by NPH Pasca and WickedGood

After the first week of the Tombs Of Terror event, here’s what the metagame looks like in the Conquest Best Of 3 format. The data analyzed here comes exclusively from Hearthstone Masters Qualifiers Arlington 16-30.

You will see that the cards that have been brought back from Wild are having an impact, some of them more than others. Flamewaker and N’zoth, for example, had been overhyped, whlie Evolve and Ragnaros are making bigger waves.

Data summary from offcurve.com:

Tier List:

Meta Defining Lineups:

Tempo Rogue, Token Shaman, Aggro Warrior (edanco)

Quest Druid, Combo Priest, Quest Shaman (Maverick)

Highlander Paladin, Combo Priest, Token Shaman (Dreivo)

Proven Lineups:

Highlander Paladin, Resurrect Priest, Mecha’Thun Warrior (Languagehacker)

Malygos Druid, Combo Priest, Token Shaman (Maxxe)

Combo Priest, Token Shaman, Aggro Warrior (Ruby)

Holy Wrath Paladin, Combo Priest, Token Shaman (AllanPogi)

Pretty Good Lineups:

Highlander Paladin, Token Shaman, Highlander Warrior (NAGON)

Highlander Hunter, Combo Priest, Token Shaman (Baggio)

Quest Druid, Holy Wrath Paladin, Combo Priest (DeathBoose)

Highlander Hunter, Highlander Mage, Holy Wrath Paladin (Turbon1ck)

Holy Wrath Paladin, Token Shaman, Control Warrior (Reliquary)

Token Shaman, Zoo Warlock, Aggro Warrior (BabyBear)

Malygos Druid, Holy Wrath Paladin, Token Shaman (Level9001)

Tempo Rogue, Quest Shaman, Aggro Warrior (maruth24)

Token Shaman, Zoo Warlock, Control Warrior (CheeseHead)

Tempo Rogue, Token Shaman, Highlander Warrior (Hypno)

Interesting Lineups:

Highlander Hunter, Highlander Mage, Control Warrior (Bankyugi)

Tempo Rogue, Token Shaman, Zoo Warlock (zlofany)

Highlander Paladin, Tempo Rogue, Token Shaman (TechnoGoose)

Bomb Hunter, Cyclone Mage, Tempo Rogue (Flamekilla)

Combo Priest, Tempo Rogue, Quest Shaman (Freshca)

Malygos Druid, Quest Shaman, Control Warrior (pianokiller)

Holy Wrath Paladin, Combo Priest, Quest Shaman (Flasch)

Highlander Hunter, Resurrect Priest, Quest Shaman (Tranquilfern)

Highlander Hunter, Tempo Rogue, Highlander Warrior (Flix)

Combo Priest, Token Shaman, Zoo Warlock (Lucasdmnasc)

Highlander Hunter, Holy Wrath Paladin, Quest Shaman (xxCJ42069xx)

Combo Priest, Tempo Rogue, Token Shaman (WoT)

Featured Lineups:

Here are, in our opinion, the 30 most interesting combinations of decks we’ve seen this week. The qualifier winners were invited to share tips about their lineup, and some of them did. We understand that the players who are currently in Bucharest want to keep every bit of information to themselves.

You can click on the titles to find the 3 decks codes directly on yaytears.com.

I saw that the most popular top 8 archetypes of the first qualifiers of this week were Combo Priest, Evolve Shaman and Tempo Rogue, and also realized that there weren’t a lot of Control Warriors, so I chose an aggro line up. I decided to ban Shaman and target Combo Priest. In a couple of rounds I faced players with Control/Mecha’thun Warriors and that was my ban in those cases.

Since it was on Asia server and I don’t have a lot of cards there, I played a second Lightning Bolt instead of Vessina in Shaman and second Cruel Taskmaster instead of Grommash in Warrior. edanco

I took Maxxe’s lineup minus the Drud because I think that it’s targetable (by Priest, notably). So I kept his Shaman and his Priest, and I went with Highlander Paladin, because I believe in its power level, above other Highlander decks. dreivo

Ban Druid, target Aggro Shaman. turbon1ck

I have done a video with the meaning fo my lineup since i have a youtube channel called Zio Maruth, but is full italian. My point of view about this initial meta was that the Shaman is god tier for me, so i want a lineup that ban him ( second choice ban Control Warrior) and try to counter 2 good decks that every player probably brings in his lineup, Combo priest and Quest Druid, since my Tempo Rogue and Tempo Warrior are pretty good in contesting first round of Priests and Priest never wins without his board. My Quest Shaman was hard teched vs Priest and is a sort of Control Quest Shaman since I play Plague of Murlocs and double Scoundrel but a lot of games he was banned. The power of my Tempo Rogue and Warrior also were the possibility to play aggro vs greedy decks like Nzoth decks, Sap is very powerful tempo play vs Karthut and slow taunts and I play a Spellbreaker in my Tempo Warrior maruth24

I built this lineup because I saw the meta in the tournament had a lot of aggo lineups such as Aggro Rogue, Combo Priest, Aggro Evole Shaman, etc. So my target is aggro deck. My deck is a little bit counter aggro, for example in the Mage deck, you will see Ooze, Bone Wraith and a lot of defensive cards. Most of deck that I ban in tournamnet is Quest Druid, Highlander Hunter and Holy Wrath Paladin. bankyugi

So first of all my highlander decks were a little bit budget since i don’t have that much dust on NA. Otherwise i would have played Houndmaster Shaw in the Hunter deck and Grommash in the Warrior deck. My main target was Combo Priest which worked out perfectly the entire cup. That’s why I played Wing Blast and Desert Spear in the Hunter, super strong against Priest. Tempo Rogue with double Sap is extremely favoured against Combo Priest and the Warrior is also decent against it and overall a really underrated deck right now and in my opinion way better that the classic Aggro Warrior. So talking about the ban strategy i’ts kinda difficult. The ban is pretty flexible and really depending on the opponents lineup. I think in general you can say Shaman is the main ban with this deck. That’s what i did almost all of the first rounds where I faced a lot of aggro lineups. Even though Tempo Rogue and Highlander Hunter have a decent chance at beating it here and there. In the later rounds i faced a lot of control lineups with and without Shaman. Control Warrior was always my main ban when they had it in there lineup since all of my decks are unfavoured against it. Druid is also not a good matchup for my decks but there are really not that many and it’s beatable with a good starting hand. flix