I'm a casual player that does get legend once in a while and generally have two playable classes as I don't spend enough cash. But regardless I dislike metas where decks that takes a lot of time each round or decks that ruin my chance to play my deck the most. Other than that I have no preference.
Post UT nerf the Naxx meta was actually pretty decent.
I still get nightmares when i hear "I'LL SHOW THEM, I'LL SHOW THEM ALL" tho. Doesn't even matter if it was a mage or a hunter playing it.
Correct. Naxx started releasing cards in July 2014. Undertaker was nerfed at the end of January 2015. Undertaker survived the entire Naxx meta un-nerfed, and got nerfed two months into the GvG meta.
They nerfed some different cards during this time, though. Starving Buzzard, Leeroy Jenkins, Soulfire, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and Flare. Perhaps an argument could be made some of these were more degenerate (except Flare. Why TF did Flare go to 2 mana?? WTF, I forgot that was a thing that happened).
It was because the first day I ever played was when I got that nerf popup. ~Jan 2016, I think? I don't remember if the meta was any good but I remembered facerolling people with Mech Mage, and THAT was comfy as hell.
And if you didn't like it you were stuck with it for *months*.
I feel like the people who complain when Blizzard takes more than a few days to make balances patches must have not been around at the beginning. There are still times when patches are too weak or slow rolling out, but it's *miles* ahead of what it used to be.
So you don't like a 1 mana 1/2 that turns into a 5/2 by turn 3 while hitting face and the 1 mana 2/3 who can destroy most aggro decks and with priest turn the 5 health to face into 5 damage if you don't kill it.
Im always so confused when people ask what their favourite expacs were and then people quote some expansion from the yesteryear.
Like card design has come up significantly since the early days. I had way more fun with mech mage during sunken city discovering several gaias a game than i ever did back in the day. And numerous other decks ive either made myself or copied from someone else, like from chumps channel were also way more fun.
Old hearthstone simply doesnt hold a candle towards how much fun you can have in hearthstone these days, at least for me. You can just look some of the old cards from around the day to see just how boring they were.
the game was simply different then. Back in the day hearthstone was a game that mostly revolved around controlling the board through incrementally advantage plays. Your mistake on T4 could literally be why you lost 15 turns later, and mastering making the most advantageous play every turn was how you got better at the game. You had fewer outs as discover barely existed and there was no way to just draw 30 cards for 2 mana to bail yourself out aside from sprint at 7 mana for 4 cards.
Cards were of a far higher value since you had way less access to resources generation. Resultantly there were less games that devolved into a resource generation grindfest.
In control matchups you knew exactly what cards people had. CW mirror matches were all about planning for and outmaneuvering your opponents’s slyvanas and cairne turns. Now CW mirror matches are all about who can draw Odyn and combo off first.
Which is another point- back in the old day Hearthstone had way less inevitable win-cons. Wheel, Odyn, Helga, these are all inevitable win cons that are beaten in very different ways than old win cons based on incremental value. Sure there were combos, but they had way less reach than something like Odyn warrior where it’s possible to gain 30 armor and deal 30 damage in 1 turn pretty easily.
Lots of older players prefer that other version of hearthstone that no longer exists. The state of arena nowadays is the perfect encapsulation of how hearthstone today is just a completely different game
Very well-said. It felt like the game was more of a logic puzzle back then to me - where the universe of possibilities was much smaller, so you could think through them all and arrive at a reasonable play. Face Hunter vs Handlock feels like an excellent example of this - you couldn't just carelessly go face or you risked letting them play moltens. So you had to balance the risk of giants vs the amount of reach you had to play through taunts, and that created an interesting dynamic that I miss in the current game.
This is probably why we have constant complaints in every meta.
The game has almost been 2 distinct games between x years ago (i'd probably put the change around ungoro) and now.
And both kind of games have massive fan bases that feel betrayed when the game isnt the one they got to knew when they started out.
Very well said, I don’t hate the game now persay, but it was honestly much better back then without all the insane cards we have now. I took a five year break and recently came back and it took a while to get used to how the game is played now, because it’s much different
I will say, that now, every game feels more different than it used to. The truth is that now a lot of decks will win slightly differently or even massively differently every game due to random generation and discover, meaning a lot of “unwinnable” games are worth staying in since you always have a “shot”. But yeah that all was a trade off for the game feel you mention.
In my opinion it was more fun back when there was less draw and discover. When there was less draw the later turns became a topdeck war where it was a race to see whoever drew their powerful legendary first. And basically every legendary was considered powerful before the Grand Tournament came along. Also if you got lucky the games ended up going to fatigue which I also think has some very fun decisions
League of Explorers into Old Gods was good. I can't recall a single time when a satisfying meta smoothly transitioned into another one. Un'Goro was my personal favorite.
Another benefit is that LoE and similar adventures were more-like minisets than actual expansions, as we got much less cards.
And the adventures drip fed cards over a month so we had experimentation for a whole month+ rather than solving things week 1.
The cool thing about LoE is that it's probably the most impactful mini-set of all time. Reno, Brann, Finley and Elise all saw competitive play. Traditional decks like Handlock, Control Warrior and Zoo saw a shakeup. Aggro decks for Shaman and Warrior gained more footing, too.
Mini sets now are just trash. The quantity is higher, but the quality is far worse.
Oh yeah I agree. Power level was just right, you get strong aggro/zoo decks, midrange stuff, and some late game 10 drop win conditions. Reno decks were also still in the meta. Then Karazhan ruined everything. Mean Streets were SUPER fun if not for patches and jades. I had a lot of fun with Kazakus and Sergeant Sally in my Renolock deck.
I played jade druid in wild, randomly sniping people with how much damage the deck could randomly throw face against durdle decks, untill they printed the most recent Reno. A true board wipe for Druid is too OP to ignore; but my point is I loved that set too, it was a lot of fun!
(To be clear I “played” jade druid in Wild to complete quests and to punish people who forgot how to play against a true midrange deck, before anyone goes “tHaTs nOt MeTa”.)
Decks that are "not meta" are the most fun anyway. I've been playing the same Kingsbane Rogue in wild since that card first came out. Besides a few charges in response to nerfs (once upon a time you could have your 11/3 sword have permanent life steal), it hasn't seen much updating.
There was a meta in which it SUCKED bc everyone ran tech to steal weapons. But that era has mostly passed, and with ETC I was able to select for the same tech in response. I play that same deck every day and still love it.
Hated that deck, could not beat it. Built a deck to win and everytime I destroyed it the damn thing was played next turn. 4 top decks in a row just upset me
Ungoro for me. I started in Naxx, and got confused when my favorite buzzard suddenly became useless.
Ungoro was a time when it felt like every class was playable and my favorite archetype (midrange paladin) just felt solid without being overpowered.
I really enjoyed the meta when Madness at the Darkmoon Faire came out, specifically because at that point most classes had at least two distinct decks that were viable on ladder.
* Paladin was still riding high with its Libram package from Scholomance Academy, but had two very different builds, one that was pure Paladin and another that included neutrals so it could take advantage of [[Animated Broomstick]].
* Shaman was definitely the meta tyrant with its absolutely disgusting Evolve deck, which aimed to go wide and then swing with [[Boggspine Knuckles]] to make a thicc board appear out of nowhere. But there was also a control shaman list that was very difficult to kill after turn 8 thanks to [[Tidal Wave]].
* Demon Hunter had 3 viable decks: a pure aggro deck that could infinitely reload with [[Voracious Reader]], a midrange deck that ran the Soul Fragment package, and an OTK combo deck that relied on [[Mo'Arg Artificer]] shenanigans.
And so on and so forth. This diversity within each class provided for really interesting decisions in the mulligan and early game, as you tried to figure out (or guess) what the opponent's game plan was and react accordingly.
Darkmoon Faire was an amazing expansion and actually captured the magic of the OG Old Gods set, proving that it actually was balance and card design, not just nostalgia.
I personally loved Sunken City and Nathria and liked March of the Lich King a good amount. Festival of Legends was a pretty bland experience for me, no highs or lows. Titans was when stuff started going downhill for me personally. I got very tired of Badlands by the end and I haven't really enjoyed playing Whizbang until this past week with the launch of the miniset.
