Hearthstone, Azeroth’s Most Wanted Changes the Meta: Warrior is the True Winner

Anyone who has played Hearthstone long enough knows that sometimes a few cards are enough to disrupt weeks spent building, refining, and shamelessly copying (so to speak) the best decks of the moment. A Legendary changes, a particularly effective synergy arrives, and what seemed like a manageable matchup the day before suddenly becomes the reason we lose three games in a row, wondering what happened to our poor deck.

Azeroth’s Most Wanted, released on August 25th, starts from this very concept and does so with a different formula compared to old mini-sets. Blizzard focused the update on four Class Sets of seven cards dedicated to Priest, Rogue, Warlock, and Warrior, accompanied by the Epic Neutral card Wanted Poster. Twenty-nine unique cards in total, then, but above all four packages built to suggest four archetypes: Reborn Priest, Stealth Rogue, Kabal Warlock, and Pirate Warrior.

On paper, it almost seems like four small decks to complete. Practice, as often happens in Hearthstone, decided to tell a different story.

Just over a week after launch, Pirate Warrior is hovering around 59% win rate between Diamond and Legend, with the Dragon Pirate variant at practically the same value. Quest Priest has taken a huge slice of the ladder, while pure Stealth Rogue and the new Imp-form Warlock have fallen significantly behind. But stopping at percentages would be uninteresting: what matters is understanding why some of these cards work immediately and others, despite seeming built to go together, end up being more effective when separated.

Pirate Warrior: When Two Cards Become a Very Serious Problem

Let's start with what you'll probably encounter most often during your climb. Pirate Warrior is certainly not new to Hearthstone, and anyone who has played for a few years will remember periods when seeing Garrosh on the other side of the screen meant preparing to take Pirates and weapons to the face in the fewest possible turns. The version born with Azeroth’s Most Wanted maintains that philosophy, but Blizzard has added an engine that makes it less dependent on simple initial aggression.

Cannonmaster, a 3/1 minion for one Mana, adds a Cannoneer, a 1/1 Pirate that deals one damage to a random enemy at the end of the turn, to your hand. Said like that, it might seem like little more than an annoying token, but Pirate Boarding for two Mana puts two directly on the board while also allowing us to Discover a Pirate. And things start to degenerate quite quickly.

Explosive Dust Expert increases the damage dealt by Pirates during our turn, Portable Cannon allows Cannoneers to fire when the hero attacks, and Captain Crowley summons two more, also firing an additional shot each time they activate. Translated into plain English, those innocent 1/1s can turn into a battery of small cannons capable of clearing the board or, when there are no more minions to hit, unloading everything directly onto the opposing hero.

With Explosive Dust Expert and Crowley on the field simultaneously, for example, each Cannoneer can fire two shots for two damage. Add Portable Cannon and the hero's attack triggers another volley even before the end of the turn. Leaving two Cannoneers alive because "they're just 1/1s anyway" is one of those mistakes you only make once, especially when four or five small projectiles all end up on the wrong side of the board.

The problem for those facing this deck is precisely choosing what to eliminate. Crowley amplifies the Cannoneers, but spending all resources on the Captain can leave enough gunners on the field to make the next turn dangerous. Eliminating tokens one by one is not much more reassuring, given that Pirate Boarding and Land Ho! can quickly rebuild the situation.

The latter is probably one of the cards that best explains why the deck so easily found its place in the meta. For four Mana, it draws two cards and puts two Cannoneers on the board. Warrior can therefore recharge their hand without completely giving up the turn, something that is worth a lot for an aggressive deck. We are not drawing while waiting to restart: we are drawing and, at the same time, preparing other sources of damage.

If that were all, we would still be talking about an excellent Pirate package. The problem, or the advantage if you are using it, is that several lists also add Chainbreaker Broadside, capable of duplicating other Legendaries in the deck at the start of the game.

This means being able to have two Captain Crowleys, but above all preparing a second part of the game with Lo’Gosh, Blood Fighter, Broll, Blood Fighter, Hooktooth, and other duplicated threats. The structure thus ends up having two very different moments: first Pirates and cannon fire arrive, then, if the opponent has managed to survive, much larger minions enter the scene.

And that is perhaps the most important difference compared to some old versions of Pirate Warrior. In the past, it often happened that you resisted the initial assault and gradually saw the opponent's hand empty. Here, the exact opposite can happen: we have just spent half of our resources to remove Cannoneers and Crowley from the board and we are faced with the second wave.

It doesn't mean the deck plays itself. Explosive Dust Expert, for example, is worth much more when saved for a turn where we can activate several Cannoneers rather than simply played on curve. The same goes for Crowley, who can be a good play at five Mana or become one of those cards that make us look at the board wondering how it's possible to have taken so much damage in a few seconds.

The data from the ladder, in short, doesn't surprise us too much. Pirate Warrior and Dragon Pirate Warrior are currently among the best alternatives for climbing, but above all, they have managed to revive a historic archetype without merely giving it a bigger weapon. This time they gave it cannons.

Quest Priest, Because One Sol’etos Is Never Enough

If Warrior tries to end the game by immediately putting us under pressure, Priest has decided to do exactly what many players of the class have loved to do for years: survive long enough to build something tremendously unpleasant on the other side.

