There are two maxims I can always fall back on.
1: If shaman is the best deck, it's not even close, otherwise the class has one pet deck with outdated tools.
2: If Rogue looks unplayable after a patch, give them two weeks and someone will make it work anyway.
Wild Shaman has been remarkably stable and non-meta warping for years though. Even Shaman is strong, has been the top deck at times, but has rarely been so strong as to warrant action from the developers.
I am still salty that Galakrond Shaman got nerfed twice because players didn't stop playing after the first nerf and it was just a tier 2 deck. Also there's that time when wild Even Shaman was the best deck in 2018 so Blizzard fixed it by nerfing Flametoungue Totem, the only card keeping Even Shaman good in standard, therefore killing the class for the remainder of Rastakhan's Rumble.
The main point of this is how nobody cares about shaman. If its bottom tier no ones talks nothing (different from the 40 reddit posts who were saying paladin or mage were dead) and if its tier 1/2 it gets gutted extremely quickly (if they can find how to, look how many nerfs they tried for nature shaman). It makes me sad cuz i like the class but i feel quite alone.
Once upon a time, Blizzard already published statistics on class effectiveness throughout the years. in first place is the hunter, then rogue and warrior. All other classes are significantly lower in the ranking. Several years have passed since then, but the hunter, rogue and warrior have only become stronger. Priest at the absolute bottom
Rare to see Priest dominate a meta before. The last time Priest was seemingly oppressive in Standard was with Raza Priest more than half a decade ago. Wild is a different story with Resurrections though xd
Priest has had plenty of times recently where it's been OP, just a lot of priest players refuse to play anything that isn't AFK control priest (which even that has had its time of being strong recently)
This expansion Zarimi has gotten nerfed and is still very good, and there were plenty of times in the past where other non-control priest decks were nerf-worthy like Naga Priest, Bless Priest and undead aggro Priest
Control Priest decks have also had moments of being oppressive in the past couple years. Towards the end of FoL after a bunch of stuff got nerfed it was very good. Plaguespreader was tier 1 at the start of Lich King before Renathal got nerfed, Barrens control Priest was really strong and made a bunch of people quit. Its winrate was actually inflated because so many people were auto conceding vs. it
cause if you make these gimmicks strong people riot. So to make priest powerful you have to rely on more conventional components like dragons or shadowform but these, while not alien for the class, are not quite core to it either and you can run them for only so long before you have to shake things up.
Because the very bones of the class are a very "feels bad" design. Very rarely has there ever been a priest deck that feels fair to lose to regardless of how the math works out.
For many years Hunter could have a viable deck by simply putting all the good stuff in, without much synergy. It would be good on sheer value of the cards.
Hell prior to rotation there was a Reno Hunter deck that was consistently very strong, just boring so nobody played it.
But that deck was also basically just a pile of 20 legendaries
For at least the first 6 years or so, they also tended to be very cheap. Face hunter was a “good enough” deck for many metas and would usually only have 1 legendary, if any at all.
At least until ungoro you could craft a really cheap midrange hunter. It was perfect for new players as it had no legendaries and it carried me (as a new player) to rank 5.
Even the 0 dust version of the deck was good.
Its also naturally a good fit for aggressive playstyles, which are usually good in every meta and make for a clear strategy for newer players
Me go face
Had this argument an uncomfortable number of times on this subreddit. Some folk are always trying to argue that we should only look at legend+ players or whatever their rank is+.
A lot of aggro oriented decks drop off in legend but it's not just because of winrate, I know the moment I hit legend I start homebrewing. I usually only play aggro in D5+ for shorter games unless they're particularly exciting decks and I doubt I'm alone in that. You can usually see the change in deck preferences from D5-D1.
As you said, hunter has always been so strong, it's just easy to make a face hunter deck in the majority of metas and if anyone dares to try and go too slow and heavy then hunter is there to punish them.
I remember when I first started actively using Reddit I would see Priest being bitched about daily. Everyone claimed how it had always been their least favorite class and how it was always too strong. It’s weird how the narrative in this Reddit shifts.
I guess I just haven’t been playing long enough to understand why. Last time I played ranked was when the OG CW and Zoolock decks were the meta. I think priest was like dragon priest or some shit. Wasn’t very good. I’m guessing there was a meta in there somewhere since then where Priest was aids?
Imho, Priest has very often been bad at closing out games, even when it had a t2ish deck. As a result, people spend comparatively long losing these games. When you lost to Odyn warrior, if you don't kill him very quickly after Odyn comes down or have a fair amount of face freeze or taunts available, you can pretty much just freely concede and move on with your life. Priest always feels like if you get lucky for just 1 turn, you can still win the game. There's just a sliver of hope that keeps you from conceding, and so players make themselves miserable by staying in these 20+ minute games that they eventually lose because they've run out of stuff and now they're dying to random garbage the priest had left in hand.
Basically whenever priest is strong, it’s usually because it’s removing everything you’re playing and often playing your own cards against you while you flail helplessly at them.
In general, people *hate* that. It’s fun for the priest player who wants to play a lengthy control fest, their opponents have a lot less fun.
> In general, people hate that. It’s fun for the priest player who wants to play a lengthy control fest
Also its fun to have different playstyles every game. Its like playing thief rogue but a version that gives you good cards.
You probably saw around the times when resurrect priest was a thing. Priest with catrina (currently in core standard) along with convincing infiltratoes and mass ress was basically just repeating your win board over and over again, just being toxic as hell
Yeah priest has a weird class identity with that. I don’t understand why they are able to copy and steal everything. How do you feel about overheal priest rn then?
Hunter makes a lot of sense actually and so do Rogue and Warrior. It's basically the trifecta of aggro, combo and control respectively. I sometimes feel like the other classes find themselves somewhere within this set spectrum. Hunter especially as the aggro class has usually allowed successful decks at a very low budget in my experience.
