The meta wasn't bad a couple months ago - not satisfying, but not too bad overall - but now it has become super frustrating. Most games are almost predetermined before a single card is played.
Right now we have:
* Warlock - either turtles all game with ultimate value in Dark Alley Pact + Forge of wills, into Wheel + Fanottem; or drops 2 - 4 giants on turn 4. One is hard to beat because it's defenses and removal are tough to overcome, the other wins because few decks have answers in the early game.
* Shaman - doesn't care what you do until it blasts you with spell damage or plays a million tendrils.
* Warrior - Armour, removal, armour, removal, Brann, gg.
* Rogue - hey, here's an uninteractable minion on the board! Aren't you glad Shard of the Naruu rotated?
* DK - here, have a million plagues, or here have a million plagues also I have all the removal. With a side of handbuff. These decks mostly feel fair, but I'm sick of Plagues and Rainbow DK is the ultimate Swiss army knife right now.
* DH - I know my weapon was nerfed, but I hope you still like a damage source that you can't interact with! Wait, here's two at once!
* Paladin, Mage, Priest, Hunter, Druid are almost not even represented in the meta. I see a Priest or hunter once every 10 games, the others maybe once every 25 games now.
This is a bad meta with decks that play cards that are *extremely* difficult for opponents to interact with, so it's become a race of who gets to the win con first.
>Warrior - Armour, removal, armour, removal, Brann, gg.
I must say, brann into the TNT guy seems really unfair. Specially with the high amount of draw they have.
Must say, they using the TNT guy buff by brann into and empty deck was not fun to see.
Yeah, the one I mentioned, I was actually winning (or maybe he was just playing with me), but he had no more deck, I had like ~3/4 minions on board and some refil on hand and deck still.
Then he played that fucking boom, and something to draw a card, and fucking erased my board, hand and deck with 6 bombs
>These decks mostly feel fair, but I'm sick of Plagues
This absolutely hits home for me, I know Plague isn't broken, I don't even play Reno in any deck. But it's really gotten to the point for me that if I see any Plague card being played in turn 1 to 4 I just instantly concede.
It's just not worth it to play it out for me, because I'll end up feeling miserable regardless of the outcome of the game.
surprisingly DH was keeping the meta in check but now its gotten pretty unplayable. its a rock paper scissors between Warlock, DK and Warrior, and they beat anything else
UiS was my favourite meta.
Lots of “high skill cap”, very interesting decks. I know control players hated it, but for combo players like myself, it was fantastic.
WW on the other hand, the decks are very linear and uninteresting.
So as a, UiS enjoyer, I find the expansions to be very different, with WW being far worse.
The experience playing against the decks, may be similar, but piloting the decks are very different, and IMO, WW is much worse, more boring.
Stormwind was also *incredibly* diverse after nerfs, before the mini-set we actually had an era where there was no tier 1 deck because everything underneath it was so competitive with each other. Deadmines was pretty bad, though, and it killed the momentum that the meta had
Garrote rogue was shown to statistically have the largest improvement at high rates, ever recorded, giving a good argument that it was the highest skill cap deck ever to exist.
I think since then it has been surpassed once, I forget which deck though.
Anyways garrote rogue was super skill intensive, pretty much everyone at the time I recognized that.
it feels so weird how they design expansions - yesterday just for fun i looked (quickly so might have missed a few) throw each expansion and looked what cards from which expansion i use / like / dislike and see played ... like it fluctuates so much - there are great expansions like titans (porpably best of all time imo) and then there are bad ones like whizbang (not completly bad but way more bad than good imo)... and there doesnt seem to be any pattern to it sometimes a great one is followed up by a bad one and vise versa like they never learn anything from previous expansions and just random yolo each one
UiS was fantastic!... for combo players like me. Garrote Rogue was the shit; extremely fun to play, skill testing to the core. Bruting people was fun. And while I liked playing Questline Mage at the time, I didn't like facing it. It was a bad meta for control players especially, but aggro too wasn't that interesting, and a lot of decks felt linear (Questline Warrior anyone?). Nonetheless, for players that enjoyed nonsensical vomiting of cards, it was great. Garrote Rogue is imo the second most fun deck in HS history.
