The meta:
It’s encouraging to note that the Wailing Caverns meta is shaping up to be fairly diverse, and at higher levels of play, very balanced. We have two classes that are truly struggling to find their footing, but the rest have found their competitive niches. There are still more developments coming up that are worth discussing.
Demon Hunter:
Deathrattle Demon Hunter is declining in its performance following the rise in the field’s overall efficiency and the decline of weak archetypes. The deck remains strong and competitive throughout ladder, but doesn’t particularly excel against the best decks.
Priest:
While looking fairly mediocre throughout ladder, Control Priest shines at top legend, where it becomes somewhat of a menace. We can see that many of its matchups improve at higher levels. Of course, there are some counters available to Priest, and players are generally tempted to counter it as hard as possible whenever it gets too prevalent, even with questionable deck choices. It’s not out of control, but Priest is very influential when it comes to shaping the field.
Paladin:
Uther has been sacrificed so we could have a more balanced meta. It’s a bit unfortunate since we wonder whether Paladin would actually be a problem now with a pre-nerf Hand of A’dal and First Day of School. The field got stronger and is likely better equipped to deal with Paladin’s early game, but we will never know.
Link: https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-199/
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Is It just me or they Just clump 3 classes together because they barely have anything of note and why is that so funny?
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It’s funny because it’s real.
There is nothing happening to those 3 classes.
For warlock they should proceed into the plan of make zoo better.
For mage they should probably buff unused cards in standard like wildfire and mana biscuit.
And for paladin they should revert one of the less impactful nerfs.
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There was a point where Shaman and Warrior were so dead that they started writing a bit of fan-fic about Thrall and Garrosh having bored conversations with each other instead of giving them class reviews.
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Wow. When Team 5 kills something, they really kill it.
Paladin is in the dumpster now.
Seems like they could have nerfed it in a way that it was still viable.
I don’t even play pally but this seems harsh.
I guess mage isn’t the only class that gets this treatment anymore.
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Other classes got stronger, Paladin got the gimmick of the expansion. These things happen. I’m sure it would be better if Third Day of School wasn’t nerfed again, but I’m skeptical that it would matter that much. The meta got a lot more capable of challenging the early board and Paladin can’t recover from behind.
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Nah. It would be better if they didn’t tried so much to let paladin “alive” and hit it hard from the start.
They would be better than now because there would be less nerfs.
Blizzard needs to be more open to revert stuff so they can actually balance the game.
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First day of school should go back to its original, for sure.
My humble take is that they need to get rid of IF and recost mage cards so the deck has consistency instead of suicide for IF and pray.
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Sure but no one asked for that deck from the start.
If spell mage dies for the rest of the class be alive literally no one have a problem with.
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And I think that IF and Spell mage is completely killing the design space for mage, but I am sure others don’t see it that way. Many of the mage spells cost more than they should because there’s an expectation of discounts.
I think that IF / Spell Mage is really popular.
Killing it would probably cause alot of complaints.
I don’t play it because its seems like a one trick pony to me,
but I know other players love the style.
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Mage is in the Warlock spot (but better) where it kinda has one playable deck but it’s not a deck that Blizzard wants to actually be super relevant to the meta. And they can build a Mage deck that runs a lot of minions and make the minions strong, since that can’t cross over well with Spell Mage. I think it’s in a situation that’ll be easier to salvage going forward than Warlock, considering you can’t print any Control cards for Warlock without Tickatus exceeding the playrate Blizzard wants for decks like this.
“Why do they print decks that they don’t want seeing a lot of play?” Because people like decks like that and you gotta make the people happy to keep them paying. You just have to nail the sweet spot where it’s around a T3 deck so only the die-hard “For lulz” crowd will want to play it.
Mage minions are actually so strong you not need strong spells.
They can leverage IF really good if you put cards that recompensate mana fluctuation like buffing mana biscuit to gain mana and unnerf evocation.
Maybe put a potion of illusion buff on that list too but idk the impact of that on rogue.
Are you concerned this would make Rogue too strong, or what?
It would open so much combo decks for rogue that I can’t even list all.
That to not talk about taking shadowstep to next level using potion of illusion on a minion discounted by shadowstep.
With potion costing 3 mana that would be a perfect curve for any card that gets powerful with shadowstep.
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Why is VS so insistent on keeping Dunk Tank when it can be corrupted basically only with Doomhammer?
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Some corrupt cards are powerful enough uncorrupted.ring toss is also one of those.
Maybe they think you not need to corrupt dunk tank for it to be playable.
I see 5 cards capable of corrupting it in the Doomhammer Elemental list and 5 in the Whack list.
Edit: 3 in the Doomhammer list. 4 damage to face with no board control is still pretty good, I imagine?
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Dunktank makes little sense to me in their elemental doom list (which is pretty much eactly the list i tried on my first attempt of making a doomhammer deck right after the expansion came out).
The deck has a lot of early board pressence so you shouldnt need the clear though it can go face. Maybe its to compensate for the fact that despite having quiet a bit of early board pressence the shaman still cant compete with the faster decks.
A card that imo is overlooked in shaman is the lifesteal deal 4 damage for 3 mana. I think its a pretty solid card for doomhammer and a better way to shore up the weakness against fast decks then dunktank.
I guess DAMAGE IS DAMAGE (insert mr incredible image here), but then again - they consider Lightning Bolt and Serpentshrine Portal “filler spells”, while Dunk Tank is phrased as almost obviously and unquestionably core card.
Honestly the only thing that comes to mind is that it curves if you exactly Doomhammer on 5 while corrupting it, then use 4 mana on turn 6 to Dunk the enemy board and keep swinging, but outside of that it seems clunky. So I have to assume this exact scenario is in their opinion worth having it? I’m really surprised they value it higher than Serpentshrine Portal… maybe the average 3-drop isn’t particularly impressive.