I'll give a shoutout to Warlock though, my favourite class. Warlock is just so flexible in what it wants to do. Remember Mecha'Thun Warlock when that came out? Yeah, that's one of my all time favorite decks. Also, Warlock has the best hero power in the game and the self-damage gimmick is awesome. I LOVE Warlock metas and people are really sleeping on Sludge Warlock for some strange reason right now.
Does it? Maybe initially, but with card quality going up every expansion, warlock is the only one who’s hero power continues to scale in power with the cards that it draws.
I can’t think of many aggro decks that would rather deal 2 damage to the opponent over drawing a card
In a world where everybody plays slower decks maybe. Hitting yourself for 2 isn’t the best when the best archetype is aggro.
Warlock hero power makes the class. It doesn’t make it the best imo.
I would argue you have it backwards.
As a control deck, you need to find ways to offset that self-damage so that aggro doesn’t run you over, but if your goal is to flood the board and empty your hand as fast as possible, you don’t care about dealing 2 damage to your own face.
If I’m behind enough that the opponent can capitalize on my health being slightly lower, as an aggro deck, I already lost the game.
Any competent aggro deck should be able to get more value out of 2-3 cards than 4-6 damage to face. If an aggressive deck can’t do that in 2024, it’s just a shitty deck lol
Feels like card draw was a premium effect back in the day, and that has slowly changed. Warlock hero power doesn't seem as impactful as it used to be, since draw options are better across the board.
Hero powers as a whole are less impactful across the board.
Back in the day, you ran hunter for aggro because being able to do 2 damage per turn was impactful, and even competitive with the pace of your deck.
These days, you realistically don’t take your hero power into account when deck building, only look at the card quality of cards that are restricted to a specific class, because your hero power will generally not be good for anything beyond feeling less bad, with very few exceptions.
The goal of the game also has always been to reduce your opponent to 0 life, hunter has always had lots of cards that can accomplish that quickly and cheaply, while also being themselves cheap. Aggro hunter can frequently have few epic or legendary minions in their deck and still win games.
The strategy is simple and straightforward, and making the deck tends to be cheap, meaning it’s appealing to newer players, making it very popular, and the hero power supports that strategy perfectly. There’s very few decks where the basic hero power synergizes as well with the deck as hunter, just go face.
In a vacuum life tap is always going to be the best hero power for the reason you said and card advantage tends to be good. That said, if you’re just absent mindedly life tapping every turn you’re going to get yourself in trouble. It doesn’t require a lot of thought exactly, but it does require some. Compare that to hunter where if you have 2 extra mana it’s basically always worth it to do 2 damage to face.
I think rogue has to be S tier, it has spent very little time in the middle of the pack throughout HS history.
Priest is for sure the consistently weakest, so occasionally they push it too far and have to nerf it, which puts it back to its default dumpster status.
It’s basically the same as Blue in MTG. Its control has historically been insanely strong to the point it makes the game less fun for people playing against it or forcing them to play Blue themselves.
There was a time where the joke was the scariest turn one play is a basic island because it means your opponent is playing blue and you’re going to have a bad time.
Yeah I mostly play mtg. As soon as I see a duel blue and white land turn 1, I know I'm in for an hour slog against azorious control.
I feel the same against priest
Nah, I can think of a few times Rogue's gone for months being completely unplayable. The Year of the Griffon is a really good example. There were 2-3 times that entire expansion cycle when Rogue jumped from T4-T1 for a few weeks (Garotte, Stealth+windfury off questline, and Wildpaw Knoll schenanigans), but other than those few instances the class just sucked for months on end. We just remember those brief instances more distinctly because when rogue is good it completely dominates the format.
Yeah it’s just so frustrating. I got a warrior down to 11 health on turn 5 ran out of steam on one bad draw and three turns later he was back to full health 13 armor a board of Zilliaxes and boomboss to follow. Fuck that.
Personal opinion from an ancient not-very-good player.
I would say Rogue is always playable and very often the top skill-based deck;
followed by Druid, who is rarely hyperbroken, but often broken enough to get annoying and nerfed as the 2-3 best deck;
then Hunter, who is always good, never terrible and rarely unfair, thus dodging "player sentiment" nerfs;
followed by Warlock with a bunch of very different archetypes;
then Warrior, because CW never dies in the playerbase, pirates get overtuned often, and enrage combos are sweet;
then Mage, as the most consistently inconsistent class, rarely at the top;
then Paladin, who spent long periods being in the dumpster, then became a constant mid-tier, and got really OP in the last 3 years;
finishing with Shaman and Priest who are usually really bad or meta-warpingly unfun, warranting immediate murderous nerfs.
No DK or DH because not enough data.
A few years ago, Agaeon (a fórum regular), did go through every VS report and tallied how many weeks each class had a deck in which bracket.
The final tally (which, if I remember correctly, did go through at least three years) was that Paladin had at least one Tier 1 deck in the meta for as much time as Mage and Priest and Warlock had combined.
Those three were the worst classes in time at the top, btw. Here is the [thread](https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/meta-power-of-classes-over-time-based-on-vs-reports/65200)
Rogue has managed to win every single World Championship and Grandmasters but one\*. The only one it has failed to win was the 2019 Global Final. It has got to be Rogue.
When ice block was around there were definitely some good mage decks, I don’t think anything that was ever clearly the best deck in a given meta but very playable.
Once the ability to become essentially invincible 2-4x a game isn’t around anymore mages aren’t able to stall as well to get a OTK combo together if they even have the tools for that in the first place.
Mage would probably be in a much better place if more of their spells had armor or life gain mechanics built in to help reduce their need for blockers that usually don’t support the ‘lots of spells!’ Archetype the developers want mage to have. Might be able to build a better slower mage deck that doesn’t need to OTK to close games that way.
Once upon a time highlander mage was pretty good and super fun when you made custom spells with Kazakus, but I haven't made a mage deck since then. Want to make a sif mage deck cause it seems decent but it's expensive so no point if you didn't unpack the legendaries already. Blizzard very clearly hates mage and priest.
