Who’s the beatdown? The 5 decks to beat in February
Two month ago Blizzard rolled out the newest expansion to Hearthstone, Goblins vs Gnomes. With this expansion new decks came to life and already established ones either vanished or found new strength and additional cards at their disposal.
While the expansion alone already changed the meta quite a bit, the nerf of Undertaker triggered another wave of changes, bringing back a new rise of Rogue as well as Shaman, classes that haven’t seen too much play since the release of GvG.
The perks of working with Team Archon is the high level of knowledge and experience when it comes to ladder and tournament meta, so i took the chance to ask the guys about the Top 5 decks to beat at the moment.
Mech Mage
Popularized by Cloud 9’s Strifecro, this deck archetype quickly became one of the most played decks right after the release of GvG and after refining it further it’s considered to be one of the best decks of the meta right now.
On a first look the deck kind of resembles Warlock Zoo, but unlike the standard Zoo decks it has a lot of burst potential. First there’s Mechwarper and the Mech synergy the deck is build around, then we have Fireballs and Frostbolts, which give players ways to remove minions, but also a lot of reach to finish off an opponent. Talking of synergy and Fireballs we can’t forget Archmage Antonidas, who’s happy like a child on Christmas Eve because he got a lot of the Spare Parts he can transform into his favorite toy, Fireball.
Even without Mechwarper the deck is able to pull off some strong plays, like double Cogmaster on turn 1 followed by a turn 2 Annoy-o-tron, which is a effective play to push for damage early on. Exactly what the Dr. (Boom) prescribed.
Later in the game Mirror Entity becomes quite valuable, because you basically force your opponent to play around it or they’re risking to get killed by a copy of their own minion.
Besides Antonidas we also have Dr. Boom and his Boom Bots, filling the board up with three additional minions, which helps fighting for board control. Even though Dr. Boom nearly always gets shot down (hello BGH) it still puts pressure on the opponents, since its 7/7 stats could easily be lethal at that stage of the game if it just hits once.
So Mech Mage is a deck you should prepare for, no matter if you plan on playing ladder or in tournaments and please don’t be surprised when they actually pull off some kind of insane double Mechwarper plays, because that’s just what they do.
Combo Druid
This deck has been around for a long time, being another deck popularized by Strifecro in the earlier days of Hearthstone. Curse of Naxxramas as well as Goblins vs Gnomes gave the deck a lot of new cards to add and now after the first wave of crazy deckbuilding that always happens after the release of new expansions, the meta has settled and players more or less have figured what kind of list gives them the best win percentage.
Combo Druid aims to fight for board control until it can bring the opponent in range its combo, Force of Nature + Savage Roar. Being able to burst down an opponent from 14 life without the need for any minions on the board is a resource they love to use, especially since any minion on the board gives them at least two more damage.
Playing against Combo Druid means to always be wary of the Combo, as well your opponent’s option to Innervate a second Savage Roar, increasing the damage from 14 to 22 damage. And even without the combo, they have a lot of sturdy midrange minions that can easily threaten to defeat you on their own.
Mech Shaman
This is an interesting build of Shaman, a class that normally prefers to play a midrange board control game. It was build by Archon’s Firebat and his practice partner PurpleDrank, who held Rank 1 on legend with it for quite some time.
The deck has a similar burst potential as the Mech Mage deck, thanks to Crackle, Whirling Zap-o-matic and Doomhammer in combination with the usual buffs Shaman provides, with the difference that Mech Shamans burst can unfolds way earlier, even without insane Mechwarper draws.
Mech Shaman aims to deal damage to your opponent directly, instead of fighting for board control, using Annoy-o-Tron to protect valuable assets on the board, while using Power Mace as removal for potential threats. While earlier versions didn’t play any kind of other removal, later versions added Hex again, to deal with the huge minions Power Mace can’t handle.
As the opponent of this deck you should definitely mulligan for early removal and hope you don’t get beaten to death by some crazy windfury robot.
Oil Rogue
Oil Rogue is the most viable version of Rogue right now and is another strong burst damage deck on this list. Similar to Mech Shaman it wants to deal as much damage early on as possible, controlling potential threats with Backstab, Deadly Poison + Weapon and Sap. Unlike the Mech Shaman though, Oil Rogue has quite a bit of AOE damage, in form of Fan of Knives against low health minions and Blade Flurry against the rest.
To finish off its opponent the deck mostly uses either Violet Teacher and armies of 1/1 minions that spawn when you play a spell, or weapon damage and huge, oiled Blade Flurries. To help out with card draw this Rogue deck plays Azure Drakes and Bloodmage Thalnos, both also helpful thanks to their Spell Power ability, as well as Sprint, which synergizes off well with Preparation. Another interesting thing is that Hyped’s list actually includes a single Auctioneer, a card most people announced dead after its increase in mana cost.
Another deck with damage potential you should never underestimate, because more often than not you will die out of the blue, so expect the unexpected!
Face Hunter
Many people thought Hunter would die out after the recent Undertaker nerf, but again Hunter shows how resilient they are. This list was provided by Archon Xixo and looks very similar to the typical Face Hunter we saw at tournaments like ESGN Fight Night back in the beginning of Hearthstone, long before Sunshine Hunter became a thing.
This list uses a lot of minions with the Charge ability, including Leeroy Jenkins, bringing back memories some people may want to bury for all eternity. Hunter’s Mark and Ironbeak Owl help out dealing with taunts, while Abusive Sergeant and Glaivezooka supply additional buffs to put out as much damage as possible. Knife Juggler unleashes the hounds to deal with the opponent’s aggro deck, or simply to put out even more damage. Mad Scientist brings you Explosive Traps that help with aggro decks as well, just like they also give your Eaglehorn Bow another charge.
Just like Mech Shaman and Oil Rogue this deck is far on the aggressive side of the scale, always trying to deal damage so fast your opponent simply can’t keep up, so if you encounter one of these decks pray you have the answers or you’ll just get overrun.
written by StoTheX