I've been out of the game since K&C and now I want to return but obviously I feel like I'm REALLY out of the loop since I know nothing about what the meta did during Witchwood and Boomsday. Literally I have 70 packs of each of those expansions unopened, I'm clueless but I would strongly appreciate any info you guys could spare. I did some reading at VS and TempoStorm at least to get a foothold.
well, they are rotating out in a couple of weeks, so I dont see how it could matter.
none of the sets have really had to much impact since Kobolds and catacombs. they are trying to lower the power level of each set, to make standard less crazy. and so the meta has shifted some, but we still have a bunch of deathknights and things. baku and genn were probably the most influential cards to the meta. but they are going to HoF, so craft them if you dont have them already.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rejoice, for even in death, you have become children of Thanos.
Since KnC we got Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane. Blizzard finally nerfed druid and... that's much it. So craft this two cards, play them, get the free dust when they rotate out and you'll be fine.
Basicaly, the year of the mammoth was really strong and the year of the raven had almost no impact in the meta, just a few cards saw play, and 2 of them where really opresive, to the point that both will rotate aout 1 year early...so, you have, an expansion based on guilneas, an expansion based around dr boom with a lot of mechs, and an expansion aroun the troll witch class teams, loas everywhere, and mage got ragnaros back in the form of its legendary loa Jan'alai. You are coming back into a complete reset of the meta, cause 95% /99% of the meta cards are going to wild mode in 2 weeks
Read up on what goes to the Hall of Fame, craft what you don't open from your packs, and aside from that, don't bother with last years meta. Unless it's for academic purposes, in which case I'd just read some of the Data Reaper Reports on VS.
Since Witchwood, Even and Odd decks were half the meta for the entirety of the last year, which is why Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater, along with all "Even" and "Odd" condition cards from Witchwood get prematurely added to the Hall of Fame. Boomsday Project and Rastakhan's Rumble had very low impact, and almost all decks were largely if not entirely based on Year of the Mammoth cards.
With the upcoming rotation, pretty much all current decks, except maybe Midrange Hunter, will disappear entirely, and Standard will be a very different game from what it is now.
If I'd return to the game at this point, I'd just get the cards I can craft for free, play casually for two weeks, and try to get a decent amount of Gold for packs from the next expansion, Boomsday Project and Rastakhan's Rumble. I personally have a feeling that Boomsday will be strongest set overall after the rotation, but I might be wrong on this one.
Super thanks for the great replies. Honestly it sounds like I haven't missed much. So just to clarify, am I understanding that Odd and Even cards were so powerful that Blizzard decided to HoF them a year early? Since I didn't play during that time, what was it like? I mean was it busted or were the odd/even decks just annoying because too many people were playing it? At eyes glance, just reading what the odd/even cards do I couldn't tell how strong those decks were and sense I never played against one (and now never will) maybe someone can explain what it felt like.
Also in general, what classes do people feel were too strong or too weak during that meta leading up until now. The last time I was into this game during K&C, Preist, Druid and Warlock were for sure the strong classes and Shaman, Paladin and Warrior were looking pretty weak overall. Did that change after K&C?
Oh yea and 1 more thing, am I to understand that I get 100% dust back on HoF cards? If so, then I should get golden versions of everything being rotated right? Am I also able to to dust those cards and effectively double dip or no? Like I'm asking if they also allow you to dust them at 100% value on top of just giving us the dust at login.
Super thanks for the great replies. Honestly it sounds like I haven't missed much. So just to clarify, am I understanding that Odd and Even cards were so powerful that Blizzard decided to HoF them a year early? Since I didn't play during that time, what was it like? I mean was it busted or were the odd/even decks just annoying because too many people were playing it? At eyes glance, just reading what the odd/even cards do I couldn't tell how strong those decks were and sense I never played against one (and now never will) maybe someone can explain what it felt like.
Also in general, what classes do people feel were too strong or too weak during that meta leading up until now. The last time I was into this game during K&C, Preist, Druid and Warlock were for sure the strong classes and Shaman, Paladin and Warrior were looking pretty weak overall. Did that change after K&C?
That changed a lot.
Currently Paladin is dominating with arguably three decks at tier 1 (Odd/Even/Secret Paladin).
Shaman also has a very strong Even Shaman deck.
Warrior also has Odd Warrior, some builds using the quest, but probably the most effective one being the one that uses dragon mechanics.
Priest has one strong deck called Wall Priest, which is an OTK deck. Zoolock is fairly powerful again. Druid got nerfed to hell and is fairly weak now.