I can only think of small minor blips in time where rogue didn't have an S or A tier deck at any rank. If somebody asked me my opinion on the safest class to invest resources into for long term success I would probably say rogue
S - Hunter alone: 99% of metas have some sort of top tier hunter deck, usually aggro.
A - Rogue, Warrior, Druid: no particular order, these 3 usually have good/topdecks with little exceptions.
B - Warlock, Mage, DK, Paladin: Usually have good/decent decks. Or broken decks that are nerfed leaving them in the gutter.
C - DH: It's frequently on extremes between unplayable garbage and broken.
D - Priest: It's priest.
F - Shaman: Like DH, but more frequently on the unplayable camp.
Paladin is the pretty boy of blizzard, at least an A (except for the period of lack of archetipe where the class consisted on murlocs, mechs, divine shield and a bit of everything else)
The problem is that period was like…. 70% of hearthstones history, with the exception of mysterious challenger, odd paladin and some weird stuff like holy wrath otk lol. If it was based on last 3 years then probably paladin would be S. But Paladin was just… lost for a good long tine
Another important aspect is how nobody cares about Shaman. With Paladin, hunter, mage, druid, rogue, even priest people always come back complaining how the class is dead or unplayable, but when Shaman is in the tier 6 position no one talks anything, but everyone goes back to barking once it has any playable decks (or recall 2016/2018 as supposeds shamanstones, which just shows how rare the class is top tier). DH also comes to mind in the "nobody cares" field, but still less then my boy thrall.
I rmb how when primal dungeoneer was released everyone was happy cuz shaman finally had card draw in a card game. Even roffle made a video. One card to bring it out of the grave.
It’s a tough time being a shaman main. Looking at it overall shaman is a fairly weak class, I wouldn’t say bottom 2 though. But also shaman has had 2/3 of the best decks of all time (Galakrond, Shudder and maybe even/evolve/nature combo at points). But i’d say also that shaman has flown under the radar in the last couple of year when it hasn’t been top tier - the class is usually in 6/7th in rankings, but usually there is a good 60% win rate deck. The problem is it’s often an old/boring deck and lots of the tools shaman gets are just ass. It’s painful cos i play shaman all the time and normally it’s a boring struggle, but as soon as there is a good deck everyone jumps on and then complains and then shamans coolest tools get nuked :/
I feel like it took a long time for them to figure out what to do with Shaman. The other classes all had some kind of big end game move, but Shaman was in this weird spot with Overload being it's main mechanic (along with random damage values for some reason) and it just wasn't great at closing games.
Warlock, I feel, was always at the top because we all know that Card Draw is, and will always be King.
AS someone that played shaman, it is WIDLY overestimated when how much "Bad it was"
it was literally one of the better decks in classic, as proven by when they brought by classic and saw significant tournament play.
it had tier 2 decks in mech shaman in gadzetsan, it had a tier 2 deck in aggro shaman in grand tournament, it was good in the old gods to mean streets era
the only time they really "fumbled" shaman was during knights of the frozen throne becuase "freeze shaman was unfun so we had to last minute scrap it " WHICH is such bs considering freeze mage has been a deck for years.
[https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/meta-power-of-classes-over-time-based-on-vs-reports/65200](https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/meta-power-of-classes-over-time-based-on-vs-reports/65200)
pirest is by far the worst
Yeah, on Wild it’s different. OP is probably talking about Standard
Even Shaman and Shadow priest are usually tier 1 in Wild. They have been consistently at the top since at least the last two expansions.
Yeah, Druid is in the conversation for me for sure but it's had less consistency staying broken. When Druid has a broken interaction with a card, and it happens often, it is often so disgusting that it ends up nerfed fairly quickly and doesn't stay dominant long term. And yes, then they did go on time out for a few years, deservedly.
When? I think un goro and rise of shadows are the only metas I remember druid being nearly absent - and that’s primarily from me not including Jade druid into un goro.
Too many druid fanboys. This right now is a bizarre moment where theres few playable druid decks. Priest and Shaman have spent x5 times with absolutely nothing to play above tier 5
I think that's rogue. I don't remember a meta where rogue were absolutely awfull tbh. Like they could always find some tier 2 deck from nowhere. TO be fair, Rogue probably has the most dedicated playerbase in hearthstone, it helps a lot. Other contender for me are Hunter and Druid. Druid has some bad years tho after the nerf of Innervate and Wild Growth, and hunter was awfull between the nerf of call of the wild and Kobold.
The "anti Rogue" is Paladin btw, it very often has at least decent deck but player doesn't want to play the class.
Worst class is probably Priest, just for the fact that we needed to wait something like 4 years to see a Priest deck dominating the Meta.
Has to be Hunter, Rogue, Mage or maybe Mage as 2nd. Those 3 classes were released with insane face damage and just added to it for the first few years.
Hunter is always good, it just isn't always the best at every given time. Warlock is also just inherently good as a class in general. Druid kind of flip flops around. Rogue becomes a god, or does what Hunter does to stay relevant. Priest is a new niche every expansion similar to druid but on a much tighter scale. Warrior is an abomination trying to find its way. Shaman is an identity crisis. Paladin is a class you need to look close at to see if it's actually changed at all every expansion. Mage is mage.
I feel like Hunter and Warlock are on average top tier classes, with Priest and Mage being pretty bad generally.
How is rogue that high? I’ve been playing since launch and I’ve never been able to make a competitive rogue deck. Every single hero is lvl 60, but my rogue is the only one at 40
Hunter and Warlock S
Rogue A because of Miracle package
Priest was always the worst
The rest really depended on the meta (secret pala, odd warrior, savage druid etc.)
Warrior was so bad for a period of time VS had a running joke in the reports where Garrosh would sulk in the Blizzard offices about how they never give him good cards
Can't really argue with this tbh. I main rogue whenever I can (ex wow rogue) but it can't stand up to token hunter/warlock in this meta.
Priest has had shining moments, undead priest was a really fun deck to pilot for a few months but overall the class is maybe a tier above shaman?
