Fade 2 Karma Meta Report #6

Introduction

Fade2Karma is a new professional eSports Hearthstone team that was formed recently. It consists of top players like Cipher, Hawkeye and Dethelor. (Gosugamers announcement here, F2K’s Twitter and LiquidHearth‘s announcement here.)

The F2K Meta Report focuses on the class/deck representation in the European Legend Ladder on a biweekly basis. Hundreds of ladder games played by our players allow us to determine which are the most popular decks on ladder and which decks have fallen out of favor by most.

To view sample decklists, scroll down!

The Ranking

Popular (Green) Average (Yellow) Out of Meta (Red)

Sample Deck Lists

Analysis

Warsong Commander has been nerfed 2 weeks ago. Let’s take a look at the evolution of the meta game since then.

1. Paladin: Paladin stays on top of the meta game. Secret Paladin has no strong counters anymore with the nerf of patron warrior and is stronger than ever. With Patron out of the way Midrange Paladin also sees more play again. It has all around good matchups and can deal well with Secret Paladin and Aggro Druids, thanks to equality and Aldor Peacekeeper.

2. Warrior: Warsong Commander is nerfed, Patron Warrior has gone? No, a more midrangey version with lategame threats such as Dr. Boom and Grommash Hellscream has appeared, that has still a very good matchup against aggressive decks. The most played Warrior archetype is Control Warrior though. It might not have the most favourable matchups against the top meta decks, but it is a deck that can win against anything if it draws well.

3. Druid: Combo Druid is still one of the most popular archetypes in the game. That being said the new Aggro Druid with Leper Gnomes and Fel Reavers saw an equal amount of play the last weeks, because it has a good matchup against Secret Paladin.

4. Mage: Surprisingly, Mage became the number 2 most popular class after the patch. Both Tempo Mage and Freeze lost one bad matchup with patron gone. Freeze Mage is regarded as one of the best counters to Secret Paladin, and therefore saw a lot more play lately.

5. Hunter: Same as for Mage, both Face Hunter and Midrange Hunter lost a bad matchup with the patron nerf.

6. Warlock: Warlock is struggeling in the current meta. Zoo usally loses the fight for early board against Paladins and naturally has a bad matchup against Hunter. Handlock isn’t a good ladder choice for most players, mainly because of aggro decks being so dominant. In addition to that it lost one of its better matchups with Patron Warrior gone.

7. Priest: Priest increased in popularity because Patron is gone and it does well against most of the aggro decks on ladder.

8. Rogue: Rogue doesn’t see more play even though Patron is gone. There are still bad matchups in the meta, such as Secret Paladin, Control Warrior, Druid, Face Hunter.

9. Shaman: As long as Paladin is on top of the food chain Shaman will have a hard time. Currently every 4^th game on ladder is against a Paladin, meaning that Shaman is a bad ladder choice.