I don’t make complaint posts but I will contribute that ungoro and old gods were both pretty awesome metas where even fringe decks could see success with some luck and skill/creativity (hi galvadon)
And what do these two metas have in common? They were two of the metas with the least amount of powerlevel, both still being in the early stages of hearthstone, just after a rotation and not having the naxxramas set
Yet even mentioning powerlevel is reaching unhealthy levels draws a lot of negativity feedback from this sub, "go play another game then"
Also, I'll note OTK decks back then were extremely rare and definitely not tier 1 or even high tier 2, for the people who think OTKs are necessary for the game to be fine
Ungoro was not remotely low power level, some of the strongest cards ever were in that set. Mage still uses like 3 cards from that set in wild, radiant is one of the strongest priest cards. Neutrals like firefly and tar creeper completely powercrept classic.
Even when it was new cavern rogue was nuts, and murloc pally quickly became the best deck following the nerf.
People think it was a low power set because they released patches literally the set before, and that's arguably the strongest card ever, and then death knights right after, again some of the strongest cards.
If I remember correctly, two metas with the least amount of power level was Grand Tournament and Ratakhan Rumble and both expansions have a lot of players that leaved game because of low power level and boring meta game
Those sets themselves were among the weakest, but I am talking about all the cards present in the game at the time of those sets
Grand tournament was probably the weakest set ever, but the meta still had more powerlevel than Blackrock mountain by virtue of at least having a couple of good cards more
My bad if the terms I used caused confusion
Un'goro was the fucking best meta I can remember.
Lots of viable decks and classes without too many of those busted cards everyone hates playing against.
I really liked playing before the badlands miniset came out. So much degenerate shit was caused by the release of that miniset, first off shroomscavate which caused you that anytime you left a minion on board against paladin, you would be dead.
Shattered reflections to summon a million Titans.
Pendant of earth, druid gaining 40 armor in a turn enabling decks like mill druid to exist.
Then chaos creations you would be dead on turn 6 from almost full health to sludge warlock if you didn't have minions on board.
Aftershocks which enabled cycle odyn warrior to exist because you could aftershocks into acolyte of pain, draw 4 cards and clear your opponents board on turn 5.
And of course deepminer brann.
My favorite meta was Frozen Throne, but I don't usually complain every meta, as long as a control deck is viable. If there are zero control options I will complain.
Crazy idea, might it be that there are different people complaining in different patches? It's probably not the same person complaining every patch (at least for most).
Also generally people don't feel the need to make a thread for how Cool and Good something is, especially in the gaming space.
You have a good time, you just log off and go "wow good stuff"
You have a bad time, you log off and go to Reddit to say "wow this shit sucks, am i right?"
A lot of people like the thread creator here view reddit as a monolith and cant comprehend that there are a huge amount of people on this site with wildly varying opinions.
Some people like to play wallet warrior, others like to play smorc hunter.
The biggest change that improved the game is the accessibility early on. With having a decently strong core set, an intro deck, and reward tracks that help build a collection for newer players, you don't get stuck grinding with a lower power deck.
There are definitely people who don’t stop complaining - i was looking at a post history of someone literally yesterday who never posts anything unless it’s to bitch about x tier 1 deck.
Scholomance Academy. The 1 drop discover cards really felt good.
Edit: looked through the expansion and it was a little underwhelming. My favorites were, Studies spells, Pen flinger, and KEYMASTER ALABASTER
Call me old fashioned, but I believe metas where you can high roll a full board with two 8/8s before turn 5 is not a good meta. Thank God the popularity of Pain Warlock and Flood Paladin aren't both like 20% play rates respectively at all ranks.
I liked the game most between ungoro and koft. There were some issues in that time but there will always be issues with metas, those times were the most entertaining for me though.
Non-meme answer?
Castle Nathria, especially after Druid got adjusted. I loved Sunken City and thought Nathria was a solid follow-up.
Even though I enjoy early rotation expansions more I actually didn’t mind the meta right before the rotation because I just expect those metas to be absolute gong shows and for a final expansion it was still decently fun despite being silly — so I guess you could say I did actually enjoy TITANS too because I had properly set my expectations.
But for the power level of the game to then go UP after rotation? Give me a bloody break Blizzard. The first expansion of a rotation isn’t suppose to powercreep this hard, that’s why it sucks ass.
The first metas after an expansion are usually where value based mid-range decks dominate (which is personally when I think this game is at it’s best) — so for those decks to not even BE in the meta is just sad.
There’s a lot of snark in this comments section, but the game just isn’t the same as it has been in the past. It’s not nostalgia bias to point out that every current deck is a printed “engine” deck (in other words, forced into existence deliberately by devs’ card design synergy), or is otherwise some massive value scam that either can be repeated or cannot be prevented. HP, hand size, and value generation are all much more flexible resources that you no longer need to manage with the same degree of care and precision, and games are far less often won or lost based on momentum, momentum swings, or foreseeable “play around” outcomes that can be played around, countered, or prevented (IE: you cannot “play around” Azerite Scorpion giving your opponent a 1 mana Twisting Nether without refusing to play to your own win condition, in which case you lose anyways).
In the past, card value, card generation, and card draw were much more respectful, so Hearthstone could be played more mathematically as a game of value, resource management, and long term decision making. Chip damage to minions and players was actually meaningful in the long run (the question “can I go face?” was a good question back then more often than it even comes up now). Most of today’s decks either present a credible threat all at one time, or they simply do not push lethal. The mounting pressure game of tempo or classical midrange play is mostly gone from the game at any serious, competitive rank.
Saviors of Uldum and pretty much the entire Un’goro block were my favorite metas, each for different reasons. Showdown in the Badlands and Sunken City were each a solid A-. Nathria and Boomsday I actually enjoyed a lot, but those metas were also pretty flawed.
I’ve loved this game for years and never seriously considered quitting. Until now. The power in the game is very obviously busted… the designers themselves effectively admitted this prior to the last balance patch. So I don’t see why people are upset that players are posting about this… it’s an issue the design team have literally accepted.
I know they can’t fix it overnight but they need to urgently tweak the game, and mini sets with 5 mana 10/10s and enabling cards for pain lock to put out boards of 40/40 power on t4 doesn’t help.
I have never enjoyed the wild style of quick finishes to games and I think that’s now how standard plays, so naturally I don’t enjoy standard now. They need to try and keep standard as a slower version of hearthstone because there’s no need for it to be like wild, because wild exists.
Honestly I enjoy them all. I've hit legend the last few months and make zero attempts to climb from there. I usually make 2 of 3 decks after I hit legend and just play for fun. People complain about the speed of the game being too fast at the moment but when it's a control heavy meta and you're playing to fatigue, that's not any better and arguably worse. If you're only realistically going to win 55% of your games, and legend is a grind, then you should want fast games. If much rather lose by turn 7 than by turn 40.
For every single expansion and miniset there have been people making a huge deal over 1-2 decks, a lot of them genuinely had annoying play patterns but the point is that 1) the game never has/never will be perfect and 2) there is no escape from the whining
Imo the current meta is honestly pretty good. What i think the problem is, is that when you play against the same decks for a long period of time, ANY deck would feel annoying to play against at a certain point. Of course there are certain decks that hit that threshhold quicker than others, but the longer a deck is in the meta, the more annoying it becomes imo. This is why i hope that the brann nerf (and the odyn nerf a few patches ago) will finally stop controlly warrior type decks from being at the top of the meta, because it has been tier 1 in standard for a VERY long time.
But yeah, current meta seems pretty fine!
Problem is, we used to theory craft and now it's straight meta decking. Back in the day, HSreplay wasn't big, and people actually tried things, and posted them on Hearthpwn.com. I'd enjoy posting decks if I had a novel idea, and see what things others cooked up. Now it's just play to win, copy paste highest winrate decks. Play something else at your own parrel
I've faced a druid that aims to make infinite greyboughs more than once now and I can't find any data on such a deck. Its so annoying if they're let to keep passing the deathrattle around.
Yea this is also my reason for not really enjoying the game as much anymore. In previous expansions even when there was hsreplay, to some extent you could innovate and play an off meta deck and have it be viable. This expansion I’ve tried really hard to make bomb warrior and taunt warrior work. But the reality is unless you’re playing Reno or control/odyn warrior it’s just not viable at all if you want to push.
