That is quite an interesting perspective, I’m not sure I agree but the fact that ANYONE thinks the UiS Meta (which is really what it was) was ‘more fun’ is a sign that the current meta is pretty bad.
I must say watching thijs rocking the same control warrior deck I’ve been facing on my way to legend, while chilling on top 15, depresses me.
If even in top legend there’s no variety, what are we to hope for?
Someone wake me up when this expansion ends
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I wasn’t commenting on the content of the podcast, but yeah I haven’t listened to it tbf. I will when I have some time, I listen to most of them. I don’t think I’d change my mind on the point that they listen to the community too much or that reddit is mostly clueless tho.
I started playing during the Barrens, so I am probably biased. But yeah I never really agreed with the stormwind meta hate. I love combo decks tho, so probably that is why.
Thats exactly what the podcast is saying though. I’m pretty sure you’ll really enjoy listening to this weeks podcast. It lines right up with what you’ve been saying.
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I mean, I’m not wrong.
Let’s pull up last week’s VS report.
Plague DK at legend…
53% against blood
50% against naga dh
40% against dragon druid
52% against ramp druid (nerfed out of existence)
40% against treant druid (was nerfed, didn’t fix this matchup)
42% against arcane hunter
54% against Reno hunter
51% against rainbow mage
46% against aggro paladin (likely still unfavored, maybe a tossup now)
53% against earthen pal
59% against Reno pal
57% against Reno priest
42% against excavate rogue (was nerfed, probably closer to even now)
48% against mech rogue
64% against Reno shaman
56% against Thaddius lock (nerfed)
56% against insanity OTK lock
51% against sludge (which was further refined since, but this one is a tossup)
71% against Reno war
So yeah… the deck is trash in a world where dragon/treant druid has a footing, or if arcane hunter takes off, or rogues…
It is tier 1 because it eats Reno decks alive, and NO other matchups give it tier 1 levels of performance.
You just listed 13 decks that plague dk wins against and 6 that it loses to. The three worst bad matchups are 40-60, while the two best good matchups are 65-35 or better and 6 of the good matchups are 55-45 or better. That’s not a good way to represent a deck as being bad.
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Yes, and 3 of those decks no longer exist in the meta and 6 of the decks are highlander…
So yeah, plague DK’s strength is literally just a measure of how popular highlander decks are in the meta. It counters those strongly enough to cover for it’s really bad matchups that sludge lock and control warrior are crowding out of the game entirely.
Hey I’ll take your suggestion. I could play me some Barrens Priest and Paladin for sure!
This data kinda goes against your point.
3 of the 6 decks you show negative WRs have been nerfed and more than likely are not negative WRs anymore. Treant druid has been gutted and not being able to bring the board to 3 HP or above early through the 3 mana naga is huge to this Matchup. Excavate rogue is gutted and Paladin is now slower so it gives time to the Plague DK to be in control of the game ahead of them
of the other 3, 2 are generally unplayable and bad decks to bring to ladder: mech rogue and arcane hunter. And the other one isn´t played much because it loses hard to Control warrior.
Early game reliability of plague DK AoE is still frightfully bad. Any board covered by soul of the forest is just going to walk over a plague DK.
Yes, the match got slightly weaker for treant. It wasn’t gutted. I refuse to pay for HSR stats to see what the current matchup is on any of those though.
The real meta problems are warrior and lock.
They have Hardcore Cultist and Tomb Traitor, aside to single target removals and the hero power itself. Without the ability to bring the board to higher HP early on, only a lucky draw of Soul of the Forest can make the difference there. I think that MU has been altered significantly.
It’s hard to deny Plague DK is now a tier 1 deck. It still sucks, its just that now everything else sucks even more.
Edit: HS replay confirms it, Treant druid has 49% WR against the most popular plague DK after patch Diamond to Legend.
Called it. The logical end result of listening to the crybabies. Can we please stop listening to Johnny Silver and get back to designing a fun game?
And by crybabies I mean a lot of people here. Sorry but it’s true. Zach said it best - don’t kill stuff just to placate mad people, they’ll just be mad at something else in a week.
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Are you sure you’re quite sane? A lot of decks hard run hardcore cultist. You have tomb traitor. And with the addition of heartblossom and deepholm geode to the excavate pool plague dk has more aoe than its ever had. You have the geode on 2 mana, collapse at 3 mana, you have random board wipes coming from nerubian vizier. The deck has far more early game AoE than you give it credit for. Do you wanna know how often when I play priest I can drop hidden gem on turn 2 and have it stick to the board into turn 3? Almost never. Like 10-20% of the time. That’s how much early game AoE they have.
The devs got a lot of hate for that set but I pretty impressed with how they dealt with it. They toned stuff down so the people who did enjoy those strategies (there were a lot by the way) could still play them, yet they opened up space for other things too.
That’s all out the window now though.
Good to know.
Moved to tossup / slight favored for the DK
Are you able to check on the other matchups that were nerfed?
I did forget about the geode RNG.
None of this really changes that a meta that allows dragon druid to be the best deck again sends plague DK back to between tier 2/3.
Unlike sludge lock and control warriors, there are a few different avenues to attack plague DK. I’ve been playing a lot of DK recently because I’ve been working on the 1k wins with the class for a few months, and it’s by far the weakest “tier 1” deck I’ve ever handled.
And while yes, there will always be people whining about losing to X deck, Blizzard kind of designed them into a corner where they have to kill off basically every designed strategy theyve made for the last 2 years in order to not make every meta deck feel as bad as what’s currently on top.
Right now we are just shuffling between uninteractive repetitive win cons.
You don’t have that long. You just don’t don’t.
And if they play their steam cleaner it doesn’t matter.
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Is there a strategy in the game that can beat
Turn 1 Miracle Salesman
Turn 2 Disposal Assistant
Turn 3 Sludge on Wheels
Turn 4 Waste Remover
It must rank among the strongest opening highrolls, though weaker than Miracle Rogue nonsense during MotLK or Pure Paladin in FoL and Titans.
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NGL, standard is legit unplayable bad right now. I have zero interest in any of the three decks. None.
The paladin nerfs were awful. They absolutely ruined druid.
I said it was a control meta incoming post those nerfs, and here is Warrior to make that reality.
I still am a bit bitter about this. They nerfed Doc because it had a high win percentage from a very specific shaman deck. By that logic the new Brann should be nerfed because it has a high win percentage when played from that deck.
You make these highlander cards powerful for a reason. Why does one get nerfed and the rest are untouched?
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And of course it’s the control deck with a hideously overpowered game closer.
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