Introduction
It has been a while since I’ve made my first meta report and I know that a lot of you have loved it so today I’ll take a look at what decks were played this month and give you a brief meta report, but this time I will be doing it for both standard and wild. The resources that I will be using are the Vs Data Report which can be found here and something new that came out, a wild meta report, which can be found here. The wild meta report was made by MetaStats and the numbers gathered are the result of 30,000 recorded games from 26th of December until the 8th of January. This is the first time that I’m doing a wild meta report and I would be very grateful if you would let me know in the comments would you like more wild content in the future.
With all that out of the sit back, relax and let’s dive right in 🙂
Standard Meta Report
A lot has changed since my last meta report. The metagame is shifting nicely and it seems like it is starting to settle down a bit, but unfortunately it had remained as fast as it was in December. Judging by the latest data gathered from the Vs Data Report the same two classes are still on the top: shaman and warrior.
Shaman
Shaman hasn’t really changed much since last month and that is very unfortunate. I’m personally not a huge fan of neither midrange nor aggro shaman and I’ve been wishing for those decks to go away ever since the start of the standard year. Unfortunately, despite my wishes, shaman still remains as the most powerful class in the game and due to the fact that the next expansion is coming out in two months and a handful of days I really can’t see any troublesome shaman cards being nerfed because the largest parts of the problem are going to rotate out. Aggro shaman makes up for 21,77% on the ladder and midrange jade shaman makes up for 6,07% of the ladder.
Warrior
Those who did read the yesterday’s article know that I’m a huge fan of the warrior class but I really don’t like pirate warrior. My go to warrior deck was always control warrior, a deck that I’ve continued to play in the wild format, but lately pirate warrior has been all the rage. The pirate package is extremely powerful and that is reflected in both aggro shaman and pirate warrior being the top two decks. Two decks that use the same pirate package are the best decks on the ladder. It is becoming a bit clearer that the problem is not in the classes themselves (ok, shaman has a ton of very problematic cards) but the pirate cards that the two of them share. Pirate Warrior makes up for 11,59% of the ladder.
Rogue
I would call miracle rogue being this high on the list a huge surprise but after checking out the decks it became quite apparent why it is so. Once again we have another class which uses the same pirate package being one of the most played classes of this month. I’m not frustrated to see rogue so high up on the list. As a matter of fact I’m glad that the rogue is getting a bit more love but the deck that brought it there is the same old miracle rogue archetype but now with pirates because they are simply too good not to play if you have access to cheap weapons and buffs for your pirate cards. The current version of miracle rogue makes up for 11,32% of the ladder, coming dangerously close to pirate warrior.
Priest
Next up is surprisingly priest. The pirates took the ladder by storm and priest, armed with his new powerful cards, had rose to challenge them and it is doing a very good job at that. Dragon priest decks have a lot of taunt minions and removal to keep the pesky pirate off the board. Priest is also the only other class which has a reliable form of recovery in its hero power and that turned out to be quite useful in the current meta. Reno priest is played a bit less than the dragon priest but you can imagine this deck doing a great job as well because Reno decks by themselves are quite strong against aggressive decks like pirate decks. Dragon priest makes up for 6,37% of the ladder and Reno priest makes up for 4,33% of the ladder.
The Rest
Reno Warlock 9,24% of the ladder
Reno Mage 7,50% of the ladder
Jade Druid 6,02% of the ladder
Wild Meta Report
MetaStats doesn’t have a separate section for each deck so I’ll link you to the entire report here and you only need to click on the name of the deck on the left side to see the top 3 versions of the deck.
Warrior
You are starting to see a pattern here, aren’t you? I’ve actually used pirate warrior this season on the wild ladder but my version was the one which had two ships-cannon and could easily dish out 10 damage on turn 2 if everything went as planned. If coined out the canon can often deal up to 6 damage on turn 2 easily with its effect alone and with patches-the-pirate, a 1/3 weapon and the attack from ships-cannon the deck can very easily deal 10 damage on turn 2. Control warrior is also on the list but it is further below the pirate warrior decks. Pirate warrior makes up for 11,81% of the ladder.
Warlock
Reno warlock deck is next on the list. Wild Reno warlock is actually better than the standard Reno warlock because it has access to some very powerful old cards like malganis, sludge-belcher, zombie-chow and antique-healbot. It uses quite a few cards that aren’t standard viable but crafting those cards doesn’t take a lot of dust and you can change your standard Reno warlock into a wild Reno warlock for 1820 dust if you’re going for malganis (my personal favorite) and 220 dust if you’re going for a version without it. Reno warlock makes up for 6,85% of the ladder.
Mage (Reno and Tempo)
Next up is the Reno mage. Now, we’re starting to see a pattern here. The top 5 decks are very similar to the top 5 standard decks with only slightly different decklists. This is because Reno decks are generally really powerful decks at the moment in both formats and wild, which has access to even more control cards, is able to use those decks to their fullest potential. Again we see all starts like sludge-belcher and antique-healbot but what makes wild Reno mage really stand out from its standard counterpart is the inclusion of mad-scientist which helps you get out your ice-block easily. Reno mage makes up for 6,75% of the ladder.
Tempo mage is also in the current wild meta and it sits comfortably at the 5th spot. It uses mostly the same cards as the standard tempo mage with the exception of some very powerful tools in the form of mad-scientist, summoning-portal, dr-boom and duplicate. Tempo mage makes up for 5,66% of the ladder.
Priest
Next up is, again, a Reno deck and this time it is a Reno priest deck. Just like with the previous two decks, Reno priest is significantly more powerful than its standard counterpart. So, what makes this one so much better, you ask? Deathrattle minions and lightbomb. deathlord, dark-cultist, sludge-belcher, piloted-shredder and sylvanas-windrunner are all perfect targets for your nzoth-the-corruptor which will be your win condition. A reliable win condition like nzoth-the-corruptor is something that the standard Reno priest really lacks. Reno priest makes up for 6,43% of the ladder.
Predictions For The Future
It seems like the standard meta is slowly beginning to settle but the problem with the pirate package remains. For the next month, regarding the standard format, I don’t think that there will be any changes at all and that we will be seeing the same pirate decks over and over again. Fortunately, the design team and Ben Brode had spoken out both this week and last week and they have acknowledged that there is a problem with the current state of the metagame. They have acknowledged that pirates are too powerful and in an interview with Ben Brode (here) he says that small-time-buccaneer is the actual problem with the pirate package and not patches-the-pirate so hold on to your small-time-buccaneer cards as you will be getting full refunds soon but don’t expect it to be before March. I would honestly be surprised if they decide to nerf some cards next month.
Conclusion
We’ve reached the end of the January meta report. It is a shame that the player base had cracked the ideal decks so fast that the metagame already feels stale and it has been less than two months since the release of Means Streets Of Gadgetzan. There will most certainly be some nerfs heading our way in March so try to hold on through February as I don’t really see the current standard metagame changing (although I would love for that to happen). Let me know what decks are you currently playing? Are you still trying to experiment with new standard decks? Most of all do tell me would you like to see more content for the wild format and an article that goes much deeper into the wild metagame with more decklists and deck guides? As always if you’ve liked this article do consider following me on twitter https://twitter.com/Eternal_HS. There you can ask me all sorts of Hearthstone questions (unrelated to this article) and I’ll gladly answer them as best as I can.
Published: Jan 23, 2017 07:21 am