Introduction
Welcome to On the Horizen, your one-stop-shop for everything to know about the current standard meta provided by members of the Hype Horizen team themselves! Every Friday you can expect a detailed report on the meta as a whole and some tips for how to maneuver through it. This will also be a hot spot for other articles written by team members. PLEASE NOTE: All information is based on personal experience + personal statistics gathered through many hours of high-level gameplay.
Meta Overview
Balance changes have been live for a little over a week now and with that came numerous small changes to the meta throughout the week. We saw an increase in play of decks which received buffs as players continue tinkering with them trying to find the best 30, as well as it just being something different to play. We saw a lot of experimentation with N’zoth, God of the Deep in multiple different classes. Deathrattle Demon Hunter and Corrupt Priest were other deck archetypes which saw an increased amount of play and we saw much less Mage on ladder as perhaps the Refreshing Spring Water nerf had more of an effect than many had originally thought. N’zoth Paladin was probably the biggest surprise of the week as the best 30 seems like it will be a top tier deck whenever it is found, the deck features a similar shell to the old Paladin lists but now features cards such as Carousel Gryphon and Dragonmaw Sky Stalker which in addition to Hammer of the Naaru (which was already being played) provide some nice synergy with N’zoth.
Best Decks
Priest continues to be extremely dominant on ladder and in tournament play. Rogue and Warrior continue to be low tier 1/high tier 2 decks. Paladin has found a way to remain relevant, now substituting a more aggressive early game with Crabrider’s, for a N’zoth package or a more Libram heavy variant. OTK Demon Hunter has a very impressive match-up spread with Paladins early game being hit and has a very legitimate chance at winning ANY match-up. Spell Mage is obviously slightly weaker with the nerf to Refreshing Spring Water and is now even more reliant on drawing an early Incanters Flow, however, still is a rather good deck and has a lot of game against other top tier decks. Token Druid doesn’t see that much play on ladder for whatever reason but is also a very high tier deck.
Tier 1: May 28 Hearthstone Meta
Tier 2: May 28 Hearthstone Meta
Tier 3: May 28 Hearthstone Meta
Tier 4: May 28 Hearthstone Meta
Closing Thoughts
Although people are only experimenting with certain deck archetypes, I still believe that there is a lot to be explored with these balance changes. All it takes is 1 meta breaker for the meta to shift drastically. A mini-set also shouldn’t be that far away so we have a lot to look forward to in Hearthstone. For ladder I recommend playing Priest, Rogue or Demon Hunter, but if you are feeling spicy, I’d also recommend some OTK C’thun Druid which actually isn’t that bad right now having a close to auto win matchup against OTK Demon Hunter. That being said I wish you all a good luck (except against me) and have fun.
-coolkid2001
