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The Boomsday Project - Meta Report

 

News + Blizzard Arena Updates

Aug 1 

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Aug 12th - Meta Report

Just over a week into the new expansion and it seems we have a pretty good sense of what to expect from this new meta. As expected, a slightly faster meta has emerged where filling the board with minions and playing proactively has produced strong results. However, the opposite side of the coin, is to have enough removal and AOE spells to counter this board flooding play style and drain them of their resources. While it's very unlikely to draft a deck with high number of removals, it's possible as Warlock, and to a lesser extent Warrior. Both classes of which are benefiting in win rates. While rushing down your opponent seems like a good idea, foregoing all value for aggression is probably not advised. Even though classes might not have spell removal often, there are a ton of common taunts and heals that can hold off aggression. Taunts tax minions if you don't have removal, so eventually you will run out of gas against a deck defending your aggression with taunts. So keep that in mind and take a couple late game heavy hitters or draw to close out games.  

Overall, the meta is being shaped by classes that can take advantage of having boards (or removing boards efficiently). Deck quality is generally worse, and reliance on powerful comeback spells are more inconsistent.  

Quick Meta Notes

• Dragonslayer is still a very popular card appearing in 24% of all decks
• Mind Control Tech has greatly reduced in appearance rates dropping from 22% to 10% of decks
• Giggling Inventor is the MOST meta relevant card from BDP showing up in 26% of all decks. The ability to fit into both aggressive and control play styles makes it a highly sought after BDP card in any deck.  
• E.M.P. Operative has not live up to my expectations - it's only showing in 7% of all decks, and has shown weaker results relative to other "tech" cards like Mind Control Tech and Dragonslayer. It's closer comparison is to Big Game Hunter, which is fine, just not great. 
• Most common neutral cards in decks have all seen increases in their appearance rates since Blizzards new rarity and bucket adjustments, here are the most popular cards:
  • Fungalmancer, Tar Creeper, Stonehill Defender (42% down to 22%), Shroom Brewer, Stubborn Gastropod, Saronite Chain Gang (34% down to 19%), Deathspeaker

Class Tier list 

Tier 1 

Warlock - The new expansion and meta shift did not change anything for Warlock's dominance in Arena. Warlock can play fast or slow and has tons of tools to enable both play styles. Their hero power allows them out sustain fast decks and out value slower decks. Cards like Dread Infernal and Hellfire are very common removal cards for the class but also be aware of their most popular card Defile which just ruins faster small decks.  

Rogue - To the surprise of no one, Rogue is still near the top of Arena. Efficient small removals, and the ability to outpace almost any deck that doesn't any catch up tools, makes Rogue extremely scary. The addition of the classes most popular BDP card, Crazed Chemist makes for an easy transition into an aggressive play style as well. The card also boasts one of the highest win rates for the class. The reduced frequency of rare weapons, and Elven Minstrel creates a bit of a value drop for Rogue, so many sure you have some reload cards in your deck to keep up the attack.

Tier 2 

Druid - Appears tokens and board aggression works well for Druid especially with Savage Roar (in 41% of decks), and Power of the Wild (in 42% of decks), creating insane burst damage. The classes most popular AOE is still Starfall, although dipping slightly still coming in at 40% occurrence rate. Right now the class seems like it has a well balanced attack, with efficient common removal.  Oh and also the boosted appearance rate of the classes best card, Ultimate Infestation no doubt has contributed to druid's success just a little..

Tier 3

Mage - It seems the class is probably still a control class in a swarmy meta. In it's top 10 popular cards, Blizzard and Flamestrike are in the top 3. Whereas cards like Fireball and Pyroblast have seen their appearance rates fall. Most popular BDP card so far ? Shooting Star. 

Shaman - Pleasantly surprised by this class and was my pick to do well. Hex (61% of decks), Lightning Storm (58% of decks), and Stormforged Axe (57% of decks) are all going to be seen very often in Shaman. Most common BDP card is Menacing Nimbus. The class can win from out of no where if you leave them a board with Unstable Evolution or even Bloodlust both of which are very common cards in Shaman drafts. Lots of removal and several win conditions makes Shaman a solid class right now.  

Warrior - Really happy for warrior to be in the middle of the pack. The class benefits from having very efficient common class cards. Warpath at 68% of all decks, is the most common card out of any class. It's obvious power comes from it's ability to efficiently remove boards and this has surely helped propel Warrior to relevance right now. Also, many common weapons and strong taunt minions help Warrior maintain it's control play style. Supercollider has shown to be under estimated by many, it's an insane card and the first one is a near auto pick. 