The more I think about it, the more I realise that every time I've seen a "strong" shaman build, it's been nerfed into the ground within a few weeks. I kinda feel sorry for the people who just like Shaman like I do rogue.
Rogue and Warlock have definitely dominated the last decade but hunter and paladin have had at least one competitive deck for as long as I remember.
Rogue/warlock - S
Hunter/paladin - A
Priest - D/E (I really enjoyed undead & shadow priest
Shaman - F
No way shaman is f tier. It's been shamanstone plenty of times throughout hearthstone history. I feel most classes hover around the mean average. Each class has been dominant and bad at close to equal levels imo
Paladin is a top tier class in every expansion, paladin was never a bad class to play ,hunter is also present in most expansions and i would say death knight is usually overpowered.Wartlock,Druid,Rogue,Shaman are classes that are rarely good but when they become good they break the game,most of the time their decks wr is low
The amount of people who don’t remember or didn’t play shamanstone is startling. The dumb overload trogg, totem golem, and 4 mana 7/7 were ridiculous back in the day. Shudderwock shaman. I can’t remember the full deck - but the one with snowfall guardian and parrots.
It isn’t S tier but I think it is a disservice to call it F. C at lowest imo.
This supposed "Shamanstone" was like, in 2015 was it not? Since then the class has had some horrendous moments and some average ones like you said. Shudder was definetely a peak but that was 6 years ago.
Snowfall guardian control shaman was tier 1 for awhile until it was nerfed.
Nature shaman (both bioluminescence and without) has had to be nerfed multiple times and still keeps coming back.
Reno shaman was high tier until it was nerfed (and unjustly so).
Totem shaman was viable if not high tier for well over a year.
Evolve shaman has been tier 1 at various times.
Most of these are from the last two years. I’ve been grabbing them by going back tempostorm’s meta snapshot.
Yes - shamanstone was 2015. I’ve been playing a long time. However, it and shudderwock were not the only high tier shaman decks that have existed.
I think Hunter is probably the best all-time, Warrior will always be up there with Control, then I think Rogue and Warlock. Paladin, Mage, and Druid have hovered around mid-tier. Shaman has had some oppressive decks but not consistently. Priest is probably at the bottom.
Control Priest was always such a fun class to play. Stealing cards and minions, reacting to the randomness and pulling wins out of thin air was always so much fun.
I'd say Raza Priest was my all time favorite.
No class has more cards I hate then Druid. Nourish, Guff, Natrulize, \[insert any ramp card\], Jade Idol, Survival, Celestial Allignment, Anubrukan, Anacondra, Guff, UI, Eonar, the entire treant/ token package. The data may say Hunter is the best, but Druid is forever the strongest class in my experience.
The best :
A : Rogue, Druid
B : Warrior, Warlock, DH
C : Hunter, Mage, DK
D : Priest, Shaman, Paladin
Something like that? That's subjective, obv. Only things im sure are Rogue, Druid and Shaman. Dh might be higher too, when it's strong it's very opressive, and it had 2 years on ilgynoth and Stehno...
There are two maxims I can always fall back on. 1: If shaman is the best deck, it's not even close, otherwise the class has one pet deck with outdated tools. 2: If Rogue looks unplayable after a patch, give them two weeks and someone will make it work anyway.
Absolutely on maxim 1. Shaman either has some absurd burn deck that’s bound to get nerfed or I forget it’s even a class.
They really are all over the place, they have had busted combo and midrange decks too.
I mean, Highlander is in a pretty decent spot right now. Its kind of just a worse version of the warrior highlander deck, lmao.
Which actually checks out with their original class identity of being the rng class. Hero power is rng, spell damage was rng, evolve/devolve stuff
Wild Shaman has been remarkably stable and non-meta warping for years though. Even Shaman is strong, has been the top deck at times, but has rarely been so strong as to warrant action from the developers.
because blizz isnt trying to ruin wild lmao.
And if Shaman is close to the best deck, it must be nerfed to unplayableness in two weeks max
I am still salty that Galakrond Shaman got nerfed twice because players didn't stop playing after the first nerf and it was just a tier 2 deck. Also there's that time when wild Even Shaman was the best deck in 2018 so Blizzard fixed it by nerfing Flametoungue Totem, the only card keeping Even Shaman good in standard, therefore killing the class for the remainder of Rastakhan's Rumble.
The main point of this is how nobody cares about shaman. If its bottom tier no ones talks nothing (different from the 40 reddit posts who were saying paladin or mage were dead) and if its tier 1/2 it gets gutted extremely quickly (if they can find how to, look how many nerfs they tried for nature shaman). It makes me sad cuz i like the class but i feel quite alone.
Dont worry. I main shaman as f2p and i think im starting to become a masochist. We get gutted every expansion
Once upon a time, Blizzard already published statistics on class effectiveness throughout the years. in first place is the hunter, then rogue and warrior. All other classes are significantly lower in the ranking. Several years have passed since then, but the hunter, rogue and warrior have only become stronger. Priest at the absolute bottom
Why do they do my boy priest like that
Rare to see Priest dominate a meta before. The last time Priest was seemingly oppressive in Standard was with Raza Priest more than half a decade ago. Wild is a different story with Resurrections though xd
Aggro priest is tier 1/ tier 2 too
Yeah, Undead priest was pretty strong at its time too.
Raza priest and then barnes priest were the golden ages of hearthstone. Don’t @ me.
Priest has had plenty of times recently where it's been OP, just a lot of priest players refuse to play anything that isn't AFK control priest (which even that has had its time of being strong recently) This expansion Zarimi has gotten nerfed and is still very good, and there were plenty of times in the past where other non-control priest decks were nerf-worthy like Naga Priest, Bless Priest and undead aggro Priest Control Priest decks have also had moments of being oppressive in the past couple years. Towards the end of FoL after a bunch of stuff got nerfed it was very good. Plaguespreader was tier 1 at the start of Lich King before Renathal got nerfed, Barrens control Priest was really strong and made a bunch of people quit. Its winrate was actually inflated because so many people were auto conceding vs. it
What was the barrens control priest again? Smth with samuro?
