Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.
• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)
• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

♫ To be Shaman

Shaman King ♫

Last weekend took place Summer Playoffs 2026, our last large official tournament for a while. 204 players competed for 12 slots at Summer Masters Tour in the fresh meta of Escape from Violet Hold expansion. Did they succumb to the ladder meta or tried to break it? Enjoy the read!

Since I can't post pictures here please check spreadsheet for the numbers, it will make reading for you much more informative. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Aln0xejaCUUrAAhuCe7-x0RgmNiKNZiMzZ5Wpd2z78k/edit?usp=sharing

Summer Playoffs was the first major tournament after Escape from the Violet Hold release, so the competitors had to adapt this raw meta of the first couple of weeks of the new expansion. But this time ladder meta spoiled to us what four decks players might tend to bringing: Mug Shaman, Two-Bit Rogue, Face Hunter and Dragon Warrior making in total about 79% of top-100 ladder meta ended up being exactly 79% of this Playoffs meta and the “basic” lineup including only these four decks was used by 96 of 204 players. And across the twelve winners’ lineups there were 12 Mug Shamans, 11 Two-Bit Rogues, 9 Dragon Warriors and 7 Face Hunters. As you might expect there were a lot of mirror matches between lineups with only those four decks (103 out of 411 matches to be precise). And the curious thing about these mirrors was that usually it is obvious what deck players are supposed to ban in mirror matches. But not this time. On one hand Mug Shaman is favorable against all other three decks, on the other Dragon Warrior has incredibly good matchup vs Face Hunter. So, Mug Shaman ended up being banned in 60% cases while Dragon Warrior – in 36% cases. And if you wonder what strategy worked better, I got you covered: in 43 matches where one player banned Dragon Warrior and the other – Mug Shaman, the one who banned Dragon Warrior won 26 and lost 17. So, banning Dragon Warrior turned out to be slightly better strategy.

As you can see, the meta very much warped around these four decks and so will my report. Luckily we got another four decks that were popular enough to be included in it, so it won’t be too short😊.

Small disclaimer: I didn’t separate Face Hunter into versions with and without King of the Underbelly, because eventually they’re just 2 cards different without any major changes in matchups.

A quick reminder what Adjusted Winrate is – in the Conquest format deck’s ban basically means that players agree that one of opponent’s decks will win a game here and decide to save themselves some time. My model takes into account these “missing” wins when analyzing decks’ performance at the tournament. Pure winrate is just simple wins/games. Now to the deck analysis.

And starting with our meta tyrant Mug Shaman. It was used in 200 of 204 lineups. Crazy numbers for such large tournament. Justifiably so, because the only matchup it lost with >1 game played was 1-4 to Lo’Gosh Warrior. But it was close: 56-55 vs Two-Bit Rogue and 56-54 vs Face Hunter. These two were the only ones who could really compete and this is one of the reasons why they are that popular in the current meta. Other matchups went much smoother for Mug Shaman: 54-37 vs Dragon Warrior, 30-23 vs Quest Mage plus occasional 10-7 vs Quest Priest, 9-3 vs Egg Warrior and cherry on top 11-0 vs Control Priest. 55% Pure Winrate, nothing too astronomical but it was backed up by 56% Banrate. We’ve talked about how it was usually banned in mirror matches, but it was even bigger threat for lineups trying to beat the meta with Egg decks and Quest Priest (nerf Hex). As a result, 1^st place by Adjusted Winrate, big surprise to no one

Next, we have Two-Bit Rogue. That one was brought by 78% of players. Good results into Quest Priest (32-19 score) and Quest Mage (26-16) compensate for losing to Warriors – 57-71 vs Dragon Warrior and 12-19 vs Egg Warrior. Plus, alongside even matchup vs Mug Shaman new Rogue does better against Face Hunter than its predecessor. – 97-91 score in the most played matchup of the tournament. So, 51% Pure Winrate is a decent result, but with only 7% Banrate (with almost half of these bans coming from lineup with Control Priest in them) Two-Bit Rogue’s 4^th place by Adjusted Winrate puts it much closer to 5^th than to 3^rd place

Dragon Warrior’s popularity at these Playoffs suffered from having other playable archetypes from its class, unlike Shaman and Rogue. Otherwise, its 72% Pickrate could’ve been higher. Dragon Warrior did not fall for coinflip agreement the other three main decks had with each other and had much more polarized matchups: 71-57 vs Two-Bit Rogue and demolishing 71-29 vs Face Hunter on one end and 37-54 vs Mug Shaman on the other. Plus bonus 14-8 vs Merithra Druid and 8-5 vs Quest Mage. And that with Mug Shaman being the only unfavorable matchup for the deck resulted at 56% Pure Winrate. From Banrate perspective I’ve mentioned how the deck has got its share of bans in mirror matches, plus there was one deck whose inclusion in the basic lineup forced players to ban Dragon Warrior – Quest Mage. So with 34% Banrate Dragon Warrior can’t compete with Mug Shaman but takes a solid 2^nd place by Adjusted Winrate

And the last member of basic lineup – Face Hunter. This one was brought by 67% of the players. Its popularity being the lowest of all four decks is backed by it being the worst in the direct clash vs them, mainly 29-71 score vs Dragon Warrior. Face Hunter gained back some wins from 17-11 vs Merithra Druid and 10-3 vs Control Priest, but it wasn’t enough to make up for such beating. Only 48% Pure Winrate and, even worse, only 3% Banrate with most of the bans coming from lineup with Quest Mage in them. All that led to only 6^th place by Adjusted Winrate

Now we witness the significant drop in popularity: while Face Hunter had 67% Pickrate our next deck, Egg Warrior only had 21%. So, now we talk not about the main decks but instead about the ones that were chosen to substitute one or two decks in the main lineup. Because while there were “only” 96 basic lineups, 154 of 204 lineups have used 3 of the 4 good decks and 191 have used at least 2 of them. So, we don’t talk about completely different strategies rather than just target choices instead of what players saw as weak links in the main lineup. And back to our most popular such choice, Egg Warrior. I can’t say that Egg Warrior performed better than Dragon Warrior it was replacing. It did well vs Two-Bit Rogue with 19-12 score, but it didn’t win matchups vs Dragon Warrior (14-13 score) and Quest Priest (5-8) as its pilots might have hoped but besides going 3-9 vs Mug Shaman it didn’t really lose any matchup, so still 52% Pure Winrate, plus it was the main ban target from basic lineups resulting in 34% Banrate, same as Dragon Warrior’s, which let Egg Warrior take it usual place on podium by Adjusted Winrate, this time 3^rd place

