On April 7, the release of the first addition of the Phoenix year, Ruins of Outland, took place. With him, a tenth class appeared in Hearthstone – the demon hunter, which at first became the real scourge of the ladder, but after the first series of nerfs no longer looks so invincible. Cybersport.ru understands what they will play in Standard in the coming months and what fate awaits Illidan.
DH conquered the ladder on the first day
Illidan immediately captured the ladder: the winrate of its various assemblies exceeded 60% – other classes simply could not withstand the onslaught. The demon hunter has the fastest action: because of the Outcast mechanics, DH scrolled through the deck with lightning speed and got the necessary cards. The Skull Gul’dan card turned out to be especially strong, which on the right move for five mana not only got three cards, but also reduced their cost by 3. The robber smokes nervously aside.
Illidan
The most effective, of course, were DH agro-assemblies. Particularly well fit in the deck was Furious Foulwing, which can almost always be laid out without the cost of mana. A more complex and interesting archetype is OTK Illidan, which is built around the free legendary Prince Kael’thas card. However, it soon became clear that it was pointless to collect cards before the combination was made – it was easier to keep pace and constantly push. Players also experimented carefully with DH decks without duplicate cards, but the assemblies with Zephris and Queen Alexstrasza proved to be worse than standard ones, and almost all of them refused.
The crazy power of DH has not gone unnoticed by the developers. Already on April 8, Blizzard weakened four hero cards. The key nerf concerned the Skull of Gul’dan, which cost six mana. The developers also increased the cost of Captive Anteon and Piercing Glance, and reduced the strength of Aldrachian Blades to 2. mana
As accurately noted on one of the forums, after the nerfs DH ceased to resemble an invincible boss from an adventure – other decks had chances.
Who shows himself best after nerfs?
The demon hunters who filled the ladder immediately began to look for counter-decks. On paper, the most obvious counterweight to the new character is the priest. His assembly on the Resurrection (with only two “legendaries”!) So far feels really good, and every day the win rate is only growing.
However, the warlock shows himself much better than the priest, who has been extremely weak for the last few additions – except for Zoo Warlock, who was relatively good at low ranks. In the meta with DH, the warlock and Galacrond finally played. It’s all because of the new demons: many of them can turn over the game alone, so the fully pumped Galacrond of the warlock has become several times stronger. However, the key card of this class in the new meta is “Sacrifice Agreement” for 0 mana: the spell not only removes the annoying demons of the opponent, but also gives a heal. It is not for nothing that the community again started talking about the fact that this card should act only on allied demons: in the new metric, “Sacrificial Agreement” can become a key card.
Gul’dan
Galacrond Warlock is currently the best meta deck. She not only rebuffs Illidan, but can also stand up to any other class: the only obvious weakness is face decks. Therefore, do not be surprised if in a couple of days they discover a new ideal agro-assembly for hunters.
Big Druid is playing just as well now. This class received even more cards to accelerate the pace: it’s especially beautiful to look like “Riot of Nature”, which for four mana gives as many as two empty crystals – having quickly become buffed, a druid can start laying out both large creatures and spamming them with expensive spells that fill the table with tokens.
Out of habit, some continue to play on Galacrond the Rogue – the undisputed leader in the variation of games in the last meta. However, in “Outland Ruins” this class is not so good: its minions cannot withstand AoE sweeps, and the mechanics of stealth and secrets have not yet found the optimal builds. In a word, the robber is still interesting in terms of gameplay, but he has less victorious conditions. However, there will probably be interesting archetypes soon, so do not rush to abandon this class.
Valira Sanguinar
An unusual assembly for the magician is playing now – without creatures. New cards of this class initially made it clear that a pure Spell Mage will play: and while he plays quite successfully. Special thanks for this to the “Renault Stunning”, which was initially considered a “meme” card, but subsequently it became the main game changer. Add the “Yogg-Saron Puzzle” here, and you will understand why this class will always stagnate around 50% winrate.
What is especially pleasing is that the shaman came to life again. Before the Onslaught of Dragons, he destroyed the ladder, but in the penultimate addition he was so weakened that the class completely disappeared into oblivion. But it seems that shamanistic retribution is not far off: Thrall has added a new weapon, which acts by analogy with the infamous “Evolution”. The Desert Hare returned again, and the cards calling for the Galacrond made sense – there is someone to buff.
Who almost does not play?
The paladin and warrior now have the most problems. Not one of their assemblies wins in half of the matches.
It seemed that the paladin received new interesting mechanics with manuscripts, but in practice the gameplay is strongly tied to the legendary Lady Liadrin map, which copies the applied spells – without it, the paladin does not withstand the onslaught of rivals.
The warrior is even worse. Only the Warrior Pirate is relatively playable now, but he is unable to compete with the same warlock who simply has a lot of AoE. Most likely, we will see playable Garrosh in the next update.
Garrosh
What’s next?
To say that the meta has settled in the coming months, of course, is too early. But overall, the prospects are obvious: since the game has a lot of powerful demons, the warlock will have a place to roam. His builds with the Galacrond are very strong, but perhaps there will soon be some successful variations and a fluffy warlock.
Do not forget about the hunter. When there are all the counter-decks against Illidan, Face Hunter will not be long in coming: anyone, and this archetype will always be able to find himself, albeit not at the highest ranks.
If you have not yet decided who to play in the meta for – do not rush to craft something. It’s worth the wait a couple of weeks when the new archetypes play enough matches. In the meantime, you can experiment with the OTK Demon Hunter or try to tune your deck to the meta: do not forget about the classic set, many of which are likely to find themselves in the game. At least it seems that this is exactly what Blizzard wants to achieve.
Before the release of Outland Ruins, the developers talked a lot about the so-called class identity. For example, some standard priest cards, in their opinion, did not correspond to the essence of the character, which is why the game will no longer have the once-popular OTK Priest.
Anduin
The question is what “class identity” was meant for the demon hunter? The obvious answer is the Outcast mechanics, which at first glance look very unusual. However, in practice, on the first day, it became clear that this character is not very profitable to draw cards in his hand and think about the right combination in his sweat so that at the right time this “Outcast” is activated – it all comes down to simply playing cards.
But not a single “Outcast”: in fact, a demon hunter is something between all classes. Whether this is good is a rhetorical question; much more interesting how developers will deal with this.
Hearthstone game designers have already hinted that other new classes may appear in the CCI following Illidan. But how to balance them with the existing ones? Will they not duplicate each other and produce unnecessary entities? There is no answer to these questions yet – all that remains is to wait for feedback from the developers.
