Season 3 is upon us and with little surprise at all, Trump's free shaman deck is quite in style. Right now in the 20-15 ranks I've seen myself sparing the shaman 3 to 1. I'm working out a semi ramp Druid to counter. What are you seeing out there?

The meta is still Miracle Rogue/Handlock; and will probably stay that way until the expansion; don't think they'll nerf rogue before then. Handlock is an impossible deck to nerf in the first place without drastically changing quite a few cards.

The actual meta is Trump playing Dark Souls II.

I've been running Garra's Ramp Druid with pretty good success. It can hold it's own against that stupid Paladin aggro deck that seems to be in vogue now (the one that eats Handlock alive). The only real bad matchup I've encountered is tempo Rogue. I've seen Tides' Bloodlust Shaman a little but Shaman is so difficult to play correctly, I don't anticipate seeing it more until around rank 10 and above.

This is gibberish.

@spraynardtatum: It's just who's deck do you want to copy in lieu of actually making one so you can play thousands of other people using the same exact deck; very exciting stuff.

@fredchuckdave: You should all be ashamed of yourself

Man, tried to design my own priest deck and came up against miracle rogue 3 times in a row. So i switched to miracle rogue.

@fredchuckdave: I prefer to look at it as just having someone else do the heavy lifting while I sit back and reap the rewards.

@spraynardtatum: I don't do it, the most I've ever done is take some vague inspiration for like 1 deck I've played 4 or 5 times out of 800 regular games. I'm also not dense enough to think climbing the ladder is an interesting experience in the slightest. By nature of being a competent player I will have used good cards in my decks, so there's some overlap but not nearly as much as the vast majority of players.

@splodge: You did the right thing, sir.

@c0v3rt: Hey I don't mind occasionally facing a similar deck (that's more or less how it was with the old ranking system), but when it's thousands and thousands of matches of the same handful of decks that's when you've got problems. Game's still fun to watch at a tournament level with the best players but man is it boring to play for more than a few matches a day.

@fredchuckdave: No, I hear you. For a TCG/CCG there's such a small pool of cards right now, if you want to climb ladder you're limited to what's viable in the meta. It's not for everyone and if you get more enjoyment by making and playing your own decks, more power to you.

I'm about rank 15 right now and all I've really seen is aggro paladin and a surprising amount of of aggro mage. I expect to run into a lot of handlock and miracle rogue higher up the ladder.

@c0v3rt: The solution for the paladin deck is basically "Play wild pyromancer, go second." Or control warrior, which is one of the few decks which has a large number of variants.

@fredchuckdave: I just fight cheese with cheese and play ZooLock when I start to run into it.

@c0v3rt: It seems my aggro warlock deck from 5 months ago is finally going lower than an 80% win rate, the horror! I can't just copy another deck though so have to come up with something to fix that.

@fredchuckdave: Do you do arena much? It seems like it would fit your preference better than constructed.

@c0v3rt: Arena was fun when say 80% of the people didn't know how to play (I have 800ish arena wins, maybe more. I don't remember the beta number); it's sort of just straight up RNG now. Also have to save gold for the expansion so there's even less people playing. They're also absolutely never going to balance arena so mages will always be annoying and tedious to play against; and if 80% of the people pick mages... (note that doesn't mean mages are the best they're just retard-proof, play card, remove card with spell, pick 5 flamestrikes).

@fredchuckdave: Blizz' answer to the Mage problem in arena is poor. It goes back to the small pool of cards each class has, but saying you'll see less Flamestrike once more Mage cards get added isn't the answer.

Shame on the thread creator. CCG metas are never worth paying attention to unless you're dreadfully boring.

Make a deck you think is fun, and then be content with being in the middle of the ladder with said deck, because the top of the ladder is just a bunch of nerds all playing the same like 10 decks.

@bisonhero: I think you can (somewhat easily) make a good deck to beat the meta; the issue is if you do that then you become the real monster.

News from the front: Injured Blademaster causes frothing to proc, new meta!

@c0v3rt: Have you tried Gaara's Totemic might deck from this valutown? Looked amusing.

@fredchuckdave: I can't play Shaman. I have a hard time wrapping my head around why the overload mechanic is good.