Priest - The class has a hard time against Warlock which has the ability to run Priest out of resources through their hero power. The game plan for Priest is usually to play Control still. Popular common cards include AOE like Holy Nova, and Spirit Lash. But reductions in Priest power cards like Shadow Madness, Free From Amber, Psychic Scream and Mind Control all hurt the consistency of the class. Expect a more proactive priest with less reliance on these powerful comeback spells, however so far the results have been mixed. 

Tier 4 

Paladin - How the mighty has fallen ! Paladin for as long as I can remember has never been "bad" in Arena. The hero power generally is fine, and the card has strong neutral class cards it falls back on to take control of the board. Several under performing cards "slower" cards are picked quite often such as Equality, Hammer of Wrath and Sword of Justice. It also doesn't help that Spikeridged Steed which saw pick rates as high as 70% previously, now only show up in about 27% of decks. Silver Sword still shows up in 45% of decks, down from 60%+, but it's win rate has been OK, not as strong as Vinecleaver or even Truesilver Champion. This might be a case of an over picked card that doesn't work well against the meta. For what it's worth, its still Paladin's best "closer" card when played. 

Hunter - Poor Hunter. Even with what felt like a great package from BDP, the class still is bad. Try to stay proactive instead of reactive with Hunter. Dire Frenzy while crazy when hits, performs poorly on average and is picked fairly often. Flanking Strike, Candleshot, Crackling Razormaw, and Savannah Highmane is the classes staple power cards, so make sure you don't over look these when offered. Bomb Toss, Secret Plan and Spider Bomb have been Hunter's most common BDP cards, but have all seemed to under perform relative other cards in their buckets. 

Aug 1st - Meta Prediction Report 

 

 Questions ? Comments ? Observations ? Let's talk Meta below! 

 

Quote from Notorious_BLT >>

Great summary. Tempo, early-game and curving-out is going to be incredibly important in this meta, I would imagine, given the decent number of good early-game minions and the lack of removal in this set coupled with spell/weapon offering rate going down. Given how many mechs are in the set and how many are reasonable (if not great) stand-alone cards it seems like drafting decks with decent mech synergy will be fairly likely to happen and leaving mechs on the board can really allow opponents to flip a game if they get a couple of good magnetic hits that you have no answer to, or buff them with spells. All this indicates you will need to have a lot of board presence and make smart trades, although full aggro will also be a good option. 

 

Broadly agree with your class analysis but just a few things I was thinking about:

I was pretty hyped about Hunter but it is crazy how many of their cards are in top-tier buckets, completely disproportionate compared to the other classes. Therefore despite the (great) additions they’ve had and the fact the meta should play to their strengths,  I imagine they’ll be a class with very high draft variance. But no doubt it seems like this meta is a good one for them. 

Druid actually looks like they’ll be really strong. I think there’s a lot of potential to go full token/aggro with them and it’ll be less risky due to reduced board clears (weirdly, Shaman seems much likelier to have board clears in their simulations than Mage). Savage Roar will be seen a lot. Remains to be seen how likely you are to get many treants (I’d say reasonably likely to get a few) but Mulchmuncher seems quite underbucketed to me. Even if you only get it discounted a couple of times, an 8/8 mech with rush for 8 is better than Charged Devilsaur, which is a good card.

Rogue will obviously be great and think several of their cards slightly underbucketed. Would expect them to be the top class with some decent Arena additions (notably Necrium Blade, although Crazed Chemist seems a really strong finisher to me).

You would also imagine Warlock will be strong but I wonder if the meta might be a bit fast for them. Clearly Omega Agent is woefully underbucketed and they still have a lot of removal options even with the spell reduction but the class has been powerful recently primarily due to its comeback potential and I do wonder whether they’ll just get rushed down a bit in the Boomsday meta.

EDIT: Also, just realised that Giggling Inventor is in bucket 3 so get ready to see that card A LOT. Particularly good for Rogue, Paladin and Druid.

Hunter has been getting solid cards lately, but their results have either been heavily skewed by offering rate bonuses or completely lack luster when those rates were reduced. It's hard to say how they will do in BDP, but if it's a heavy tempo meta, I'd expect Hunter to at least be competitive. 

I feel the reduction in rare cards is going to hurt Warlock quite a bit. Cards like Despicable Dreadlord, Siphon Soul and Defile will be seen less often. This means while drafting cards like Hellfire and Dread Infernal are needed to substitute for the lack of come back offerings. I'm also basing Warlocks decline with the slight emergence of Hunter, Mage and the variety of refill options offered by the new set. 

