The meta is reasonably diverse right now, but it mostly breaks down to these decks:
DA TIERS
Tier 1:
Drude
General druid rules: don't let them overdraw you with naturalize if you can help it, and remember that spreading plague is a card that exists. Every druid has a different wincon, but their gameplans all start by ramping, then drawing a bunch of cards, meaning that you have plenty of time to kill them. If you run demonology project, you can sometimes disrupt a crucial piece of their win condition, and they'll fatigue and die.
There's 5 different druid decks out there right now: Hadronox: Step 0: Play ramp Step 1: Play big taunts Step 2: Play hadronox and naturalize it Step 3: Play witching hour for hadronox, and cube it.
Go fast and go hard. They can't play spreading plague because it **** up their spidergirl, so they don't have aoe. You want to run at their face before they start getting 6 boards of lich kings and sleepy dragons in a row. If you run geist, you can pull their naturalizes and then hex/polymorph their 8 legged lady. You can also use hex/poly to put a beast in the pool so they can miss with witching hour.
Big: They ramp, then they play oakheart getting dragonhatcher + drakari enchanter, and pull sleepy dragons, deathwings, Yseras, and primordial drakes. You basically have to just kill them first or have, like, nether.
Malygos: This deck runs malygos with Ultimate infestation, double swipe and double moonfire. "But Cato", you say, "they only have mana to play double moonfire after malygos, and that only does 12 damage. I'm not scared of 12 damage." Unfortunately for us, they have a bunch of tricks up their sleeve to let them burn you out. Alexstraza: Reduces you to a much more burnable life total. Flobbidinous Floop: Lets them play maly, then you kill it, then play a second one for only 4 next turn and play a swipe alongside it. Twig of the World Tree: Lets them play maly, reset their mana crystals, then use that extra mana to play Floop and/or swipes. Dreampetal Florist: Discount Maly to 2 mana so they can play it alongside Floop and/or Swipes Lich King cards: If you have room to play around these, do so. Turning into a death knight and punching you in the face: Yeah, that'll do it. If you're an aggro deck, try to just kill them, while remembering spreading plague and swipe. If you're a control deck, try to heal after they Alex you, gain as much armor as you can, and save your ooze for the twig of the world tree.
Togwaggle-Azalina: These guys are clever. They use twig of the world tree or dreampetal florist discount to play togwaggle, then Azalina, to swap decks and then get a copy of the card they put in your hand to swap decks back, so they can swap a 3rd time if you try to undo their deed. They can also fill your hand with a naturalize or 2, then play togwaggle so that you burn the card you need to swap back (try to keep your hand size low to play around this). Of course, the deck they give you is a lot nearer to fatigue and has no proactive way to kill the opponent, which makes them favored after the swap. There's a couple ways you can beat them: 1: Kill them before they make the switch: simple, straightforward, I like it. 2: Be far enough ahead on board when they make the switch that you can beat them before drawing dead matters: Also valid. 3: Ooze their twig, so they can't finish the combo: this is a stopgap measure, because they can still get the switch off with florist, but you should sandbag an ooze if you have one nonetheless. If they do get the swap off, keep track of what cards you know they have from Azalina. Also, remember that you can get 3 cards from your deck by playing the swap, then playing a nourish they gave you.
Mechathun: This deck runs Mechathun and 2 ways to win with it: 1: Playing it, playing innervate, then playing naturalize on it. 2: Playing it, then playing Flobbidinous Floop copying it on a later turn, then playing starfall on it. You have to kill them first. If you aren't running demonology project, they'll eventually win and there's nothing you can do about it. Unless they're a dumbass and blow starfall on your minions, and you geist them.
War Lock
Unlike druid, the warlock decks in the meta vary in more than "how they kill you after getting 10 mana on turn 5 and drawing their entire deck." You may encounter some difficulties mulliganning against them for this reason. If you're playing against any warlock except zoo, defile is a powerful card that can ruin you if you don't play around it, and if you're playing against cube or control, the same can be said of Godfrey.
The 4 warlock decks are as follows: Cubelock: Step 1: use possessed lackey or skull of the Man'Ari to cheat out a doomguard of voidlord for cheap Step 2: cube it, and use Spiritsinger Umbra or dark pact to get way more of them Step 3: punch in face with hasty 5/7s Step 4: play gul'dan and repeat (3) Step 5: maybe play turn 4 mountain giant If your deck is fast enough, simply kill them before the voidlords start coming down, while playing around defile and maybe hellfire. If not, well... You've got problems. Save your ooze for the skull, save a boardclear for gul'dan, and NEVER LET THEM UNTAP WITH ANYTHING THEY CAN CUBE.