@c0v3rt: Shaman is good they're just very draw reliant; if you have the right cards you'll win 80-85% of matches, if you don't you'll almost certainly lose. Ultimately it just always feels depressing when you don't have the right cards; whereas with druid (except innervate obviously), warrior, or rogue almost every card you draw is useful and with warlock you get 2 draws. Also RNG totems never sit right. Flametongue draw with empty board, huzzah! Mana tide draw with empty board, fantastic!

@bisonhero: true, dreadfully boring. Such a boring topic I'm glad you took the time to reply.

I think the meta changes between every 5 ranks or so and most players don't have the legendaries to create those top decks. So I think the point of this topic is get a general sense on how everyone is meeting those challenges, even if we all can't hit legendary.

I have all of the worthwhile legendaries that all the top players use and the highest rank I've been able to obtain is 6. While using netdecking seems to be frowned upon, there's something to be said about watching how a deck should be played and trying to immitate it in effort to learn and get better.

I think that's the way to handle netdecking: look at them to get a sense of how to build a strategy deck and what makes it strong, and then build your own! Every netdeck was created by someone!

Still don't get the hate on netdecking. Some people are better brewers. Some people are better pilots. Do people shit on F1 drivers for not building their own cars? Do F1 drivers build their own cars? I probably should have looked it up before making that analogy.

@starvinggamer: Do people shit on demolition derby drivers if they didn't put their own car together? Yes. Do demo derby drivers build/modify their own cars? Usually. DUELING ANALOGIES!

Anyway, the loss of a local meta is the worst thing to happen to gaming. It used to be that you could be good enough to beat most of your friends at Street Fighter, at Super Mario Kart, at Magic: The Gathering. But no one thinks in those terms now that all multiplayer is pretty much online and digital CCGs are the new hotness compared to physical CCGs. Everyone compares themselves to the literal best possible players/decks and says "I need to work towards that". It honestly feels like how it used to be good enough that a girl was fairly pretty, but now they're all comparing themselves to the impossible standards set by models in magazines.

@starvinggamer: Bad analogy is bad. 90% of your success in hearthstone is based on the deck you use. Then ~9% is what you draw.

@hunkulese: Eh - I don't know about that one. Popular streamers like Amaz have shown they can take the weakest class in Priest to legendary in under a month. While the matchups each deck offers against other decks is important, knowing and understanding how and when to play the deck makes all the difference.

Another point worth making on point with the discussion, is that deck building and ones ability to play the game don't necessarily go hand in hand. While I'd imagine being able to do one well would help out the other - a lot of the high level players "borrow" decks from each other (I promise if you've ever seen a tournament Warrior, kitkatz probably had a hand in it). For me it just goes back to play the game how you want. If you get a sense of satisfaction tinkering with your own one of a kind deck then using it, do it. If you've got the cards to play netdecks and want to try and play them at a high level, go for it. Neither way of playing is wrong or better than the other.

@c0v3rt: I'm fairly sure he did what he did because he built a great deck. The way the game is set up puts almost all the strategy into the deck building. With a deck of 30 cards it's bit exactly rocket science to understand how a deck works.

I moved up the ladder fairly easily copying someone's deck but quickly found it boring and tedious. I never had the desire to try and create my own deck or spend money on the game so I stopped playing.

@hunkulese: I don't hate myself enough today to argue with someone on the internet about a CCG, so I'll just let you think that. You're clearly too pro for me.

@starvinggamer: Some of the best F1 drivers have built their own cars yes; it's definitely part of their job (not necessarily literally building the car, though some have done that too, but working in tandem with those that do). Netdecking to get a general sense of what decks to play is fine, playing literally the exact same deck is not and is the source of the main problems with the hearthstone ladder; not much point blaming people individually for it since it is say 80% of the people on the ladder.

@c0v3rt: I'm pretty sure I admitted I'm not pro and I think being able to win 70% of my games just by copying someone's deck pretty much proves what I was saying. I don't understand what there is to argue about. Your deck clearly has the biggest impact on your ability to win. There's nothing wrong with that but I don't see the appeal to Hearthstone if you're not into deck building.