As the name suggests, let’s make some predictions about what the post TGT meta will look like. 5 predictions allowed, and let’s make them bold! Let’s go back to this thread in 2 months or so and see how good our predictions were!

1.Control Paladin and ramp Druid will become tier 1 decks and control Warrior will lose viability. Shaman and Priest will be finally good and hover between tier 1 and 2; midrange Shaman will be the dominant midrange deck, and control Priest will benefit a lot from the meta slowing down.

2.Tusskarr Jouster will be the only Joust card that sees play, as a 1 of in control Paladin. Inspire oriented decks will be only seen in midrange Shaman and control Priest; a handful of inspire cards will be played in other decks as 1 ofs. Inspire Mage will be tried and fail, and Grinder/Tempo mage will be the go to archetypes.

3.Face Hunter will lose all viability, and aggro Paladin will be the only tier 1 face deck in the meta. Hunter will be stuck in this weird limbo of not having a good face or control deck, since control Hunter will not become a thing, and midrange Hunter will not get enough new good cards. Hunter will become a tier 2 or tier 3 class.

4.Warsong Commander will be nerfed out of existence like Starving Buzzard once was, and Patron Warrior will stop being a thing.

5.Warrior, Rogue and Hunter will all receive cards for completely new and alien archetypes that will be tried extensively and fail miserably, similar to how fatigue Druid, Malygos Shaman or mill Rogue did in the past. They will take the place of the worst three classes.

In response to your second point, that one mana jouster will see play unless the meta changes. In ramp druid, control paladin, grinder mage, handlock and control warrior (where you will almost always have a higher cost minion than the many aggro decks on ladder) it's a zombie chow with no downside (making it fine in the late game even in control vs. control matchups). And it tells you a lot about what deck you're playing - the playstyle is very different playing against mech or freeze mage, face or midrange hunter and patron or control warrior. That kind of information is invaluable.

I boldly predict that Justicar is probably the coolest legendary in the set.

Whatever happens it will be a welcome change, and I have gold for more than 70 packs saved up. Strap it on!

If Hunter get more cards with the effect of Steamwheedle Sniper, i can see a mid range/control Hunter becoming a good option.

@zombie2011: Similarly, it would be nice if Warrior could ever get a remotely viable aggro option. They keep trying, like with that 1-mana 1/3 Mech with enrage, but it never really sticks because everybody is too busy with Control Warrior or Warsong Commander combos.

I'll counter a few of your points and tie them in with a few of my own. :)

1 - I don't think Hunter is going anywhere. I don't think a true face hunter has been tier 1 for a long while as the game got progressively faster. As a result, we've gotten hybrid hunter that only has a real weakness to face hunter because in the mirror, the aggressor should prevail. With the likes of Lock and Load and Ball of Spiders, I think you'll see a new archetype in combo hunter become a thing, but don't think the pieces are out there to become viable. I think aggro paladin is a flavor of the month aggro deck that comes and goes as slower warrior and druid decks creep onto ladder.

2 - There will be no hard nerfs to any cards. I think Patron is a broken deck, but Patron and Emperor are also the only real reason for you to purchase BRM. Dr Boom is another example of being broken, but it being a cash grab. I'd venture to guess a substantial number of people ran out and purchased packs for dust after it became how obvious how strong he was, or disenchanted a lot of their collection to get him. You'd alienate a big segment of your crowd if you nerf.

3 - Blizzard is rather trying to give us the tools to come up with answers, but don't see any. I like the joust mechanic in theory, but I just see your buffed minions as an owl target. The big perk I take away from joust is the ability to get information on what your opponent is playing. Inspire feels too slow. If you play a 4 drop with inspire on curve, you don't do anything really to the board until next turn, giving your opponent time to answer. If you're playing that 4 drop as a 6 drop, you're not getting a ton of body for the cost and would rather just play a 6 drop.

