January 13 the Hearthstone Championship Tour Winter Playoffs took place for Europe. The deck spread at the event looked pretty similar to what you’d see on competitive ladder currently, lots of Hunter and lots of Paladin.
Out of 76 players four were able to qualify for a spot in the Winter Championship. Oldřich “Faeli” Mahdal, Raphael “Bunnyhoppor” Peltzer, Torben “Viper” Wahl, and ThunderUP will all be heading to the Championship.
When competing in the HCT, each player gets to bring four decks. There are no guidelines for these decks other than all cards must be allowed in standard play. This usually results in players bringing top tier decks with a meta breaking surprise or two tossed into the mix.
This year all 76 players competing at the European HCT showed up with at least one Hunter deck. Out of the players using Hunter, 46 of them used Secret Hunter. The other Hunter variations that appeared were variations of Mid-range Hunter like Deathrattle and Spell.
This speaks volumes to the dominant position Hunter currently finds itself in within Hearthstone. Since the addition of Zul’jin with Rastakhan’s Rumble, Hunter has been full speed ahead on its path to the top. Zul’jin allowing the player to recast every spell they’ve played so far in the game is incredibly powerful and hard to overcome. As a result, Secret and Spell Hunter can often overwhelm certain decks to the extent that they literally have no possible answer. Out of the four players who get to move onto the Championship, all but Viper took some variation of Hunter.
The next most popular class should come as no surprise. If you play competitive ladder and you aren’t playing against a Hunter, you’re probably playing against a Paladin. Out of the 76 players, 60 of them decided to take some type of Paladin deck. Odd Paladin was used by 22 players and Even Paladin was used by 25. The rest of the Paladin decks that appeared were a variation of Control, primarily One Turn Kill Paladin.
Odd and Even Paladin have dominated Hearthstone since they were released with the Witchwood expansion in April of last year. Both decks have received balance changes at some point in their lifespan, but the archetype always finds a way to crawl back to the top of the mountain. Most Odd and Even lists don’t run much from Rastakhan’s Rumble, which means many of the cards they use will be rotating out in April. It will be interesting to see if the archetypes evolve again when this happens and to see if the decks remain top tier.
Priest was brought by 50 players at the tournament, most of them bringing Control Priest or Clone Priest. Both of these decks are doing well in competitive play currently for their ability to counter fast Hunter and Paladin decks. Priest’s built-in healing gives the class a better chance than other classes’ Control options because it is able to recover easier from the early game onslaught. This is probably why Priest had such a big showing at the HCT, in anticipation of the Hunter and Paladin playfield.
After Priest was Warlock with 37 appearances, Rogue with 36, Warrior with 23, Shaman with 15, Druid with 13, and Mage with 10. If you’re someone who enjoys playing Mage or Druid, your best bet is to look ahead to April when the Standard rotation happens.
It’s unfortunate that three classes in the game right now are getting so much more play than all the others. This can make players feel like they are forced to play a certain class if they want to be competitive and this is not good for the overall health of a Trading Card Game. If players feel like their agency is being removed, it will make them less motivated to play.
The HCT is where the best players in the world present their skills, so when they’re forced to play three classes in order to be competitive, that trickles down the ladder to the rest of the community. Hopefully April will bring more variation in competitive class choice thanks to the new Standard rotation.
Published: Jan 17, 2019 04:32 pm