Weekly Hearthstone Roundup #16 (Mar 24 – Mar 30)

Last month in review:

• #12 – Feb 24 – Mar 2
• #13 – Mar 3 – Mar 9
• #14 – Mar 10 – Mar 16
• #15 – Mar 17 – Mar 23

Introduction

Weekly Hearthstone Roundup is a series summarizing last week in Hearthstone. By making a compilation of the news regarding game, teams, pro players, ladder, community etc. we try to make catching up easier for those of you who don’t follow the HS news every day.

If you feel that we’ve missed something important or that we didn’t properly cite the source, let us know in the comments and we’ll fix it right away.

General/Game News

• Every missing Journey to Un’Goro card will be revealed today – So far we’ve only seen about half of the upcoming expansion. This changes today, as the awesome Ben Brode and Frodan duo will reveal rest of the set on the stream. You can watch it live today at 10 AM PDT (1 PM EDT, 7 PM CET) on the official PlayHearthstone Twitch channel. If you want to read card reviews, start refreshing HSP front page few hours later – I’ll try my best to write them right after the stream! You can also expect a lot of theorycrafting and first deck brews early next week.
• A Mammoth Celebration – Daily Log-in Rewards – Since the expansion will be released soon, the daily log-in rewards have already started. Log in into Hearthstone every day to receive an extra reward. In total, you’ll get 100 Gold, 100 Dust, 4 Packs (1x Old Gods, 1x Gadgetzan and 2x Un’Goro) and a golden copy of Volcanosaur, which in the worst case scenario translates into 100 extra Dust. While the rewards aren’t insane, it’s still some extra freebies for doing nothing, so don’t miss it (also remember that you can get them on each server separately if you’re playing on more than one).
• Hearthside Chat: Adapt in Un’Goro with Dean Ayala – Hearthstone dev Dean Alaya talks about designing the Adapt mechanic for Un’Goro, the first ideas, the development process and what they’ve ended up with.
• Hearthside Chat: The Art of Journey to Un’Goro – Three Hearthstone Concept Artists – Jerry Mascho, Jomaro Kindred and Charlene Le Scanff – are sharing their thoughts about Art in Un’Goro. We also get to see some really cool concept arts, I personally love this kind of stuff!
• E. Malone’s Expedition Journal – Week Four – More lore, more adventures and more Danny Pudi. If you like those, you’ll have more fun. If you don’t, you’ve probably stopped following them after week one.
• This Week’s Tavern Brawl is: A Mammoth of a New Year – It’s the first time we get to play this Brawl. It’s a Co-Op Brawl, so instead of fighting against each other, you fight to accomplish the same goal. You play as either Druid or Rogue (premade decks). First you need to use 25 mana to decorate the Tavern – Hero Power consumes the rest of your mana and adds that many decorations. Then you need to kill a 5/85 “boss” Pinata with your Hero Power and minions. Remember that the Party Crashers spawn each turn, dealing damage to the opponent – try to get rid of them, because if one of you dies, you lose the game. If your opponent gets low, try to keep him alive. You win after Pinata is dead. The reward is 1 Un’Goro pack.

Ladder/Arena/Competitive

• ViciousSyndicate: vS Data Reaper Report #43 was released – This is the last vS Data Reaper Report of this Standard year, since Un’Goro is getting released next week. The next report will come 2 weeks after the expansion launch, on 20th, once the meta stabilizes a bit. When it comes to the meta, it’s keeping the same trends. Shaman was “dead” for maybe a week or two after the nerfs, but it is coming back strong. Aggro Shaman is becoming more and more popular again, as it’s catching up with Pirate Warrior in terms of popularity and it exceeded it in terms of win rate. Other news is that Jade Druid is finally falling in popularity, because the deck’s sub-optimal win rate didn’t justify the 12% representation on the ladder. RenoLock has got a bit more popular, but not by a huge margin. Anyfin Paladin has picked up (a bit) in terms of popularity and win rate. No other significant changes. Top 8 decks on the overall ladder are: Pirate Warrior, Aggro Shaman, Dragon Priest, Midrange Jade Shaman, Water Rogue, Dragon Warrior, Miracle Rogue and Anyfin Paladin. Top 8 decks in Legend are: Aggro Shaman, Pirate Warrior, Control Shaman, Dragon Warrior, Water Rogue, Midrange Jade Shaman, Anyfin Paladin and RenoLock.
• MetaStats: Standard Meta Snapshot Week 12 (Mar 20 – Mar 26) was released – The 8 most successful decks last week, according to MetaStats, were: RenoLock, Midrange Shaman, Zoo Warlock, Tempo Mage, Reno Priest, Dragon Priest, Aggro Shaman and Dragon Warrior.

