’re going to care about the other format too. And so, top 64 Wild Legendary players will qualify to the first official Wild Tournament. We’re going to have more info about that soon, but I’m pretty excited, even though I don’t play Wild.
• HearthPwn: Activision Blizzard has released their Q1 earnings
• China recently forced developers to publish random drop rates… and we learn nothing – Blizzard’s official statement about packs in HS is that: we’re guaranteed to get 1 rare per pack, on average we have 1 Epic in 5 packs and 1 Legendary in 20 packs. And that the longer we don’t get any higher rarity reward, the chance to get one increases. So basically, everything we knew already. No info about gold cards drop rates or the exact pity timers (although it probably wouldn’t surprise anyone either).
• This Week’s Tavern Brawl is: Wild Heroic Tavern Brawl! – It’s the third time we got to play in the most competitive Brawl ever, but this time with a little twist – instead of Standard format, it’s Wild. Since majority of the players are used to the Standard, it might be even harder for them to score high. But at the same time, those of you who have a lot of Wild experience might have an edge in this competition.

Ladder/Arena/Competitive

• Vicious Syndicate: Data Reaper Report #46 is out! – Hearthstone meta remains to be incredibly diverse, which is amazing. For the first time there is no deck above 52% win rate in Legend, which means that no single deck really dominates. 8 best decks on the overall ladder are: Murloc Paladin, Midrange Paladin, Pirate Warrior, Secret Mage, Burn Mage, Elemental Shaman, Aggro Shaman and Token Druid. And 8 best decks in the Legend are: Murloc Paladin, Pirate Warrior, Secret Mage, Burn Mage, Token Druid, Midrange Paladin, Taunt Warrior and Quest Rogue.
• TempoStorm: Wild Meta Snapshot #4 is out! – TempoStorm has released the new Wild meta snapshot, mostly because of the ongoing Wild Heroic Tavern Brawl. Here are the best Wild decks according to them. Tier I: RenoLock, Pirate Warrior, Control Shaman and Reno Mage. Tier II: Egg Druid, Secret Mage, Aggro Shaman, Reno N’Zoth Priest, Control Warrior and Inner Fire Priest.
• HearthHead: Chinese Meta Bulletin #1 – Most of the meta snapshots we’re seeing come from the EU and NA regions. But the truth is that China is the biggest region with tons of interesting data, which is normally pretty inaccessible for people who don’t know the language. HearthHead has took some of the data, translated and compiled it.
• HearthstoneTopDecks: Top Finishing Standard Legend Decks from Season 37 (April 2017)
• You can check out a currently trending deck for each class on the HSReplays.net site! – The site offers a selection of decks that have been rising to popularity in the last 48h. Those might not be the best builds, but they’re the ones you should be seeing on the ladder more and more right now. For a compilation of the decks in general, check out the “Decks” section.

eSports/Teams/Tournaments

• HearthPwn: Hearthstone Global Games Week 4 – Team from 48 different countries will face each other in the Best of 5 format. Week 3 of Group Stage has taken place between May 2 and 4, but there is still a lot of action to come – group stage will be played for many weeks and then play-offs will happen. You can watch new matches live every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on the official PlayHearthstone channel. If you’ve missed the action, you can also watch the VoDs from every match!
• EU vs CN tournament will take place between May 4 and 14 – Group stages will be held between May 4 and May 10, while Finals will be streamed On May 13 and 14. You can watch the English stream on the Firebat’s Twitch channel – casted by Firebat and Zalae. There is a huge 1st place reward – Ferrari California T or the €200,000 cash equivalent. In the previous events, only Chinese players could win the car, but this time around, the biggest reward is available for anyone!
• Hearthstone Collegiate National Champions Crowned – After two thrilling days of Hearthstone, one school’s team has emerged as champions. Rutgers University’s team, Scarlet Crusaders, overcame Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal to walk away with $10,000 USD each in scholarships and the rights to call themselves “Nation Champions”.
• GosuGamers: The groups for the fourth China vs. Europe Championship are out

Community/Podcasts/Videos

• New episodes of the most popular Hearthstone podcasts were released: The Angry Chicken #208, Golden Wisp #124, Value Town #120, Lightforge #91, The Innervated #79
• Reddit: Top Cards of the Week from /r/CustomHearthstone (04/29/2017)
• Video: Hearthstone’s pros’ verdict on Un’Goro and if the game is getting too expensive
• Video: Funny And Lucky Moments – Hearthstone – Ep. 243
• Video: She only wants him for his amazing Deck

• Video: Brian Kibler on: The Cost of Un’Goro
• Video: Kripp Predicts the “Ol’ Mind Control Trap Play” Perfectly
• Video: Kripp combines the powers!
• Video: Kibler finds lethal
• Video: Merps Gets A Tortollan Turnaround
• Video: Hearthstone: Bots Are Back!
• Video: Toast with new interaction.
• Video: Control’s Top 5 Wild Un’Goro Decks!
• Video: Toast Screws Up, Misplays, and Explains Why
• Video: Disguised Toast: Primodorial Glyph turn 4 quest completion
• Video: ThijsHS 12-1 Heroic Tavern Brawl – Wild
• Video: Kripp realizes something
• Video: HysteriA – Completing 3 Quests in One Game

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!