You can see a pretty good overview of the Meta at disguisedtoast.com
Feel free to add me via my battle tag. I'm happy to play a couple of games with you to help you catch up. It's also possible to deckshare now, so you can use my decks to play to see what fits with you. I am in Japan though so the time difference could be an issue.
They weren't THAT scary or unbeatable, but they indeed prevented the most of other deck building options, and hero power upgrades gave them initiative, just enough of advantage, especially when going first with Baku.
Famous decks: odd paladin, rouge, mage and warrior; even shaman and warlock.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Warrior got stronger. Actually saw some decent cards that brought it up to the level of other classes.
The past year has been home to a larger than normal amount of card nerfs. The nerfs have had more impact than the new cards. Which is why we no longer bow to our druid masters.
Paladin was already king in K&C due to call to arms. And the power of Genn/Baku has kept it there.
Shaman is the current undisputed worst class. After K&C all the good cards rotated out. This left freeze shaman. New stuff came but so did nerfs.
Priest and warlock have generally been strong but are looking towards loosing a lot in the coming rotation.
Do yourself a favor and go play eternal or magic arena instead. I am cautiously optimistic for the future of HS, but it ain't in a good spot right now.
Super thanks for the great replies. Honestly it sounds like I haven't missed much. So just to clarify, am I understanding that Odd and Even cards were so powerful that Blizzard decided to HoF them a year early? Since I didn't play during that time, what was it like? I mean was it busted or were the odd/even decks just annoying because too many people were playing it? At eyes glance, just reading what the odd/even cards do I couldn't tell how strong those decks were and sense I never played against one (and now never will) maybe someone can explain what it felt like.
Also in general, what classes do people feel were too strong or too weak during that meta leading up until now. The last time I was into this game during K&C, Preist, Druid and Warlock were for sure the strong classes and Shaman, Paladin and Warrior were looking pretty weak overall. Did that change after K&C?
Oh yea and 1 more thing, am I to understand that I get 100% dust back on HoF cards? If so, then I should get golden versions of everything being rotated right? Am I also able to to dust those cards and effectively double dip or no? Like I'm asking if they also allow you to dust them at 100% value on top of just giving us the dust at login.
Odd/even decks weren't nerfed because they were high power level. They were just widely disliked because starting with an upgraded hero power "makes all the games feel the same". They also limited deckbuilding due to their restrictions, though personally, I think this was more of a product of the last 3 expansions being so low in power
That's pretty much the crux of it all. The expansions you missed were mostly full of very weak cards compared to the mammoth sets. I think the devs changed their design philosophy around that time and decided to tone down the power level of standard in general. This created the short term issue of the raven year cards being largely unplayed in favor of the mammoth cards. This in turn caused the meta to be largely unchanged for the whole year
That said, there was still a large variety of viable decks throughout the year. Most changes to the meta were caused by nerfs, rather than the two new sets. All you need to do is look at which cards got nerfed to understand what the metas you missed were like. Some of the nerfs aren't direct though. Most notably, the chain gang nerf was for shudderwock shaman and the giggling inventor nerf was the 3rd attempt to balance quest rogue
As for your question on HOF dust management, if you have no intentions of using the cards in wild, you may craft and dust them for double dip value. Note that this ONLY works if you don't already have copies of the cards (plain or golden). If you do, don't craft anything and just dust the existing copies after the rotation. Dusting them now and recrafting does nothing to your dust count
Year of the raven was even/odd and really weak cards to copensate on the insane card quality of year of the mammoth, kind of a hard reset of powercreep, baku/genn saw so much play during the year that if they won't be rotating out we wouldn't see a new meta, druid was dominant the whole year until nerfed in december, both wild growth and nourish cost 1 more and druid is less common.
They were strong, not broken but played so much games felt the same cause of their consistency.
OTK was prevalent everywhere and personally I hated it.
THe only thing you might have missed is a deck that resembles OG handlock in evenlock.
Also craft genn and baku for free legendaries/dust (if you don't play wild you can disenchant them)
Baku created the backbone for odd Mage, odd pally, and also odd hunter which became cancerous and OP with Rexar and beast synergies. Inner fire priest got a new name - wall priest using resurects and a divine shield 2/14 taunt.
Then people just played those netdecks over and over and over again, congratulating themselves that they had managed to "git good" and had adapted to the meta. Usual story - bots can play the top tier decks to legend. A lot of players and streamers left the game.