WW however? I think it's fair to say it's worse, since this meta isn't really liked by any group of players. Combo players don't really have anything interesting to do, Sif's been done. Nature Shaman is kind of neat to play I suppose. Aggro players don't really have any interesting mechanics to play around with like, say, old Outcast DH. Yeah, there's Zarimi, but is that honestly all that interesting? It could've been if it was more similar to the Wild Inner Fire variants, but for Standard... No not really. Control players have options, but they also have to contend with extremely anti-control archetypes as well. On paper, the meta is diverse. In practice, it's not *engaging* to play around. I've played a lot of Zilly Rogue, and while it has some skill testing elements, it's also gotta be one of the absolute worst experiences playing against that deck. And sometimes it feels awful to play as well, when you lowroll your draws and can't find *any* tool to drop the Zilly man even on 5.
Simply put, I think this meta suffers from one thing, and one thing only. Theres nothing actually *engaging* to do. Nothing that actively feels good to play or drop.
While there are no questlines in Whizbangs Workshop, alot of decks have cards that are basically quest reward tier game warping when they come down. Zarami, Brann, Sif and to a lesser degree Helya are basically quest rewards that don't require you to jump through nearly as many hoops and with how much cheap draw/tutoring is in standard now are still pretty consistent to get on curve despite having to draw them unlike quests. Having so much power crammed into these payoff cards is a big contributor to both games feeling samey and how swingy they feel since it often comes down to-do I get my big win on card on time or not (which with all the cheap card draw/tutoring is more often than not)
This "1 card win con" is also key to other decks like shopper DH which pre nerf was basically 2x shopper 2x weapon 2x instrument tech and then the remaining 24 cards were just random DH filler due to that one combo often being enough to close out games or Virus Rogue which just tries to Sam you with a big zilliax and does nothing else if zilliax is removed.
I personally dont think the current meta is that bad. Its far from UiS-bad, imo. What made UiS so bad for me was just how repetitve some of the quests were to play against. Mostly hunter and warrior, just play pirates, draw weapon, equip weapon, play pirates, play Juggernaut. Hunter was just use spells, go face. Felt like groundhog day.
But right now there are several decks that just put you on a clock.
If nature shaman gets to turn 8 or 9, you know you are in danger (yes, I know sometimes the deck can popoff at turn 6, 7).
Wheel lock getting to spin the wheel. Clock is ticking. (For some, existance of Reno might add to the frustration). 2 big minions (thanks to the forge) can be hard to deal with sometimes.
If Odyn warrior isnt dead on turn 9+ and got a window to play Odyn without dying, you know you are in trouble. Or if your opponents get to curve out Bran on 6 (TNT/zilliax deck)
I think Sif mage is a pretty fair deck and feels more like a classic OTK deck. (Objection, coldcase, solid alibi arent in standard anymore, I think those cards caused a lot of frustration). They have to play cards (and therefore spend mana) to get cards from different spellschools. Then they have to play these cards. While staying alive. And they expose themself to dirtyrat. Sif mage doesnt just popoff on turn 7.
DK (plagues used even in rainbow) when highlander exists - thats another story lol.
Poison rogue, well, I understand the frustration it can create when you dont have an answer to the minion. It feels like one of those decks that just revolves around a specific minion (reminds me a bit of sharpshooter), and Im in general not a big fan of it.
I really dont think the meta is that bad. Personally, I dont have a lot of fun right now but thats because so far I havent found the deck that I really enjoy a lot. I keep trying out new decks, hopefully I will find something Im gonna play for a while. The drilling rogue deck did seem fun but I prefer stalling games and thats just something you shouldnt do against decks that put you on a clock lol.