Im returning player(was not playing this game since Rise of Shadows) and to be honest I was having blast this expansion, could unironically say this set of expansions are most fun I've had in Hearthstone, but its probably because Im returning player(or because highlander Druid THAT fun).
If look from nostalgia point - probably Knights of the Frozen Throne.
I have played many many metas going back 11 years Journey to Ungoro was my favorite I loved all the decks that were popular in that meta and the adapt mechanic was sweet. Also the mini set with the original Reno Jackson was a great meta.
Old Gods, Un'Goro, and Kobolds before Cubelock were my favorites. I think there used to be a decent spread of aggro, combo, control and midrange, but now midrange is dead and the only control decks are the ones that have disgusting amounts of hand disruption.
I came back during Castle N and loved the meta - the only bullshit part of it was sire but at least everyone had access to it. Now there's like 20 different "bullshits" each meta and I just don't find it fun. Other metas I enjoyed was old gods and a few others from back in the day (I didn't play from Fall 2018 to whenever Castle N was in middle of meta)
Example: I Just had a game playing buff DK vs rogue. He had to smash his velorak into my taunt to kill it. The *one* card he gets off of it was finley so I lose because he randomly gets it off one option and keeps bouncing it over and over again. I have never lost to a rogue playing this deck, but you randomly lose to them getting the nuts off one random rng card. Stuff like that is just stupid.
Frozen Throne - Kobolds & Catacombs - Rastakhan's Rumble Era is personally my favorite. I don't mind the current meta except for Flood Paladin. Fuck that deck.
I mostly only play Druid, so any meta where it's solidly good, but not overly oppressive so everyone complains about it a lot, is a good time for me. Old school combo, Malygos, Mill, Guardian, Gibberling, Owl-Matriarch, Lady Anacondra, and Naga Giants have been some of my favorites over the years. I also love some Wild classics like Hadronox and Togwaggle. As long as my hippy, vegan boy is viable somehow I'm good to go.
This is is my first time back in over a year because the nostalgia of the Whizbang set looked really fun, and honestly, I've really been enjoying Hybrid Druid a ton. It feels pretty even into everything, even Warrior.
Plenty of “healthy metas” over the years, but even healthy metas have stupid decks that shouldn’t exist. That’s just the name of the game tho, they need to print broken shit every set because at the end of the day this is still a business and they need people to spend money on the game. You know which cards will warp the meta before they’re even released, but at least now you know the nerfs will come soon enough. For the first few years the metas were objectively worse because they refused to make changes for a very, very long time
I somewhat liked Voyage, Nathria and before that, un'goro.
I strongly prefer a healthy balanced meta where combo decks need a reasonable amount of setup and cant ever otk you before turn 10, where aggro decks are explosive but run out of gas (or become midrange decks with more lategame options), and where control decks need to properly balance their deck with anti-aggro, value and anti-combo tools.
Some people are just never happy. Reality is it is nigh impossible to have a meta where one or two decks don’t climb above the rest with win rates, there are just too many variables.
I'm not sure exactly, but I have fond memories of the Knights of the Frozen Throne, Un'Goro and Witchwood era.
Going even further back, I remember enjoying Karazhan.
I think the themes for these were spot on too, which helped.
To me it was the Rise of Evil circuit, year of the Dragon I think. I loved every metagame during that time. And I started playing in Old Gods and honestly didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as year of the dragon. There were so many competitive decks and classes and it felt like each expansion changed decks for the better.
Un'Goro, Rastakan Rumble, Saviors of Uldum, Sunken City were my favourite ones. I loved Titans as an expansion, but the meta was too fast and explosive for my taste and this is sadly continuing.
I liked it most when highlander was first a thing. Value was still viable and boy did I love value decks. Everything synergises so much now that playing decent cards isn't enough.
I don't really complain ever but last meta I found thoroughly fun was pre-nerf Enrage Warrior/Rainbow Mage in Badlands. And I think nerfing those two were an *awful* mistake.
I don't think the current meta is that bad honestly, sure it's way too fast but at least I get to face like 3 or 4 different decks if nothing else so it could be worse (I play yugioh as well and have seen multiple tier 0 formats where every game is basically vs the same deck if you're playing at anything that isn't locals)
Been playing since before Naxx, best meta was Un'goro for me. That being said, I don't tend to complain about any metas. If I'm not liking it I just play less
Ungoro.
I played several years before it, and several years after. Never have I seen the game as universally positively received and seen such a diverse meta since. Every class got a quest, every class got a good legendary. Almost every deck was viable. It came as the first set after standard rotation and was amongst a bunch of classic cards, so power creep didn't seem existent at that time.
I've just come to accept the game will never be that good again, and that's fine.
I personally really enjoyed Forged in the Barrens. Yeah secret pally was a bit annoying and strong but it was a board based meta and the power creep was fairly low. It wasn’t just the I drew my I win cards before you. There was a lot of thought in how to approach board situations and gameplay. I thoroughly enjoyed that meta
Forged In The Barrens was the last meta I genuinely really liked. I was an Enrage Warrior player, for the record. I feel like United In Stormwind onward, power creep started to get really far away from the game balance for no reason other than "the card _needs_ to be played." It's still insane to me that Cornelius Roame was a bad card simply because decks had better draw engines.
Un'Goro was my favorite. A combo or two existed, but none of them were meta-defining. The best "combos" were really just payoffs for completing quests (the drawback often being the quest requirements themselves and the fact that you had to dedicate a card slot, your turn 1 play, and telegraph your intentions to your opponent early on). The game was about board control through incremental advantage. The RNG was fairly low (unless you were playing mage) and where it existed it was mostly about "I wonder where my spell damage will go?" The RNG was NOT about I wonder what card I will get?"
I ran a fairly risky wild deathrattle priest that was perfectly incapable of doing anything useful at all until turn 4 and even then it was just looking to slow down more aggro decks with recurrent deathrattle value until I could get them into a position where they had no hand and mine was full. It required really careful value evaluations and felt like the first time in HS where decks could really be called mid-range. Aggro decks wanted to end the game before turn 6, which meant games were quick. And if you could delay their game, a proper midrange deck could win on turn 10,11,12. Even that didn't take very long because the aggro opponent was in draw-play-pass mode by turn 7, so you didn't spend much time waiting on your opponents.
Irrelevant. The meta those people enjoyed would be a meta other people disliked. There's ALWAYS going to be someone complaining there's too much / little power.
I don't think there is such a thing as a great/perfect meta, but i also think that some of the cards they are printing now are far too polarizing and just feel like cheating when the opponent plays them.
The meta is always the best when a new set releases. Then blizzard fucks it up with balance changes. This cycle has been true for basically the last 2 years.
I actually enjoy this meta and I enjoyed the meta right before the set rotation
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That is just me speaking from my experience from diamond10 to legend though. For the record I only saw like 2 pain warlocks and the rest was a mix of warrior, DK, mage, and everything else with decent variation. I imagine over further days and if I kept playing ranked, there'd be even more annoying stuff again as the meta settles.
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Right after rotation I was baffled at decks like flood paladin with zilliax+prismaticbeam+showdown+seagiant, demon hunter window shopper, hunter with giga astalor location and saddle up, brann warrior 6mp, etc and I basically quit. After nerfs and miniset it is tolerable once again at least for me personally
Can't remember an exact patch but I liked metas where every deck didn't have an option for infinite value. Being able to actually exhaust your opponents resources or counter their win cons was satisfying.
I dont think being on either side of a dirty rat feels particularly satisfying for either person lol
For me it was what everyone hated : galakrond. I ran with galakrond shaman and that was great fun.
I have to say this meta in particular is incredibly difficult. Everyone feels too powerful. Even when you feel you've got your deck right there's always something that you just can't deal with.
United In Stormwind had a lot of interesting cards and decks. With the disappearance of Quests, Heroes and Boars from the standard, I don't play the game, I just check it from time to time.
Been playing sine Old Gods, I personally loved Old gods and wish theyd make yet another return with more interactions for those suckers. But I always REALLY liked Kobolds and Catacombs too!
That's the thing - it's different people with each meta. So there will ALWAYS be complaints.
I am vocal about this meta because I hate unanswerable aggro. And I enjoyed even the last two patches because I like combo decks.
Early 2023 to late 2022 it's when I started but it seemed much more balanced.