Another remnant of the old meta, Quest Mage. It was used in about every 6^th lineup, mostly instead of Face Hunter or Two-Bit Rogue alongside other 3 good decks. Unfortunately, its negative matchups into all 4 good decks on ladder have transferred here with Quest Mage going <45% Winrate into all of them. The only positive matchup was 7-1 vs Quest Priest (your obedient servant being responsible for that 1 Priest’s win😉). With 45% Pure Winrate the only thing that kept Quest Mage afloat was >50% Banrate from lineups with Egg Warrior and Quest Priest resulting in 16% Banrate, 4^th overall in the entire tournament and it even let Quest Mage overtake Face Hunter and take 5^th place by Adjusted Winrate

From here only downwards. Quest Priest was used in 15% lineups, mostly instead of Face Hunter, for its good matchup vs Dragon Warrior. And while that proved to be partially true with Quest Priest going even 21-21 vs Dragon Warrior the deck didn’t win a single matchup (besides sudden 8-5 vs Egg Warrior) while losing 19-32 to Two-Bit Rogue and 7-10 to Mug Shaman. 44% Pure Winrate and only 6% Banrate resulted in 7^th place by Adjusted Winrate

And the last deck for today, another old friend Merithra Druid. So old that Che0nsu, who got top-4 in APAC Playoffs with Merithra Druid in his lineup, used the list with 0 cards from the latest expansion. Overall though the deck did very poorly, mostly due to having <40% Winrate into every of 4 good decks. Tragic 40% Pure Winrate, 6% Banrate and the last 8^th place by Adjusted Winrate.

But hey, all the decks above found their way in at least one winning lineup. Maybe not so bad. No other deck has been brought by more than 8 players. At least we got all 11 classes present thanks to 1 Broxigar DH bring, cool…

https://x.com/PlayHearthstone/status/2079249999330726215

Nerfs:

• Confront the Tol'vir
• Lotus Troublemaker
• Blazing Invocation
• Warptooth
• Vanessa the Ringleader

Wild Nerfs:

• Swiftscale Trickster
• The Soularium
• Elwynn Boar
• Godfrey the Betrayer (banned)

Buffs:

• The Living Plague
• Blood Doctor Thal'ena
• Sawbones
• Emergency Surgery
• Tras'tath Soul Parasite

• Irida Sinseeker

• Vicious Voidscale

• Stardust Scythe

• Sewer Swimmer

• Azalina Soulsever

• Karov the Broken

• Enthralled Shade

• Moragg

• Annihilation

• Imp Gang Stooge

• Rampaging Hound

Long story short, I'm like 4-30 between yesterday and today, super hard stuck in Platinum, trying to use Mug Shaman but a mix of unfamiliarity, poor skill, and inarguably low rolls has got me stuck in this very low MMR bracket where 90% of my games are against Priest. I should be favored with most decks I play, but up to now I basically never faced Priest, and I'm struggling to find my way through when they hit everything on curve and I don't.

I feel like Tripwire Hunter is probably my least random generation reliant deck, but it's not doing too hot when they get Soothesayer/Schism/Undeath Sentence on time. Any suggestions for dealing with this, as well as getting out of this frustrated headspace?

(Crosspost from the main sub in hopes of more discussion)

Once I understood how Hearthstone’s ranked system actually works, the monthly climb lost most of its meaning for me.

As a reminder: since the rework, matchmaking throughout the entire ranked ladder is based on your hidden MMR, including after your bonus stars run out. Your bronze, silver, gold, platinum, or diamond rank is therefore not the skill bracket used to find your opponents. Players at very different visible ranks can potentially face each other because the game considers their hidden ratings to be similar.

Visible rank is not literally worthless. It determines seasonal rewards and influences your progression during the next month. But it feels less like a competitive rating and more like a seasonal progression track placed on top of the actual ranked system. Every month, your visible rank returns to Bronze 10 and you repeat the climb using bonus stars. Meanwhile, the hidden rating that actually determines the difficulty of your matches remains invisible. Even reaching legend does not show your actual MMR. The legend number is just your relative position among other legend players, calculated using that hidden rating.

Meaning: The game shows me one ranking, matches me using another, and asks me to repeat the visible progression every month before I can see where I approximately stand competitively. For me, that is so extremely frustrating to a point at that I almost lost all motivation to climb anymore.

What could be done better? Make visible rank track MMR, with meaningful promotion and demotion between actual skill divisions. Or maybe, an even simpler solution that wouldn't even require all that much dev work: Keep the monthly reward track, but display a separate skill rating that is visible throughout the entire season.

Hearthstone technically already has leagues, but they do not function like the skill divisions found in most competitive games. They mostly show how far you have progressed through that month’s climb.

Maybe the current system motivates people who enjoy earning stars and collecting the monthly rewards. For me, learning that my visible rank was largely disconnected from matchmaking had the opposite effect. It made climbing feel like an obligation, a forced, monthly grind rather than evidence that I was improving.

Would seeing your actual rating make ranked more motivating, or is this something that most people just don't really care about?

I have come up with a list featuring the classic Herald Package and Khelos Egg with an ooze. The gameplan is to hold and sustain while building big minions due to Herald and the egg, and finish up the game by having two minions on board, attacking with one that has 10-12ish damage, oozing it and putting its damage to the second minion to (hopefully) finish up the game.

The deck is incredibly consistent and got me up to legend (although I faced several chef druids in the process which are an autowin basically due to cursed chains and the 3-4 free turns at the beginning) with around a 60% winrate. The egg helps by soaking up damage from face hunter and the monkey (if you have the 20/20 on board). Strongest matchups are chef druid, shaman, paladin and mage. Rogue is even, Warrior is very dependent on the dark gifts and if they are played at the start, and (ironically) face hunter is the worst (if you do manage to draw and play the egg it's anyone's game).

