Masters Tour Bucharest is the first Masters event to follow a Conquest format after having Specialist for most of the year. The meta is actually quite interesting, with all nine classes seeing a fair amount of play. Let’s see what’s popular and what’s having the most success.
Combo Priest is an easy go-to deck for a lot of players because of its early game-high roll potential. The deck has mostly performed as expected, but there have been enough Rogues present to keep its win rate in check.
The more interesting Priest deck in play is Resurrect Priest. Yoann “Hypno” Pfersich, Eddie “Eddie” Lui, Lo Tsz Kin “kin0531“, and Kim “che0nsu” Cheonsu are all 5-0 after the first day with Resurrect Priest in their lineups. The deck performs much better against control decks than Combo Priest, and also ruins OTK Paladins with Hakkar, the Soulflayer.
Shaman appears to be the top performer to this point. Whether players bring the aggressive Overload version or the Quest version of Shaman seems to be up to personal preference. Both decks get power from the Desert Hare plus Evolve combo, and have seen similar success.
The players with the most success aren’t playing just OTK Paladin, but other decks like Highlander and Mech Paladin. Highlander Paladin is able to play surprisingly aggressively for a deck with no duplicates.
Sir Finley of the Sands is typically able to accelerate the tempo of the game massively when it comes down early. Some players are playing a version with some secrets and Mysterious Challenger, but there are also versions without any secrets.
It might come as somewhat of a surprise that Rogue is the fourth most popular class. As we followed Grandmasters this last season, very few players brought Rogue. Though now we see Rogues with all these different late game plans.
Some Rogues are playing Heistbaron Togwaggle and Spirit of the Shark for a value game plan. Some Rogues are playing Chef Nomi to create an insurmountable board state. Other Rogues play neither and just try to kill their opponents with Leeroy Jenkins and Shadowstep.
There’s been a number of different Warrior lists that performed well through the first day. The most popular of those is a Control Warrior with N’zoth the Corruptor. There are still more differences within the N’zoth Warriors as well though.
The normal list looks to resurrect Khartut Defenders and Sylvanas Windrunner. Some hedge against other control decks with Archivist Elysiana. Some go really hard against the mirror with Emperor Thaurissan and Youthful Brewmaster to play multiple Elysianas.
Casper “Hunterace” Notto and Mihai “languagehacker” Dragali are running much leaner versions of the deck to beat aggro with no Archivist Elysiana. Then there’s Eddie, who’s running the multiple Elysiana combo and even Hakkar, The Soulflayer to beat OTK Paladin and Resurrect Priests.
We also see a couple of Highlander Warriors, trying to do what Highlander Paladin does but maybe a little less consistently. The high roll that Warriors can get though is potentially the best for all Highlander decks.
Most of the other classes have struggled overall, but some players are standing out from the crowd with these classes.
Damien “Yogg” L’Hostis is 4-1 with a Highlander Hunter in his line up. He’s playing a non-secret version that tries to express more pressure with minions like Faerie Dragon on the first couple turns.
Alan “Alan870806” Chiang is 5-0 with a Quest Druid in his lineup. A lot of decks are poised to beat Druids because of their strong early game, but Alan has faced a lot of Control lineups where his list with Jepetto Joybuzz has helped him out.
Hypno is 5-0 with a Highlander Rogue in his lineup. It’s an interesting deck as it tries to take some parts of Tempo Thief Rogue and add cards like Zephrys, Siamat, and Ragnaros the Firelord. We know Hypno is a player to watch out for as he finished second at Masters Tour Las Vegas.
With another day left of Swiss play, only half of these names at 5-0 and 4-1 will still be in contention. There are still 10 Grandmasters with four or more wins, so we could expect at least one of them to make it to the playoff rounds.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website.
You can like The Game Haus on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles from other TGH writers along with Gino!
Players must be 21 years of age or older or reach the minimum age for gambling in their respective state and located in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal. Please play responsibly. Bet with your head, not over it. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, and wants help, call or visit: (a) the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey at 1-800-Gambler or www.800gambler.org; or (b) Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-CALL-GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org.