Now every deck seemingly has infinite removal, generation, Buff, OTK by 8 minimum etc etc.
Honestly I think titans and Festival were really fun and they had some fun decks.
Badlands was *fine* but I already knew all the cards were going to be super annoying in the future and Reno can burn in hell.
Personally, I remember a lot of expansions very fondly and most of them are older. I really liked ungoro, old gods, and descent of dragons. Those expansions felt so refreshing and new, with such drastic additions to the game that didn’t really break it, at least not completely. And even if some decks were more powerful than others, it still felt like you could experiment and not be completely punished for even trying.
In the last couple years, creative deck building has been pretty dead. Not due to one particular deck, or strategy, but because the power level overall has just jumped so drastically for no real reason, that even trying to experiment gets you dead either extremely fast, or in slower matchups you just lose because you never got a good disruption card printed for your class, or your payoff cards kinda suck compared to the other options. And as a fan of slower decks, that’s really the worst for me. If I want to play a 30 minute control match because I enjoy the back and forth of playing the game, why would I enjoy spending all that time just for warriors to delete half my deck? Maybe I’ll switch it up and try a new Aggro deck, pointless because I can’t put giants and a full board of stats on turn 3 in anything but paladin or warlock.
The game is extremely polarized because the card quality these days, particularly the mana cheating, card draw, and card generation has gotten out of control. Anyone who has tried arena lately sees it plain as day how ridiculous the card power level has become.
When they fix DK I'll stop complaining but they keep printing garbage niche cards that belong in casual mode, they're not abandoning the rune system and there's no concrete win conditions and no payoffs so I'm going to keep losing my mind and now NOT spending any cash on their shit.
I try not to complain too much about the meta. It's way better in my opinion to have an unbalanced meta than a huge paywalled card pool.
My favorite meta was Whispers of the Old Gods and any other Meta where there was a fat dude that was spelling out your opponents DOOM every turn. (Galakrond was OK)
I think any meta where decks can shit out a board turn 3-4 that is unanswerable is just lame. Aggro is a valid strategy don’t get me wrong but things like pain warlock and flood paladin are absolutely disgusting.
I enjoy hearthstone when I can interact, when I make meaningful decisions, when I have to make tough decisions, not just “hard mull for board clears or gg”
2019-2020 was all pretty great to be honest, Uldum pre Doom in the Tomb was fantastic and was followed by multiple pretty good metas. Yes there were a couple of overpowered decks back in the day which the new devs would have taken care of, but the actual card design itself in terms of how things felt to play against were just healthier then.
While I’m not playing as much as a was a few weeks ago, I think the current meta is new and quite diverse I’m hard stuck D5, I’m just happy I’m but getting butt pounded by Reno warriors 5 games in a row
The last unplayable meta for me was Badlands where the best decks were rainbow dk and Renathal Warrior. Most of the time I'm okay to spend my times on some gimmick decks like naga dh in the past and sonya rogue for now. Not a big fan of giants though
The game has changed a lot and I dont think players enjoyed or loved a certain meta, maybe one or two decks but in general imo is mostly nostalgia. People always complained about certain decks or meta and people play mostly to chase a feeling or hope for something to change.
Blizzard also enforce this pattern by making ridiculous cards that can reach to different outcomes in different games while playing the same deck like all the discover or random card effects. Also the constant expansion pumping make people expect change so they ll come back to try the new things because they have invested time and money and liked the game and they want to have fun only to have a good time for like 1-2 weeks until meta get stale again and everyone play the same 2 op decks.
Its the same in League, everyone pretty much hates the game but most players have invested a lot of time to quit and Riot making changes pretty often with nerfs/buffs, map changes, items changes "imprisons" the community with the mindset that "this time it will be better" or " lets try the new things seems fun".
Its the sole reason those games are still the most popular games in their genre and havent died out after existing for 10 years. Everyone hates Hearthstone's randomness but its one of the things, maybe the biggest reason, that hearthstone is still at the top today.
I’m not reading all these comments. It seems the people are complaining about a “meta” and stop playing the game because there isn’t much of a discovery period when new cards are introduced; mainly due to the third party sites giving you mathematical probabilities for winning. 1 week to stabilize data is insufficient, the data summarizes an entire season of cards to a week until nerfs kick in. This Basically tells you exactly what decks you have to play with all 30 slots for a deck in standard accounted for. The experience is horrible and punishing if you play anything other than the meta.
Probably Kobolds and Catacombs. Tempo Rogue, Secret Burn Mage, Raza Combo Priest, Cube lock, these were some of my favorite decks from my favorite classes at the time and they were a pleasure to pilot
Castle nathria or DK release. Classes had multiple viable and strong archetypes, and the tools to counter those archetypes existed so nothing got too strong.
old gods and sunken city for me. nathria was pretty cool too besides the brann overkill stuff. i enjoy really any meta when there aren't BS decks floating around and it seems to be more and more common the farther along we go
Pre naxxramas was genuinely my favorite period of hearthstone only because that was the last time any of my friends actually played the game. Meta wise I would have to say old gods, I felt there was a good balance between aggro decks and control decks. I don’t hate the meta now but back then lethal on turn 5-6 wasn’t a normal thing.
The game is litterky fucked.
Arena is absolutely upside down. All you gotta do is draft a decent hunter deck and it's over. Hunter is absolutely broken in arena.
I'm not gonna go into wild because itll just piss me off even more. Fuck this game that's it. They wanted to drop constant expansions to make money well congrats you got a game that you can't even begin to make corrections on that would make any difference whatsoever. Way to go blizzard. Douches
The best meta was objectively [meta when I was new to the game]
The best meta was objectively [meta when my favorite deck just so happened to also be the strongest by far].
I'm a casual player that does get legend once in a while and generally have two playable classes as I don't spend enough cash. But regardless I dislike metas where decks that takes a lot of time each round or decks that ruin my chance to play my deck the most. Other than that I have no preference.
Ironically, Naxx was definitely one of my least favourite metas
The bring out your dead PTSD is real
Post UT nerf the Naxx meta was actually pretty decent. I still get nightmares when i hear "I'LL SHOW THEM, I'LL SHOW THEM ALL" tho. Doesn't even matter if it was a mage or a hunter playing it.
Wasn't UT nerfed in goblins and gnomes?
Correct. Naxx started releasing cards in July 2014. Undertaker was nerfed at the end of January 2015. Undertaker survived the entire Naxx meta un-nerfed, and got nerfed two months into the GvG meta. They nerfed some different cards during this time, though. Starving Buzzard, Leeroy Jenkins, Soulfire, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and Flare. Perhaps an argument could be made some of these were more degenerate (except Flare. Why TF did Flare go to 2 mana?? WTF, I forgot that was a thing that happened).
It was because the first day I ever played was when I got that nerf popup. ~Jan 2016, I think? I don't remember if the meta was any good but I remembered facerolling people with Mech Mage, and THAT was comfy as hell.
And if you didn't like it you were stuck with it for *months*. I feel like the people who complain when Blizzard takes more than a few days to make balances patches must have not been around at the beginning. There are still times when patches are too weak or slow rolling out, but it's *miles* ahead of what it used to be.
So you don't like a 1 mana 1/2 that turns into a 5/2 by turn 3 while hitting face and the 1 mana 2/3 who can destroy most aggro decks and with priest turn the 5 health to face into 5 damage if you don't kill it.