On the note about Mulchmuncher and big minions in general, I think board spread and lack of AOE will make it difficult to control the board with a single large minion. Mulchmuncher is a more solid option though since it does have initiative and should 2 for 1 cards often. I'm also wary about large investments in mechs, fearing the inevitable E.M.P. Operative swing hit that will cost me a couple keyboards. Finally, the last point against larger minions is the forecasted strength of Giggling Inventor. This card will shut out large single minions if they don't have support. As you've mentioned BLT, it's in an extremely attractive bucket which means it'll probably get taken frequently. 

God, I also made the prediction Paladin will be great, but it currently has the worst win rate right now after 12.0. No idea if Paladin class cards will buff that scenario lol

Quote from TachiiDerp >>

God, I also made the prediction Paladin will be great, but it currently has the worst win rate right now after 12.0. No idea if Paladin class cards will buff that scenario lol

 Well in my opinion, the only great card paladins get is the Glowstone Technician. Annoy-o-Module  and Autodefense Matrix are good cards but they aren't mind blowingly awesome soo...

Quote from TachiiDerp >>

God, I also made the prediction Paladin will be great, but it currently has the worst win rate right now after 12.0. No idea if Paladin class cards will buff that scenario lol

 Yes - this is really surprising. I dug a bit deeper, and noticed that the performance of Silver Sword was substantially worse then previously. The card still shows up in about 70% of decks, but it's win rate is much worse.  

We will see how the new mech cards and Paladin cards will help. The class is too good to be THIS bad for long. Will definitely keep an eye on it. 

Quote from Acoander >>

Quote from TachiiDerp >>

God, I also made the prediction Paladin will be great, but it currently has the worst win rate right now after 12.0. No idea if Paladin class cards will buff that scenario lol

 Well in my opinion, the only great card paladins get is the Glowstone Technician. Annoy-o-Module  and Autodefense Matrix are good cards but they aren't mind blowingly awesome soo...

 Paladin got decent to solid cards in general, not many of them are really horrible. It's more so the mechanical minions and buffs to keep them alive into Magnetic synergy that I feel might help Paladin in the new set. Paladin in general has never been a poor performer, regardless of set offerings, so we'll have to see if they pick up the slack a bit.  

Quote from Boozor >>

Quote from Notorious_BLT >>

Great summary. Tempo, early-game and curving-out is going to be incredibly important in this meta, I would imagine, given the decent number of good early-game minions and the lack of removal in this set coupled with spell/weapon offering rate going down. Given how many mechs are in the set and how many are reasonable (if not great) stand-alone cards it seems like drafting decks with decent mech synergy will be fairly likely to happen and leaving mechs on the board can really allow opponents to flip a game if they get a couple of good magnetic hits that you have no answer to, or buff them with spells. All this indicates you will need to have a lot of board presence and make smart trades, although full aggro will also be a good option. 

 

Broadly agree with your class analysis but just a few things I was thinking about:

I was pretty hyped about Hunter but it is crazy how many of their cards are in top-tier buckets, completely disproportionate compared to the other classes. Therefore despite the (great) additions they’ve had and the fact the meta should play to their strengths,  I imagine they’ll be a class with very high draft variance. But no doubt it seems like this meta is a good one for them. 

Druid actually looks like they’ll be really strong. I think there’s a lot of potential to go full token/aggro with them and it’ll be less risky due to reduced board clears (weirdly, Shaman seems much likelier to have board clears in their simulations than Mage). Savage Roar will be seen a lot. Remains to be seen how likely you are to get many treants (I’d say reasonably likely to get a few) but Mulchmuncher seems quite underbucketed to me. Even if you only get it discounted a couple of times, an 8/8 mech with rush for 8 is better than Charged Devilsaur, which is a good card.

Rogue will obviously be great and think several of their cards slightly underbucketed. Would expect them to be the top class with some decent Arena additions (notably Necrium Blade, although Crazed Chemist seems a really strong finisher to me).

You would also imagine Warlock will be strong but I wonder if the meta might be a bit fast for them. Clearly Omega Agent is woefully underbucketed and they still have a lot of removal options even with the spell reduction but the class has been powerful recently primarily due to its comeback potential and I do wonder whether they’ll just get rushed down a bit in the Boomsday meta.

EDIT: Also, just realised that Giggling Inventor is in bucket 3 so get ready to see that card A LOT. Particularly good for Rogue, Paladin and Druid.

I'm also wary about large investments in mechs, fearing the inevitable E.M.P. Operative swing hit that will cost me a couple keyboards. 

