New legendaries Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater have encouraged players to think about deck-building in entirely new ways, admittedly more than I expected. Odd and Even lists of aggressive and midrange Paladin have shined in the new meta, though Warlock’s steadfast dominance keeps that meta from shifting to something altogether new. Control Warrior and Face Hunter — some of the oldest archetypes in Hearthstone — have even returned to our collective consciousness. Odd Taunt Warrior really happened.
The meta seems to be settling a bit around these and a few more familiar decks, but new archetypes constantly threaten to upend our understanding of ladder dynamics. The meta often constitutes a rock-paper-scissor game skewed toward Paladin one day, changing to reflect a similar standoff the next. Warlock, of course, holds its own through most combinations of thirty cards. A few have threatened Guldan's reign on ladder. We have seen Shudderwock Shaman rise and fall from grace and Face Hunter race through the early days of The Witchwood, while Quest Rogue now seems a sure-fire pick to wade through an ocean of Warlocks. As these decks challenge Cubelock, and others challenge them, the ladder once again feels like a game of chance.
Destroy the Tokens!
Kibler assessed the meta over last weekend and brought to play Monday an archetype we all theorized about but haven’t seen much since the rotation: Rush Warrior. Veteran players will recall a time when Dragon Warrior dominated the meta. The tempo deck was a close cousin to Rush Warrior, using powerful (now Wild-only) Dragon tribal synergies to trigger cards like Alexstrasza’s Champion to operate like The Witchwood’s Rush minions. The idea that sparked Rush Warrior (in general, not necessarily Kibler’s list) is to use Rush minions in a Tempo Warrior shell that dictates trades immediately. In this way, it’s good against aggressive decks, which rely on squeezing value out of low-cost minions with buffs and the like. Denying that provides a huge advantage, but the biggest appeal is Blood Razor versus a meta full of Paladins. Destroying the Odd variant's tokens four turns throughout the game helps stifle pressure, steal tempo, and develop an overwhelming board.
Most versions of Rush Warrior use the entire suite of Warrior cards with the new mechanic. Curving out with Town Crier, Woodcutter's Axe, and either Rabid Worgen or Redband Wasp will be ideal, but curve or not you have plenty of early game, and the Rush mechanic makes losing initial tempo not so bad. Darius Crowley stands out, operating first to provide efficient trades, but quickly becoming a threat to the opponent’s life total if left unchecked. Don’t try to find a substitute for him, nor the Frothing Berserkers, which coupled with Blood Razor in this meta can win games early. Matched against Warlock, mulligan hard for Spellbreaker (and cross your fingers).
There's One for Everybody
With Rush Warrior, Kibler targeted the aggressive Paladin and Rogue decks that populate the high ranks before Legend and, well, it worked. He achieved a high legend rank with a downright ridiculous 80 percent win-rate, but noted frequently that the list wasn’t optimized. Countess Ashmore performed favorably against control decks, but another Spellbreaker would benefit you in the Warlock matchup. The idea of Tempo Warrior using Rush cards to more quickly interact with the board was also an idea that secured an appointment with the Deck Doctor himself: Firebat.
He took the archetype a few different directions with good results. One noteworthy if polarizing experiment: he cut the low-cost spells, added Lesser Mithril Spellstones, and jammed Spiteful Summoner in there. Mind Control Tech made up for the loss of Whirlwind and Slam.
It’s a testament to the flexibility of the archetype and the power of the Rush mechanic in this meta that so many variations found success. As with all tempo decks, of course, curving out is good. But an armory's-worth of weapons coupled with Rush minions' penchant for stealing tempo translates to a gameplay experience that feels smoother than others. As long as these aggressive decks remain in the meta, expect a safe counter in Rush Warrior.
i can feel heartpwn struggle in creating content.bcz there is realy nothing to talk about on daily basis other than meta and new cards revealed.
personaly i think talking about absurd/fun decks might be a new series
Rush is one of the most important mehcanichs in the game. Just wait for when cheating out big minions is rotated out.
If Cube/control Warlock is nerfed, this deck will only get stronger. I have been thinking about trying Gurubashi Berserker at the 5-mana spot to help against lock. It's another growing threat they must deal with and may be able to get through before the wall of void daddies locks me out.
I made a rush warrior deck day 1 of the expansion, gets 0 upvotes and everyone says its garbage even though I had a lot of success on ladder with it. Kibler plays it on stream and all of a sudden its good?
.-.
People like to take the opinion of pros and popular streamer more into account before dictating whether a deck is good or not.
fair enough, but people should form their own opinioins on rush warrior by either playing it themselves or facing it on ladder. I've seen a grand total of 1 rush warrior opponents this expansion.
Theorizing about the meta never works, nor just looking at a new deck at a glance.
Link please. I'd love to see Rush warrior take off as a competent archetype and am always looking for ideas.
Remember there is a good chunk of us who are free to play or can't afford to chuck a hundred dollars every expansion, so we don't want to do the experimenting as our supply is limited, while yes we should form our own opinion a lot of us don't have the the cards, dust or money to try every deck out there. So most of us want the meta decks in order to grind just a bit easier.
More than 80% of the people here don't use their brain to asses anything LUL
At most it is their feelings and experience (or lack of it), at worst it is just mindlessly repeating whatever other guy says to get upboats and validation.
I feel ya. I was the first person to post a Taunt Druid deck and guide on here (literally the 1st or 2nd day of the expansion), detailing the Witching Hour/Hadronox/Naturalize/Cube combos and received some views, but zero feedback. Two days later when streamers started using it I begin seeing posts like "Taunt Druid is broken".
I'm still experimenting with a lot of cards, but this has a decent winrate and is a lot of fun to mess with aggro decks.
This is the same community that rated Darius with mostly "Playable" and "Bad" at the beginning.
The people here don't play this game, and have no actual thoughts of their own on it. They just copy shit that more famous people advocate.
If Hearthstone has any irreparable flaw, is that 99.99999% of its players have zero tactical imagination or creativity.
Post rank please :)
It's all good man. There's your upvotes, hope we fixed the issue now.
I was in the same boat as you. I was destroying the early meta of odd pallies and face hunters. Cubelocks were an issue though but probably something you can tech for. The fact remains that until something is done by a pro (or several pros) or shows up on HS Replay with above 50% WR, nobody will ever try it because this game is populated by unimaginative people who so desperately want to win that all they'll do is craft and play T1 decks and never branch out.
Highest I climbed with this was 7, but I'm hoping to reach higher this month.
honestly ive toyed around with rush warrior and found very fun to play, it does has its flaws and like some said its a few cards away from being something very viable.
is it worth the dust though?
its not tier one, but it was the first deck I crafted this expac (on the release day) and it works well against aggro