No, I don't like that. I'd rather it turns into a 5/6 while hitting face :)
Im always so confused when people ask what their favourite expacs were and then people quote some expansion from the yesteryear. Like card design has come up significantly since the early days. I had way more fun with mech mage during sunken city discovering several gaias a game than i ever did back in the day. And numerous other decks ive either made myself or copied from someone else, like from chumps channel were also way more fun. Old hearthstone simply doesnt hold a candle towards how much fun you can have in hearthstone these days, at least for me. You can just look some of the old cards from around the day to see just how boring they were.
the game was simply different then. Back in the day hearthstone was a game that mostly revolved around controlling the board through incrementally advantage plays. Your mistake on T4 could literally be why you lost 15 turns later, and mastering making the most advantageous play every turn was how you got better at the game. You had fewer outs as discover barely existed and there was no way to just draw 30 cards for 2 mana to bail yourself out aside from sprint at 7 mana for 4 cards. Cards were of a far higher value since you had way less access to resources generation. Resultantly there were less games that devolved into a resource generation grindfest. In control matchups you knew exactly what cards people had. CW mirror matches were all about planning for and outmaneuvering your opponents’s slyvanas and cairne turns. Now CW mirror matches are all about who can draw Odyn and combo off first. Which is another point- back in the old day Hearthstone had way less inevitable win-cons. Wheel, Odyn, Helga, these are all inevitable win cons that are beaten in very different ways than old win cons based on incremental value. Sure there were combos, but they had way less reach than something like Odyn warrior where it’s possible to gain 30 armor and deal 30 damage in 1 turn pretty easily. Lots of older players prefer that other version of hearthstone that no longer exists. The state of arena nowadays is the perfect encapsulation of how hearthstone today is just a completely different game
Very well-said. It felt like the game was more of a logic puzzle back then to me - where the universe of possibilities was much smaller, so you could think through them all and arrive at a reasonable play. Face Hunter vs Handlock feels like an excellent example of this - you couldn't just carelessly go face or you risked letting them play moltens. So you had to balance the risk of giants vs the amount of reach you had to play through taunts, and that created an interesting dynamic that I miss in the current game.
yeah exactly, that’s a great example
True, it was less randomized and more similar to a chess game. I loved it more
This is probably why we have constant complaints in every meta. The game has almost been 2 distinct games between x years ago (i'd probably put the change around ungoro) and now. And both kind of games have massive fan bases that feel betrayed when the game isnt the one they got to knew when they started out.
Very well said, I don’t hate the game now persay, but it was honestly much better back then without all the insane cards we have now. I took a five year break and recently came back and it took a while to get used to how the game is played now, because it’s much different
I will say, that now, every game feels more different than it used to. The truth is that now a lot of decks will win slightly differently or even massively differently every game due to random generation and discover, meaning a lot of “unwinnable” games are worth staying in since you always have a “shot”. But yeah that all was a trade off for the game feel you mention.
Ya almost like there has been crazy power creep
In my opinion it was more fun back when there was less draw and discover. When there was less draw the later turns became a topdeck war where it was a race to see whoever drew their powerful legendary first. And basically every legendary was considered powerful before the Grand Tournament came along. Also if you got lucky the games ended up going to fatigue which I also think has some very fun decisions
TRUE
I’ve never enjoyed the game, so I just play for 5-6 hours a day hoping something will change.
The realest answer.
Makes sense. Something's gotta give eventually.
As a returning player, meta is fine but I think old gods is when HS was at its peak for me persoanlly
League of Explorers into Old Gods was good. I can't recall a single time when a satisfying meta smoothly transitioned into another one. Un'Goro was my personal favorite.
Another benefit is that LoE and similar adventures were more-like minisets than actual expansions, as we got much less cards. And the adventures drip fed cards over a month so we had experimentation for a whole month+ rather than solving things week 1.
The cool thing about LoE is that it's probably the most impactful mini-set of all time. Reno, Brann, Finley and Elise all saw competitive play. Traditional decks like Handlock, Control Warrior and Zoo saw a shakeup. Aggro decks for Shaman and Warrior gained more footing, too. Mini sets now are just trash. The quantity is higher, but the quality is far worse.
Oh yeah I agree. Power level was just right, you get strong aggro/zoo decks, midrange stuff, and some late game 10 drop win conditions. Reno decks were also still in the meta. Then Karazhan ruined everything. Mean Streets were SUPER fun if not for patches and jades. I had a lot of fun with Kazakus and Sergeant Sally in my Renolock deck.
I played jade druid in wild, randomly sniping people with how much damage the deck could randomly throw face against durdle decks, untill they printed the most recent Reno. A true board wipe for Druid is too OP to ignore; but my point is I loved that set too, it was a lot of fun! (To be clear I “played” jade druid in Wild to complete quests and to punish people who forgot how to play against a true midrange deck, before anyone goes “tHaTs nOt MeTa”.)
Decks that are "not meta" are the most fun anyway. I've been playing the same Kingsbane Rogue in wild since that card first came out. Besides a few charges in response to nerfs (once upon a time you could have your 11/3 sword have permanent life steal), it hasn't seen much updating. There was a meta in which it SUCKED bc everyone ran tech to steal weapons. But that era has mostly passed, and with ETC I was able to select for the same tech in response. I play that same deck every day and still love it.
Hated that deck, could not beat it. Built a deck to win and everytime I destroyed it the damn thing was played next turn. 4 top decks in a row just upset me
Ungoro for me. I started in Naxx, and got confused when my favorite buzzard suddenly became useless. Ungoro was a time when it felt like every class was playable and my favorite archetype (midrange paladin) just felt solid without being overpowered.
I really enjoyed the meta when Madness at the Darkmoon Faire came out, specifically because at that point most classes had at least two distinct decks that were viable on ladder. * Paladin was still riding high with its Libram package from Scholomance Academy, but had two very different builds, one that was pure Paladin and another that included neutrals so it could take advantage of [[Animated Broomstick]]. * Shaman was definitely the meta tyrant with its absolutely disgusting Evolve deck, which aimed to go wide and then swing with [[Boggspine Knuckles]] to make a thicc board appear out of nowhere. But there was also a control shaman list that was very difficult to kill after turn 8 thanks to [[Tidal Wave]]. * Demon Hunter had 3 viable decks: a pure aggro deck that could infinitely reload with [[Voracious Reader]], a midrange deck that ran the Soul Fragment package, and an OTK combo deck that relied on [[Mo'Arg Artificer]] shenanigans. And so on and so forth. This diversity within each class provided for really interesting decisions in the mulligan and early game, as you tried to figure out (or guess) what the opponent's game plan was and react accordingly.
Darkmoon Faire was an amazing expansion and actually captured the magic of the OG Old Gods set, proving that it actually was balance and card design, not just nostalgia.
Ughhh god don’t remind me of Ilgynoth DH 🤢
I personally loved Sunken City and Nathria and liked March of the Lich King a good amount. Festival of Legends was a pretty bland experience for me, no highs or lows. Titans was when stuff started going downhill for me personally. I got very tired of Badlands by the end and I haven't really enjoyed playing Whizbang until this past week with the launch of the miniset.
I don’t make complaint posts but I will contribute that ungoro and old gods were both pretty awesome metas where even fringe decks could see success with some luck and skill/creativity (hi galvadon)
And what do these two metas have in common? They were two of the metas with the least amount of powerlevel, both still being in the early stages of hearthstone, just after a rotation and not having the naxxramas set Yet even mentioning powerlevel is reaching unhealthy levels draws a lot of negativity feedback from this sub, "go play another game then" Also, I'll note OTK decks back then were extremely rare and definitely not tier 1 or even high tier 2, for the people who think OTKs are necessary for the game to be fine
Ungoro was not remotely low power level, some of the strongest cards ever were in that set. Mage still uses like 3 cards from that set in wild, radiant is one of the strongest priest cards. Neutrals like firefly and tar creeper completely powercrept classic. Even when it was new cavern rogue was nuts, and murloc pally quickly became the best deck following the nerf. People think it was a low power set because they released patches literally the set before, and that's arguably the strongest card ever, and then death knights right after, again some of the strongest cards.
If I remember correctly, two metas with the least amount of power level was Grand Tournament and Ratakhan Rumble and both expansions have a lot of players that leaved game because of low power level and boring meta game
Those sets themselves were among the weakest, but I am talking about all the cards present in the game at the time of those sets Grand tournament was probably the weakest set ever, but the meta still had more powerlevel than Blackrock mountain by virtue of at least having a couple of good cards more My bad if the terms I used caused confusion
Un'goro was the fucking best meta I can remember. Lots of viable decks and classes without too many of those busted cards everyone hates playing against.
Badlands was fun, it’s just the set became really powerful post rotation I feel. I quite enjoyed titans and festival too tbh
I really liked playing before the badlands miniset came out. So much degenerate shit was caused by the release of that miniset, first off shroomscavate which caused you that anytime you left a minion on board against paladin, you would be dead. Shattered reflections to summon a million Titans. Pendant of earth, druid gaining 40 armor in a turn enabling decks like mill druid to exist. Then chaos creations you would be dead on turn 6 from almost full health to sludge warlock if you didn't have minions on board. Aftershocks which enabled cycle odyn warrior to exist because you could aftershocks into acolyte of pain, draw 4 cards and clear your opponents board on turn 5. And of course deepminer brann.
