Predict the new meta!

[Nikkaszal]

With the expac going live this week I've been doing a lot of preliminary deckbuilding, wondering how the state of the game will look. I've narrowed my list down to three deck archetypes that I'm going to have a crack at once it hits:

1) Elemental Tempo Shaman - they're pushing real hard with the Elemental tribe synergy with Shaman. Air Elemental is gonna be a solid 1-drop that can't be picked off before trading into 2-drops, Fire Plume Harbinger will help push your bigger eles out earlier, Kalimos is a monster tempo swing with his board clear. Servant Of Kalimos and Spirit Echo will go a long way to keeping your hand resupplied.

2) Taunt Warrior - the redheaded stepchild of deck archetypes in the past, it's been good for stopping aggro but loses to basically everything else because Taunt minions lack punch and a proper win condition. All that changes with the Warrior quest, which will be completed in the late game just in time for you to have a huge power swing vs Control. Also, there's a bunch of nice Taunt minions coming in like Direhorn Hatchling, Cornered Sentry and Stonehill Defender. Losing Bolster won't be too bad.

3) 1-drop Hunter - hooooo boy that quest is gonna be annoying. It was pretty eh when first announced, but since then there have been a bunch of solid 1-drops released. Jewelled Macaw and Tolvir Warden will keep your hand healthy. Raptor Hatchling has value. Fire Fly will let you get an extra tick on your quest. The interaction between Brood Raptors and Tundra Rhino is just silly. Also, lol Stampede. Also considering Dinomancy to give the 1drops more punch in the later game.

[Blueobelisk]

This week? I thought it was going live mid April.

I haven't really looked at the cards yet. I'm waiting for them all to be revealed.

[Nikkaszal]

This week? I thought it was going live mid April.

I haven't really looked at the cards yet. I'm waiting for them all to be revealed.

Should be released April 6, unless I'm recalling wrong

The full list has been revealed, Hearthpwn has an Un'goro page with every card and its tokens on it.

[Pantalaimon]

I honestly expect to see a time warp mage OTK deck to pop up once somebody figures out how to best utilize the quest (Don't really see the quest making a non-otk mage deck work that is built around the extra turn).

[Nikkaszal]

I honestly expect to see a time warp mage OTK deck to pop up once somebody figures out how to best utilize the quest (Don't really see the quest making a non-otk mage deck work that is built around the extra turn).

Arcane Golems.

Drop them, nuke with Fireball etc, Time Warp. Next turn swing with both golems and Pyro face.

[zinfandel]

Either deathrattle priest will be viable or we'll be seeing no priest at all

Either discard lock will be... you get the point

I think buff paladin might be the sleeper deck - it's very nearly viable now but struggles with early game. A primalfin champion/ quest/ buff type thing might work assuming druid & shamen jade are weakened enough and if the quests counts spells that target minions in hand.

I don't immediately see any new druid decks.

Buff hunter is going to be the new rank 18-25 cancer

[Nikkaszal]

It'll be hard to find a druid deck better than Jade, seeing as all they're losing is Drake and Raven Idol - both of which are fillers.

[PPN]

Im to lazy to look into the new cards. My prediction is it will be the same as always:

1. In the start no one really knows what to do with the cards and also some cards are missing, the game will be strange, versatily and fun

2. Some streamers put their FOTM decks on hearthpwn, 70% of the playerbase jumps on the fotm train

3. Meta will be boring and stale, see other thread

I hope im wrong tho

[Deleted]

1. Pirate warrior
2. Raptor hunter
3. Discard lock

80%+ of games will be one of those three.

Quests are way too slow for "lul aggro" meta, especially with reno gone and control decks get checked too hard by jade druids.
I think it's going to be an even more boring meta than current one.

[LilSaihah]

I think Paladin could be decent. Spiritsinger Umbra could be excellent with select Deathrattle cards (a turn 5 Spiritsinger Umbra/Selfless Hero play comes to mind), and Paladin seems to have gotten quite a few great options for cards overall, particularly Lost in the Jungle. I don't know how good buffadin will be, but I think that Voraxx+Silvermoon Portal will be on a highlight reel somewhere.