Evenlock: These guys run Genn Greymane to get a discount hero power so they can play turn 3 mountain giant and turn 4 4/10 twilight drake. They can also play a 4 cost 7/7 taunt in hooked reaver. Later on, they turn into gul'dan, getting back a more modest board than the voidlord-running cubelocks, but still a threat, especially with the hero power. They also run demonology project, skulking geist, and Rin, so if your deck is soft to those, they can get ya. The easiest way to beat evenlocks is to kill them. Heck, they do the job for you with their hero power. Just remember that they can pull away from the brink of death with shroom brewer and spellstone, so "guaranteed lethal next turn" isn't always guaranteed lethal, and please, for the love of god, play around defile (and hellfire). If you're playing a slow deck, you need to hard remove their giants, reavers, and drakes before they start clowning on your face.
Control Lock: Control lock is like evenlock, except instead of having early giant/drake/hooked reaver, they run nether, and have better endgame in godfrey, voidlord, skull to cheat out voidlords, stonehill to get more voidlords, and gul'dan gets back voidlords instead of vulgar homunculi. Just play around their clears if you're aggro, their demonology projects and geist if you're combo, and their Rin if you're control, either by pressuring them so they don't have time to finish the seals, or by silencing/poly-ing/hexing the Rin. Poly/hex are also good vs the voidlords, because they keep them from coming back with Vampire Dan.
Zoo: Zoo is Zoo. They play small guys, then they run out of small guys, then they lifetap for more small guys. Use your sweepers judiciously, remember leeroy/doomguard/soulfire when you don't want to get lethal'd, and don't hero power their undamaged face because it lets them heal it with shroom brewer/voodoo doctor to enable their happy ghouls and lightwardens. Skulking Geist hits a lot of their cards, including soularium. Remember that they can heal their damaged guys, and they run fungalmancer, so don't let them get favorable trades by leaving guys up if you can help it.
Hunter
What hunter deck they're playing only matters until they play Deathstalker Rexxar. They're all the same after that.
The 2 most common hunter variants are: Deathrattle: This is a doozy. The deck centers around devilsaur eggs, with a variety of enablers: Keleseth, Carnivorous Cube, Terrorscale Stalker, and Play Dead. It might seem counterintuitive, but you often want to kill the egg yourself so they can't get more 5/5s off of it. That, or silence/polymorph it if you can. Remember to play around them cubing something, and then maybe even terrorscaling/playdeading the cube. They also run Kathrena, which can find them Highmane, Witchwood Grizzly, or King Krush, overwhelming you in the midgame.
Subject 9: They run Subject 9 with a bunch of secrets and the emerald spellstone. The spellstone is a big tempo play if you don't have a sweeper for it. They play the following secrets:
Face attack trigger: -Explosive Trap -Wandering Monster
Both: -Freezing Trap
Other: -Rat Trap
To play around the traps: 1: Remember that attacking face on an empty board is optional. 2: If you're attacking with multiple minions in one turn, try to optimize the sequence to play around or test for traps. 3: Mentally note which traps you've tested for, and which could be remaining. 4: If you have a boardclear, try to set off as many traps as possible before you go for it.
Tier 2:
Rogway
Mainly, there's 2 rogue decks: Odd: Most of their cards suck, but their hero power is busted. It's an insane tempo tool that let's them shred your board for cheap and get ahead. Control decks have it easy in this matchup because a lot of the time, their side of the board is empty, reducing it from being bananas to being just steady shot. If you're playing control, just try to blow everything you can on their early threats: they run out of gas quick, and you have to stabilize at a comfortable life total or they'll be able to burn you out later. Regardless of what deck you play, try to get the hench-clan thugs off the board as soon as possible because they keep growing, and keep in mind that they can cold blood or fungalmancer their guys to get better trades.
Academic Espionage: This is an interesting deck that runs augmented elekk with academic espionage and fal'dorei strider to shuffle all sorts of nasty stuff into its deck. It also runs Myra's unstable element to draw a bunch of cards. It's really difficult to attrition, especially without a DK of some sort, but I imagine you can bumrush it down pretty quick if you're aggro.
You may also see quest rogue at or near legend, but that's pretty rare.
