The mini-set refreshed the meta – where to wear the Legend in Hearthstone in February?

Blizzard is very careful with map design

A little over a year ago, Blizzard released perhaps the most “unbalanced” update in HS history, which significantly increased the resource intensity of decks – “Descent of Dragons”. The appearance of Galakrond in the CCG (especially the shaman, robber and priest), as well as the Queen Alexstrasza, confused many players for a reason – too seriously these cards inflated the pace of games, and sometimes playing them automatically meant defeat for the opponent.

The developers realized the power of the cards quite late, but nevertheless they nerfed them (for some reason, the changes only bypassed the priest). In the outgoing year of Phoenix, the developers no longer made such mistakes. This can be seen from the power of the new legendary cards: in a year in Hearthstone there was not a single card that could compare with Zephris the Great or Queen Alexstrasza (before her nerf). Conventional “Jandis Barova”, “Thunderclin” or “Loremaster Polkelt” are good on their own, but they cannot win games alone.

Perhaps someone was waiting for the release of the mini-set precisely for the sake of the new “broken” legendary cards, but this did not happen. All new Legendaries cost five mana and although they have interesting effects, they are only auxiliary tools. Moreover, not one has become (and, I am convinced, will not become) an indispensable attribute of one or another deck. While the power of classes is determined by common, rare and epic cards, and the mini-set only confirmed this more strongly. So which classes look preferable to the rest now?

How to take the “Legend”

Before talking about the strongest classes, one should notice one simple (and for some, obvious) thing. Now in Hearthstone there is a situation where almost any deck has the right to life: you can play the druid with the “Clowns” and win seven out of ten games against the increasingly popular Quest Warlock, but at the same time losing eight out of ten meetings with the Zoollock is too much a lot depends on the matchup and the selection of the opponent, respectively.

Popular content makers sleep and see how to find some kind of unusual assembly, where rarely playing legendaries are collected. But in practice, more often than not, such decks will lose to archetypes that appeared at the beginning of the Phoenix Year and in which one or two cards were updated at most during this time. In a word, the strongest archetypes with the release of the mini-set have hardly changed, but some decks still received additional tools and are ready to break into the tops on HSReplay. Now more about the strongest classes.

After a string of nerfs to the Demon Hunter, Shaman and Rogue, the seemingly forgotten one has returned to the meta Face hunter… The archetype has not changed at all: if you played on such a hunter a year ago and did not dust anything, you can safely take your latest build – you will not lose, it does not use new cards. The deck contains only two legendary cards (“Dragonbane” and “Loremaster Polkelt”), which for many will make her a priority choice. You will only have problems with Control Priests and Pure Paladins.

The second highly viable class archetype is Highlander Hunter… Since the days of Scholomance, only the Rinling Rifle has turned out to be the only new Legendary, which can be easily replaced with something else. The deck is still designed for a competent mulligan and a timely drawing of secrets, which accounts for 90% of success: after losing the beginning of the game, it can be very difficult to return, especially after the nerf of “Lizard Tamer Brann”. The main thunderstorm of this deck is all the same paladins, but the robber can also cause problems.

Pure Paladin hasn’t changed much since the mini-set and is still the strongest midrange archetype in the game. From the new cards in the deck, you can use the “Manuscript of Justice” for an additional source of life, but in fact, you can easily do without it and play with what came out in early 2023.

But I received very strong support Duel Paladin: all thanks to only one card – “Barricade”. The archetype really lacked a strong move on fourth mana, and Barricade copes with this task perfectly, summoning (in almost 100% of cases) two creatures with a total of 4/8 characteristics – an incredibly strong move. Most likely, the number of decks in the ladder will increase in the near future.

Barricade, being a two-class spell, helped one more build – Big Warrior… The deck now has additional sources to defend against early aggression, and in the later stages of the game, few can compete with it. This is one of the strongest control decks in Hearthstone right now in my opinion. If you want to play the warrior, then there is no better choice now.

The robber also did not go anywhere. Yes, the class lost its strongest card (we are talking about nerfed “Edwin VanCleef”), but it did not become weaker from this at all. And the mini-set gave the opportunity to play again the archetype that many have forgotten – Rogue at arms… The new one-mana spell “Nitroyad” fits perfectly into decks with weapons and helps to unrealistically increase the pace of parties due to its low cost and the effect of corruption, which gives a buff to both minions and weapons. After the nerf of shamans, there are fewer technical cards against weapons in the ladder, and the more robbers there are in the game, the greater the chance that they will return. Other Rogue archetypes are also very good. You can still easily take the Legend and Agro Rogueand Rogue’s Secretand a robber with the “Spin Master”…

The last series of nerfs helped the Warlock a lot, and only the Rogue brings him the biggest problems. It seems to me, Zoo Is the strongest aggro deck in the meta, and if you want to play as Guldan, first of all you should take a closer look at this deck.

If you really want to burn your opponent cards with “Biletikus”, then it is quite possible to take a closer look at Control to Warlock… Recent nerfs have slowed the meta down quite a bit, so the classic Control Warlock is doing well. If you wish, you can put a new legendary card “Emissary of Rustyx” into the deck for more value in the late game – it will not be superfluous.

All other archetypes that are starting to gain in popularity have not yet proven their strength in the long run. Token Druid, Mage with “Great Duelist Mozaki”, Murloc Paladin and all other new builds can be extremely effective against some decks, but in the general spread of archetypes along the ladder they will hardly consistently win more than 50% of meetings.

And what are you taking “Legend” on? Which assemblies do you find the most promising? Tell us in the comments how you personally conquer the ladder and what you think about the mini-set!