Now that Saviors of Uldum has been released, we see a new meta take form. This meta is likely to rapidly change over the next few weeks, but its not a bad idea to take a look at the current decks for inspiration on making new decks. Everyone’s going to at least try to make the new cards work in the Saviors of Uldum Week 1 meta.
The Popular
Quests had the most hype attached to their name coming into the set. The top three most played archetypes right now are all Quest decks.
The first of those is Quest Shaman. While doubling up on Battlecries is a powerful effect, the deck isn’t winning through that value but more so through burn. Most cases where the Shaman is winning is by continuously using Lifedrinker’s Battlecry with Bog Slosher and Shudderwock. Overall the archetype sits around a 50 percent win rate as players try to find a way to win against decks that have life gain and more value.
Then is Quest Rogue. This deck is performing a little worse because it is likely most players are using sub-optimal lists for now. The Quest reward isn’t that powerful and might not be worth running at all. What we have found out so far is that Clever Disguise is quite a solid card, along with Pharaoh Cat. The Quest and Bazaar Mugger will likely be later cut for cards that play for better tempo.
Last of the most popular Quests is Druid. This isn’t to say the other Quests haven’t seen play, they are just not very popular. This archetype is also sitting around a 50 percent win rate. There could be a multitude of factors at work for this to be the case. One is sub-optimal lists, then sub-optimal play, and lastly is that forgoing four mana in the early game could just be bad.
What we do know about the Druid Quest is that Oasis Surger is quite strong post Quest completion. Anubisath Defender is also a very good card that can see play in non-Quest decks. Overall, this deck lacks game against very aggressive and very controlling decks however.
The Best Performers
Control Warrior has been eating most of the new decks alive because they can’t out-value them or play strong enough for the late game. It’s currently the highest win rate archetype thanks to this. Players have been experimenting a little bit with Restless Mummy replacing Militia Commander and the Warrior Taunt cards. What hasn’t changed is the fact that Dr. Boom, Mad Genius is the best card in the deck at all stages of the game.
In the early going Murloc Paladin is also very strong. Thanks to the combination of Prismatic Lens into Tip the Scales, Paladins create massive boards of Murlocs that cannot be cleared. Though when Paladins don’t hit Prismatic Lens, the deck tends to struggle hard. This polarizing dependence on a single draw seems a little unhealthy from a balance perspective.
Then we have Freeze Mage. This deck simply abuses the previously buffed Luna’s Pocket Galaxy. Though, King Phaoris and Tortollan Pilgrim were very nice additions to this archetype. Since the deck runs plenty of large spells, both of these cards slot in quite nicely, especially when costing only one mana. Any deck that isn’t aggro will get eaten up by this archetype.
Various Other Decks
Highlander Hunter looks pretty decent out of the gates. Both of the Highlander cards, Dinotamer Brann and Zephrys the Great, are two of the top performing cards in the deck. With this in mind, it seems worthwhile to play the archetype. There are still a lot of question marks surrounding what to fill out the deck with, but it is definitely going to run Zul’Jin and a fair amount of Spells. In versions that lean harder into the Secret Archetype, Hyena Alpha has been a fantastic card.
Highlander Mage doesn’t look half bad with the card restriction. Zephrys and Reno the Relicologist seem strong enough to want to squeeze into a Luna’s Pocket Galaxy deck so that’s what has happened. Again the core broken part of this deck is Luna’s Pocket Galaxy, which brings into question whether the archetype can actually improve on anything that Freeze Mage already does.
Then of course a lot of the archetypes from the previous meta are still pretty solid. We have Mech Hunter, Murloc Shaman, Zoo Warlock, and Bomb Warrior hanging out around the top.
Mech Hunter has zero new card inclusions, and is just the best aggro deck out there. Then Bomb Warrior is also running zero new cards but enjoying success in the new meta.
Murloc Shaman has added Murmy which seems to be a decent one drop, while Fishflinger has had much less success.
Zoo has gotten quite a few new cards which seems to have improved the archetype. However, they still get eaten up by Control Warriors even with the added tempo and value, so the deck remains in Limbo since it can’t beat that tier one deck.
Images courtesy Blizzard Entertainment via their official website.Â
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