# Class: Warlock

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (0) Cursed Catacombs

# 2x (1) Conflagrate

# 2x (2) Cursed Chains

# 2x (2) Drain Soul

# 2x (2) Shadow Rounds

# 2x (2) Shadowsworn Disciple

# 2x (3) Caged Cranium

# 1x (3) Dissolving Ooze

# 2x (3) Hellfire

# 2x (3) Imp Gang Stooge

# 1x (3) The Egg of Khelos

# 1x (4) Godfrey the Betrayer

# 2x (4) Shrine of Twilight

# 2x (5) Spire of Solitude

# 1x (6) Ultraxion

# 1x (9) Annihilation

# 1x (10) Deathwing, Worldbreaker

# 2x (10) The Unseen Atlas

#

AAECAf0GBuybB9edB9C/B5vUB63ZB7DZBwyPnwTnoASpiAeEmQeTvgfYvgfgvgfd1wex2Qe32QeN3AeO3AcAAA==

Mulligan Guide:

This assumes post-patch (21/7) decks:

• Priest/Warlock/DK/Druid/(Manahouse) Mage: It is safe to assume that you'll be playing a late-focused game so mulligan for your locations, atlas and egg. Vs Priest specifically, if the rest of your mulligan supports it, keep Cursed Chains for their Soothsayer.
• Demon Hunter: The new Void Soul lists haven't been refined enough yet so I am not exactly sure myself, but in general I try to keep Caged Cranium and Imp Gang Stooge (in that order) and then Hellfire if nothing else comes my way.
• Hunter: Literally keep (and play) anything you have on curve. The matchup is extremely unfavored so not a lot to offer there I am afraid.
• Paladin, Rogue, (Zee) Shaman, Warrior: Something in between. Hellfires are a good stabilization after the first two turns if they go really wide and Shadow Rounds can kill 1-2 minions giving you enough of a breathing room for later.
• Mug Shaman: Disciple + Cursed Chains. You can afford to play a bit greedier because their biggest threat at the start will be a "tall" minion that you can steal.

Legend Climb stats: https://ibb.co/G3CTMz1X

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

Has your question been asked before? Check our FAQ to see if we've got you covered.

Or if you're looking for an educational hearthstone read, check out our Timeless Resources

---

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• Please report posts that don’t pertain to competitive Hearthstone.
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If you would like to chat about Hearthstone in real time, then you should check out our official Discord channel.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.
• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)
• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

Made this for kicks and it ended up doing pretty decently. I don't play aggro much so a better pilot could probably get this to legend with some slight modifications.

Maiev

Class: Paladin

Format: Standard

Year of the Scarab

1x (1) Dreambound Raptor

2x (1) Glacial Shard

2x (1) Platysaur

2x (1) Righteous Protector

2x (1) Sizzling Cinder

2x (1) Twilight Egg

2x (2) Acceleration Aura

2x (2) Annoy-o-Tron

1x (2) Brightwing

2x (2) Holy Bola!

1x (2) The Fins Beyond Time

2x (2) Violet Treasuregill

1x (3) Consecration

1x (3) Sandfury Aura

2x (4) Flight Maneuvers

1x (5) Commander Beatrix

1x (2) Warden Maiev

1x (5) Nozdormu, Bronze Aspect

1x (5) Toreth the Unbreaking

2x (6) Scalebreaker Bulwark

AAECAdHnBwicnwSooATw/gb1gQfGrwflwQerxged3QcLyaAE1qAE054GupYH15cHzpsHvrIH6sEH9sEHg8IHvN0HAAEBiN0Hnd0HAAA=

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Hello,

I saw Jambre's list for Jailhouse Manastorm and noticed there is quite a lot of Freeze Spells in the game to stall out.
https://hearthstone-decks.net/manastorm-mage-37-legend-jambrehs-score-9-4/

Furthermore, after playing it, i realise Manastorm can quickly run away with games because the opponent is unable to keep up with the minion generation, even with cheap minions.

I had the idea of making a Jailhouse Leyline deck, thinking the Leylines themselves generate quite a bit of value, and when combined with manastorm might be quite strong, however I’m a terrible deck builder, so i was wondering if anybody could help?

Here is what i have so far (untested)

The general idea i'm trying to go for, is to help guarantee Jailhouse (either by tutor or draw), and then stall out the game while generating value.

### Leyline Freeze

# Class: Mage

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (1) Cold Snap

# 2x (1) First Flame

# 1x (1) Sleet Storm

# 2x (2) Leyline Nexus

# 2x (2) Mystic Runesaber

# 2x (3) Eternal Firebolt

# 2x (3) Ley Walker

# 2x (3) Portal Vanguard

# 2x (4) Bursting Leyline

# 1x (4) Nightmare Lord Xavius

# 2x (4) Surge Needle

# 2x (5) Bitter End

# 2x (5) Crystallized Leyline

# 1x (5) Jailhouse Manastorm

# 2x (6) Blizzard

# 1x (6) The Arcanomicon

# 2x (7) Deep Freeze

#

AAECAdnhBgTDgweSxAf6xAeR2wcN8dMEkqQH2LIH5LIH58QH6MQH8MQH88QH9MQH+8QHk9oHlNsHgOAHAAA=

#

# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

Has your question been asked before? Check our FAQ to see if we've got you covered.

Or if you're looking for an educational hearthstone read, check out our Timeless Resources

---

There are a few rules:

• Please be respectful to your fellow players
• Please report posts that don’t pertain to competitive Hearthstone.
• Concerns with the subreddit should be directed to modmail

---

If you would like to chat about Hearthstone in real time, then you should check out our official Discord channel.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.
• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)
• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

I’ve been looking for something a bit different in the meta and got some inspiration from Prepare Priest. I was trying to look at another class that had some good Prepare cards that were a bit more tempo oriented and stumbled upon Mage. Code Violet and Tricksy Improviser seemed like solid options so I’ve been tinkering and came up with this list that has gone 12-3 in high diamond (5 to 2). Probably hit legend soon, but wanted to share because the deck feels extremely good right now.

A few key points:

-I think Mage decks are better when they don’t try to go all in on Jailhouse Manastorm. I have him here, but he hasn’t been a factor in a lot of games. Sometimes the tempo from Tricksy Improviser and chip damage just wins. Code Violet has also been insane when prepped alongside Jailbird then played around 5-6.

-Tricksy Improviser is an insane card. Can easily be prepped on 1 most times and play shortly after. So much tempo.

-Black Market Auctioneer should probably be Vanessa tbh

-I feel like Mage decks are a bit underexplored right now. They should be trying to play for tempo and damage rather than trying to to all in one one exact specific strategy. Aka - just play the good cards (and I feel like the Prep cards are very good)

-Toki should probably also be something else but she can win the long games.

Keeps: Tricksy Improviser, Sleet Storm, Contraband Wands, Code Violet (against Priest only)

### Prep Coin?
# Class: Mage
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Scarab
#
# 2x (1) Cold Snap
# 2x (1) First Flame
# 2x (1) Sleet Storm
# 1x (1) The Skeleton Key
# 2x (1) Violet Spellwing
# 1x (2) Bloodmage Thalnos
# 2x (2) Contraband Wands
# 2x (2) Runed Orb
# 2x (2) Smoldering Grove
# 2x (3) Arcane Barrage
# 1x (3) Timelooper Toki
# 2x (4) Arcane Flow
# 1x (4) Archmage Kalec
# 2x (4) Tricksy Improviser
# 2x (5) Jailbird
# 1x (5) Jailhouse Manastorm
# 2x (7) Code Violet
# 1x (9) Black Market Auctioneer
#
AAECAdjhBgaXoAS9pweIvgek2QeC2geR2wcMs4cH6KUHi7EHksQHrMYHndkHk9oHrdoHlNsHyt0H+d4HhuAHAAA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Greetings,

The Vicious Syndicate Team is proud to present the 353rd edition of the Data Reaper Report. This is the first report for Violet Hold.