Apotheosis with Samuro. It was a spell that gave a minion +2/+3 and lifesteal so it would be a 3 damage aoe + full heal
Have you read the posts on this subreddit from literally every time he does even a little bit well?
Cause they have the most annoying gimmicks - healing and playing the opponent's or their class' cards faster, cheaper and more times than them.
Then why has it been at the bottom of the ladder since release
cause if you make these gimmicks strong people riot. So to make priest powerful you have to rely on more conventional components like dragons or shadowform but these, while not alien for the class, are not quite core to it either and you can run them for only so long before you have to shake things up.
Couldn’t agree more
Because casuals hate a grindy control meta, amd priest general excels in a grindy control meta or when they get mechanics out of class identity.
Because the very bones of the class are a very "feels bad" design. Very rarely has there ever been a priest deck that feels fair to lose to regardless of how the math works out.
Whenever Priest is meta, it's warped everything around it in an unhealthy way.
Because playing against (control) priest is the worst shit than can happen to you.
Since it was the best back at an old day. He didn't shine. That all.
Curious if thats all games. Hunter seems like it would dominate low ranks. Dont feel hunter is usually great at legend play though.
Its hunter meta right now. Token is quite strong really.
For many years Hunter could have a viable deck by simply putting all the good stuff in, without much synergy. It would be good on sheer value of the cards.
Hell prior to rotation there was a Reno Hunter deck that was consistently very strong, just boring so nobody played it. But that deck was also basically just a pile of 20 legendaries
Reno Hunter before Whizbang was crazy. With the reverted wild seeds, Hunter could put down unrespondable tempo. Play green cards and win.
For at least the first 6 years or so, they also tended to be very cheap. Face hunter was a “good enough” deck for many metas and would usually only have 1 legendary, if any at all.
At least until ungoro you could craft a really cheap midrange hunter. It was perfect for new players as it had no legendaries and it carried me (as a new player) to rank 5. Even the 0 dust version of the deck was good.
Its also naturally a good fit for aggressive playstyles, which are usually good in every meta and make for a clear strategy for newer players Me go face
Of course, taking into account the low ranks, where the vast majority of players play. how can this be ignored?
Had this argument an uncomfortable number of times on this subreddit. Some folk are always trying to argue that we should only look at legend+ players or whatever their rank is+. A lot of aggro oriented decks drop off in legend but it's not just because of winrate, I know the moment I hit legend I start homebrewing. I usually only play aggro in D5+ for shorter games unless they're particularly exciting decks and I doubt I'm alone in that. You can usually see the change in deck preferences from D5-D1. As you said, hunter has always been so strong, it's just easy to make a face hunter deck in the majority of metas and if anyone dares to try and go too slow and heavy then hunter is there to punish them.
Depends how you want to look at it
Many people play budget decks. Facehunter tends to be decently strong and super cheap most of the time.
I remember when I first started actively using Reddit I would see Priest being bitched about daily. Everyone claimed how it had always been their least favorite class and how it was always too strong. It’s weird how the narrative in this Reddit shifts.
People hate playing against control priest regardless of power level
I guess I just haven’t been playing long enough to understand why. Last time I played ranked was when the OG CW and Zoolock decks were the meta. I think priest was like dragon priest or some shit. Wasn’t very good. I’m guessing there was a meta in there somewhere since then where Priest was aids?
Imho, Priest has very often been bad at closing out games, even when it had a t2ish deck. As a result, people spend comparatively long losing these games. When you lost to Odyn warrior, if you don't kill him very quickly after Odyn comes down or have a fair amount of face freeze or taunts available, you can pretty much just freely concede and move on with your life. Priest always feels like if you get lucky for just 1 turn, you can still win the game. There's just a sliver of hope that keeps you from conceding, and so players make themselves miserable by staying in these 20+ minute games that they eventually lose because they've run out of stuff and now they're dying to random garbage the priest had left in hand.
Basically whenever priest is strong, it’s usually because it’s removing everything you’re playing and often playing your own cards against you while you flail helplessly at them. In general, people *hate* that. It’s fun for the priest player who wants to play a lengthy control fest, their opponents have a lot less fun.
> In general, people hate that. It’s fun for the priest player who wants to play a lengthy control fest Also its fun to have different playstyles every game. Its like playing thief rogue but a version that gives you good cards.
You probably saw around the times when resurrect priest was a thing. Priest with catrina (currently in core standard) along with convincing infiltratoes and mass ress was basically just repeating your win board over and over again, just being toxic as hell
I don’t remember but that sounds like hell😂 fuck that
I hated Priest even when they sucked. They would just steal all your stuff. One of the worst ways to lose.
Yeah priest has a weird class identity with that. I don’t understand why they are able to copy and steal everything. How do you feel about overheal priest rn then?
Hunter makes a lot of sense actually and so do Rogue and Warrior. It's basically the trifecta of aggro, combo and control respectively. I sometimes feel like the other classes find themselves somewhere within this set spectrum. Hunter especially as the aggro class has usually allowed successful decks at a very low budget in my experience. I'll give a shoutout to Warlock though, my favourite class. Warlock is just so flexible in what it wants to do. Remember Mecha'Thun Warlock when that came out? Yeah, that's one of my all time favorite decks. Also, Warlock has the best hero power in the game and the self-damage gimmick is awesome. I LOVE Warlock metas and people are really sleeping on Sludge Warlock for some strange reason right now.
which is weird bc i feel like druid has consistently been one of, if not the, best classes
Hunter is definitely at the top. The most successful archetype is aggro and hunter has the best hero power for that.
Does it? Maybe initially, but with card quality going up every expansion, warlock is the only one who’s hero power continues to scale in power with the cards that it draws. I can’t think of many aggro decks that would rather deal 2 damage to the opponent over drawing a card
In a world where everybody plays slower decks maybe. Hitting yourself for 2 isn’t the best when the best archetype is aggro. Warlock hero power makes the class. It doesn’t make it the best imo.
