Unbalanced decks in wild?

Multiplayer Discussion
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I have seen a lots of posts complaining about the “non-existent” balance in wild, and I want to play the devil’s advocate.

I am wild player, my biggest rank in the old ranked system was rank 1 (not in legend lol) and in the current format dia 2-3, and I am currently in dia 8 (playing like 5 days in this month). I reached this rank with playing decks like: secret mage, kingsbane rouge, darkglare warlock, renolock, cubelock, discolock and mech paladin. And I want to adress my thoughts on some of theese deck. This is MY OPINION and I am not talking about objective facts.

Secret mage. I heard that: OmG sKiLlEs BrOkEn DeCk. Yeah it is the 3rd best deck according to tempo storm. But it isn’t that easy deck. The thing is, you do have to know all of your matchups and play accordingly. You have to sort out of your secrets and prioritize some. Secondly you have to disrupt your opponent’s gameplans and you will have to know what kind of cards are in their hands. And this deck is easily countered by any aggro deck, and the situation is only a little bit easier, if you have flameward or any boardclear.

Darkglare warlock. OMG GIANTS ON TURN 4. Yeah that is true, giants come easily, but against aggro, you will have to manage your health (how much damage you are willing to take from yourself) and considering the matchups, how much damage will you from your opponents and what kind of damage (burst like secret mage, or somewhat consistent like discardlock). All in all, many decks can punish you for 1 sloppy play.

Renolock. I haven’t heard any issue, and I really love this deck. But, isn’t it a such a bad feeling, when all of your gameplan is ruined by a lucky reno, or zephyris. Your “hard earned” damage on your opponent will be gone. I haven’t heard any ppl, who said that, reno warlock is only about topdecking or just answering to your oppenents early game threats, then reno and gg.

Because we shouldn’t simplify theese decks. Some of them easier than the others, but in higher elos, knowing your matchups, reading your opponent hands is crucial. Sometimes you can’t do anything knowing all of theese mentioned things (for example big priest, I can’t “defend” this deck, because my mind is clouded by my storng dislike against this deck), but Hearthstone is not about winning all of your games, it is about improving. Wild is meant to be a little broken, a madness and we should adapt to situations.

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Secret mage is not countered by any aggro deck, my friend. Name one aggro deck that “easily” counters Secret Mage. In reality, many aggro decks rely on early board presence to win. Secret Mage has Arcane Flackmage and Flame Ward to shut down any early board. Medivh’s Valet deals 3 and has a 2/3 body so for 2 mana Secret Mage clears a mid-sized enemy minion and leaves a body.

Explosive runes destroys key aggro minions. Counterspell shuts down key aggro spells. The list goes on.

For an aggro deck to do well vs. Secret Mage, it needs to be able to continuously apply pressure. That means it needs hero (weapon) damage every turn to counter Rigged Faire Game. Odd Rogue and Kingsbane Rogue can accomplish this.

Board-centric decks, such as Odd Paladin or Aggro Druid need to hope the mage doesn’t draw one of its clears. If the mage does, it’s probably lights out. If not, they can win.

In the latest Vicious Syndicate report, only Pirate Warrior and Pure Paladin had a positive winrate vs. Secret Mage in Legend.

Secret mage does take some skill. But I think it’s more about drawing well and the question of whether you can manage to have a secret active when you need it. Did you draw enough secrets and minions to discount them? Did you draw the board clear you needed for the aggro match? Do you have a secret active so you can benefit from your cards that do something when you have a secret active? Did you go second so you don’t have to worry about the opponent using The Coin to proc Counterspell?

Tempo Storm might say it’s the third best deck but Vicious Syndicate placed it as the best deck by a fair margin in their latest report. The real challenge with Secret Mage is to draw well. If you draw well, you win.

2 Likes
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Name 1 deck: mech paladin. Easy match. Or darkglare warlock. Yeah on paper every deck can beat any deck, if they draw well. But speaking from experience, yeah you can win against board heavy aggro, by drwaing 4-5 key cards, with has low possibility

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Thank you, OP didn’t seem to really know what he was talking about.

He thinks diamond elo makes him some kind of expert.

3 Likes
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with 6 years of playing I am consider myself an expert, if you don’t mind

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Never seen you play in an expert tournament.
Your selection criteria is flawed.

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Okay so there are only noobs and experts? A player participating on a tournament is a PRO. I call myself expert, because I E X P E R I E N C E D a lot of things, what do we call a ppl who experienced for a long time in a game?

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Nope, you claimed to be an expert though.6

Nope, a PRO is someone doing something for a living.