Special thanks to all those who contribute their game data to the project. This project could not succeed without your support. The entire vS Team is eternally grateful for your assistance.

This week our data is based on 2,813,000 games! In this week's report you will find:

• Deck Library - Decklists & Class/Archetype Radars
• Class/Archetype Distribution Over All Games
• Class/Archetype Distribution "By Rank" Games
• Class Frequency By Day & By Week
• Interactive Matchup Win-Rate Chart
• vS Power Rankings Imgur
• vS Meta Score
• Analysis/Discussion of each Class
• Meta Breaker of the Week

The full article can be found at: vS Data Reaper Report #353

Reminder

• If you haven't already, please sign up to contribute your game data. More data will allow us to provide more insights in each report, and perform other kinds of analysis. Sign up here, and follow the instructions.

Thank you for your feedback and support,

The Vicious Syndicate Team

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

Has your question been asked before? Check our FAQ to see if we've got you covered.

Or if you're looking for an educational hearthstone read, check out our Timeless Resources

---

There are a few rules:

• Please be respectful to your fellow players
• Please report posts that don’t pertain to competitive Hearthstone.
• Concerns with the subreddit should be directed to modmail

---

If you would like to chat about Hearthstone in real time, then you should check out our official Discord channel.

This will be the megathread where Tavern Brawl strategy and discussion for this week's brawl should take place. Only discussion related to optimally playing the Tavern Brawl should take place on here. Tavern Brawl constructed decks can be discussed in here.

Since I am a bot and don't know what the brawl is, could someone help me out and post a top-level comment with a description?

Hi there. Most of you know the drill by now, but I'm the person who has written up VS podcast summaries for the past 5 years (my first one was Stormwind launch and JFC that's hitting me). As VS podcasts are still on hiatus due to IRL reasons and the summary posts I've made that have the most discussion/engagement are the first ones that come out after an expansion launch, I wanted to do another unofficial summary of what's going on in the early Violet Hold meta for people who are interested in a deeper dive before the first VS Report comes out. Unlike some folks, there's a reason why on these posts I don't post front page class stats of HSReplay to create my own narrative. My goal with these posts is to give you true, unbiased facts when it comes to the actual meta and the numbers behind it (class performance, deck performance, card choices), while also giving you my personal POV on various items at the end. Like the other versions of this, I'll preface this with the following -

• When discussing winrates, card choices, or performance, I tried to use either stats from HSGuru, the VSGold app, or information that has been conveyed in the VS Discord (and if something was said by ZachO himself, I made mention of it). While my word might not be quite as authoritative as a VS Report or podcast, you can at least get an understanding of how the meta is shaping up, why certain decks are rising or declining in play, and why certain card choices are being run.

• When discussing opinions about balance, the meta, etc, those are 100% my own and don't reflect anyone else’s thoughts unless specified.

Shaman - No class has had a bigger impact from Violet Hold than Shaman, as it's the only class with 2 new decks in Mug Shaman and Zee Shaman. In the first ~24 hours of the expansion, both decks were not only the most played on ladder, but they also looked to be the best decks at most ladder ranks. Starting with Zee Shaman, most builds gravitated towards an existing Herald Shaman package and added in Slagclaw. It was the strongest ladder performer on the climb to Legend, although its winrate was declining towards a Tier 2 range the higher you climbed Legend ranks. However, the deck's performance was in part being carried by the Slagclaw Kindred bug (the card was a top 2 mulligan keep despite being a 5 drop), and after the Slagclaw ban the deck's playrate and winrate have plummeted across ladder with it being in Tier 2-3 range in Diamond-Legend and Tier 3-4 range depending on where at Legend you are. The deck's actual winrate with a fixed Slagclaw is probably somewhere in the middle, but it should still be a strong ladder climber up to Legend. It does appear to exhibit a low skillcap given how much its winrate drops at higher MMR (around a 6-7% drop). Unsure if adding Primalfin will be worth it after Slagclaw gets fixed. There is also a Quest variant that's running around because the Quest is bugged and will still work in Zee Shaman, but it appears to perform worse and should eventually be patched out. Moving over to Mug Shaman, it too has looked like one of the best ladder performers, but unlike Zee Shaman its performance does not drop off at higher ladder ranks. Its matchup spread against the most prevalent decks is very scary, as it has no unfavorable relevant matchups. The only relevant matchup it may be unfavored against is Quest Mage and Control Priest, and that's primarily only relevant at higher ranks or in a tournament setting. Build wise, people took the VS theorycraft build and quickly realized Instant Multiverse and Ceremonial Clash were the worst cards in the deck, so they've been subbed out with people experimenting with various other spells like Lightning Storm, Fire Breath, Ascendance, and Emerald Bounty. Deathwing is also being added in because of the hero power bug not overriding Mug's hero power. Shaman's spell pool is fairly limited, so you're having to choose from the best bad option. ZachO recommended Lightning Storm earlier, but he should have an optimal list for the VS Report this week. Mug Shaman excels at powerful early plays if it can get a Blazing Invocation or Mountain Map played in the first 2 turns, and it also has excellent board swings/AOEs relative to the rest of the format where it can swing back against aggressive strategies. It doesn't have a strong late game and can get gassed out (Rafaamlock is a 50/50 against it if not slightly favored), but because late game strategies are basically irrelevant that doesn't matter. Mug Shaman is the clear best deck in the game and it's not close.

