By ecoutepasca

Last weekend was the Wild Open Tournament, a prestigious event featuring the crème of the Wild Hearthstone players. The prerequisite to participate was to finish in the top 100 of the legend ladder in January, which made the competition quite more fierce than usual during that month. The tournament itself consisted of 7 swiss rounds of best-of-3 matches in the Conquest format, followed by playoffs on a single elimination bracket for the top 8 players of each server.



I have looked at all 828 decks played and found there to be 55 different archetypes.

The first story here is the popularity and polyvalence of Warlock. 173 out of the 276 players included Gul’Dan in their lineup, but 49 of them were Even, 47 Cubes, 47 Mecha’Thun, 15 Control, 14 Reno and 1 Zoo. The second most played class is Rogue (123), driven by the 103 Kingsbanes, by far the most popular archetype. The other representants are 11 Odd, 5 Mill, 4 Quest and 1 Big. Uther showed up 117 times: 61 Odd, 33 Anyfin, 17 Aggro, 3 Even, 2 Exodia and 2 Holy Wrath. The 93 Priest players brought mostly Big (52), but also 16 Inner Fire, 11 Mind Blast, 7 Reno, 2 Malygos, 2 Gallery, 1 Quest, 1 APM and 1 pure Control. The 91 Mages are just as divided with 58 Aluneth, 14 Exodia, 8 Reno, 4 Big Spell, 3 Quest, 2 Freeze, 1 Control and 1 Tempo. 48 contenders brought Warrior, and 30 of them were Odd, 6 DMH, 5 Pirate, 3 Patron, 3 Odd-Quest and 1 Reno-DMH. Druid is not dead. The 46 versions were 25 Jade, 15 Toggwagle, 3 Aggro, 2 Mill and 1 Malygos. Hunter was almost boycotted, with only 23 decks: 12 Mech, 5 Beast, 3 Secret and 3 Spell.

Some of the decks that were the most successful at thriving through the swiss rounds and making it to the top 8 were surprises. First of all, it looks like the Cold Blood nerf scared players away from Odd Rogue, resulting in Kingsbane being slightly overhyped. They should not have pannicked because Odd Rogue made it all the way on Asia and Americas, and no Kingsbane decks were in the finals. The other very important nerf happened to Flametongue Totem and you know what? Thrall doesn’t care. Not only did Even Shaman perform extremely well, but all the other archetypes (Jade, Malygos, Doppelwock and Aggro) except Renowock made it into the top 8! Shaman looks like the big winner here, its popularity was completely diserved. Combo decks in general were a disapointement: Mecha’Thun, Anyfin and Toggwagle are the three most popular archetypes to have been wiped out early. The players didn’t seem to believe in Rexxar, but he performed just fine. With 2 of the 12 Mech Hunters reaching the top 8 of their region, we can say that the deck is legit.

Now let’s look at the lineups of the 6 player who went all the way.

로좀 : Aggro Druid, Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue

トラス : Aluneth Mage, Big Priest, Even Shaman

Player671 : Aluneth Mage, Inner Fire Priest, Doppelwock Shaman

Jarla : Aluneth Mage, Odd Paladin, Even Shaman

SphnxManatee : Aggro Paladin, Odd Rogue, Cube Warlock

DrJikinki : Aluneth Mage, Odd Paladin, Even Shaman













Conclusion: play Odd Rogue, Odd Paladin, Aluneth Mage or Even Shaman.