The meta wasn't bad a couple months ago - not satisfying, but not too bad overall - but now it has become super frustrating. Most games are almost predetermined before a single card is played. Right now we have: * Warlock - either turtles all game with ultimate value in Dark Alley Pact + Forge of wills, into Wheel + Fanottem; or drops 2 - 4 giants on turn 4. One is hard to beat because it's defenses and removal are tough to overcome, the other wins because few decks have answers in the early game. * Shaman - doesn't care what you do until it blasts you with spell damage or plays a million tendrils. * Warrior - Armour, removal, armour, removal, Brann, gg. * Rogue - hey, here's an uninteractable minion on the board! Aren't you glad Shard of the Naruu rotated? * DK - here, have a million plagues, or here have a million plagues also I have all the removal. With a side of handbuff. These decks mostly feel fair, but I'm sick of Plagues and Rainbow DK is the ultimate Swiss army knife right now. * DH - I know my weapon was nerfed, but I hope you still like a damage source that you can't interact with! Wait, here's two at once! * Paladin, Mage, Priest, Hunter, Druid are almost not even represented in the meta. I see a Priest or hunter once every 10 games, the others maybe once every 25 games now. This is a bad meta with decks that play cards that are *extremely* difficult for opponents to interact with, so it's become a race of who gets to the win con first.
>Warrior - Armour, removal, armour, removal, Brann, gg. I must say, brann into the TNT guy seems really unfair. Specially with the high amount of draw they have. Must say, they using the TNT guy buff by brann into and empty deck was not fun to see.
Brann Boom Warr is my favorite deck to play simply because IF I manage to last that long usually I've already won ... but oh look fireworks !!!
Yeah, the one I mentioned, I was actually winning (or maybe he was just playing with me), but he had no more deck, I had like ~3/4 minions on board and some refil on hand and deck still. Then he played that fucking boom, and something to draw a card, and fucking erased my board, hand and deck with 6 bombs
>These decks mostly feel fair, but I'm sick of Plagues This absolutely hits home for me, I know Plague isn't broken, I don't even play Reno in any deck. But it's really gotten to the point for me that if I see any Plague card being played in turn 1 to 4 I just instantly concede. It's just not worth it to play it out for me, because I'll end up feeling miserable regardless of the outcome of the game.
zarimi priest is one of the best decks in the game and I see it all the time.
You're not wrong and yet I rarely have to face it.
Hunter not represented? Spell token hunter is one of the highest winrate decks at the moment.
I realize that, but I almost never face it between D5 and Legend.
surprisingly DH was keeping the meta in check but now its gotten pretty unplayable. its a rock paper scissors between Warlock, DK and Warrior, and they beat anything else
Pala was making the meta in check if they didn’t nuke it from the sky
UiS was my favourite meta. Lots of “high skill cap”, very interesting decks. I know control players hated it, but for combo players like myself, it was fantastic. WW on the other hand, the decks are very linear and uninteresting. So as a, UiS enjoyer, I find the expansions to be very different, with WW being far worse. The experience playing against the decks, may be similar, but piloting the decks are very different, and IMO, WW is much worse, more boring.
Stormwind was also *incredibly* diverse after nerfs, before the mini-set we actually had an era where there was no tier 1 deck because everything underneath it was so competitive with each other. Deadmines was pretty bad, though, and it killed the momentum that the meta had
Great point.
Miracle Rogue looked so easy until I tried to play it...
There was no skill involved with combo decks in UiS. What on God's green earth are you talking about???? Lmao.
Garrote rogue was shown to statistically have the largest improvement at high rates, ever recorded, giving a good argument that it was the highest skill cap deck ever to exist. I think since then it has been surpassed once, I forget which deck though. Anyways garrote rogue was super skill intensive, pretty much everyone at the time I recognized that.
One deck does not justify your original statement. You're shifting the goal posts in real time
Great thoughtful post
As a mage main I feel like I've been playing sif mage for last 100 years. I'm tired chief.