Priest
There's mostly just 1 priest deck on ladder: Cloning Gallery: This deck run's Zerek's Cloning Gallery with Malygos, Velenn, and Mind Blast. Their 2 plans are otking you with mind blast/holy smite and malygos+velenn that they get off of either the gallery, or from resurrection via spellstones/eternal servitude, and outvaluing you with resurrecting fatties with spellstone/servitude and lyra cards. The good news is that, if you're fast, you can often kill them first. Just remember psychic scream on 7.
If you're unfortunate enough to be a control deck, try to hex/polymorph their big boys so they can't resurrect them.
Pal
There's one paladin deck for each hero power upgrader: Even: Just play around Tarim and equality clears I guess? Maybe clear their recruits so they can't lightfused stegodon? They run Blessing of Kings and Spikeridged Steed, so keeping board clear helps. There's really not much to say about this deck, it's just a dumb aggro/midrange deck that runs out of gas eventually. Odd: Unlike even paladin, this deck is a nightmare for control players. Their hero power lets them flood the board without spending any cards, they can draw a bunch with divine favor, and a board of **** 1/1s that they spend zero cards to create is still a must-blow-a-sweeper threat thanks to level up. Try to keep your handsize down so they can't divine favor, and trade off their recruits so they can't get too good of a level up. Also, try not to get ruined too badly by fungalmancer.
Shah-Man
If you don't see Genn pop out of their deck at the beginning, you're in for some shudders.
Even: This matchup is all about board control. Kill every minion they play. Flametongue totem, dire wolf alpha, and sea giant all make it a bad idea to leave their **** little totems up. Never stop trading. Oh yeah, and remember that they have Hagatha on 8 I guess.
Shudderwock: Basically, they play grumble, saronite chain-gang, and lifedrinker, then, they shudderwock. This causes shudderwock to copy itself off of chain-gang, then add a 1 mana copy to the hand with grumble, and drain you for 3 in the process. They can play 10 of these 1 mana shudderwocks in 1 turn, dealing 30 damage to you and killing you. So, what can you do about it? Well, kill them for one. They have to draw several specific cards before shudderwock becomes otk-capable. If you can kill them first, they can't do it. Remember that they have healing rain though, so "lethal over 2 turns" is not always what it seems. You can also stop them from drawing cards. Kill their mana tides and silence their acolytes of pain. This will buy you more time to punch them in the face, and you don't really have to be afraid of them killing you fairly, so you can afford to blow your removal on the card draw that constitutes their actual win condition. Every card draw you prevent is a time walk for you. You can also just hope they fizzle. If they play 2 chain gangs, there's a 1/3 chance that the grumble trigger will go off before either of the chain gangs, and their shudderwock won't bounce itself. Then, if you can clean up the aftermath, you can just let them fatigue. This method is, of course, not recommended as a "plan A".
Tier 3:
Battle Man
If you see a warrior, it's odd warrior.
Odd: Odd warrior plays Baku to get tank up, uses reckless flurry, shield slam, supercollider, and brawl to control board, then outvalues its opponents late with omega assembly, Elise, Direhorn Hatchling, and Doctor Boom. Its weakness is anything that can develop repeatable or resilient board presence. Gaining 4 armor a turn isn't enough when the opponent has a constant board that's just punching you in the face every turn for more than that. If the opponent has to spend a bunch of cards to generate such a board, they get ruined by brawl and reckless flurry, but if they generate the board in a way that doesn't cost them cards, through a hero power or cards that replace themselves, or in a way that can't be swept, because the creatures have deathrattles that make more creatures, warrior just can't deal. If you're a slower deck, you want to avoid drawing too much, silence or polymorph their direhorns so they can't get more cards in fatigue, and play geist ASAP if you have it to rip their shield slams and omega assemblies. When you mulligan, mull for geist and death knights, they're the most important cards by far.
Wizard
Nobody plays mage anymore. I haven't seen a tempo mage deck on ladder in, like days, and I think I've seen one mirror in my entire climb to legend.
"So Cato, you brilliant, shining star of insight, what deck are YOU playing this season?" Well, I'm glad you asked.