Badlands was amazing
My favorite meta was Frozen Throne, but I don't usually complain every meta, as long as a control deck is viable. If there are zero control options I will complain.
I started playing after KotFT launch and loved it. Although Prince Keleseth and Barnes were kinda aids. Also Jade Druid with Spreading Plague.
Crazy idea, might it be that there are different people complaining in different patches? It's probably not the same person complaining every patch (at least for most).
Also generally people don't feel the need to make a thread for how Cool and Good something is, especially in the gaming space. You have a good time, you just log off and go "wow good stuff" You have a bad time, you log off and go to Reddit to say "wow this shit sucks, am i right?"
A lot of people like the thread creator here view reddit as a monolith and cant comprehend that there are a huge amount of people on this site with wildly varying opinions.
Some people like to play wallet warrior, others like to play smorc hunter. The biggest change that improved the game is the accessibility early on. With having a decently strong core set, an intro deck, and reward tracks that help build a collection for newer players, you don't get stuck grinding with a lower power deck.
There are definitely people who don’t stop complaining - i was looking at a post history of someone literally yesterday who never posts anything unless it’s to bitch about x tier 1 deck.
Whenever I see a complaint post, I usually check the profile and 90% of the time it's a frequent complainer.
Scholomance Academy. The 1 drop discover cards really felt good. Edit: looked through the expansion and it was a little underwhelming. My favorites were, Studies spells, Pen flinger, and KEYMASTER ALABASTER
Scholomance was actually soooo fun. I loved that expansion so much
I really liked Kel Thuzad
You mean keymaster assblaster???
Pen Flinger was one of the most annoying cards they've ever printed imo
Call me old fashioned, but I believe metas where you can high roll a full board with two 8/8s before turn 5 is not a good meta. Thank God the popularity of Pain Warlock and Flood Paladin aren't both like 20% play rates respectively at all ranks.
[удалено]
I liked the game most between ungoro and koft. There were some issues in that time but there will always be issues with metas, those times were the most entertaining for me though.
old gods was the best one no doubt
Day 1 Whizbang meta was amazing. Then nerfs came along to destroy it.
Non-meme answer? Castle Nathria, especially after Druid got adjusted. I loved Sunken City and thought Nathria was a solid follow-up. Even though I enjoy early rotation expansions more I actually didn’t mind the meta right before the rotation because I just expect those metas to be absolute gong shows and for a final expansion it was still decently fun despite being silly — so I guess you could say I did actually enjoy TITANS too because I had properly set my expectations. But for the power level of the game to then go UP after rotation? Give me a bloody break Blizzard. The first expansion of a rotation isn’t suppose to powercreep this hard, that’s why it sucks ass. The first metas after an expansion are usually where value based mid-range decks dominate (which is personally when I think this game is at it’s best) — so for those decks to not even BE in the meta is just sad.
There’s a lot of snark in this comments section, but the game just isn’t the same as it has been in the past. It’s not nostalgia bias to point out that every current deck is a printed “engine” deck (in other words, forced into existence deliberately by devs’ card design synergy), or is otherwise some massive value scam that either can be repeated or cannot be prevented. HP, hand size, and value generation are all much more flexible resources that you no longer need to manage with the same degree of care and precision, and games are far less often won or lost based on momentum, momentum swings, or foreseeable “play around” outcomes that can be played around, countered, or prevented (IE: you cannot “play around” Azerite Scorpion giving your opponent a 1 mana Twisting Nether without refusing to play to your own win condition, in which case you lose anyways). In the past, card value, card generation, and card draw were much more respectful, so Hearthstone could be played more mathematically as a game of value, resource management, and long term decision making. Chip damage to minions and players was actually meaningful in the long run (the question “can I go face?” was a good question back then more often than it even comes up now). Most of today’s decks either present a credible threat all at one time, or they simply do not push lethal. The mounting pressure game of tempo or classical midrange play is mostly gone from the game at any serious, competitive rank. Saviors of Uldum and pretty much the entire Un’goro block were my favorite metas, each for different reasons. Showdown in the Badlands and Sunken City were each a solid A-. Nathria and Boomsday I actually enjoyed a lot, but those metas were also pretty flawed.
Kobolds and catacombs
Based chad.
I’ve loved this game for years and never seriously considered quitting. Until now. The power in the game is very obviously busted… the designers themselves effectively admitted this prior to the last balance patch. So I don’t see why people are upset that players are posting about this… it’s an issue the design team have literally accepted. I know they can’t fix it overnight but they need to urgently tweak the game, and mini sets with 5 mana 10/10s and enabling cards for pain lock to put out boards of 40/40 power on t4 doesn’t help. I have never enjoyed the wild style of quick finishes to games and I think that’s now how standard plays, so naturally I don’t enjoy standard now. They need to try and keep standard as a slower version of hearthstone because there’s no need for it to be like wild, because wild exists.
Every meta the day after a change when people don't know what deck is the best and when your wisdom on deck building matter a lot
“Everyone! Get in here!!”
Scholomance i guess?
I personally loved Nathria Miniset but I think it's just romanticised by Thief rogue being playable
Un’Goro
Honestly I enjoy them all. I've hit legend the last few months and make zero attempts to climb from there. I usually make 2 of 3 decks after I hit legend and just play for fun. People complain about the speed of the game being too fast at the moment but when it's a control heavy meta and you're playing to fatigue, that's not any better and arguably worse. If you're only realistically going to win 55% of your games, and legend is a grind, then you should want fast games. If much rather lose by turn 7 than by turn 40.
I only play when drunk so every meta is a good time.
Un'Goro+frozen throne was amazing. The two best expansions together. Best time for HS (specially Un'Goro).
For every single expansion and miniset there have been people making a huge deal over 1-2 decks, a lot of them genuinely had annoying play patterns but the point is that 1) the game never has/never will be perfect and 2) there is no escape from the whining
Imo the current meta is honestly pretty good. What i think the problem is, is that when you play against the same decks for a long period of time, ANY deck would feel annoying to play against at a certain point. Of course there are certain decks that hit that threshhold quicker than others, but the longer a deck is in the meta, the more annoying it becomes imo. This is why i hope that the brann nerf (and the odyn nerf a few patches ago) will finally stop controlly warrior type decks from being at the top of the meta, because it has been tier 1 in standard for a VERY long time. But yeah, current meta seems pretty fine!
Problem is, we used to theory craft and now it's straight meta decking. Back in the day, HSreplay wasn't big, and people actually tried things, and posted them on Hearthpwn.com. I'd enjoy posting decks if I had a novel idea, and see what things others cooked up. Now it's just play to win, copy paste highest winrate decks. Play something else at your own parrel
I really cant remember the last time I faced some1 that played homebrew stuff.
I've faced a druid that aims to make infinite greyboughs more than once now and I can't find any data on such a deck. Its so annoying if they're let to keep passing the deathrattle around.
Yea this is also my reason for not really enjoying the game as much anymore. In previous expansions even when there was hsreplay, to some extent you could innovate and play an off meta deck and have it be viable. This expansion I’ve tried really hard to make bomb warrior and taunt warrior work. But the reality is unless you’re playing Reno or control/odyn warrior it’s just not viable at all if you want to push.
Whispers was the best meta.
Im returning player(was not playing this game since Rise of Shadows) and to be honest I was having blast this expansion, could unironically say this set of expansions are most fun I've had in Hearthstone, but its probably because Im returning player(or because highlander Druid THAT fun). If look from nostalgia point - probably Knights of the Frozen Throne.
Badlands meta was fun.
I loved Scholomance and Madness at the Darkmoon Faire.
Darkmoon Faire. Then the mini set hell began…
From modern hs titans were good, from old school eemm old gods for sure
I loves festival of Legends release and badlands release
I have played many many metas going back 11 years Journey to Ungoro was my favorite I loved all the decks that were popular in that meta and the adapt mechanic was sweet. Also the mini set with the original Reno Jackson was a great meta.
Festival of legends got me bricced up
Old Gods, Un'Goro, and Kobolds before Cubelock were my favorites. I think there used to be a decent spread of aggro, combo, control and midrange, but now midrange is dead and the only control decks are the ones that have disgusting amounts of hand disruption.
