[2vs2 Bracket]
S tier - Rdruid / SL Lock
S tier - Rogue / Mage
A tier - Rdruid / Rogue
A tier - Disc / Rogue
A tier - Disc / Frost Mage
A tier - Ret / Resto Shaman
A tier - Rdruid / Arms Warrior
A tier - Hunter / Disc (Mana drain comp)
[3vs3 Bracket]
S tier - Rogue / Mage / Priest
S tier - Rogue / Lock / Priest
S tier - Disc* / Rshaman / Arms Warrior
S tier - Rogue / SL Lock / Rdruid*
A tier - Spriest/ SL Lock / Rshaman*
A tier - Enhance / Arms / Rdruid
A tier - Rogue / Mage / Rdruid
A tier - Elemental / SL Lock / Rdruid
A tier - Arms / SL Lock / Rdruid
[5vs5 Bracket]
S tier - Mage / Lock / Rogue / Disc / Rdruid (Eurocomp)
S tier - Arms / Elemental / Mage / Hpal* / Disc (the old meta - 2345)
S tier - Hunter / SL Warlock / Resto Druid / Disc / Rshaman (mana drain comp)
A tier - Arms / Rogue / Enhancement / Disc / Hpal (melee variant - 2346)
These are, in my opinion, the long-established private server metas that more or less reflect what the retail environment had perfected by Season 4. The pserver meta was a little more “pro-warlock / anti-mage” than traditional retail TBC, which I believe will continue into the Classic TBC release. You can definitely see some trends emerge overall; Rdruids, Rogues and SL warlocks feature rather prominently, Shaman struggle in 2vs2 and excel in 5vs5, “dispel comps” like Double or Triple Healer are safe and effective (albeit boring) options, and “mana drain comps” are a staple of all three brackets (utilizing warlocks, hunters and disc priests).
I have left out some of the niche comps that get stronger as the expansion goes on with Black Temple+ gear as I’d like this discussion to be about Season 1, specifically. So no Feral/Rogue or anything was included here. Also, as another note, whenever you see “Rdruid” you can reasonably interchange that with Dreamstate Druid if you’d like a more offensive option for the comp.
There is a tremendous amount of meme potential in 5vs5 because of several factors; diffused responsibility, decreased impact of individual spec balance and the fact that the 5vs5 bracket is a PuGfest with carries and trade-chat groups generally lowering the skill floor of this bracket compared to 2vs2 or 3vs3. This means that nearly anything can be effective up to around 1900 or so in 5vs5, AND the bracket awards about 25% more arena points than the other brackets. So 5vs5 is seen as, oddly, one of the most approachable brackets.
Weird things I’ve seen work in 5vs5? FIVE Shockadins. FIVE mages. 2xRogue/2xFeral/1xRdruid. Could you try to just delete some teams out of the gate by stacking a bunch of PoM-Pyro mages? Sure. The gimmick would work for a long time, too. You wouldn’t be winning against REAL comps with sweatlords at the keyboards but you could probably take wins off of most disorganized tradechat pugs.
These comps will be good for the mid range tier brackets and especially before people have any considerable amount of gear. Once you start hitting comps that are good at arena you’ll probably hit a wall. For example a good rogue priest will just keep one of the mages locked out for most of the game, or you’ll be spam ccd by a warlock resto druid team before you can align your burst. So if we are talking like 1500-1800ish range or possibly higher at the start of the season before people get gear (assuming rating stay similar to average skill) then this could be A tier. But anything after that and you might be a pretty underwhelming comp if you don’t hit crits.
Private servers run 2.4.3 which makes the concept of pulling the season 1 meta kinda tough. Drain teams and teams like WLD that do really well in s3/s4 will have a tougher time when the TTK is super low.
Rogues and mages and priests will all have an advantage on very short fights where burst and CC is high and mana reserves are low. And for the same reasons S1 is probably the only bracket that BM will do really well in.
I agree with your tiers except for 5v5… I think RMPLS (wotlk popular comp) instead of Eurocomp, will be more favorable in tbc this come around. Most private servers have 5v5 disabled because of the lack of competition. Rshams are solid in 2.4.3 and it’s a huge gimp running 5’s without lust.
5vs5 is the most flexible bracket, for sure. It’s the least meta-driven. I’m sure that RMPLS will be just fine. You’re replacing the Rdruid from Eurocomp with a Rshaman for the Bloodlust. You lose some CC and DoT pressure for the lust. It’s a fine trade and might end up being worthwhile.
Shamans have superior single target dmg(shocks do like 1k instant which is nice esp in s1 when ppl barely crack 10k health, chainlighting+shock is like 2k dmg) and a spammable offensive dispel, tremor ground etc. The comp would pump out way more pressure than euro. But we will see, pserver had 5s disabled so its hard to say what will be good this time around.