eSports/Teams/Tournaments

• Hearthstone Winter Championship Analysis – Winter Championship has finished. ShtanUdachi has beaten the Fr0Zen 4-3 in the finals and took the $60,000 prize (and 20 HCT points) back home. If you like stats or you want to learn more about the players, the meta or anything – I’ve prepared an analysis of everything you might want to know about the tournament. Region & Player stats, Class stats, Bans, Deck popularity & win rates and more!
• GosuGamers: The Hearthstone Global Games votes are in, and there are not one or two surprises
• German players Sintolol and P4wnyhof get disqualified from Hearthstone Global Games – To make the long story short. P4wnyhof, despite having a pretty big fanbase, is notorious for using so-called “view bots” and boosting his viewer count when he was still a new streamer – that’s most likely (there was never a hard proof, but the number of leads was so high that it’s hard to not believe it) how he got popular in the first place. He’s generally not well-liked in the streamer and pro community of Hearthstone and Forsen, one of the biggest streamers, threatened to leave the HGG if P4wnyhof gets picked – he did and Forsen kept his promise. Sintolol got disqualified for inappropriate remarks about P4wny and Hitler, while P4wny got (officially) disqualified for his homophobic insults. That said, the less official reason is most likely that Blizzard didn’t want to fuel the drama even further and didn’t want more players to quit because of that. That’s most likely the end of P4wny drama for now.
• GosuGamers: Gamescom to host the LAN finals of Hearthstone Global Games

Community/Podcasts/Videos

• New episodes of the most popular Hearthstone podcasts were released: The Angry Chicken #203, Golden Wisp #119, Value Town #115, Lightforge #86, The Innervated #77
• Interview: HearthPwn Exclusive Interview with Dean Ayala – Un’Goro, Common Cards, Archetypes & More!
• Interview: GosuGamers with Trump: “Tempo Storm was a higher job for me, competitive-wise as well as offer-wise”
• Interview: Dev Talk with Ben Brode on community feedback: ‘It’s not like we just kind of heads-down, bury your heads in the sand and say ‘Okay, these are the cards”
• Interview: Kripp on Arena class diversity, despite issues: ‘It has been actually spectacular since [MSoG]’
• Reddit: Top Cards of the Week from /r/Customhearthstone (03/25/2017)
• Video: StrifeCro gets surprise lethal
• Video: Raptor Hunter is a terrible thing
• Video: Reynad gets fed up with chat
• Video: Dogs dirty rat(s)
• Video: Ratsmah plays Madam Goya in arena
• Video: Kripp plays Millhouse Manastorm in 80g Friendly Battle
• Video: Turn 1 Vancleef in HCT Championship
• Video: Dog tries out a Combo Paladin
• Video: Murlocs sing “Darude – Sandstorm”
• Video: CONCEDE GOD – Reynad has Given Up
• Video: When Hearthstone Turns into Cookie Clicker
• Video: Asmodai Recognizes His Only Out
• Video: Tempo Storm: Miracle Rogue Mini-Documentary
• Video: [Kripparian] Standard Cards I’ll Miss the Most

Closing

If there are any more news from last week we might have missed, let us know in the comments. And, once again, if you have any suggestions for this series (or for the site in general!) we’d really appreciate if you’d let us know.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!