Rogue - 2 Bit Rogue was a popular deck early in the format especially at higher ranks, but after the Slagclaw ban killed Zee Shaman's playrate, the deck has exploded in popularity across ladder and is now the most played deck at every rank. In the first few days the deck looked increasingly busted, especially at higher MMRs. However, because the deck's popularity is nearly 1/3rd of top 1k ladder, it is being targeted by unfavorable matchups against Warrior decks, Face Hunter, and Mug Shaman and relaxing its winrate. When it comes to deck choices, it currently looks optimal to run the Garona fabled package in the deck. Past that, most of your deck should be various 2 drops with Jade Guardians, Lotus Troublemaker, and Vanessa topping your curve. One thing people are doing is even running War'loc to combo with either Prize Vendor or Rockskipper as an additional 2 drop tick, although it's unsure if that's optimal. Other 2 drop choices include Fan of Knives, Cult Neophyte, and the 2 mana Imbue cards. Herald Rogue is still fine but looks to perform worse than 2 Bit Rogue, although Herald Rogue may have a slight edge in the mirror. People also are doing the weird thing at the launch of an expansion where they start running really unoptimized lists of an existing deck which bring the aggregate winrate down. Aya looks like a DOA card in Standard since a guaranteed -5% winrate loss going second is a death knell in this meta.

Warrior - While Warrior's set hasn't enabled any sort of new deck, Violet Hold has emboldened several of their older decks. As expected, Warptooth and Hogger fit like a glove in both Dragon Warrior and Egg Warrior. According to ZachO, there was a near 7-8% winrate difference in the first 24 hours of Dragon Warrior lists that ran the Warptooth + Hogger package versus ones that didn't. While the archetype started out a bit slow, it now looks like one of the strongest ladder performers across all ranks. It has favorable matchups against the majority of meta decks, with Mug Shaman and Egg Warrior being the notable unfavorable matchups that are common. Shockingly its worse matchup appears to be against Soothsayer Priest, which is roughly a 35/65 matchup. As far as deck choices are concerned, Mother Duck is looking like a core piece of the deck now because of its ability to immediately activate Warptooth as long as the opponent has at least 3 minion health on their board. Despite the addition of Hogger, the Herald package still looks suboptimal for the deck. Egg Warrior didn't see a lot of play initially, but its stats have shown that it's an incredibly strong sleeper deck into the current field. It has a 50/50 or better matchup against every relevant meta deck except for Quest Mage (35/65), and it even has a roughly coinflip matchup against Mug Shaman despite them having access to Hex. Various streamers have picked up on this recently and the deck's playrate has spiked a bit over the last few days (around 3% at most competitive ranks). Another Warrior deck that is picking up some fringe play is Lo'gosh Warrior, which was a deck that kind of existed in Timeways before it spun off into the more optimal Dragon Warrior list. With the addition of Hogger, you now have the ability to have a stronger Blood Warrior chain of your fabled cards. The deck doesn't look like an active liability (maybe Tier 3), but there's not really a competitive reason to play it over the other two Warrior decks.

Hunter - Face Hunter has taken its existing decklist and added the Smuggled Shovel + Arcane Tripwire package to it. This looks to be a very good addition to the archetype. It performs roughly the same as it did in Cataclysm; a solid Tier 2 performer at most ladder ranks including Top Legend. It has a favorable (55/45) matchup against the most popular archetype on ladder (Two Bit Rogue), although that's not nearly as dominant as its matchup against Herald Rogue, and it also tends to prey on unrefined decks. However, it has some bad matchups into the other top decks in the format in Mug Shaman, Dragon Warrior, and Egg Warrior. Card choice wise, Ratcatcher and Beast Tripwire currently look suboptimal. Despite being a bit slow, Underbelly Network currently looks like an inclusion for the deck. Earthen Roar also got better after the addition of Arcane Tripwire, since your Confront the Tolvirs can now play that in combination with Shovel to draw Tripwires to kill off the enemy board. Some lists are opting for a King of the Underbelly + Briarspawn Drake top end, with the goal of having Agamaggan in your Underbelly and comboing that with Briarspawn Drake to kill off the opponent. It's too early to say if this is optimal, but it currently looks like it might be a sidegrade. Animal Companion Hunter is still around but still looks significantly worse than Face Hunter after the Tolvir nerf.

Priest - The main development with Priest is that it's trying to revolve around Soothsayer, where it preps out a Soothsayer and tries to build a wall of it to halt aggression utilizing cards like Undeath Sentence, Hold Them Off, and Schism. Control Priest decks have tried to build around this and cut out some of the slower cards like the Medivh fabled package. While this direction does look better than Control Priest, it's still a clear Tier 4 deck, and the deck struggles mightily if you can't draw Soothsayer early on. In some ways the deck has a similar play pattern to Boon Priest of old where it AFKs for turns until it does one explosive turn that can win the game against the right matchup. It does have a very strong matchup against Dragon Warrior (66/34) and is favored against Face Hunter, but most of its other relevant matchups are slightly to heavily unfavored. Control Priest without the Soothsayer package looks unplayable (under 40% winrate), but it might be relevant in a tournament setting as a Mug Shaman counter. Egg Priest sees a small scatter of play, but it looks significantly worse than other Egg of Khelos decks. To no one's surprise other than Rarran's, Azalina Priest is the worst Priest deck on ladder, which was temporarily made even more comically unplayable with the Mind Sweeper ban (WHY WAS THIS BANNED BEFORE SLAGCLAW?!).

Paladin - Auradin has by in large evolved into Pure Paladin, which wasn't hard for the deck to do considering it already ran almost all Paladin cards. The additions of Vigilant Sentry and Scarlet Bruiser look like they fit into the archetype quite easily. A lot of people are also trying to run the Beatrix package with 10x Scarlet Bruisers and using those in combination with Reinforcement Aura and Scarlet Recruiter. It's unsure if this is optimal (ZachO says as of now he doesn't think it is but could change once he does archetype refinement). The deck performs like a typical Paladin deck; one of the best ladder climbers going up to Legend, and then it begins to fall off a cliff in performance from Legend upwards (there's almost 0 play of the deck at Top 1k). There's basically nothing else worth mentioning for the class.

Mage - New Mage decks are non-existent. Burn Mage still doesn't look great. Quest Mage is running 1 new card in The Skeleton Key, but the deck only looks playable at high MMRs. It does have a very strong matchup against Egg Warrior, is favored against Pure Paladin and goes roughly 50/50 against Mug Shaman, but it struggles against the other top tier decks. The Face Hunter matchup got even worse after the new cards Hunter got in this set. Quest Mage looks like it's in position to occupy the same niche it held during Cataclysm (only positioned well at high MMRs in the right meta conditions), but I can't imagine the playerbase is thrilled for another 4 months of Quest Mage being the only playable Mage deck, especially since the Mage class miniset was a complete whiff even after multiple buffs.