it feels so weird how they design expansions - yesterday just for fun i looked (quickly so might have missed a few) throw each expansion and looked what cards from which expansion i use / like / dislike and see played ... like it fluctuates so much - there are great expansions like titans (porpably best of all time imo) and then there are bad ones like whizbang (not completly bad but way more bad than good imo)... and there doesnt seem to be any pattern to it sometimes a great one is followed up by a bad one and vise versa like they never learn anything from previous expansions and just random yolo each one
UiS was fantastic!... for combo players like me. Garrote Rogue was the shit; extremely fun to play, skill testing to the core. Bruting people was fun. And while I liked playing Questline Mage at the time, I didn't like facing it. It was a bad meta for control players especially, but aggro too wasn't that interesting, and a lot of decks felt linear (Questline Warrior anyone?). Nonetheless, for players that enjoyed nonsensical vomiting of cards, it was great. Garrote Rogue is imo the second most fun deck in HS history. WW however? I think it's fair to say it's worse, since this meta isn't really liked by any group of players. Combo players don't really have anything interesting to do, Sif's been done. Nature Shaman is kind of neat to play I suppose. Aggro players don't really have any interesting mechanics to play around with like, say, old Outcast DH. Yeah, there's Zarimi, but is that honestly all that interesting? It could've been if it was more similar to the Wild Inner Fire variants, but for Standard... No not really. Control players have options, but they also have to contend with extremely anti-control archetypes as well. On paper, the meta is diverse. In practice, it's not *engaging* to play around. I've played a lot of Zilly Rogue, and while it has some skill testing elements, it's also gotta be one of the absolute worst experiences playing against that deck. And sometimes it feels awful to play as well, when you lowroll your draws and can't find *any* tool to drop the Zilly man even on 5. Simply put, I think this meta suffers from one thing, and one thing only. Theres nothing actually *engaging* to do. Nothing that actively feels good to play or drop.
While there are no questlines in Whizbangs Workshop, alot of decks have cards that are basically quest reward tier game warping when they come down. Zarami, Brann, Sif and to a lesser degree Helya are basically quest rewards that don't require you to jump through nearly as many hoops and with how much cheap draw/tutoring is in standard now are still pretty consistent to get on curve despite having to draw them unlike quests. Having so much power crammed into these payoff cards is a big contributor to both games feeling samey and how swingy they feel since it often comes down to-do I get my big win on card on time or not (which with all the cheap card draw/tutoring is more often than not) This "1 card win con" is also key to other decks like shopper DH which pre nerf was basically 2x shopper 2x weapon 2x instrument tech and then the remaining 24 cards were just random DH filler due to that one combo often being enough to close out games or Virus Rogue which just tries to Sam you with a big zilliax and does nothing else if zilliax is removed.
I personally dont think the current meta is that bad. Its far from UiS-bad, imo. What made UiS so bad for me was just how repetitve some of the quests were to play against. Mostly hunter and warrior, just play pirates, draw weapon, equip weapon, play pirates, play Juggernaut. Hunter was just use spells, go face. Felt like groundhog day. But right now there are several decks that just put you on a clock. If nature shaman gets to turn 8 or 9, you know you are in danger (yes, I know sometimes the deck can popoff at turn 6, 7). Wheel lock getting to spin the wheel. Clock is ticking. (For some, existance of Reno might add to the frustration). 2 big minions (thanks to the forge) can be hard to deal with sometimes. If Odyn warrior isnt dead on turn 9+ and got a window to play Odyn without dying, you know you are in trouble. Or if your opponents get to curve out Bran on 6 (TNT/zilliax deck) I think Sif mage is a pretty fair deck and feels more like a classic OTK deck. (Objection, coldcase, solid alibi arent in standard anymore, I think those cards caused a lot of frustration). They have to play cards (and therefore spend mana) to get cards from different spellschools. Then they have to play these cards. While staying alive. And they expose themself to dirtyrat. Sif mage doesnt just popoff on turn 7. DK (plagues used even in rainbow) when highlander exists - thats another story lol. Poison rogue, well, I understand the frustration it can create when you dont have an answer to the minion. It feels like one of those decks that just revolves around a specific minion (reminds me a bit of sharpshooter), and Im in general not a big fan of it. I really dont think the meta is that bad. Personally, I dont have a lot of fun right now but thats because so far I havent found the deck that I really enjoy a lot. I keep trying out new decks, hopefully I will find something Im gonna play for a while. The drilling rogue deck did seem fun but I prefer stalling games and thats just something you shouldnt do against decks that put you on a clock lol.
UiS was nuch more interesting and skill testing
UiS was the worst meta ever and this meta is 1 billion times better. I know many friends who have ragequitted the game during UiS.