4 - Rogue and Priest will be swapped on tier lists. I haven't seen any great new combo cards for Rogue, and Oil isn't as strong as it once was. Priest on the other hand feels like it's gotten insanely strong. Confuse is the finisher that the class was sorely lacking. Shaman is going to remain on bottom because Blizzard doesn't know how to treat overload properly.

5 - Aviana is going to be the Troggzor of the set, where it generates the most buzz pre-release then seldom sees use. I think it's a cool card mechanically, but it feels like a win-more card. Lightbane and Darkbane are deceptively great cards that will get some amazing combos over time. Justicar Trueheart will see the most play out of any of the neutral legendaries after released.

1. Warsong commander will be nerfed by no longer giving charge to frothing berserkers with more than three attack.
2. There will be a tier 2 inspire deck however, it will be too slow to ever be tier 1
3. People will be calling the new ramp druid overpowered
4. Control hunter will not be good enough
5. Control rogue will be

Murloc will become a tier one deck, as it is in my dreams.

I expect the Joust won't be our answer to the aggro decks. The concept sounds good at first. But there are too many limitations. One being that if the game selects a card of equal value, then you lose the joust. There's also the problem that even the most top heavy decks such handlock, ramp druid and control warrior all still run small minions such as sun fury protector, zombie chow, and others. So, if you're facing a mirror match, chances of winning a joust are very low since the joust rules are not in your favor.

One of the new legendaries will be a 7 mana 7/7 who isn't as good as Dr Boom but is okay.

It's the hero power. It's completely useless for aggro. Same with Priest. Gaining 2 armor goes towards a longer game and allowing weapon hits on minions no matter what turn it is. I don't know if we'll ever see a viable aggro Warrior unless they release some insanely aggressive card for it.

Holy crap, I hadn't read that. That's terrible! From a design perspective, don't you want the new mechanic to trigger more often than not? Ugh. I think that's a huge mistake on Blizzard's part but I guess we'll see. Maybe the effects of the Joust are so strong that they needed to balance them like that.

My predictions:

1. The game will slow down slightly. Not as much as Blizzard wants it. People will still complain about aggro.

2. Black Knight will return from complete obscurity and see some play.

3. Dr. Boom will not get nerfed and BGH will continue to be in a lot of decks as a result.

4. Patron Warrior will be nerfed and Handlock will return as the default best deck in the game as a result. (because that always seems to happen)

@imsh_pl: @hansolol:Here's some gameplay involving the joust mechanic. The decks shown will probably be different then the ones on ladder, but its nice to have some idea of how the joust mechanic might play out. So, if you're able to endure the horrendous gameplay by both players, you will see that the paladin was able to get the joust in his favor 1/4 of the time. Two of the cards that failed to work were 2 Tusskarr Jousters. The mage deck he is facing is a slower deck than an aggro one so we will have to see when it is released sometime after next week.

@acura_max: There is a very insightful reddit thread which analyzes the viability of Joust from a statistical perspective, check it out if you're interested.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/3fwffh/joust_odds/

I only have one prediction and it is that Totem Shaman will be huge in the meta after Grand Tournament hits. I think you will see a lot of them on the ladder especially as you get closer to legendary.

@imsh_pl: Seeing those numbers really make me feel better about Joust. I just wonder if the person who made that chart incorporated the fact that you lose a joust if your card is equal and the fact that people tend to mulligan for their low cost minions.

Furthmore, I predict that warrior will still be the worst class in arena. Blizzard has really got it in for the warrior class in arena. The best card they got so far might be bash. That is then followed by King's Defender, which is a bad fiery war axe unless you have a taunt. After that you have bolster and Alextraza's champion. I can't imagine that you would be able to get great value out of those two cards reliably. And to think I thought the warrior class was bad enough to do arena with before.

Alex Navarro will continue to talk about how much he plays Hearthstone, then do nothing but complain about Hearthstone. Thus perfectly representing the Hearthstone community on Giant Bomb.

@facktion:Oh, I know. We're such outliers, huh? Every other community for competitive multiplayer games doesn't have a single person disagreeing with any aspect of the game they play.