Right now I'm playing standard at rank 4 and I'm trying to get into the flow with the meta changes. At the start of the month I've climbed to rank 5 with control/fatigue warrior and had a solid 52% wr winning against zoo, odd pally, token druid and shudderwock, but in a week it came to 42% wr losing against deathrattle hunters, kb rogues and combo druids. I switched deck to mecha'thun priest and got a nice wr against those decks for a couple of days, but then I got obliterated by various aggro decks (zoo and odd rogue, mostly). Switched back to warrior, and again got deathrattle hunters and combo druids mostly. Picked tempo mage as an answer to all those decks I struggled against and got stuck with exactly 50% wr (which is not bad for sure, but also not good). After mage I picked token druid and playing it now, so far it's 17-6 (too few games to speak about wr % IMO), but I doubt it would perform consistently for a continious time.
This is not (another) salt or blizzard blaming thread, I just want to check if it's only my feeling or ranks 5 to 1 meta in standard is changing really fast and only way to adapt is to constantly guess right which deck would be better right here and right now? I've seen an opinion here that to climb on those ranks it's better to stick with a single deck and play the heck out of it, but from what I see I can tell the same deck may have solid 50+% wr one week (from more than 100 games) and pathetic 40+% wr another week (again, more than 100 games).
It’s not only through ranks, it’s through time. People play decks to counter the meta and then those decks are countered, thus creating a new meta. At different ranks there will be different metas because people are just countering what they are seeing at their rank.
I have similar situation. I had 73% WR on my hunter in first week of current season (ez climbing from rank 10 to 1st). Now I having a row of loses and 4th rank. I changed a lot of good meta-decks, such as even warlock, token druid, even shaman and have 47% WR for ~60 games now. Now I play on cubewarlock and try to gain my 1st legend with it (surprisingly good in druid meta).
P.s. Small question-advice: Malygos druid still strong deck? Not seen they for a week.
And i also made the experience that if you see a well known streamer (Kibler, Toast, etc.) play a deck and it is doing well you will see that deck on the ladder for a few days :)
So, the best strategy is to watch streams and then look for a counter to highlighted deck?
the best strategy is to prepare two different decks that have good matchups against the other decks weaknesses, then play a lot, learn all the matchups and then every day play a few games, decide which one of your two decks might be better at the time and rank and play it. if you feel like your local meta changes you can consider to switch to the other deck for the rest of your playing session, but dont swap immediately and too often. your decision making gets more intuitive the longer you stick with a deck. also you learn to play your bad matchups - the difference between somebody who is very experienced with a deck and overperforms compared to the average player is not whether he manages to get (for example) a 75% winrate in favoured matchups compared to an average of 65%, but whether he has a 45% instead of a 40% wr in some unfavoured matchup.
the best strategy is to prepare two different decks that have good matchups against the other decks weaknesses, then play a lot, learn all the matchups and then every day play a few games, decide which one of your two decks might be better at the time and rank and play it. if you feel like your local meta changes you can consider to switch to the other deck for the rest of your playing session, but dont swap immediately and too often. your decision making gets more intuitive the longer you stick with a deck. also you learn to play your bad matchups - the difference between somebody who is very experienced with a deck and overperforms compared to the average player is not whether he manages to get (for example) a 75% winrate in favoured matchups compared to an average of 65%, but whether he has a 45% instead of a 40% wr in some unfavoured matchup.
I agree with this, I play Odd Warrior and Heal Zoo... If the meta becomes combo orientated I play zoo, if it becomes control or aggro orientated I play Odd Warrior. It's tricky deciding when to change though.
I have similar situation. I had 73% WR on my hunter in first week of current season (ez climbing from rank 10 to 1st). Now I having a row of loses and 4th rank. I changed a lot of good meta-decks, such as even warlock, token druid, even shaman and have 47% WR for ~60 games now. Now I play on cubewarlock and try to gain my 1st legend with it (surprisingly good in druid meta).
P.s. Small question-advice: Malygos druid still strong deck? Not seen they for a week.
Yes Malygos Druid still one of the best high skill decks I climb from rank 5 to rank 1 EU with Zoo then switched to Malygos druid and got legend with zero lose Yesterday .
I feel you. I was absolutely obliterating people with my custom big priest (13 game winstreak) but at rank 4 I logged in a few days later and faced a lot of bad matchups. I switched to token druid and got to rank 3 but ran into tough matchups again so I switched to custom miracle rogue. It's been working really well for me (I've only lost 2 games due to misplays (9-2)) and now Im rank 2 2 stars.
Reading the meta is important but I think it's a bit overstated especially if you're talking ranks below legend. There are so many decks right now, you can choose a deck based on the stats on hsreplay for your rank or just what you've seen in your last games but still not see any of the decks you're trying to counter regularly.