Top classes right now are Paladin (even or odd or secrets, but I mostly see odd on ladder at my rank), Hunter (midrange or deathrattle), and Priest (wall, mind blast OTK (either with dragons or resurrect Velen), Mecha'thun quest, or fatigue quest). Hunter is probably the most popular of the three.
Druid has taken some heavy hits and isn't super popular, but top pros are still trying to use it to counter Hunter and Priest at the same time (Malygos, Togwaggle, or Mecha'thun).
Various tempo Rogues (odd, deathrattle, midrange pirate, or aggro miracle), Warlocks (heal-zoo, even, control, or cube), Warriors (odd mech control), and Mages (odd big spell control or odd tempo secrets) are decently powerful and common.
Then of course there are various more eclectic decks that individuals may be having success with, but aren't really meta. Year of the Raven hasn't been super powerful, but has been diverse. In this category you'll find tempo token Druid, spell Hunter, secret Hunter, non-odd big spell Mage, OTK Shirvallah Paladin, control Paladin, espionage Rogue, rush Warrior, odd quest Warrior, Mecha'thun Warlock, and (alas) any sort of Shaman.
EDIT: Of course all of this will change dramatically in two weeks.
Baku created the backbone for odd Mage, odd pally, and also odd hunter which became cancerous and OP with Rexar and beast synergies. Inner fire priest got a new name - wall priest using resurects and a divine shield 2/14 taunt.
Then people just played those netdecks over and over and over again, congratulating themselves that they had managed to "git good" and had adapted to the meta. Usual story - bots can play the top tier decks to legend. A lot of players and streamers left the game.
On the upside, Brode's gone. So there's that.
Oooh, someone found themselves a consistent narrative.
Top classes right now are Paladin (even or odd or secrets, but I mostly see odd on ladder at my rank), Hunter (midrange or deathrattle), and Priest (wall, mind blast OTK (either with dragons or resurrect Velen), Mecha'thun quest, or fatigue quest). Hunter is probably the most popular of the three.
Druid has taken some heavy hits and isn't super popular, but top pros are still trying to use it to counter Hunter and Priest at the same time (Malygos, Togwaggle, or Mecha'thun).
Various tempo Rogues (odd, deathrattle, midrange pirate, or aggro miracle), Warlocks (heal-zoo, even, control, or cube), Warriors (odd mech control), and Mages (odd big spell control or odd tempo secrets) are decently powerful and common.
Then of course there are various more eclectic decks that individuals may be having success with, but aren't really meta. Year of the Raven hasn't been super powerful, but has been diverse. In this category you'll find tempo token Druid, spell Hunter, secret Hunter, non-odd big spell Mage, OTK Shirvallah Paladin, control Paladin, espionage Rogue, rush Warrior, odd quest Warrior, Mecha'thun Warlock, and (alas) any sort of Shaman.
EDIT: Of course all of this will change dramatically in two weeks.
After laddering quite a bit in standard the last few days, this is very much my experience of the current meta as well! The only oddball deck you did not mention was "treant" druid, but it probably passes under "token."
The meta is actually pretty nice and varied, the only problem is that many common matchups are pretty polarized or hinge on a single card being drawn in time.
Despite the perception that odd and even decks rule the meta, I still think that hunter and priest are the dominant force, with odd paladin being the only odd or even deck that shares that spot. I played 170 games over two seasons with the same deck and those are the only 3 classes I racked up 20 games against.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've been out of the game since K&C and now I want to return but obviously I feel like I'm REALLY out of the loop since I know nothing about what the meta did during Witchwood and Boomsday. Literally I have 70 packs of each of those expansions unopened, I'm clueless but I would strongly appreciate any info you guys could spare. I did some reading at VS and TempoStorm at least to get a foothold.
how does it matter? there will be an entirely new meta in 2 weeks dude
https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/b5d69f/special_report_100_top_rastakhans_rumble_decks/
Here's the meta.
well, they are rotating out in a couple of weeks, so I dont see how it could matter.
none of the sets have really had to much impact since Kobolds and catacombs. they are trying to lower the power level of each set, to make standard less crazy. and so the meta has shifted some, but we still have a bunch of deathknights and things. baku and genn were probably the most influential cards to the meta. but they are going to HoF, so craft them if you dont have them already.
Rejoice, for even in death, you have become children of Thanos.
Since KnC we got Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane. Blizzard finally nerfed druid and... that's much it. So craft this two cards, play them, get the free dust when they rotate out and you'll be fine.