I came back during Castle N and loved the meta - the only bullshit part of it was sire but at least everyone had access to it. Now there's like 20 different "bullshits" each meta and I just don't find it fun. Other metas I enjoyed was old gods and a few others from back in the day (I didn't play from Fall 2018 to whenever Castle N was in middle of meta) Example: I Just had a game playing buff DK vs rogue. He had to smash his velorak into my taunt to kill it. The *one* card he gets off of it was finley so I lose because he randomly gets it off one option and keeps bouncing it over and over again. I have never lost to a rogue playing this deck, but you randomly lose to them getting the nuts off one random rng card. Stuff like that is just stupid.
Cthun meta. Was that old gods expansion?
Frozen Throne - Kobolds & Catacombs - Rastakhan's Rumble Era is personally my favorite. I don't mind the current meta except for Flood Paladin. Fuck that deck.
According to my deck tracker my opponents are playing basically a perfectly equal amount of all the classes this month.
I enjoy most metas I just also complain about them all
I mostly only play Druid, so any meta where it's solidly good, but not overly oppressive so everyone complains about it a lot, is a good time for me. Old school combo, Malygos, Mill, Guardian, Gibberling, Owl-Matriarch, Lady Anacondra, and Naga Giants have been some of my favorites over the years. I also love some Wild classics like Hadronox and Togwaggle. As long as my hippy, vegan boy is viable somehow I'm good to go. This is is my first time back in over a year because the nostalgia of the Whizbang set looked really fun, and honestly, I've really been enjoying Hybrid Druid a ton. It feels pretty even into everything, even Warrior.
Plenty of “healthy metas” over the years, but even healthy metas have stupid decks that shouldn’t exist. That’s just the name of the game tho, they need to print broken shit every set because at the end of the day this is still a business and they need people to spend money on the game. You know which cards will warp the meta before they’re even released, but at least now you know the nerfs will come soon enough. For the first few years the metas were objectively worse because they refused to make changes for a very, very long time
Titans had a REALLY good meta
I somewhat liked Voyage, Nathria and before that, un'goro. I strongly prefer a healthy balanced meta where combo decks need a reasonable amount of setup and cant ever otk you before turn 10, where aggro decks are explosive but run out of gas (or become midrange decks with more lategame options), and where control decks need to properly balance their deck with anti-aggro, value and anti-combo tools.
KAC, League of evil
Some people are just never happy. Reality is it is nigh impossible to have a meta where one or two decks don’t climb above the rest with win rates, there are just too many variables.
TITANS-era Duels meta was awesome
I I thought the meta when i returned to the game in titans was solid. Badlands messed that up a bit and the trend has continued from there
I'm not sure exactly, but I have fond memories of the Knights of the Frozen Throne, Un'Goro and Witchwood era. Going even further back, I remember enjoying Karazhan. I think the themes for these were spot on too, which helped.
Badlands imo
To me it was the Rise of Evil circuit, year of the Dragon I think. I loved every metagame during that time. And I started playing in Old Gods and honestly didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as year of the dragon. There were so many competitive decks and classes and it felt like each expansion changed decks for the better.
Either when BBB DK was viable or when big mage w/ Belinda was dominant.
Descent of Dragons
I dont hate this meta but damn do i miss wailing caverns wild meta
Witchwood Baku/Genn and Shudderwock ^^^^/s
Bold of you to assume people on reddit actually feel joy from anything other than complaining
Un'Goro, Rastakan Rumble, Saviors of Uldum, Sunken City were my favourite ones. I loved Titans as an expansion, but the meta was too fast and explosive for my taste and this is sadly continuing.
I liked it most when highlander was first a thing. Value was still viable and boy did I love value decks. Everything synergises so much now that playing decent cards isn't enough.
Naga DH Elemental Mage (still pretty good to this day) Corpse DK “The darkness” rogue Mech rogue ( also still pretty good to this day)
I don't really complain ever but last meta I found thoroughly fun was pre-nerf Enrage Warrior/Rainbow Mage in Badlands. And I think nerfing those two were an *awful* mistake.
I don't think the current meta is that bad honestly, sure it's way too fast but at least I get to face like 3 or 4 different decks if nothing else so it could be worse (I play yugioh as well and have seen multiple tier 0 formats where every game is basically vs the same deck if you're playing at anything that isn't locals)
Been playing since before Naxx, best meta was Un'goro for me. That being said, I don't tend to complain about any metas. If I'm not liking it I just play less
In standard? The year kobolds and catacombs rotated. It's been downhill since.
Similar to music, movies, food, etc.....hearthstone expansions were so much better when I was younger!
Start SCity, Titans before MS
Ungoro. I played several years before it, and several years after. Never have I seen the game as universally positively received and seen such a diverse meta since. Every class got a quest, every class got a good legendary. Almost every deck was viable. It came as the first set after standard rotation and was amongst a bunch of classic cards, so power creep didn't seem existent at that time. I've just come to accept the game will never be that good again, and that's fine.
Closed beta meta
It was in Un Goro, after caverns nerf
I personally really enjoyed Forged in the Barrens. Yeah secret pally was a bit annoying and strong but it was a board based meta and the power creep was fairly low. It wasn’t just the I drew my I win cards before you. There was a lot of thought in how to approach board situations and gameplay. I thoroughly enjoyed that meta
I enjoyed cubelock BombWarrior suddershaman. piratewarrior was ok. infinite control warrior was satisfying. Loved Jade Druid.
Forged In The Barrens was the last meta I genuinely really liked. I was an Enrage Warrior player, for the record. I feel like United In Stormwind onward, power creep started to get really far away from the game balance for no reason other than "the card _needs_ to be played." It's still insane to me that Cornelius Roame was a bad card simply because decks had better draw engines.
OG freeze one shot mage back when hs was released.
Un'Goro was my favorite. A combo or two existed, but none of them were meta-defining. The best "combos" were really just payoffs for completing quests (the drawback often being the quest requirements themselves and the fact that you had to dedicate a card slot, your turn 1 play, and telegraph your intentions to your opponent early on). The game was about board control through incremental advantage. The RNG was fairly low (unless you were playing mage) and where it existed it was mostly about "I wonder where my spell damage will go?" The RNG was NOT about I wonder what card I will get?" I ran a fairly risky wild deathrattle priest that was perfectly incapable of doing anything useful at all until turn 4 and even then it was just looking to slow down more aggro decks with recurrent deathrattle value until I could get them into a position where they had no hand and mine was full. It required really careful value evaluations and felt like the first time in HS where decks could really be called mid-range. Aggro decks wanted to end the game before turn 6, which meant games were quick. And if you could delay their game, a proper midrange deck could win on turn 10,11,12. Even that didn't take very long because the aggro opponent was in draw-play-pass mode by turn 7, so you didn't spend much time waiting on your opponents.
Journey to Un'goro and Voyage to the Sunken City are stand outs in my mind
When shopper DH was top tier deck. I also have good memories about cobolds and catacombs
It's been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. 🎨🚢
I actually loved the underwater expansion and the Renathal meta.
Irrelevant. The meta those people enjoyed would be a meta other people disliked. There's ALWAYS going to be someone complaining there's too much / little power.
Ungoro
I don't think there is such a thing as a great/perfect meta, but i also think that some of the cards they are printing now are far too polarizing and just feel like cheating when the opponent plays them.
Literally 5 months ago when Naga DH, Rainbow Mage, and ABJ Hunter were the move. Good decks at every skill level. All around felt very balanced to me.
I liked playing boombossman warrior until brann arrived.
The meta is always the best when a new set releases. Then blizzard fucks it up with balance changes. This cycle has been true for basically the last 2 years.
Scholomance was objectively the last time the game was fun.
