Hearthstone Mercenaries: Best Mercenaries Tier List in PvP - Official Blizzard List!
Players have speculated about the best mercenaries teams in Hearthstone Mercenaries PvP, and now Blizzard has weighed in with official data. They gave us a list of the best mercenaries in the Top 5% MMR, vs-AI games excluded!. So this is the list of the best mercenaries when played by humans against humans. We also added a section with the best Hearthstone Mercenaries Teams! Blizzard noted that the Meta is evolving and that this is for current reference only! Let's dive right in!
Mercenaries with a higher then 50% winrate
The main division is self explanatory. The sub division might need a little info however. These are the best hearthstone mercenaries in PvP ranked from S-Tier (usually indicated as Super Tier, the Mercenaries that are beyond even the usually good Mercenaries) down to C-Tier which we have to assume is the range slightly above 50%.
S-Tier
Only 1 Mercenary here and it might not be who you expected. It makes some sense however. There are a lot of Caster Mercenaries high in the Tiers, which means a good Fighter has plenty of opportunity. Combine this with his excellent skill set and you have a winning combination making Tavish Stormpike the best Mercenary in Hearthstone Mercenaries PvP at the moment.
A-Tier
A common thread for the Mercenaries in this Tier is Speed manipulation. Many of them influence Speed in some way, either speeding your Party up, or slowing the other Party down. You can put Freeze in that category too, since it makes opponents just skip their turn. The others are part of the Fire damage comp, which has proven very powerful.
B-Tier
This is a mish-mash of Mercenaries, some supporting Mercenaries for popular builds like Shadow comp (Natalie Seline & Lich King) and the top Mercenaries for other comps, like Nature comp (Malfurion) and just overal good Mercenaries in PvP.
C-Tier
These Mercenaries are the group slightly above 50% winrate. Just a group of good solid PvP Mercenaries.
Mercenaries with a lower then 50% winrate
The Tiers here go from just under 50% to low winrate. We do not know how low winrate because Blizzard gave no range on any of this. Just assume that Mercenaries in the G-tier have very low winrates in PvP.
D-Tier
None of these Mercenaries have a positive Winrate, which doesn't mean they are bad, just that they are currently not part of winning strategies. And that includes Blademaster Samuro, Xyrella and most of the Orc comp, who have simply been countered out of the winning Meta.
E-Tier
These Mercenaries are the bad Mercs of strategies that don't work at the moment. They also notably include 2 very slow but powerful Mercenaries in Tirion and Gul'dan. With Speed being the name of the game at the top of the Tiers, slow Mercs fall behind, no matter how powerful their abilities when they do manage to go off.
F-Tier and G-Tier
We are combining the last 2 Tiers, because they share a common thread: They are the starter Mercenaries, excluding Blademaster Samuro and Xyrella. Now, you can be cynical and say that Blizzard put the worst Mercs as the free ones, but there is a far more compelling case to be made. These Mercs are who everyone starts with, and likely who most people will play with and level first. They will be the first they head into PvP with, since they are the highest leveled and most familiar Mercs people have.
And then they get flattened at high MMR by synergistic comps.
So part of the reason these Mercs are low is because they are not great Mercs, but you can bet that the larger part of the equation is that these are the Mercs everyone starts with and loses with before switching to comps that work well together.
F-Tier
G-Tier
Data Source: Tian Ding, Hearthstone Scientist at Blizzard.
Best Hearthstone Mercenaries Team Comps
Tian Ding also tweeted about the best Hearthstone Mercenaries Team Comps in PvP.
If everyone includes them, their win rate is capped at 50%. With the small percentage of people who spent money being able to make the comps that counter them. So that can explain it.
They needed to include not just win rate, but inclusion rate to tell the whole story.
BUFF FIGHTERS.
Only 6 of them with positive winrate, compared to 8 Protectors and 13 (!) Casters.
Most of this is likely due to Fighters taking retaliation damage when Attacking. Protectors have more health and Casters typically don't Attack so they have less of this problem.
I don't think it's a matter of needing to be buffed directly. It's more about lack of synergy. King Krush, for example, is an attack-based fighter, and he's doing just fine because his good friend King Mukla has his back.
Another problem is that too many protectors don't attack, so a high-attack fighter is a sitting duck they can blast without fear. If those protectors had to take retaliation damage, it would level the playing field considerably.
Yeah, Tavish is crazy good rn. With his task 7 equipment that gives him a bit more health while also making his traps last until triggered. That makes him crazy good if you have any casters on board. He does 32 to casters if you touch him and if you don't he can still take down any 1 caster you want in like 2-3 turns.