The base remains Perfect Balance, a Quest that requires casting four Holy Spells and four Shadow Spells. Once both parts are completed, you get Sol’etos, Cycle's Rebirth, an 8/8 with Taunt and Reborn that, through its Battlecry, summons a second copy. As if two 8/8s to eliminate twice weren't annoying enough, the Deathrattle deals five damage to a random enemy.

Quest Priest already had a very specific win condition. The new set simply gave it the ability to abuse it much more than before. This is where Slime Reduced! comes in, a card that at first glance might seem like a classic global removal. For four Mana, it destroys all minions and gives both players a three-Mana spell capable of re-summoning those just destroyed. Played after Sol’etos, however, it becomes a whole different story.

We voluntarily destroy our 8/8s, activate the Deathrattles, and if at the same time we have also cleared the opponent's board, those five random damages find far fewer targets to choose from (you can imagine where they will end up). Immediately after, we can use the obtained spell to put the minions back into play.

Two Sol’etos mean ten potential damages just from the Deathrattles, without considering what happens when we start multiplying the sequence. This is where the deck almost takes on a combo behavior: it doesn't necessarily close everything in one turn, but it can open two or three consecutive turns in which the opponent must find an answer to a rather indecent amount of 8/8s, Taunts, Deathrattles, and Reborns.

And then there's Raith Van Geist. His Battlecry re-summons minions that have Reborned during the game and sends them to attack random enemy minions. If the pool contains Sol’etos, Raith is not simply filling our board. He can force those 8/8s to crash into opposing creatures, reactivate the Deathrattles, and restart Reborn.

The interesting part comes in the deck building itself. Blizzard has added several new Reborn cards, such as Follow the Ghosts, Lingering Spirit, and Permanent Presence, and the initial temptation would naturally be to throw them all in and see what happens.

The problem is that Raith remembers them too. Every small Reborn minion used in the early game ends up in the same set of possible Sol’etos resurrections. Considering that we can only have seven minions on the board, filling that pool with 2/1s and 3/3s means risking that a seven-Mana play returns a board that is certainly numerous, but decidedly less terrifying than hoped.

And here arises a choice that we particularly liked. Follow the Ghosts and Lingering Spirit can be very useful against fast decks, because they allow us not to remain completely idle while completing Perfect Balance. At the same time, every time we Reborn them, we know we are adding a potentially mediocre target to the Raith we would like to play later.

So, is it worth dirtying the pool to survive a few more turns?

It depends on the game, and this is precisely what makes the new version much more interesting than a simple "Reborn" deck. Even Permanent Presence, which adds stats, Taunt, and Reborn, and being a Shadow Spell helps complete the Quest, cannot be included without too much thought. Quest Priest already has many spells that require a minion to target, and a hand full of buffs without a body on the board is as useful as an open umbrella in the living room.

For now, Raith Van Geist and Slime Reduced! seem to be the additions that most impact the old win condition, precisely because they work directly on Sol’etos without forcing a complete overhaul of the entire deck. It's not surprising, therefore, to see Quest Priest above 14% presence between Diamond and Legend, while maintaining a much more grounded win rate compared to Warrior.

It's strong, but above all, it's annoyingly difficult to exhaust. And anyone who has already played against three consecutive waves of Sol’etos would probably have chosen a less polite adjective.

Rogue and Warlock Have a Not-So-Effective Plan

Stealth Rogue seemed like one of the easiest packages to understand. IR:7 Supplier draws after attacking, IR:7 Executioner rewards minions that come out of Stealth, and Mathias Shaw turns those same attacks into discounts on cards in hand. You put some minions to safety, wait for the right moment, and then go all in. Easy, at least until someone on the other side arrives who has no intention of waiting.

The limit is quite evident when playing: a Stealthed minion that remains hidden is difficult to eliminate, but in the meantime, it's not doing anything to the opponent. Attacking immediately means losing protection, waiting means conceding time, and against some decks in the format, that time costs a lot. Pure Sneaky Rogue has indeed plummeted below 42%, while Sneaky Harold versions exceed 52%, a rather clear sign that those cards work better as part of a broader plan.

Warlock managed to do even worse with the Imp-formers, and it's almost a shame because we like the idea. These 3/3 Demons with Lifesteal are shuffled into the opponent's deck and, when drawn, end up on our board. Kabal Orchestrator can transform them into 5/5s, and other cards allow you to progressively contaminate the deck. The flaw? We can prepare everything perfectly and wait several turns before the opponent draws one of the Imp-formers.

Meanwhile, they, annoyingly, keep playing. Impformant Warlock is currently just over 30% win rate, and you don't need to be a great statistician to understand that something isn't working. More interesting is Don Kazakus, already capable of entering other Warlock lists without having to bring the entire package with him.

It's a bit what's happening to Rogue as well. The cards are not necessarily to be discarded, but they work better when we stop forcing them to play the deck Blizzard had prepared for them. Stealth becomes an element of the strategy instead of the entire strategy, Kazakus takes the door and goes to play with more reliable archetypes. It's probably better that way.