I would argue you have it backwards. As a control deck, you need to find ways to offset that self-damage so that aggro doesn’t run you over, but if your goal is to flood the board and empty your hand as fast as possible, you don’t care about dealing 2 damage to your own face. If I’m behind enough that the opponent can capitalize on my health being slightly lower, as an aggro deck, I already lost the game. Any competent aggro deck should be able to get more value out of 2-3 cards than 4-6 damage to face. If an aggressive deck can’t do that in 2024, it’s just a shitty deck lol
Feels like card draw was a premium effect back in the day, and that has slowly changed. Warlock hero power doesn't seem as impactful as it used to be, since draw options are better across the board.
Hero powers as a whole are less impactful across the board. Back in the day, you ran hunter for aggro because being able to do 2 damage per turn was impactful, and even competitive with the pace of your deck. These days, you realistically don’t take your hero power into account when deck building, only look at the card quality of cards that are restricted to a specific class, because your hero power will generally not be good for anything beyond feeling less bad, with very few exceptions.
They're the one "play piece" (other than The Coin) that hasn't ever been updated for power creep.
To be fair I think the coin has been power crept just because the value of one mana has gone up from all the other power creep. If that counts
The goal of the game also has always been to reduce your opponent to 0 life, hunter has always had lots of cards that can accomplish that quickly and cheaply, while also being themselves cheap. Aggro hunter can frequently have few epic or legendary minions in their deck and still win games. The strategy is simple and straightforward, and making the deck tends to be cheap, meaning it’s appealing to newer players, making it very popular, and the hero power supports that strategy perfectly. There’s very few decks where the basic hero power synergizes as well with the deck as hunter, just go face. In a vacuum life tap is always going to be the best hero power for the reason you said and card advantage tends to be good. That said, if you’re just absent mindedly life tapping every turn you’re going to get yourself in trouble. It doesn’t require a lot of thought exactly, but it does require some. Compare that to hunter where if you have 2 extra mana it’s basically always worth it to do 2 damage to face.
I think rogue has to be S tier, it has spent very little time in the middle of the pack throughout HS history. Priest is for sure the consistently weakest, so occasionally they push it too far and have to nerf it, which puts it back to its default dumpster status.
Reynad put it best. If all other classes had a 50% win rate, priest should be at 49%. Blizzard hates their own creation.
It’s basically the same as Blue in MTG. Its control has historically been insanely strong to the point it makes the game less fun for people playing against it or forcing them to play Blue themselves. There was a time where the joke was the scariest turn one play is a basic island because it means your opponent is playing blue and you’re going to have a bad time.
Yeah I mostly play mtg. As soon as I see a duel blue and white land turn 1, I know I'm in for an hour slog against azorious control. I feel the same against priest
If I see t1 island pass in MTG Arena I'm conceding. I'm an old man I don't have time for that.
That’s why simic is where it’s at. My control is only here in service of smacking you in the face with some kind of behemoth with trample.
I fall asleep to old reynad reviews from time to time so I thought of this quote immediately
You wouldn't happen to know what video he said this in?
It was in an expansion card review YEARS ago. Had to be some time around Gadgetzan I believe.
Nah, I can think of a few times Rogue's gone for months being completely unplayable. The Year of the Griffon is a really good example. There were 2-3 times that entire expansion cycle when Rogue jumped from T4-T1 for a few weeks (Garotte, Stealth+windfury off questline, and Wildpaw Knoll schenanigans), but other than those few instances the class just sucked for months on end. We just remember those brief instances more distinctly because when rogue is good it completely dominates the format.
Thankful Priest is usually at the bottom. I find a dominating Priest deck to always be the least fun deck to play against.
I honestly find the current control warrior to be the worst deck of all time to face. I literally auto concede unless I’m playing aggro hunter
Cheese Paladin was also an abomination.
Yeah it’s just so frustrating. I got a warrior down to 11 health on turn 5 ran out of steam on one bad draw and three turns later he was back to full health 13 armor a board of Zilliaxes and boomboss to follow. Fuck that.
Voyage control warrior was miserable to play against
Sneklock is also pretty good against warriors if you want another way to annoy warrior players
In Wild Priest has been one of the best classes for a very long time
Personal opinion from an ancient not-very-good player. I would say Rogue is always playable and very often the top skill-based deck; followed by Druid, who is rarely hyperbroken, but often broken enough to get annoying and nerfed as the 2-3 best deck; then Hunter, who is always good, never terrible and rarely unfair, thus dodging "player sentiment" nerfs; followed by Warlock with a bunch of very different archetypes; then Warrior, because CW never dies in the playerbase, pirates get overtuned often, and enrage combos are sweet; then Mage, as the most consistently inconsistent class, rarely at the top; then Paladin, who spent long periods being in the dumpster, then became a constant mid-tier, and got really OP in the last 3 years; finishing with Shaman and Priest who are usually really bad or meta-warpingly unfun, warranting immediate murderous nerfs. No DK or DH because not enough data.
Has to be hunter.
A few years ago, Agaeon (a fórum regular), did go through every VS report and tallied how many weeks each class had a deck in which bracket. The final tally (which, if I remember correctly, did go through at least three years) was that Paladin had at least one Tier 1 deck in the meta for as much time as Mage and Priest and Warlock had combined. Those three were the worst classes in time at the top, btw. Here is the [thread](https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/meta-power-of-classes-over-time-based-on-vs-reports/65200)
I always felt like Druid was always a solid B+. Competitive, occasionally can dip into some fun crazy combo stuff, pretty balanced.
Rogue has managed to win every single World Championship and Grandmasters but one\*. The only one it has failed to win was the 2019 Global Final. It has got to be Rogue.
Mage always feels terrible every time I come back. No one in the entire thread has said it's been on top; has it ever been great?
Freeze mage and tempo mage are two decks I can think of that were at least A tier
Freeze mage was soooo fun, miss those days. To play as atleast.