Basicaly, the year of the mammoth was really strong and the year of the raven had almost no impact in the meta, just a few cards saw play, and 2 of them where really opresive, to the point that both will rotate aout 1 year early...so, you have, an expansion based on guilneas, an expansion based around dr boom with a lot of mechs, and an expansion aroun the troll witch class teams, loas everywhere, and mage got ragnaros back in the form of its legendary loa Jan'alai. You are coming back into a complete reset of the meta, cause 95% /99% of the meta cards are going to wild mode in 2 weeks
Read up on what goes to the Hall of Fame, craft what you don't open from your packs, and aside from that, don't bother with last years meta. Unless it's for academic purposes, in which case I'd just read some of the Data Reaper Reports on VS.
Since Witchwood, Even and Odd decks were half the meta for the entirety of the last year, which is why Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater, along with all "Even" and "Odd" condition cards from Witchwood get prematurely added to the Hall of Fame. Boomsday Project and Rastakhan's Rumble had very low impact, and almost all decks were largely if not entirely based on Year of the Mammoth cards.
With the upcoming rotation, pretty much all current decks, except maybe Midrange Hunter, will disappear entirely, and Standard will be a very different game from what it is now.
If I'd return to the game at this point, I'd just get the cards I can craft for free, play casually for two weeks, and try to get a decent amount of Gold for packs from the next expansion, Boomsday Project and Rastakhan's Rumble. I personally have a feeling that Boomsday will be strongest set overall after the rotation, but I might be wrong on this one.
Super thanks for the great replies. Honestly it sounds like I haven't missed much. So just to clarify, am I understanding that Odd and Even cards were so powerful that Blizzard decided to HoF them a year early? Since I didn't play during that time, what was it like? I mean was it busted or were the odd/even decks just annoying because too many people were playing it? At eyes glance, just reading what the odd/even cards do I couldn't tell how strong those decks were and sense I never played against one (and now never will) maybe someone can explain what it felt like.
Also in general, what classes do people feel were too strong or too weak during that meta leading up until now. The last time I was into this game during K&C, Preist, Druid and Warlock were for sure the strong classes and Shaman, Paladin and Warrior were looking pretty weak overall. Did that change after K&C?
Oh yea and 1 more thing, am I to understand that I get 100% dust back on HoF cards? If so, then I should get golden versions of everything being rotated right? Am I also able to to dust those cards and effectively double dip or no? Like I'm asking if they also allow you to dust them at 100% value on top of just giving us the dust at login.
That changed a lot.
Currently Paladin is dominating with arguably three decks at tier 1 (Odd/Even/Secret Paladin).
Shaman also has a very strong Even Shaman deck.
Warrior also has Odd Warrior, some builds using the quest, but probably the most effective one being the one that uses dragon mechanics.
Priest has one strong deck called Wall Priest, which is an OTK deck. Zoolock is fairly powerful again. Druid got nerfed to hell and is fairly weak now.
You can see a pretty good overview of the Meta at disguisedtoast.com
Feel free to add me via my battle tag. I'm happy to play a couple of games with you to help you catch up. It's also possible to deckshare now, so you can use my decks to play to see what fits with you. I am in Japan though so the time difference could be an issue.
Mmmmmmm.... Shadowy thoughts.
They weren't THAT scary or unbeatable, but they indeed prevented the most of other deck building options, and hero power upgrades gave them initiative, just enough of advantage, especially when going first with Baku.
Famous decks: odd paladin, rouge, mage and warrior; even shaman and warlock.
“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Warrior got stronger. Actually saw some decent cards that brought it up to the level of other classes.
The past year has been home to a larger than normal amount of card nerfs. The nerfs have had more impact than the new cards. Which is why we no longer bow to our druid masters.
Paladin was already king in K&C due to call to arms. And the power of Genn/Baku has kept it there.
Shaman is the current undisputed worst class. After K&C all the good cards rotated out. This left freeze shaman. New stuff came but so did nerfs.
Priest and warlock have generally been strong but are looking towards loosing a lot in the coming rotation.
Do yourself a favor and go play eternal or magic arena instead. I am cautiously optimistic for the future of HS, but it ain't in a good spot right now.