 I agree with you on the paladin part (especially about them never being poor performers), but I honestly doubt you will ever pick the operative. The card is bucketed way too high.

Probably have to agree to disagree on that point. Personally feel theres going to be situations where you'll end up taking it versus generic cards you can live without. It's been a pretty divisive card in terms of fueling discussions so we will just have to see how the Mets shapes up. I'm more then happy to make an update after I put in 100 games or so. Also gives hsreplay couple days to accumulate some stats. 

Quote from Draco_Cracona >>

Hmm. Contrary to expectations, I'm finding that aggro kind of sucks. Sure, there's less spells. But there's a boatload of good, neutral taunts, which do basically the same thing by flooding the board with annoy-o-trons. 

I dont think anyone was expecting for aggro decks to do well. You need curvestone decks, which r zoo-midrange decks with sprinkle of removal/burn. Those work wonders.

I find that aggro is really, really working for me. My drafts are generally much worse, but I'm hitting very good runs with them regardless, doing minimal trades and going face. Even with control-ish decks, I'm not being punished for the gung-ho approach.

Quote from Notorious_BLT >>

Quote from Draco_Cracona >>

Hmm. Contrary to expectations, I'm finding that aggro kind of sucks. Sure, there's less spells. But there's a boatload of good, neutral taunts, which do basically the same thing by flooding the board with annoy-o-trons. 

 Depends on your luck I guess, I'm on my 5th run currently and averaging 8 (not counting 3-1 on my current run) and have gone pretty aggro for all of them. Not a large enough sample to be at all relevant but just letting you know my experience! I have not encountered much AOE, although a bit and quite a lot of single-target removal, and have won several games just by having a bunch of 2-attack or less minions on the board that my opponent just can't remove. Have had 2 Druid runs, a Paladin and a Rogue. Current run is another Paladin. 

I have played against Giggling Inventor a few times but to be honest it's never slowed me down much because each time my opponent has played it I've already had 4-6 crappy minions on the board and just clear it. It is a pain though. Apart from that Boomsday has F-all taunts in it though so not really seeing that many. 

I had a very similar experience, aggro is strong right now as going wide on the board is less likely to be punished and removal is fairly rare compared to the WW meta. Lots of small tokens that are a pain to remove for the opponent, with a couple Magnetic minions and Fungalmancer buffs protected behind Giggling Inventors a majority of my games are decided before the late game even starts unlike WW. None of my four Hunter runs so far went below 7 wins, one of them even got to 12-0. Also drafted an extremely aggressive Rogue with just 2 7+ cards, rest 5 mana or less and that also went quite well. Turns out smorcing is pretty good again...

I dont know what kind of game are you playing guys, but i run into friggin taunt walls and aoe clears one after the other. And if not that, the most stupid ridiculous RNG BS that i have experienced ever since UnGoro. Game after game ppl r rewarded for pickin the absolute trash cards, cause they work in that one single scenario. I am having a very miserable experience, so far.

I put in about 100 games so far, and here are some really quick observations:  

• Meta for the most part feels faster - requires a balanced curve
• Reason decks need a bit more value ?
  • Minion trading - usually not as efficient as spell removal
  • Multiple taunts - taxes your minions 
  • Warlocks hero power - feeling helpless yet ? 

I'll post a more detailed update with more thoughts and some statistics during the weekend, but so far there's some surprising bits of information that might settle down a bit over the weekend volume. 

Good luck in the arena all :D 

Giggling Inventor is the most win-more card ever since bonemare. If you or your opponent is even a little ahead, they lose. Not much room for counterplay from what I've seen so far, just hope you get turn 1,2,3. There are also a LOT more legendaries from what I'm seeing (every deck has at least 1 and 3 at most) Arena has really fallen from grace :( it used to test player's skills as a hearthstone player and weigh the risk-reward of playing around certain cards and boardclears. Now its just jam everything on curve and hope its  better than your opponent's.

Quote from Sinti >>

I dont know what kind of game are you playing guys, but i run into friggin taunt walls and aoe clears one after the other. And if not that, the most stupid ridiculous RNG BS that i have experienced ever since UnGoro. Game after game ppl r rewarded for pickin the absolute trash cards, cause they work in that one single scenario. I am having a very miserable experience, so far.