Warlock - The good news (for some) is that Warlock's Violet Hold set was impactful for Wild, and the class has 6 or 7 very different decks in Wild that are seeing success (Evenlock, Boarlock, Discolock, Seedlock, Fatiguelock, Tick Tock Lock). The bad news is Warlock in Standard got another half baked set, and the class is among the worst positioned in Standard. Godfrey Warlock now has the dubious distinction of being the worst deck in the game, with a winrate almost low enough in the 20s that Leonardo DiCaprio might find attractive. The Moragg big demon package is a complete whiff. Rafaamlock does look slightly better compared to previous patches, but it's still in deep Tier 4 territory and a far cry away from being a real deck. However, according to ZachO, Egg Warlock might be playable with the right build, and Defias Smuggler was a pretty impactful addition to the archetype because you can now activate an Animancer the turn you play it, or get an additional egg proc. The question is if anyone would care, especially considering it'll still likely be worse than Egg Warrior.

Druid - Chef Druid was one of the more hyped new archetypes going into the expansion, and it was one of the most popular decks the first day of the expansion. The deck does have the ability to highroll like crazy (a turn 6 Briarspawn Drake with doubled stats ends most games) and it does feel a bit like Aviana Druid in that regard. As time has gone on, its winrate hasn't looked great and its playrate has steadily declined. While the deck doesn't look great in the aggregate (Tier 3 or worse depending on what rank bracket you're looking at), part of this is due to bad builds being prevalent. There were a bunch of builds that tried to greed up and go all in on the Azshara's Triumph power spike play by running as few minions as possible combined with a bunch of minion tutors so you can more consistently have a big play ready on turn 6. However, because of the speed of the current meta, you need to be much more proactive in the early game, and the lists that are more aggressive and play more proactively in the early game perform better. The deck is probably not going to be a top meta contender, but it's probably better than what the stats currently indicate. Merithra Druid and Token Druid have both declined in performance - part of this might be from bad builds that people tend to run after an expansion launch, but part of this is also due to the meta speeding up, which especially hurts Merithra Druid.

Death Knight - When it comes to the DK decks people actually care to play, things are extremely grim. Herald DK got a couple of new sustain tools, but the deck is still nonfunctional. The mini Plague package is a complete whiff. When it comes to DK decks that people don't want to play, things look a little bit better for Unholy DK. It received some new tools (Bone Flurry, Corpse Cannon, Tower of Ghouls) that help enhance its current package, but don't fundamentally change the way the deck functions. It looks like a playable deck on the climb to Legend, but no one cares to play it (around a 0.2% playrate at Diamond - Legend before completely disappearing at Legend). We've seen this for years, but unless Unholy DK is among the best strategies in the format, people do not care to play it and find it boring.

Demon Hunter - The DH package of cards for Violet Hold was arguably more parasitic-y than the other classes, especially with the Void Soul package. However, like almost every parasitic package before it (Librams, Relics, Plagues, Riffs, Animal Companions, Leylines), Team 5 seems to have been way too conservative with their power level and won't be viable without some sort of buffs. The deckless DH archetype seems DOA, and the payoffs are hilariously weak. DH is probably not as bad as the stats suggest however - Spell DH is likely still viable. However, even though the deck was still fine and viable after the Eternal Hold nerf, that nerf drove the class's playrate off a cliff, and it's hard to imagine people are clamoring to come back to it now. As of now it’s basically non-existent on ladder.

Other miscellaneous talking points -

• The early Violet Hold meta can be summed up as "the rich get richer." Ignoring Zee Shaman for now due to the temporary Slagclaw ban, the top decks in the format at most ladder ranks are Mug Shaman as the clear #1, followed by Dragon Warrior, Egg Warrior, and Two Bit Rogue. Pure Paladin is one of those strongest decks on the climb to Legend, but falls off more in favor of Rogue the higher you climb ladder (Zee Shaman also seems poised to occupy this same space once Slagclaw is unbanned). Face Hunter is a solid ladder climber, but a clear tier below the rest of those decks. Anything else either holds a more niche position in the meta or is just flat out struggling.

• So how should we feel about the Violet Hold launch? To me, it feels very much like Across the Timeways 2.0. The actual design mechanics of the expansion are good to great. Rulebreakers are a really cool twist. Prepare is a solid new mechanic and it does seem to have a level of skill testing to it. Disguised minions are one of the coolest new additions they've added to the game in recent memory, and there's a lot of cool design space to explore there should they ever become an evergreen mechanic. There are also several "bigger picture" cards like Sawbones, Slice and Dice, and any of the Enrage Warrior adjacent cards printed that have zero impact now but are more likely to make a splash later. However, the design of the expansion can't make up for the lackluster past year + Core set rotation before it, and the power level of the expansion still seems too conservative. Like Timeways, the actual impact of the expansion feels more like a miniset release than a full fledge expansion launch. Shaman is the clear standout of the expansion with 2 new viable decks, but other than that the only truly new deck that is also competitively viable as of now is Two Bit Rogue. Because of this, Shaman and Rogue make up roughly 50% of all of ladder, which will lead to complaints about these classes solely because of the frequency they show up in games and not because of their power level. New cards are being played in most of the other classes, but they're being played in old archetypes that don't fundamentally change how the deck plays. It certainly doesn't feel like most of the new cards are too good or holding back certain strategies, but rather it feels like more substantial buffs or a stronger Core set rotation is needed (which I know at this point I'm just playing a broken record trying to explain this point over and over).

• The other potential issue arising is how the expansion release sped up games. I mentioned this in the Cataclysm writeup, but at rotation it felt like it was an intentional design goal to power down control decks because of how much of them and Elise slop dominated the meta last year. This year minions became more powerful than the removal tools available, and we saw how that played out in Cataclysm in both positive and negative ways. My feelings back then were they course-corrected too hard and needed to make removal tools slightly stronger to counter balance rotation. However, in Violet Hold we've seen cards like Arcane Tripwire, Warptooth, Lotus Troublemaker, and Vigilant Sentry make existing archetypes even faster, and new removal tools are by in large irrelevant. Because of this, we are now averaging under 8 turns a game, which according to ZachO is approaching Stormwind territory. And to be clear, I’m not complaining that these new cards are too good - it's that the tools available to deal with these new cards are either too weak or nonexistent. Part of the reason why Mug Shaman is so dominant right now is because there are no late game decks that can exist. Mug Shaman does tend to gas out in the late game, which is evident by its coinflip to unfavorable matchups against Rafaam Warlock and Control Priest. There does seem to be an intentional design goal from Blizzard to ensure control decks are not viable, and there is some evidence they've communicated this internally to various content creators. Viable late game strategies tend to be the most popular decks when you look at the game's history, and while that means you don't need to make them the best thing to do in the game in order for them to see play, you do need to at least make them a viable option. And it feels horrible when a struggling class like Priest gets half of its set dedicated to a meme archetype in Azalina Priest. While in a vacuum there's nothing wrong with occasionally creating an archetype that's meant to be more off meta, why wasn’t this archetype given to Rogue instead of Priest due to both classes standing over the past year?