Odd/even decks weren't nerfed because they were high power level. They were just widely disliked because starting with an upgraded hero power "makes all the games feel the same". They also limited deckbuilding due to their restrictions, though personally, I think this was more of a product of the last 3 expansions being so low in power
That's pretty much the crux of it all. The expansions you missed were mostly full of very weak cards compared to the mammoth sets. I think the devs changed their design philosophy around that time and decided to tone down the power level of standard in general. This created the short term issue of the raven year cards being largely unplayed in favor of the mammoth cards. This in turn caused the meta to be largely unchanged for the whole year
That said, there was still a large variety of viable decks throughout the year. Most changes to the meta were caused by nerfs, rather than the two new sets. All you need to do is look at which cards got nerfed to understand what the metas you missed were like. Some of the nerfs aren't direct though. Most notably, the chain gang nerf was for shudderwock shaman and the giggling inventor nerf was the 3rd attempt to balance quest rogue
As for your question on HOF dust management, if you have no intentions of using the cards in wild, you may craft and dust them for double dip value. Note that this ONLY works if you don't already have copies of the cards (plain or golden). If you do, don't craft anything and just dust the existing copies after the rotation. Dusting them now and recrafting does nothing to your dust count
Legend with : S65 Freeze Mage, S57 Maly Gonk Druid, S57 "Okay" Shaman, S53 Boom-zooka Hunter, S53 Maly Tog Druid, S52 Wild Tog Druid ft.Blingtron, S50 Quest Rogue, S49 Dead Man's Warrior, S41 Wild Clown Fiesta Druid, S41 Hadronox Jade Druid, S40 Wild OTK Dragon Druid, S35 SMOrc Shaman, S33 Jade Druid, S22 Control Priest, S19 Control Priest
I think the funniest news was that the Dustwood became the most important expansion of the year and everything else was pretty boring.
Don't forget to get your free golden legendaries and epics!
Year of the raven was even/odd and really weak cards to copensate on the insane card quality of year of the mammoth, kind of a hard reset of powercreep, baku/genn saw so much play during the year that if they won't be rotating out we wouldn't see a new meta, druid was dominant the whole year until nerfed in december, both wild growth and nourish cost 1 more and druid is less common.
They were strong, not broken but played so much games felt the same cause of their consistency.
OTK was prevalent everywhere and personally I hated it.
THe only thing you might have missed is a deck that resembles OG handlock in evenlock.
Also craft genn and baku for free legendaries/dust (if you don't play wild you can disenchant them)
Baku created the backbone for odd Mage, odd pally, and also odd hunter which became cancerous and OP with Rexar and beast synergies. Inner fire priest got a new name - wall priest using resurects and a divine shield 2/14 taunt.
Then people just played those netdecks over and over and over again, congratulating themselves that they had managed to "git good" and had adapted to the meta. Usual story - bots can play the top tier decks to legend. A lot of players and streamers left the game.
On the upside, Brode's gone. So there's that.
Top classes right now are Paladin (even or odd or secrets, but I mostly see odd on ladder at my rank), Hunter (midrange or deathrattle), and Priest (wall, mind blast OTK (either with dragons or resurrect Velen), Mecha'thun quest, or fatigue quest). Hunter is probably the most popular of the three.
Druid has taken some heavy hits and isn't super popular, but top pros are still trying to use it to counter Hunter and Priest at the same time (Malygos, Togwaggle, or Mecha'thun).
Various tempo Rogues (odd, deathrattle, midrange pirate, or aggro miracle), Warlocks (heal-zoo, even, control, or cube), Warriors (odd mech control), and Mages (odd big spell control or odd tempo secrets) are decently powerful and common.
Then of course there are various more eclectic decks that individuals may be having success with, but aren't really meta. Year of the Raven hasn't been super powerful, but has been diverse. In this category you'll find tempo token Druid, spell Hunter, secret Hunter, non-odd big spell Mage, OTK Shirvallah Paladin, control Paladin, espionage Rogue, rush Warrior, odd quest Warrior, Mecha'thun Warlock, and (alas) any sort of Shaman.
EDIT: Of course all of this will change dramatically in two weeks.
Oooh, someone found themselves a consistent narrative.
Mmmmmmm.... Shadowy thoughts.
After laddering quite a bit in standard the last few days, this is very much my experience of the current meta as well! The only oddball deck you did not mention was "treant" druid, but it probably passes under "token."
The meta is actually pretty nice and varied, the only problem is that many common matchups are pretty polarized or hinge on a single card being drawn in time.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
Despite the perception that odd and even decks rule the meta, I still think that hunter and priest are the dominant force, with odd paladin being the only odd or even deck that shares that spot. I played 170 games over two seasons with the same deck and those are the only 3 classes I racked up 20 games against.