 Maybe you still ran into a couple decks that were drafted before the 12.0 changes? I rarely face games atm that extend significantly beyond 10 turns. This meta is similar to KFT in terms of playstyle: it heavily rewards being on curve/on the board and allows for snowballing with little chance for the opponent to make a comeback. Some players still draft way too top-heavy like in the Witchwood meta and they get punished hard from what I experience. Some examples if you're interested, these are like my average arena games now in terms of length:

• Druid: https://hsreplay.net/replay/R7JXPConaaDRiqrRroYBPH
• Warrior: https://hsreplay.net/replay/v3YipBDpoBVWGT8rBnWUiP
• Rogue: https://hsreplay.net/replay/sewANHFowY6EHwDHrzCJfN
• Hunter: https://hsreplay.net/replay/cyPYuNT7F3EeJ6mdSreX62 (I lost going second, still a good display of how fast/aggressive the arena meta is right now)

Quote from ZashikiHS >>

Quote from Sinti >>

I dont know what kind of game are you playing guys, but i run into friggin taunt walls and aoe clears one after the other. And if not that, the most stupid ridiculous RNG BS that i have experienced ever since UnGoro. Game after game ppl r rewarded for pickin the absolute trash cards, cause they work in that one single scenario. I am having a very miserable experience, so far.

 Maybe you still ran into a couple decks that were drafted before the 12.0 changes? I rarely face games atm that extend significantly beyond 10 turns. This meta is similar to KFT in terms of playstyle: it heavily rewards being on curve/on the board and allows for snowballing with little chance for the opponent to make a comeback. Some players still draft way too top-heavy like in the Witchwood meta and they get punished hard from what I experience. Some examples if you're interested, these are like my average arena games now in terms of length:

• Druid: https://hsreplay.net/replay/R7JXPConaaDRiqrRroYBPH
• Warrior: https://hsreplay.net/replay/v3YipBDpoBVWGT8rBnWUiP
• Rogue: https://hsreplay.net/replay/sewANHFowY6EHwDHrzCJfN
• Hunter: https://hsreplay.net/replay/cyPYuNT7F3EeJ6mdSreX62 (I lost going second, still a good display of how fast/aggressive the arena meta is right now)

No, all are the new decks. The meta did get a little bit faster, but come 4-5 wins everyone has mutiple aoes and removals and we r back where we started. And not only that the most ridiculous cards r working out for my opponents every single game. I know it might be confirmation bias, but i have not had so much bad luck in arena since ever. I think my experience so far is closing on the time when UnGoro launched and that was a friggin slot machine meta. I just cant get a break lol ... whatever, guess i will take some time off and come back to it later.

Yeah Giggling Inventor is very good but on the other hand Mossy Horror is worth picking up. I got countered by it a few time times and its very crushing.

Im done with arena for a long time, i just dont have the mental fortitude for the amount of absolute horseshit that gets thrown at me every single game. Win or lose, i dont enjoy playin it anymore. Random bailout for my opponent or topdeck or both, game after game after game, cause there is just so many RNG cards right now.

I have played around 120 games this weekend, so i can at least give you some findings; some use can come from that shitty experience:

Most frequent classes: rogue, druid, mage, pally. All of them have at least one AOE, but probably more than one.

Most frequent OP minions: Giggling Inventor, Fungalmancer. T5 is the power turn for almost every single deck, defensive or offensive.

Fuckton of taunts in most decks.

Notable mentions:

• Mossy Horror - it is being offered in almost every draft (at least i got it on almost every draft)
• Blood Knight - also being offered relatively often and there is a lot of targets for him
• Mind Control Tech - have seen probably less than 10 in all those games, kinda weird actually
• Spring Rocket - probably underrated card by many that has a pretty high impact on the game overall, pick it, you will learn to appreciate it
• Polymorph - cant even remember when the last time i saw that card
• Mirror Entity / Counterspell - have literally not seen any other secrets in mage (Mirror Entity is the most common)
• Very few Volcanos, but plenty of Lightning Storms

Guess thats about it. Hope it helps someone at least.

Thanks for the meta feedback - it does feel like a bit of a whirlwind meta right now. For the most part, board aggression Giggling Inventor, Fungalmancer and minion initiative Spring Rocket, Mossy Horror, taunts, heals, RUSH, seem to be common trends that have worked out well so far. However, there is definitely a place for "control" decks if you can get the appropriate draft for it ! Warlock is the star right now, having the ability to play both sides of aggression and control rather consistently with their draft options. Rogue comes in at a hot 2nd place just because Rogue is awesome at everything usually.  

Remember the old adage that you are either the beat down or you are the control ? Rings really true right now.  

I've updated my meta thoughts for the start of BDP. Would love to hear feedback as always.

Let's keep the discussion / salt coming in :)  

The first few matches were really good, compared to the witchwood meta atleast. There were some nice straightforward matches, without too much bullshit in it. The last 10 matches though... Fungalmancer, those bastards are EVERYWHERE!