[minteK917]

It'll be hard to find a druid deck better than Jade, seeing as all they're losing is Drake and Raven Idol - both of which are fillers.

Jade gets replacements for those anyway. Infact jade will be in a better position after this. the new +1/1, give you armor equal to the minion attack > raven idol. Extending your life as jade is usually a good thing.

My prediction. Taunt warrior really wont be that good. Pirate will still be it;

Hunter either mid range or raptor deck. Infact raptor deck quest is really great overall, have a very powerful combo, reliable to pull off and very good early game, while other early game deck beside pirate is getting slower.

Priest are just dead.. the idea of a death rattle priest is fine, the problem is all the good death rattle cards priest could use are leaving? Hell museum curator... its made for this deck wtf? Infact priest is losing so much shit theres just nothing for them to do. They really should add some kind of lower cost death rattle for priest only to the set...instead they added a bunch of minions that buff spells and a healing spell wtf? Priest has some of the worse spells in the game. Why would they need minions that reduce spell cost. Dont even get me started on the spell healing a minion and yourself, what the fuck? Buffing minions is already kinda slowish, wasting a card to heal one, the fuck? This is almost as bad as purify.

Rogue kinda feel like its gona be shit. The thing is rogue for the most part were always either miracle rogue or some kind of combo. Losing conceal just killed miracle. Theres very little good possible combo i can see so far with the new cards. It will probably be some kind of aggro deck. It wont be as bad as priest, simply because Rogue base cards are still some of the strongest spell wise and minions like van cleef are just never gona be shit.

Discard warlock is getting major buffs to make it more then only a zoo thing. I feel it will be a legitimate good deck. It also buffs zoo discard lock on the side. So keep an eye out for a bunch of zoo lock and discard locks. A better position then being reno only class honestly. The warlock quest is also insane, very easy to get too. Its two free minion every turn, the portal cant be removed either. So yeah overall warlock are in a great spot, unless you wanted to play control or some kind of spell warlock.

Paladin feels dead almost like priest. Problem with buff deck is always the same its too slow and you cant run actual paladin removal with such a deck, because you destroy your own board that you took multiple turn to build. The quest looks cool but if you think about it half a second its garbage. Yes a 5 mana 8/8 is strong and adapt 5 times. But is it enough ?... because in order to get him in a timely manner, youll need to do shit you might not want to do and if you do that. Your 5 mana 8/8 is still a couple step away from execute, shadow word death, deadly shot, etc. Fact is you cant base your entire deck on one minion and play only in the hope of summoning him. Same as rogue it wont be as bad as priest, simply because Tirion is in the game. So a kind of control paladin can always farm a few wins.

Shaman mulock looks ok. Elemental shaman looks pretty good. Not much to say here. Shaman dont feel like they will be OP this time around, but they will still be reliable for the most part both deck have answers to alot of stuff and good enough lthreat in every stages.

Elemental tempo mage will probably be it. Time warp mage really doesent sound great, people are way over evaluating this deck. First you need to play alot of random cards that give you random cards just to proc it. Then mathematically its not really a ful extra turn, because the thing cost you 5 mana. So in reality when 2 turns at turn 10+ are 20 mana, this just lets you play around with 15 mana. Had they made this cost 0 and give you 5 mana it would be the same effect. Actually it would be better because it would proc arntonidas. But now it cant combo with archmage, because emperor is leaving. So you need to play a bunch of spells that you get from cards, spells that might all suck ass. To get a turn that cant be used with archmage, Time warp really only works with minion finisher, since the side effect of a new turn is attack from minions. So this will work with arcane golem and thats it. This just sounds like a shit version of rogue/arcane golem from before. You just swap conceal for time warp, the problem being that rogue has minion damage buffs and did not need to play random cards that might suck to pull it off.