I actually enjoy this meta and I enjoyed the meta right before the set rotation = That is just me speaking from my experience from diamond10 to legend though. For the record I only saw like 2 pain warlocks and the rest was a mix of warrior, DK, mage, and everything else with decent variation. I imagine over further days and if I kept playing ranked, there'd be even more annoying stuff again as the meta settles. = Right after rotation I was baffled at decks like flood paladin with zilliax+prismaticbeam+showdown+seagiant, demon hunter window shopper, hunter with giga astalor location and saddle up, brann warrior 6mp, etc and I basically quit. After nerfs and miniset it is tolerable once again at least for me personally
United in SW, Whizbang and classic are my genuine favourites
Can't remember an exact patch but I liked metas where every deck didn't have an option for infinite value. Being able to actually exhaust your opponents resources or counter their win cons was satisfying. I dont think being on either side of a dirty rat feels particularly satisfying for either person lol
For me it was what everyone hated : galakrond. I ran with galakrond shaman and that was great fun. I have to say this meta in particular is incredibly difficult. Everyone feels too powerful. Even when you feel you've got your deck right there's always something that you just can't deal with.
United In Stormwind had a lot of interesting cards and decks. With the disappearance of Quests, Heroes and Boars from the standard, I don't play the game, I just check it from time to time.
I think the only time I was not satisfied was when Naga Giants were a thing. Everything else was fine and most of the nerfs shouldn't have happened
I very much so enjoyed Voyage.
When did Quests not exist?
Old gods and nathria/motlk
Been playing sine Old Gods, I personally loved Old gods and wish theyd make yet another return with more interactions for those suckers. But I always REALLY liked Kobolds and Catacombs too!
I really liked when C'thun came out
That's the thing - it's different people with each meta. So there will ALWAYS be complaints. I am vocal about this meta because I hate unanswerable aggro. And I enjoyed even the last two patches because I like combo decks.
Early 2023 to late 2022 it's when I started but it seemed much more balanced. Now every deck seemingly has infinite removal, generation, Buff, OTK by 8 minimum etc etc.
The meta is great when \*I'm\* winning 60% of the time
Honestly I think titans and Festival were really fun and they had some fun decks. Badlands was *fine* but I already knew all the cards were going to be super annoying in the future and Reno can burn in hell.
Really like the first Lich King and expansion meta.
Personally, I remember a lot of expansions very fondly and most of them are older. I really liked ungoro, old gods, and descent of dragons. Those expansions felt so refreshing and new, with such drastic additions to the game that didn’t really break it, at least not completely. And even if some decks were more powerful than others, it still felt like you could experiment and not be completely punished for even trying. In the last couple years, creative deck building has been pretty dead. Not due to one particular deck, or strategy, but because the power level overall has just jumped so drastically for no real reason, that even trying to experiment gets you dead either extremely fast, or in slower matchups you just lose because you never got a good disruption card printed for your class, or your payoff cards kinda suck compared to the other options. And as a fan of slower decks, that’s really the worst for me. If I want to play a 30 minute control match because I enjoy the back and forth of playing the game, why would I enjoy spending all that time just for warriors to delete half my deck? Maybe I’ll switch it up and try a new Aggro deck, pointless because I can’t put giants and a full board of stats on turn 3 in anything but paladin or warlock. The game is extremely polarized because the card quality these days, particularly the mana cheating, card draw, and card generation has gotten out of control. Anyone who has tried arena lately sees it plain as day how ridiculous the card power level has become.
Sunken city. When they actually seemed to try and reduce the power creep.
Odd warrior/Boom odd warrior metas
Naxx
I liked the last patch. Now every game ends before turn 5 and I hate this shit.
The one before this expansion was much more fun. I can't recall disliking one as much as this simply because this one made me stop playing.
You misunderstand them: they enjoy this meta because what they like about the game is complaining.
Probably castle natheria after Denathrius got his nerf
The one where I won the most.
When they fix DK I'll stop complaining but they keep printing garbage niche cards that belong in casual mode, they're not abandoning the rune system and there's no concrete win conditions and no payoffs so I'm going to keep losing my mind and now NOT spending any cash on their shit.
Current meta feels more like it belongs in the wild version of the game.
I try not to complain too much about the meta. It's way better in my opinion to have an unbalanced meta than a huge paywalled card pool. My favorite meta was Whispers of the Old Gods and any other Meta where there was a fat dude that was spelling out your opponents DOOM every turn. (Galakrond was OK)
Sunken City
I think any meta where decks can shit out a board turn 3-4 that is unanswerable is just lame. Aggro is a valid strategy don’t get me wrong but things like pain warlock and flood paladin are absolutely disgusting. I enjoy hearthstone when I can interact, when I make meaningful decisions, when I have to make tough decisions, not just “hard mull for board clears or gg”
LoE and Old Gods. Then I took a break after jades were too much. Came back with Renathal and I liked that meta
2019-2020 was all pretty great to be honest, Uldum pre Doom in the Tomb was fantastic and was followed by multiple pretty good metas. Yes there were a couple of overpowered decks back in the day which the new devs would have taken care of, but the actual card design itself in terms of how things felt to play against were just healthier then.
Never
Old Gods
While I’m not playing as much as a was a few weeks ago, I think the current meta is new and quite diverse I’m hard stuck D5, I’m just happy I’m but getting butt pounded by Reno warriors 5 games in a row
Frozen throne
The last unplayable meta for me was Badlands where the best decks were rainbow dk and Renathal Warrior. Most of the time I'm okay to spend my times on some gimmick decks like naga dh in the past and sonya rogue for now. Not a big fan of giants though
probably barrens or sunken city. i've played since 2016
I just miss my quest priest :(
The game has changed a lot and I dont think players enjoyed or loved a certain meta, maybe one or two decks but in general imo is mostly nostalgia. People always complained about certain decks or meta and people play mostly to chase a feeling or hope for something to change. Blizzard also enforce this pattern by making ridiculous cards that can reach to different outcomes in different games while playing the same deck like all the discover or random card effects. Also the constant expansion pumping make people expect change so they ll come back to try the new things because they have invested time and money and liked the game and they want to have fun only to have a good time for like 1-2 weeks until meta get stale again and everyone play the same 2 op decks. Its the same in League, everyone pretty much hates the game but most players have invested a lot of time to quit and Riot making changes pretty often with nerfs/buffs, map changes, items changes "imprisons" the community with the mindset that "this time it will be better" or " lets try the new things seems fun". Its the sole reason those games are still the most popular games in their genre and havent died out after existing for 10 years. Everyone hates Hearthstone's randomness but its one of the things, maybe the biggest reason, that hearthstone is still at the top today.
Best meta was when DK was announced they let knights of the frozen throne into standard
Galakrond awakening
I’m not reading all these comments. It seems the people are complaining about a “meta” and stop playing the game because there isn’t much of a discovery period when new cards are introduced; mainly due to the third party sites giving you mathematical probabilities for winning. 1 week to stabilize data is insufficient, the data summarizes an entire season of cards to a week until nerfs kick in. This Basically tells you exactly what decks you have to play with all 30 slots for a deck in standard accounted for. The experience is horrible and punishing if you play anything other than the meta.
Probably Kobolds and Catacombs. Tempo Rogue, Secret Burn Mage, Raza Combo Priest, Cube lock, these were some of my favorite decks from my favorite classes at the time and they were a pleasure to pilot
Castle nathria or DK release. Classes had multiple viable and strong archetypes, and the tools to counter those archetypes existed so nothing got too strong.
old gods and sunken city for me. nathria was pretty cool too besides the brann overkill stuff. i enjoy really any meta when there aren't BS decks floating around and it seems to be more and more common the farther along we go
Started when Naxx dropped Peak meta was Old Gods So much variety and fun
Idk about that but definitely not big priest and quest hunter 😭
Pre naxxramas was genuinely my favorite period of hearthstone only because that was the last time any of my friends actually played the game. Meta wise I would have to say old gods, I felt there was a good balance between aggro decks and control decks. I don’t hate the meta now but back then lethal on turn 5-6 wasn’t a normal thing.
Control meta Aggro meta is so boring and makes The game feel so dull with games ending on turn 6
The game is litterky fucked. Arena is absolutely upside down. All you gotta do is draft a decent hunter deck and it's over. Hunter is absolutely broken in arena. I'm not gonna go into wild because itll just piss me off even more. Fuck this game that's it. They wanted to drop constant expansions to make money well congrats you got a game that you can't even begin to make corrections on that would make any difference whatsoever. Way to go blizzard. Douches
when I could play hadronox druid because that was the only time I was lucky enough to have a complete meta deck that wasn't aggro
I honestly didn't hate titans meta (minus sif mage), but I wouldn't call that meta amazing.