As the current Hearthstone meta continues to be dominated by Hunter, many of the best options for competitive play are decks that perform well specifically against the class.
If you’re someone who doesn’t have any interest in playing Hunter, here are a few meta and off-meta options that should help you find some success on ladder this month.
Control Priest
While this deck is pretty similar to the iteration of Control Priest that was seeing play before Rastakhan’s Rumble, it does add a few new cards in the form of Crowd Roaster and Firetree Witchdoctor.
Crowd Roaster is a seven-cost minion with seven attack and four health. Its Battlecry, however, is what makes it so good in this deck. If you’re holding a Dragon, you can deal seven damage to an enemy minion. Since most Priest decks run a healthy amount of Dragons, you can expect to use Crowd Roaster for some super powerful removal.
Firetree Witchdoctor is a two-cost 2/2 with a Battlecry that lets you discover a spell if you’re holding a Dragon. Depending on what options you have, you’ll usually want to discover something like Psychic Scream or Mind Blast for extra damage or removal potential. The deck also runs Duskbreaker, which can provide early game removal and can be a life saver against aggro decks.
The long term game plan is to hold your opponent off as long as possible and answer any aggression they throw at you with removal. You then play Shadowreaper Anduin and start the classic ping face into Mind Blast combo. The deck also runs Alexstrasza, which can speed up your win condition if you’re fortunate enough to draw it.
Val’anyr Even Paladin
While Odd Paladin is still strong even after the nerfs, Even Paladin has started to see much more play and success on ladder—especially this version of Even Paladin, which runs the Paladin weapon Val’anyr.
This deck doesn’t run anything from Rastakhan’s Rumble, but it’s performing well against most of the decks on ladder, mainly Hunter. Corpsetaker is your huge value card in this deck, and you’ll want to drop her as early as possible. Corpsetaker is a four-cost 3/3 that gains Taunt, Divine Shield, Lifesteal, and Windfury as long as you have other minions in your deck that share those keywords.
Val’anyr itself also generates ridiculous value for the deck. Val’anyr is a six-cost weapon with four attack and two durability. It also has a Deathrattle that allows you to give a minion in your hand +4/+2, and lets you re-equip Val’anyr when the minion dies.
The deck also includes a number of tempo cards, like Blessing of Kings, which allows you to give a minion +4/+4. Combine Blessing of Kings with Corpsetaker and now you have a buffed-up Windfury minion ready to smash your opponent’s face.
Cube Warlock
Cube Warlock is another deck that hasn’t changed since the new expansion. It continues to dominate, however, thanks to how well it performs against aggro decks, specifically Hunter. Cube Warlock revolves around getting high amounts of value out of your Demons by copying them with cards like Carnivorous Cube and Prince Taldaram.
Carnivorous Cube allows you to destroy a minion and then summon two of it when the Cube dies. You’ll be combining it with Void Lord most of the time in order to summon an unstoppable army of Taunt Demons.
Void Lord is a nine-cost 3/9 with Taunt that summons three 1/3 Demons with Taunt whenever it dies. The deck also runs Skull of the Man’ari, the legendary Warlock weapon that allows you to summon a Demon straight from your hand without paying its mana cost. You’ll also be running big damage Demons, like Doomguard, which is a 5/7 with Charge. If you get lucky and cheat our numerous Doomguards with the help of your Cube, the game will be over sooner than later.
The deck also runs Gul’dan, which means that all of your Demons that died will be coming back to life once he hits the board. Give this one a try if you’re a Warlock player who enjoys playing control.
Odd Taunt Warrior
This deck is similar to past iterations of Taunt Warrior we’ve seen early in the expansion, but this time, it runs an extra win condition in the form of Fire Plume’s Heart.
Fire Plume’s Heart is a one-cost Quest that rewards you with Sulfuras should you play seven Taunt minions in a game. Sulfuras is a three-cost weapon with four attack and two durability, but what makes it really shine is the Battlecry. Sulfuras changes your hero power to make it deal eight damage to a random enemy. This means your hero power is essentially a two-cost Ragnaros Firelord.
The deck is filled with powerful Taunt minions, like Witchwood Grizzly, Direhorn Hatchling, and Amani War Bear. You’ll be using these to hold off your opponent while also chipping away at their life total when you can. This deck also runs the new legendary beast, Oondasta.
Oondasta is a nine-cost 7/7 minion with Rush and an Overkill that lets you summon a Beast from your hand. Since most of the Taunts in the deck are Beasts, Oondasta provides insane late game value, and helps to usher in your win condition with Fire Plume’s Heart.
If you enjoy playing Warrior, this is the deck to invest in, since it likely won’t be seeing success with anything else until the standard changes come in April.