The main thing in such a diverse meta is having one or two decks that you know well and know how to play your matchup against all the different decks in the meta. Preferably different types; like one aggro and control/combo. If there is a really flavor of the month deck like Odd warrior or DR hunter then try to pick something that is favored in those but with so many kinds of decks queuing against the meta can flat out not work.
Right now I'm playing standard at rank 4 and I'm trying to get into the flow with the meta changes. At the start of the month I've climbed to rank 5 with control/fatigue warrior and had a solid 52% wr winning against zoo, odd pally, token druid and shudderwock, but in a week it came to 42% wr losing against deathrattle hunters, kb rogues and combo druids. I switched deck to mecha'thun priest and got a nice wr against those decks for a couple of days, but then I got obliterated by various aggro decks (zoo and odd rogue, mostly). Switched back to warrior, and again got deathrattle hunters and combo druids mostly. Picked tempo mage as an answer to all those decks I struggled against and got stuck with exactly 50% wr (which is not bad for sure, but also not good). After mage I picked token druid and playing it now, so far it's 17-6 (too few games to speak about wr % IMO), but I doubt it would perform consistently for a continious time.
This is not (another) salt or blizzard blaming thread, I just want to check if it's only my feeling or ranks 5 to 1 meta in standard is changing really fast and only way to adapt is to constantly guess right which deck would be better right here and right now? I've seen an opinion here that to climb on those ranks it's better to stick with a single deck and play the heck out of it, but from what I see I can tell the same deck may have solid 50+% wr one week (from more than 100 games) and pathetic 40+% wr another week (again, more than 100 games).
It’s not only through ranks, it’s through time. People play decks to counter the meta and then those decks are countered, thus creating a new meta. At different ranks there will be different metas because people are just countering what they are seeing at their rank.
I have similar situation. I had 73% WR on my hunter in first week of current season (ez climbing from rank 10 to 1st). Now I having a row of loses and 4th rank. I changed a lot of good meta-decks, such as even warlock, token druid, even shaman and have 47% WR for ~60 games now. Now I play on cubewarlock and try to gain my 1st legend with it (surprisingly good in druid meta).
P.s. Small question-advice: Malygos druid still strong deck? Not seen they for a week.
So, the best strategy is to watch streams and then look for a counter to highlighted deck?
the best strategy is to prepare two different decks that have good matchups against the other decks weaknesses, then play a lot, learn all the matchups and then every day play a few games, decide which one of your two decks might be better at the time and rank and play it. if you feel like your local meta changes you can consider to switch to the other deck for the rest of your playing session, but dont swap immediately and too often. your decision making gets more intuitive the longer you stick with a deck. also you learn to play your bad matchups - the difference between somebody who is very experienced with a deck and overperforms compared to the average player is not whether he manages to get (for example) a 75% winrate in favoured matchups compared to an average of 65%, but whether he has a 45% instead of a 40% wr in some unfavoured matchup.
I agree with this, I play Odd Warrior and Heal Zoo... If the meta becomes combo orientated I play zoo, if it becomes control or aggro orientated I play Odd Warrior. It's tricky deciding when to change though.
Unbowed. Unbent. Unbroken.
Yes Malygos Druid still one of the best high skill decks I climb from rank 5 to rank 1 EU with Zoo then switched to Malygos druid and got legend with zero lose Yesterday .
That's fun, I again climb up on my hunter to 1st rank from 4th. WR >80%. Random metaday from Blizzar. Idk how call that.
Played token druid since yesterday, got 58% wr on 70 games and climbed from 4 to 2, which is pretty good.
The meta is changing very slowly. But you can change the decks you are facing by changing the deck you play.
I feel you. I was absolutely obliterating people with my custom big priest (13 game winstreak) but at rank 4 I logged in a few days later and faced a lot of bad matchups. I switched to token druid and got to rank 3 but ran into tough matchups again so I switched to custom miracle rogue. It's been working really well for me (I've only lost 2 games due to misplays (9-2)) and now Im rank 2 2 stars.
Reading the meta is important but I think it's a bit overstated especially if you're talking ranks below legend. There are so many decks right now, you can choose a deck based on the stats on hsreplay for your rank or just what you've seen in your last games but still not see any of the decks you're trying to counter regularly.
The main thing in such a diverse meta is having one or two decks that you know well and know how to play your matchup against all the different decks in the meta. Preferably different types; like one aggro and control/combo. If there is a really flavor of the month deck like Odd warrior or DR hunter then try to pick something that is favored in those but with so many kinds of decks queuing against the meta can flat out not work.