Many of which are disingenuous at best.

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That is your way of thinking. So disingenious? How do you know? You were there while I was playing all the time? Nope, you found an article you not agreeing on it. You don’t make an argument, just you are debating the fact, that I have the right to call myself an expert.

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It’s hard for me to respond about those two decks since I have never played them myself.
My last three Secret Mage games were mirrors. My overall stats with Secret Mage are 20-9. Versus Darkglare Warlock I’m 2-0. I have yet to meet a Mech Paladin.
I realize that Darkglare Warlock is very powerful and is also Tier 1 next to Secret Mage so I have no doubt it can beat Secret Mage. That said, Secret Mage can also beat it so it’s more of a 50-50 matchup as far as I know.
I don’t know enough about Mech Paladin but I seriously doubt that it “easily counters” Secret Mage. I know that Darkglare does not easily counter it.

The Wild ladder is saturated with Secret Mage. If aggro decks were such a good counter to it, the ladder would be full of those instead, or more likely Secret Mage would just be irrelevant.

Vicious Syndicate placed this deck as the number 1 deck in Legend for a reason.

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You can call yourself an expert all you want, mr never legend.

(fun fact, im never legend either. rank 2 in BRM, no floors, full resets, with control warrior was my best. I dont consider myself an expert at anything other than memery)

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That is you, but pls don’t try to insult me, mr never legend. I don’t have time to invest that much. I study law, you know that difficult thingy on the university. But if you that butthurt, pls allow me at least call myself an experienced player

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Then dont claim to be something youre not, and we have no issue.

Yep, and I earned more than you likely would without tertiary education.

Nope, your experience, rated by years alone, does not make you an expert. Performance does.

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I hope (for real) that you will earn 3-4 times more than me. I go there to educate myself, learn about law, and I pity you for not living through the things what I see or learn.

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Well, then I faced against bad secret mages, because I stoped them with theese decks. I belive what you are saying, but i am smurfing in diamond with darkglare warlock against any deck

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Mech Paladin is indeed a counter for Secret Mage, actually all types of Mages in Wild. It fell out of favor last year after failing to gather any additional tools after DoD. The problem with it going forward is that Magnetic was a Boomsday specific keyword so it’s very difficult to improve it in the future. In the meanwhile Odd Paladin has gotten

Rogue with Nitroboost (released after the last VS report) is being reported by Tempostorm as being Rogue favored, I personally felt better against Mage than in the past.

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I don’t really trust Tempo Storm reports, even though I do use them as reference. That said, they might be right. I guess they get their numbers somewhere.
I’m waiting for the next Vicious Syndicate report to see how numbers line up after Darkmoon Races.

1 Like
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Tempostorm has its limitations. However with that said GetMeowth and Corbett, the two VS Wild contributors, have been saying that after Darkmoon Races the meta has tightened; and that Reno Priest, Secret Mage, and Darkglare Warlock are no longer as far ahead as before.

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Looked at that list cause i was curious.
But it has me wondering.

Secret Mage being the nr1 deck sure. Its most played D5+D1.
But Darkglare Warlock? I dont think ive seen 1 this year yet. All of em play either some full demon build or renolock.
Dont get me wrong i know Darkglare is a strong deck but to rate it as t1 feels wrong atm.
Same goes for RenoPriest. I know its strong But i havnt seen many either. 99% of the Priest have switched to BigPriest. Its basically the 2 most played. It very close with Warlock so bit of vary there may be.
(Mage at 23%, Priest at 19% and Warlock at 17%)
This has most likely to do with the huge amounts of burn SecretMage posesses. RenoPriest main and basically only wincon is SpawnOfShadows with would kill them way before the mage if at all(Iceblock says Hi).
Very likely the same reason DarkGlare is absent.

BigPriest has turned into a Tauntwall build with making it capable of preventing most facedamage it would receive from mageminions enabling it to win matches with selfheal and the normal ressstuff.

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I play Reno Priest and I think it’s very strong. I feel I have a good chance to win every game regardless of which deck I face. I don’t win every game but every game feels winnable. Well, unless the opponent is a Mill Rogue. Then I probably can’t win if it’s built properly (with 2 Cloak of Shadows and 2 Evasions).
Darkglare is definitely strong and I have no problem seeing it as Tier 1.

I don’t understand what you’re saying here.

Big Priest struggles against Secret Mage. You take quite a lot of damage before your taunts come up so sometimes the mage can finish you with burn (of which they have plenty). You have to worry about Counterspell disabling your board clears and your summoning spell. I would much rather queue Reno Priest against Secret Mage than Big Priest.