The Hearthstone Grandmasters Season 2 Week 4 meta comes right after a balance change to the Discover mechanic and a correction to how Elise the Elightened works. Despite these two changes, they did not impact the meta. However, we do see yet another large shift in the meta, mostly due to how the decks performed last week in Grandmasters.
Combo Priest Rises to Number One
Combo Priest in Week 3 really proved that its potential to just steamroll opponents in the early game makes it a top choice. The carousel of top dogs went from Control Warrior to Quest Druid and now to Combo Priest.
This deck can feast upon decks that lack early game presence with Northshire Cleric into buffs and damaged minions plus circle of healing. If a deck doesn’t have an immediate answer to Cleric, the card draw usually gets out of hand and gives the Priest enough options to set up lethal.
Even if Cleric does get taken out, Psychopomp could bring it back. High Priest Amet also demands an immediate answer, because no deck is really equipped to take out a full board of seven or more health minions. On top of all this, Bwonsamdi the Dead gives the deck one last push to find what it needs to kill the opponent.
Control Warrior and Quest Druid, Strong Secondary Options
The Discover changes definitely impact Control Warrior with cards like Omega Assembly and Frightened Flunky, but those cards being nerfed are not enough to stop Control Warrior from being good. Some players have decided to continue to run both of those cards, while others have just cut them completely from the deck.
Those cutting those cards have added in a second Plague of Wrath, and a Whirlwind to activate Plague of Wrath. They also opt to run double Weapons Project with Harrison Jones. With Dr. Boom being nerfed to nine mana, Weapons Project adds in that additional bit of temporary life gain needed to stall or active Shield Slams.
Quest Druid is strong and we know it, so it comes as no surprise that it continues to be one of the most represented decks. Though with the Quest Druid body, some players are running a Malygos Druid. This gives players a solid combo to work with when opposing decks are able to deal with all the board states that Quest Druid can normally provide.
This is also where the Elise the Enlightened change can be important, so you guarantee that you copy your Moonfires and Swipes. This is because Elise now copies cards from left to right instead of in a random order.
Quest Shaman and OTK Paladin Finish Out Most Lineups
Quest Shaman is a solid deck that has game against both aggressive decks and control decks. One of the the ways the deck can just win the game is an early Mogu Fleshshaper into mutate. Sometimes the player hits a very strong eight cost minion to which an opponent cannot answer.
One deck we see a very large uptick in popularity is with OTK Paladin. It’s a deck that can hold its own against pretty much everything with the right draw.
OTK Paladin is a combo deck that is mostly worried about just reaching its own win condition and doesn’t have to rely much on what the opponent does. It can struggle against decks with big life gain, but sometimes it just does 50 plus damage and its enough.
Low Representation Archetypes
Other decks that are present this week include Highlander Hunter and Highlander Mage. Hunter has gone down in popularity while some players are starting to renew their trust in Mage after the nerfs finally.
Murloc Shaman and Quest Paladin both make an appearance this week as well. They aren’t considered as strong as their classes best archetype, so are usually passed up on.
One unique deck we see this week is Mecha’thun Warlock. It’s a really risky pick, as it doesn’t quite have strong matchups against anything. It’s quite difficult to win with a deck that has to play all 30 cards in order to achieve said win.
Then once again Rogue is left in the dust. It just can’t compete in the current meta, but might still be better than trying something like Mecha’thun Warlock.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website and the PlayHearthstone twitch channel.
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