Hearthpwn

Ok so I was thankfully wrong about spaceship. They are seeing *some* play but it feels like more like a secondary thing, it's not front and center as I would've thought it to be in the first place. I imagined the expansion would revolve mostly around the spaceship mechanic but it doesn't seem to be the case. It's more like extra flair.

I've seen the Shaman Meteor deck but it doesn't come across as oppressive as the warrior draenei (or whatever they're called) decks which consistently end game at T5 which is a shame. It seems to be an even more efficient version of handbuff paladin. We'll see. With a lightning fast meta like this, I don't foresee a lot of DK playing that 8 mana card which burn decks or that 7 card which summon the demon portal, games will be over two or three turns before that happens.

I don't think I've seen Reno played once in streams, T10 seems way too slow. This will probably make a lot of people happy. 

I think the spaceship idea is cool, crew members for DH is cool, today, I like DK destroying decks, the demon portal minion idea too. Libram is cool too as it doesn't seem too oppressive and it fits the paladin concept of buffing minions.

As usual, I'm not looking forward mage but its whole identity is built around burn damage so I guess you have to take it in stride. Only shaman I've seen are meteor shaman. 

All in all, really not convinced about the variety this expansion will bring. I foresee warrior and shaman playing a single deck for one thing. I don't think spore will see any play, too unreliable and slow.

Obviously there will always be a meta especially because Blizzard purposely makes overpowered cards for hype.

As far as I know, every single competitive game has a meta with tiers. Even without ''overpowered'' cards, there would be a meta, it's the competitive process taking place. Regardless if there are thousands of cards or hundreds, there are eventually decks which have a higher winrate which end up being played. This meta will be no different I'm sure. 

In fact, I'd be curious if there's data about meta variety since Hearthstone's expansion. The only thing I could find was a reddit thread which doesn't amount to much.

I don't think you've kept track of meta variety since 2014 and the expansion hasn't even launched yet. I wouldn't have said anything but considering your original post got 5 upvotes, it gives the impression the vast majority is too quick to believe anything based on thin air. You'd think people would at least wait until the expansion has launched to see how much variety the meta ends up having but I guess not, speculation seems good enough.

Well, where's the variety you guys are so enthusiastic about? The infinite possibilities? The tonnes of possibilities? I want to bask in your optimism, give me a bone here.

As for the current bullshit deck, my understanding is that's it's this one:

If you think HS warrior players are going to play any other deck than the one above, you're in for a rude awakening. If you think the community will stay away from the deck because it's unfun and broken, you're in for even ruder awakening. 

As far as I can tell, the meta is even faster than the previous one. I've seen quite a few games over at t5. This is not real data, what I've seen isn't hard evidence however. Maybe all the other games are super slow. 

I've seen Asteroid rogue which was OTK 6. 

Spaceship weren't used or barely used, maybe because they can be cleared by Reno. By the time you are ready to launch the ship, the game is already over or your opponent can easily deal with a giant minion on t10+. The use of spaceship will end up being a deathrattle for major face damage, the ship won't see much use itself from what I can tell.

Hopefully, I'm wrong.

I'm sort of puzzled about you guys take, maybe you can open up my eyes. I've been watching streamers for the last few days and I haven't seen a lot of variety.

Where are the 'tonnes of great deck building choices'? Tonnes? I get it's an hyperbole but is there any way to get a list? Maybe I'm watching the wrong streamers.

Hearthstone has a life cycle which repeats itself. It's like a funnel. At the very beginning, the funnel is wide, a lot of variety. The longer the meta lasts, the higher the rank, the less a variety of builds there are (the funnel becomes narrower and narrower). It's not Hearthstone's fault, it's typical of card collecting games in a hyper-competitive environment. 

Hopefully, I'll be proven wrong and this will be *the* meta where we have, quote, tonnes of great deck building choices. Until then, I remain very skeptical of that assertion and I suggest other people do the same. If ''tonnes'' means one or two different decks for each class, then it's the same as usual and there's really nothing new under the sun here (and tonnes is a bit of a misnomer is, since it's pretty rare to conflate tonnes and less than three). Time will tell and hopefully I'm just being jaded but I think you'll end up up backtracking on that statement.