Now that February is nearly halfway over, we’ve had a bit of time to let recent card changes affect the meta. We also know which decks you’ll be seeing a bit more of going forward.
When card nerfs went live on Feb. 5, Hearthstone players were left in a state of unrest and uncertainty. Many of the decks that dominated the meta since December took hard hits during this round of nerfs. Fortunately, enough time has passed to show us which decks are the winners of these latest balance changes. Here are a few decks you probably weren’t playing that are actually worth a try now.
Cube Warlock
Cube Warlock has long been a powerful Control option for the class and is a very fun deck to play. In recent months, however, the deck has fallen victim to the same fate a number of Control decks have during Rastakhan’s Rumble.
Up until now, the expansion hasn’t been very rewarding for Control decks with the exception of OTK Paladin and Control Priest. The meta has been dominated by decks like Spell Hunter and Odd Paladin that ramp too fast and too often for most Control decks to manage. Since these decks have been nerfed, many old Control archetypes are springing back to life.
The newest version of Cube Lock plays pretty much exactly the same way the deck has always played. You’ll be using low cost removal cards like Defile and Hellfire in order to control the board long enough to cheat out some Demons. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to pull big Demons like Voidlord from your hand using Skull of the Man’ari, allowing you to bypass their mana cost.
Once you have a board full of Demons, watch your opponent chug away as they attempt to bring down your wall. After your wall has toppled, play Bloodreaver Gul’dan and resurrect all of your Demons. Now not only will your opponent have to kill them all over again, but they’ll have to worry about your improved Hero power, which allows you to slowly lifesteal their health to zero.
Midrange Hunter
While Midrange Hunter definitely wasn’t a bad deck at any point during Rastakhan’s Rumble, it didn’t see as much play early on due to how much more powerful Spell Hunter was. While the nerf to Hunter’s Mark affected both Midrange and Spell Hunter, the card still performs pretty well in the deck.
On top of this, many of the bad match-ups for Midrange Hunter are now showing on ladder less and less frequently. If you were playing Midrange during the first two months of the expansion you probably let out a heavy sigh every time you encountered a Spell Hunter or Even Paladin. Thanks to the nerfs, both Spell Hunter and Even Paladin have dropped drastically in play rate.
Midrange Hunter also performs exceptionally well against Control decks that are gaining steam like Resurrect Priest and Cube Warlock. Though Midrange doesn’t have as much tempo swing potential as Spellhunter, it does have a significant amount of board control that can be hard to deal with as the game progresses.
Cards like Deathstalker Rexar and Savannah Highmane create big value plays that can be hard for opponents to come back from if they’ve already expended a decent amount of removal type resources. If you were a Spell Hunter main and the nerfs have you down, give Midrange a try, as it uses many of the same cards.
Malygos Druid
After the first wave of nerfs struck down Druid in early December, fans of the leafy shape shifting class were heart broken. Shortly after streamer and pro player David “Dog” Caero used Undatakah Druid to reach rank one on NA during the first week of the expansion, that class was heavily nerfed.
Wild Grown and Nourish are two of the classes most powerful and essential cards. Both cards had their mana cost increased by one, significantly slowing down the ability the class had to ramp up early game tempo.
For a long while the class lay dormant and didn’t see much ladder play at all. If you did run into a Druid while you were playing ranked, it was usually some poor soul holding on to one last thread of hope that his deck could somehow remain relevant. Luckily for these people and all other fans of the Druid class, Malygos Druid has actually regained a decent amount of footing.
Part of what kept Malygos Druid from being relevant up to this point in the meta was the dominance of Hybrid Hunter and Even Paladin. Both decks dominated pretty much anything a Druid deck could throw at them, but now they’re being played significantly less.
Malygos Druid focuses on controlling the board with cards like Swipe and Spreading Plague. It also runs Ultimate Infestation as a way to maintain tempo and generate value out of thin air. Your win condition with this deck comes when you are finally able to drop Alexstraza for nine mana and use her ability to cut your opponent down 15 health. You’ll then play Malygos and use the spell damage he gives you to finish off your opponent with cards like Moonfire.