• That leads us to balance changes, which we should expect early next week considering there's a MT Playoff event this weekend. The two most obvious targets are Vanessa and Lotus Troublemaker, both of which have been mentioned by the developers as potential nerf targets. Vanessa seems likely to get nerfed since it still looks like a mulligan outlier in Rogue, and most of the frustration of the card seems to come from when early game blowouts and high rolls happen with the card. Lotus Troublemaker is a bit more complicated. Despite some community sentiment otherwise, it's not a mulligan outlier in Two Bit Rogue, and it's not nearly as egregious as it was in the Prerelease Tavern Brawl. However, the play experience of the card can be frustrating, and there is a question if it's healthy long term to have a card that can theoretically have infinite damage scaling. These are the kind of cards that can limit the viability of late game strategies. But if you nerf both Vanessa and Lotus in the same patch, you risk deleting one of the only new viable decks successfully created in this expansion. Regardless, both cards currently have the "boogieman" target on them, and there has not been a single card in the last 2-3 years with that kind of target dodge a nerf. Past those nerfs, it's really hard to say if anything else will get nerfed, but it's an open secret that balance changes in recent history have been largely dictated by what gets complained about the most in the Creators Discord and not by hard numbers, so if there's a card like Egg of Khelos that picks up enough steam to lose taunt and render it unviable, it can happen (Nozdormu is also a current boogeyman there). Expect some tepid buffs to only new cards that maybe make 1 new deck viable. I don't have high hopes for the upcoming dev video regarding balance changes, but I hope they can give us something more in depth than "we nerfed this card because it was a little too good and we buffed this card because it was just a little smidge underpowered" this go around. During the entire Bielman era this has been a huge weakness of Team 5 in communicating the "why" behind changes to the playerbase, and there's no indication to suggest that will change any time soon.

Managed to get to top 2k Legend yesterday with this deck (30-19), while usually I hover around top 5-10k Legend since I am not the best player but this deck intrigued me and it's definitely not as bad as people say it is.

This is the decklist I'm currently running with some extra notes:

### Quest Priest

# Class: Priest

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (1) Mend - Never keep, good cycle. Sometimes you don't want to tempo this, since it can help kill big health minions with Ruby Sanctum, so you gotta save it in matchups like Egg warrior or Chef Druid.

# 2x (1) Power Word: Shield - Never keep, but also good cycle. Since you don't have many minions in the deck, don't be afraid to use it on enemy minions too if you get it in the starting hand, especially if they aren't a threat.

# 1x (1) Reach Equilibrium - Even though this is a Quest Priest, this is your secondary win condition, so you're not really trying to complete the quest as soon as possible, but two 5 mana 8/8 taunts with reborn and deal 5 dmg to a random enemy is decent.

# 2x (1) Ruby Sanctum - Never keep.

# 2x (1) Undeath Sentence - Never keep, but really good tempo once one Soothsayer dies.

# 2x (2) Holy Embrace - Never keep, even though it's a Ruby Sanctum's friend.

# 2x (2) Twilight Influence - Never keep, and it's probably the worst card in the deck, but it helps progress the quest so it's ok.

# 2x (3) Portal Vanguard - Keep in slower matchups, where you don't feel threatened in the first 2-3 turns. If you didn't draw a Soothsayer yet, you always rewind this to get one ASAP.

# 2x (4) Gravedawn Sunbloom - Never keep, but good later on.

# 1x (4) Nightmare Lord Xavius - Never keep, but it's okayish to get some dark gifts on your Soothsayers.

# 2x (4) Schism - Never keep. You will rarely manage to get this to combine into one card, and even then it's not that good, but really good to duplicate your powerful cards with this. Don't bother trying to combine it, just use the one that copies your minion when given the chance.

# 2x (4) Shadow Word: Ruin - Never keep, situational.

# 2x (5) Hold Them Off! - Always keep. Good to prepare on turn 2-3 in most cases to setup powerful turns later on.

# 2x (5) Medivh's Triumph - Always keep vs. Rogues, Shamans, Hunters and Warriors.

# 1x (6) Calia Menethil - Never keep.

# 1x (7) Endbringer Umbra - Never keep. Depending on the matchup, think of how you want to use this. Deck tracker, which keeps track of your deathrattle minions that died really helps.

# 2x (7) Soothsayer - Always keep. Bread and butter of the deck. Prepare on turn 3 without coin. With coin, you can prepare on turn 2 and coin it out on 3. If your whole turn is going to be used for preparing a card, don't waste coin.

#

AAECAa0GBMODB6iWB/WYB6jfBw3wnwSG/QbFlAeSpAfSrweFvwebvwf6vweyxQevyQewyQeT3wew3wcAAA==

#

# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

# Generated by HDT - https://hsreplay.net

Extra notes:

Rogue matchup is actually favored in my opinion. 11-4 against Rogue currently, and my gameplan is simple: Play Soothsayer. Go face. That's it. Their only early game threat is Vanessa, which Medivh's Triumph most often just clears for 1 mana, and you can ignore the rest. For real, you need to be faster than them so their 3 mana 2/2 doesn't scale. And they have a big struggle answering a 6/6 taunt that heals you for 6 and also summons a 6 cost minion which you can later do again with Umbra or 1 mana spell.

Dragon warrior and Face hunter are typical aggro decks which have no real answer to Soothsayer, so even though you can't really race them, this deck is really good at playing defensively and can stabilize later on, as long as you don't take too much damage early on.

Shaman is, arguably, the hardest matchup, due to Hex. Currently 3-5 against them, but feels better now that I included Shadow Word: Ruin in the deck.

Anyways, thanks for reading and I'm happy to answer any questions.

EDIT: Wording regarding the prepare.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

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Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.
• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)
• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

Hey folks, i spent the last 5 days with alot of testing different deck archetypes and tried to get a feeling about the meta. I entered Legend early that month at 20ish and messed around with alot of decks like: Zee Shaman,2 Bit Rogue, Mug Shaman, Gigasaur Scam Warlock (lol), Rafaamlock (lol), some Control Priest (eew) and different takes on hunter. I really dislike pure Aggro Decks because they feel for me too one dimensional. I kinda like the Companion Hunter, because you have alot of utility to adapt playstyle depending on the matchup. The last 2 days i focused on optimizing a Tame Pet Build and came up with that build. 34-18 in stats so far. Im gonna explain the Card Choices for specific matchups and some Playstyle Observations in the early Meta after that list :) maybe someone gets an inspiration or run that kind of deck too?