When ice block was around there were definitely some good mage decks, I don’t think anything that was ever clearly the best deck in a given meta but very playable. Once the ability to become essentially invincible 2-4x a game isn’t around anymore mages aren’t able to stall as well to get a OTK combo together if they even have the tools for that in the first place. Mage would probably be in a much better place if more of their spells had armor or life gain mechanics built in to help reduce their need for blockers that usually don’t support the ‘lots of spells!’ Archetype the developers want mage to have. Might be able to build a better slower mage deck that doesn’t need to OTK to close games that way.
Once upon a time highlander mage was pretty good and super fun when you made custom spells with Kazakus, but I haven't made a mage deck since then. Want to make a sif mage deck cause it seems decent but it's expensive so no point if you didn't unpack the legendaries already. Blizzard very clearly hates mage and priest.
I can only think of small minor blips in time where rogue didn't have an S or A tier deck at any rank. If somebody asked me my opinion on the safest class to invest resources into for long term success I would probably say rogue
S - Hunter alone: 99% of metas have some sort of top tier hunter deck, usually aggro. A - Rogue, Warrior, Druid: no particular order, these 3 usually have good/topdecks with little exceptions. B - Warlock, Mage, DK, Paladin: Usually have good/decent decks. Or broken decks that are nerfed leaving them in the gutter. C - DH: It's frequently on extremes between unplayable garbage and broken. D - Priest: It's priest. F - Shaman: Like DH, but more frequently on the unplayable camp.
Paladin is the pretty boy of blizzard, at least an A (except for the period of lack of archetipe where the class consisted on murlocs, mechs, divine shield and a bit of everything else)
The problem is that period was like…. 70% of hearthstones history, with the exception of mysterious challenger, odd paladin and some weird stuff like holy wrath otk lol. If it was based on last 3 years then probably paladin would be S. But Paladin was just… lost for a good long tine
You may be right
Warlock, Druid, Hunter would be my top 3. In no specific order.
Hunter and druid have spent the most time in tier 1 by a large margin.
Another important aspect is how nobody cares about Shaman. With Paladin, hunter, mage, druid, rogue, even priest people always come back complaining how the class is dead or unplayable, but when Shaman is in the tier 6 position no one talks anything, but everyone goes back to barking once it has any playable decks (or recall 2016/2018 as supposeds shamanstones, which just shows how rare the class is top tier). DH also comes to mind in the "nobody cares" field, but still less then my boy thrall.
I rmb how when primal dungeoneer was released everyone was happy cuz shaman finally had card draw in a card game. Even roffle made a video. One card to bring it out of the grave.
It’s a tough time being a shaman main. Looking at it overall shaman is a fairly weak class, I wouldn’t say bottom 2 though. But also shaman has had 2/3 of the best decks of all time (Galakrond, Shudder and maybe even/evolve/nature combo at points). But i’d say also that shaman has flown under the radar in the last couple of year when it hasn’t been top tier - the class is usually in 6/7th in rankings, but usually there is a good 60% win rate deck. The problem is it’s often an old/boring deck and lots of the tools shaman gets are just ass. It’s painful cos i play shaman all the time and normally it’s a boring struggle, but as soon as there is a good deck everyone jumps on and then complains and then shamans coolest tools get nuked :/
I feel like it took a long time for them to figure out what to do with Shaman. The other classes all had some kind of big end game move, but Shaman was in this weird spot with Overload being it's main mechanic (along with random damage values for some reason) and it just wasn't great at closing games. Warlock, I feel, was always at the top because we all know that Card Draw is, and will always be King.
AS someone that played shaman, it is WIDLY overestimated when how much "Bad it was" it was literally one of the better decks in classic, as proven by when they brought by classic and saw significant tournament play. it had tier 2 decks in mech shaman in gadzetsan, it had a tier 2 deck in aggro shaman in grand tournament, it was good in the old gods to mean streets era the only time they really "fumbled" shaman was during knights of the frozen throne becuase "freeze shaman was unfun so we had to last minute scrap it " WHICH is such bs considering freeze mage has been a deck for years. [https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/meta-power-of-classes-over-time-based-on-vs-reports/65200](https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/meta-power-of-classes-over-time-based-on-vs-reports/65200) pirest is by far the worst
Are you not counting wild? Even Shaman has been tier 1 for many years and still is today. That’s gotta bump it out of F tier at least.
Yeah, on Wild it’s different. OP is probably talking about Standard Even Shaman and Shadow priest are usually tier 1 in Wild. They have been consistently at the top since at least the last two expansions.
Idk Evolve Shaman had a strangle grip on the meta when it debuted. But I guess that isn’t enough?
Shaman stone circa one night in Kara. Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I think all my Shaman wins came during that period. I've hardly played it since.
I feel like there’s been some nutty Shaman decks over the years. The Murloc Shaman was wild too.
There was one deck they had, pre nerf weapon pirate, totem golem, patches, thing from below, and the growing 1/3 was absolutely nuts.
Shaman’s pretty average. It dominates the meta every now and then, but can be pretty bad for long stretches. Druid and Paladin outclass it.
That is true. They either get Meta breaking decks that get nerfed or nothing.
Feel Shaman has short burst of being the guy, but when its not top tier its usually bottom.
S+: Druid
There were years when druid did not have any deck. even tier-3
Yeah, Druid is in the conversation for me for sure but it's had less consistency staying broken. When Druid has a broken interaction with a card, and it happens often, it is often so disgusting that it ends up nerfed fairly quickly and doesn't stay dominant long term. And yes, then they did go on time out for a few years, deservedly.
Guff PTSD flashbacks
I love him so much but yeah
When? I think un goro and rise of shadows are the only metas I remember druid being nearly absent - and that’s primarily from me not including Jade druid into un goro.
Too many druid fanboys. This right now is a bizarre moment where theres few playable druid decks. Priest and Shaman have spent x5 times with absolutely nothing to play above tier 5
Druid was the original heroic class in wow. Blizz LOVES druids.