DA DECK
Spoiler
### Big Girldick # Class: Mage # Format: Standard # Year of the Raven # # 1x (1) Arcane Artificer # 2x (2) Plated Beetle # 2x (2) Raven Familiar # 1x (3) Gluttonous Ooze # 2x (3) Stonehill Defender # 1x (3) Voodoo Doll # 2x (4) Bright-Eyed Scout # 2x (4) Polymorph # 2x (5) Arcane Tyrant # 2x (5) Dragon's Fury # 1x (5) Rotten Applebaum # 2x (6) Blizzard # 2x (6) Meteor # 1x (6) Skulking Geist # 2x (7) Astromancer # 1x (7) Flamestrike # 1x (8) Primordial Drake # 1x (8) Sindragosa # 1x (8) The Lich King # 1x (9) Frost Lich Jaina # AAECAf0ECuwH08UCyccCoM4Cws4Cm9MC8tMCluQCt/ECxfMCCk3JA4jBApvCApbHAtvTAtXhAtfhAurmAsP4AgA= # # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
I got the original list from Thijs like 2 months ago, but I made a bunch of changes since.
The deck is pretty powerful in the current meta.
Against aggro, you just play your dumb cantrips turns 2-4 just to slow them down a bit so you're not completely run over, then drop a sweeper on turn 5 or 6. You have 6 different sweepers in the deck, and raven and bright-eyed to help you dig for them. Anyways, after you cleared them and they re-develop, you just clear them again. Eventually, they'll run out of gas and start having weak turns, and then you can drop some kind of bomb and they'll never get back on the board with, like, playing a topdecked 2 drop every turn.
Against the decks that you need to pressure (shudderwock, warrior, druid) you're also great. You play a bunch of your cantrips to develop a board without spending any cards, then you can make all kinds of high-impact proactive plays. Astromancer-ing a King Krush or a Tirion is great, but astromancering an Ozruk or a Seaforium bomber is still two 5/5s that they have to deal with. Sindragosa, Lich King, and whatever big-ass taunt you pulled off of stonehill also let you make proactive threats, so you aren't a complete sitting duck to those sorts of decks the way the older, attrition-based big mage decks were.
And all of this leaves out Jaina. Beautiful, beautiful Jaina. Does your opponent have a 1/2 elemental token and a 4/3 damaged minion that you kill by playing blizzard an pinging it? That turn's ****, dude. That turn sucks ass. But with Jaina, suddenly that turn becomes amazing. Jaina literally does everything. Is your opponent out-valuing you? No. Is your opponent beating you in tempo because over half your deck costs 5+? Not anymore. Is your opponent threatening to burn you out despite your overwhelming card and board advantage? Get outta here. Jaina puts you ahead in every metric, and if you aren't ridiculously far behind on the turn you play her, it's very difficult to lose. Play her as soon as your opponent doesn't have a must-answer-this-turn board. Set up your preceding turns so that you can cast her on curve, no matter how much value you have to spew to do it.
Some general advice: Mulligans: keep anything that costs 2-4. If you're playing against a deck that can't kill you before you get Jaina, keep Jaina. If you're playing against priest, druid or warrior, keep Geist. If you aren't, keep dragon's fury. If you're playing against priest, warrior, or warlock, keep polymorph. If you're playing against paladin, keep blizzard. Never keep artificer, you don't want to play it until at least turn 7.
Keep track of what spells you've drawn/played. This tells you what your dragon's fury can roll, and what your raven can draw (or not draw).
Some boards can be cleared equally well with multiple different sweepers. Save the one that you think will be the most useful later. Dragon's fury is generally the strongest, but if you're playing a slow matchup where you're usually ahead on board, or you may reach fatigue and find it to be a dead card, blow it first. Meteor is more or less useful depending on whether your opponent's deck goes big or wide. Blizzard is mostly useful in tandem with other sweepers. It says it does 2 damage, but it actually does 2 + the damage of the dragon's fury that you were going to use on their new guys next turn anyways.
Dragon's fury is often a nether. If you can afford to, try to use it the turn before you make a big proactive play like astromancer, lich king, or Jaina, choosing to make weaker plays on the earlier turns instead, like applebaum or stonehill + ping. You can afford to take a bit of damage from falling behind sometimes, and their stuff will all die the turn you dragon's fury anyways.
You rarely want to coin out a 2 or a 3 drop. It's often best to save coin for an early first sweeper against aggro, or a turn 8 jaina.
In slow matchups, it can be worth it to hold cards you have the mana for just to make your astromancer bigger. You can also sandbag your astromancer for after you've played lich king or Sindragosa, both of whom boost your hand size.
Save ooze against druid that hasn't proved it doesn't run twig yet, any warlock that isn't zoo or evenlock, warrior, and, if you can, paladin. Especially for vinecleaver against odd paladin, that's worth infinitely more than eating a 2 damage hammer charge.
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