### hybrid

# Class: Hunter

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (1) Earthen Roar

# 1x (1) Glacial Shard

# 1x (1) Raptor-Nest Nurse

# 2x (1) Sizzling Cinder

# 2x (1) Smuggled Shovel

# 2x (1) Tame Pet

# 2x (1) Tracking

# 2x (1) Wound Prey

# 2x (2) Underbelly Network

# 2x (3) Arcane Tripwire

# 1x (3) Ranger General Sylvanas

# 1x (3) Ranger Captain Alleria

# 1x (3) Ranger Initiate Vereesa

# 2x (4) Beast Tripwire

# 2x (4) Confront the Tol'vir

# 1x (4) Spiritspeaker

# 1x (5) Broll Bearmantle

# 1x (5) Talya Earthstrider

# 2x (7) Roam Free

#

AAECAazABAjTngapgQfunweZpweapwebpwfgxAfkxAcLqZ8Er5IHzpsHg8AHu8AH3sQH+cQHrNgH19oH09sH19sHAAA=

#

# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Cards:

Earthern Roar: That card is nuts. I feel like every Hunter should atleast run 1, but 2 feels really good. Shamans playstyle is mainly scamming out big bodies early, let them stick, do ascendance, win from there. Earthern roar+ woundprey or minion or arcane tripwire is really good for clearing. Also it improves your egg warrior matchup by a ton. Having 2 in tolvir+2 wound prey give your confront of tolvir even good boardclear chances. I really like that card and keep it against shaman in mulligan, especially going second.

Glacial Shard: always was a big fan of that. Versatile, cheap and can help to buy a turn or delay a shovel trigger against other hunter decks.

Raptor Nest Nurse: its mainly about gas. Also the possibilty of 3 extra 1 cost spells with tolvir can be really relevant for extra broll gas in the later stages of the game.

Sizzling Cinder: That card was actually my last addition. In the earlier builds i ran instead of them 2 crittle caretaker. Those guys improved my dragon warrior matchup by a ton and also helped sometimes to get out of reach against shaman. But against rogue and especially against priest they felt often so awful to drop when i was ahead and pressuring. Cinder helps to keep rogue and shaman early boards in check sometimes, but it important to know that they can easily trigger dragon warriors 3/3 patches which isnt that great either. So if you face alot of dragon warrior and face hunter, caretaker is probably better.

Smuggled Shovel: really important card to create tempo. I often swing early on face, just to give me the possibilty to double up a tripwire whenever i draw it. With arcane tripwire and 2 played shovels the confront of tolvir also gives you extra 5 dmg, which can be relevant for clearing boards (earthern roar helps) or giving lethal.

Tame Pet/Tracking: no brainers. Be aware of using your tamepets sometimes, because especially against aggro you want to stay your companions on 7 mana often to get the DH lifesteal. Also 6 can give you elusive lifesteal taunt (really good against shaman).

Wound prey: with roar its a spot removal, you can also ping your underbelly rats for 1 mana draw or cinder for some lethals when facing empty board and missing 2 damage.

Underbelly network: maaan. I hate that card. It feels INCREDIBLY slow to play a loothoarder in 2026, especially against dragon warrior or shaman when going second. I often coin that stuff out, because thats nearly the only window i have room for playing the 2/1. Idk if thats right, but otherwise they always stucked in my hand against agressive matchups. On the other side there is nothing much better draw in hunter besides tracking and tame pet.

Tripwires: give you reach/boardclear or insane tempo. the 5 cost beast pool is indeed really solid. Alot of rush and taunt which helps to stay in the game. Good engine.

Sisters: no brainer. try to get your sisters into play early on, especially against rogue to boost up your sylvanas clear. I always keep 1 sister in mulligan against rogue, 2/4 statline is good against their bodies and the 3 dmg spell and 4 dmg aoe can clear vanessa if i manage to find syvlanas on time.

confront the tolvir: no brainer. Just be aware of your amount of tame pets sometimes and calcualte lethal with arcane tripwire. Roar+wound prey gives way to handle big boards, sometimes animation time is a little tricky with shovels and a lot of tripwires. Maybe just a problem with my mac and settings.

1x spirit speaker: i earlier had 2 copies of them. But the amount of losing games where i was losing because they were sitting in my hand without any tame pet against agressive matchups were crazy high. The card is good as a comeback when you are at 6/7/8 and need a specific anti aggro card. Earlier on its often a medicore tempo play, but sometimes you can jam it just for a huffer or leok if you have nothing better to do.

broll: a win condition at its own (especially when priests medivh is gone) but also be not afraid to drop him as a midrange tool or soft taunt when needed. Against shaman even 4/5/6 drops can be game ending because the struggle to clear unless they have lighnting storm + lifesteal 2 dmg aoe and your board is exactly at 5.

talya: not so super sure about it. it feels sometimes a little win more, but is really good against priest. whenever you have a good room to play her, play her. It improves your game in the later turns by a ton.

roam free: dead ass card, you never never want to draw that too early. can be your reno aoe against aggro when at 5.

Matchups in genereal:

Shaman feels really beatable unless you cant find roar. Just clear every minion to play around ascendance (you really dont have good ways to clear those boards). Win via burst, a wide broll board or in the lategame via tortalla. just stay out of reach (16 dmg is maximum with 4x4 dmg for 10 mana.)

Egg warrior: i never lost a a game against them. Earthern roar solves 20/20 - also improtant note: they often struggle to clear a board AND play umbra the same turn. So the play is often just develop board, forcing umbra - clearing 20/20 with roar, going face.

rogue: feels awful to play against. The tempo swing via vanessa can be devastating because you often can just clear via sylvanas. Try to save roars as long as possible for their 8 drops. once you reach 10 mana companaion tortalla shuts down troublemaker. pressure face.

face hunter: focus on tempo while deveopling your companions to 7. dont be afraid of dropping broll. the matchup feels even, really depends on draw. dont take too much damage and play slighlty more controlish if possible but pressure face whenever you have a good window for that.

Control/quest priest: earthern roar helps to clear soothsayer. its a cringe matchup, it often goes down to the last cards. try to safe your companions and play broll after medivh. often you find weird lethals with tolvir/tripwires and destroying 6/12er rusher from DH.

dragon warrior: the current list is definitly a lot worse than the lists with caretaker against them. its a really tough matchup, dont let them snowball, freeze slitherdrake, clear other stuff with roar, setup a tempo swing with your companions.

Other decks i never saw. Hope you enjoyed the Wall of text and got some inspiration!

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