As i said first jade druid looks better then ever now. Plus the new combo quest looks fun, but its realy hard to judge how good this can be, probably nowhere near jade, but a replacement for Aviana druid is welcomed for sure, since it is one of the more fun deck to play right now even if its not the best.

[McNeil]

Tier 1:

- Quest Hunter
- Pirate Warrior
- Discard Warlock

Tier 2:

- Quest Mage
- Elemental Shaman
- Jade Druid

Tier 3:

- Miracle Rogue
- Deathrattle Priest
- Quest Druid

[Blueobelisk]

Return of C'Thun.

[Kralljin]

Tier 1:

- Quest Hunter
- Pirate Warrior
- Discard Warlock

About Pirate warrior i'm not sure...

There are so many taunt minions in this set, a decent anti pirate card and Gluttonous ooze which slaughters any heavy weapon deck.

Not saying Pirate won't be winning games, but it will be some kind of ebb and flow thing, you see a lot of pirates => throw in some anti pirate cards, you don't see any pirates => you remove them.

Hunters are probably becoming #1 face decks again, simply because their quest won't let them run out of cards.

[Kuja]

Only new will be some elemental and beast decks. Jade and pirate will still keep dominating.

[FobManX]

Early on you'll see lots of 1 drop/Beast Hunter, Taunt Warrior, and Discard Zoo Lock. Eventually with more polish I think Rogue with their quest could be quite good and ditto Spell Mage, but like Reno Lock and later Reno Mage it took a lot of iterations for people to figure out the optimal deck builds.

[Mahourai]

Quests aren't going to be great. Maybe a couple breakout decks but they're not going to be dominant. In fact the best Warlock deck (for example) will be discard zoo that DOESN'T play the quest, rather than the quest shell.

Priest will be a corpse. Same for Paladin.

The best decks will mostly be existing shells.

[minteK917]

Anyone saying death rattle priest needs to actually look at how many death rattle cards priest have access to that arent being removed. Most of the things that would make a death rattle priest viable are leaving. Things like museum curator and sylvanas, going bye bye. You need to actually play death rattles that can win you the game with Nzoth, remember the priest card is not a win condition like most of the others. Its just a reno jackson to extend the game.

The only good cards left for a death rattle priest

Shifting shade.
Twilight summoner.
Infested tauren.
Cairne
Harvest golem.
Nzoth.

new cards
Crystaline oracle.
Tortollan shellraiser.
spiritsinger umbra.

Thats only 14 death rattle you can add and most of them are not really good at actually threatening the other player.

[Kronik85]

No idea what the meta will end up as. Lots of new archetypes look worth giving a shot and lots of the old ones took hits in power or need to look for new cards. The one thing I'd say is there should be a lot less Pirate Warrior because they added so much Pirate Warrior hate, so if it's a still a thing then that's on the community for being completely unwilling to tech to beat it.

Gluttonous Ooze hands you a win if you hit Arcanite Reaper, Tar Creeper is amazing vs Aggro and Golakka Crawler is pure Pirate hate.

[Pantalaimon]

About Pirate warrior i'm not sure...

There are so many taunt minions in this set, a decent anti pirate card and Gluttonous ooze which slaughters any heavy weapon deck.

Not saying Pirate won't be winning games, but it will be some kind of ebb and flow thing, you see a lot of pirates => throw in some anti pirate cards, you don't see any pirates => you remove them.

Hunters are probably becoming #1 face decks again, simply because their quest won't let them run out of cards.

Yes, but keep in mind that Team 5's design philosophy is that certain classes are meant to be weak to aggro. If there are enough heroes like this then Pirate Warrior may still live. So long as things like Rogue, Mage, etc are consistently and purposefully skipped being given consistent taunts/heals, meanwhile Priest/Warrior/Paladin gets a plethora of both vomited into the laps of the classes, you will have potential for aggro to maintain a place in the meta to prey on those classes without said anti aggro tools.