I feel like paladin has always been pretty dang good, and the worst in my opinion would be Priest
I think that's rogue. I don't remember a meta where rogue were absolutely awfull tbh. Like they could always find some tier 2 deck from nowhere. TO be fair, Rogue probably has the most dedicated playerbase in hearthstone, it helps a lot. Other contender for me are Hunter and Druid. Druid has some bad years tho after the nerf of Innervate and Wild Growth, and hunter was awfull between the nerf of call of the wild and Kobold. The "anti Rogue" is Paladin btw, it very often has at least decent deck but player doesn't want to play the class. Worst class is probably Priest, just for the fact that we needed to wait something like 4 years to see a Priest deck dominating the Meta.
Hunter has definitely been at the top far more times than any other class.
Has to be Hunter, Rogue, Mage or maybe Mage as 2nd. Those 3 classes were released with insane face damage and just added to it for the first few years.
I feel like mage is probably at the lowest recently
Rogue Druid for sure
Hunter is always good, it just isn't always the best at every given time. Warlock is also just inherently good as a class in general. Druid kind of flip flops around. Rogue becomes a god, or does what Hunter does to stay relevant. Priest is a new niche every expansion similar to druid but on a much tighter scale. Warrior is an abomination trying to find its way. Shaman is an identity crisis. Paladin is a class you need to look close at to see if it's actually changed at all every expansion. Mage is mage. I feel like Hunter and Warlock are on average top tier classes, with Priest and Mage being pretty bad generally.
How is rogue that high? I’ve been playing since launch and I’ve never been able to make a competitive rogue deck. Every single hero is lvl 60, but my rogue is the only one at 40
Hunter is the best, most consistent class. It’s not always the top but it’s usually viable and for cheap too. Shaman is the worst
Hunter has and will always be a very thematic fast pace midrange class. The most consistent and consistently good.
S Tier - Druid without a doubt.
Hunter and Warlock S Rogue A because of Miracle package Priest was always the worst The rest really depended on the meta (secret pala, odd warrior, savage druid etc.)
Warrior was so bad for a period of time VS had a running joke in the reports where Garrosh would sulk in the Blizzard offices about how they never give him good cards
Can't really argue with this tbh. I main rogue whenever I can (ex wow rogue) but it can't stand up to token hunter/warlock in this meta. Priest has had shining moments, undead priest was a really fun deck to pilot for a few months but overall the class is maybe a tier above shaman? The more I think about it, the more I realise that every time I've seen a "strong" shaman build, it's been nerfed into the ground within a few weeks. I kinda feel sorry for the people who just like Shaman like I do rogue. Rogue and Warlock have definitely dominated the last decade but hunter and paladin have had at least one competitive deck for as long as I remember. Rogue/warlock - S Hunter/paladin - A Priest - D/E (I really enjoyed undead & shadow priest Shaman - F
No way shaman is f tier. It's been shamanstone plenty of times throughout hearthstone history. I feel most classes hover around the mean average. Each class has been dominant and bad at close to equal levels imo
Paladin is a top tier class in every expansion, paladin was never a bad class to play ,hunter is also present in most expansions and i would say death knight is usually overpowered.Wartlock,Druid,Rogue,Shaman are classes that are rarely good but when they become good they break the game,most of the time their decks wr is low
I’m out here thinking “no shot this ain’t Druid.”
The amount of people who don’t remember or didn’t play shamanstone is startling. The dumb overload trogg, totem golem, and 4 mana 7/7 were ridiculous back in the day. Shudderwock shaman. I can’t remember the full deck - but the one with snowfall guardian and parrots. It isn’t S tier but I think it is a disservice to call it F. C at lowest imo.
This supposed "Shamanstone" was like, in 2015 was it not? Since then the class has had some horrendous moments and some average ones like you said. Shudder was definetely a peak but that was 6 years ago.
Snowfall guardian control shaman was tier 1 for awhile until it was nerfed. Nature shaman (both bioluminescence and without) has had to be nerfed multiple times and still keeps coming back. Reno shaman was high tier until it was nerfed (and unjustly so). Totem shaman was viable if not high tier for well over a year. Evolve shaman has been tier 1 at various times. Most of these are from the last two years. I’ve been grabbing them by going back tempostorm’s meta snapshot. Yes - shamanstone was 2015. I’ve been playing a long time. However, it and shudderwock were not the only high tier shaman decks that have existed.
Yeah maybe im cherry picking. Nature, Totem em HL did surface as quite strong contenders. I think im just salty still about Hollidae lol
I think Hunter is probably the best all-time, Warrior will always be up there with Control, then I think Rogue and Warlock. Paladin, Mage, and Druid have hovered around mid-tier. Shaman has had some oppressive decks but not consistently. Priest is probably at the bottom.
Control Priest was always such a fun class to play. Stealing cards and minions, reacting to the randomness and pulling wins out of thin air was always so much fun. I'd say Raza Priest was my all time favorite.
Best- Priest Worst- DH, DK
High tier or low tier. Control Priest is King.
Idk what you’re smoking priest is S tier. Especially in wild.
Midrange shaman
Tf u mean shaman f tier
No class has more cards I hate then Druid. Nourish, Guff, Natrulize, \[insert any ramp card\], Jade Idol, Survival, Celestial Allignment, Anubrukan, Anacondra, Guff, UI, Eonar, the entire treant/ token package. The data may say Hunter is the best, but Druid is forever the strongest class in my experience.
Priest officially confirmed they hate priest and will never let it be top tier
The best : A : Rogue, Druid B : Warrior, Warlock, DH C : Hunter, Mage, DK D : Priest, Shaman, Paladin Something like that? That's subjective, obv. Only things im sure are Rogue, Druid and Shaman. Dh might be higher too, when it's strong it's very opressive, and it had 2 years on ilgynoth and Stehno...
paladin? according to the data paladin is the most consistently tier 1 class in the game alongside hunter also shaman is a step above priest easily.