Fade2Karma’s Meta Report #1

Introduction

Fade2Karma is a new professional eSports Hearthstone team that was formed recently. It consists of top players like Hawkeye and Dethelor. (Gosugamers announcement here, F2K’s Twitter and LiquidHearth‘s announcement here.)

The F2K Meta Report focuses on the class/deck representation in the European Legend Ladder on a biweekly basis. Hundreds of ladder games played by our players allow us to determine which are the most popular decks on ladder and which decks have fallen out of favor by most.

Since this is our first report ever and coincidently also the last one for the Black Rock Mountain era, it is a good summary on what happened after BRM release.

The Ranking

Sample Deck Lists

• Patron Warrior, Control Warrior
• Midrange Hunter, Hybrid Hunter, Aggro Hunter
• Midrange/Zoolock, Handlock, Control/Demon Warlock, Malygos Warlock, Combo Warlock
• Aggro Paladin, Midrange Paladin
• Tempo Mage, Freeze Mage, Giants Mage, Mech Mage
• Combo/Midrange Druid, Ramp Druid
• Oil Rogue
• Lightbomb Priest, OTK Priest, Shrinkmeister Priest
• Mech Shaman, Midrange Shaman

Analysis

Before Black Rock Mountain the strongest decks were Mech Mage, Tempo Mage, Demonlock, Oil Rogue, Face Hunter, Combo Druid and Midrange Paladin.

With the introduction of Imp Gang Boss after the BRM release Zoolock got a huge buff and hence became the best warlock archetype.

Together with the birth of the first unrefined Grim Patron Warrior lists, Zoolock pushed Mech Mage completely out of the meta. Both Imp Gang Boss and Grim Patron were too hard of a counter to Mech Mage’s strongest power play; the turn 4 Goblin Blastmage.

With Emperor Thaurissan entering the format, Combo Druid at first got a huge boost.

But with Grim Patron lists becoming more efficient over time, people figuring out how to play the deck better, and the rising popularity of both Tempo Mage with Flamewaker and Midrange Hunter with Quickshots, people quickly realized that Druid no longer belonged to the strongest ladder decks.

Furthermore Emperor allowed the creation of 2 new viable deck archetypes: Echo Giants Mage and Malygos Warlock.

The Rise of Grim Patron Warrior lead to the fall of Oil Rogue and Midrange Paladin. The former because of people playing Rogue’s nemesis, Control Warrior, to counter Grim Patron Warrior. The Latter because of its weakness against the Grim Patron.

One of the final developments in the BRM meta was the climb of aggro Paladin to a top-tier deck, for the simple reason that it has decent matchups against the other top-tier classes.

Conclusion

Grim Patron Warrior remains the most popular and strongest deck until the end of the BRM era. The deck has no hard counters, only softcounters. The counters of those softcounter decks are all weak to Grim Patron Warrior. For that specific reason there is no rock-paper-scissor scenario we had in previous metagames.

Hunter and Warlock, carried by their powerful heropower, remain top-tier classes.

Aggro Paladin being able to compete with the top-tier decks, makes it so that Paladin narrowly ranks above the second tier classes: Mage, Druid and Rogue.

Finally there is Priest and Shaman which barely sees any play on ladder , besides a Lightbomb-/OTK Priest or Mech Shaman here and there.