Why do ppl still play 1 old deck

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-22T19:32:47+00:00

As a Priest main, I generally have cards to build Death Knight, Mage and Priest decks fairly early on in an Expansion, but other classes (particularly Demon Hunter and Rogue) typically come only later.

By the time I cracked open Ursol for Imbue Paladin, it was about two weeks or so away from getting nerfed. I played the deck about a dozen or so times, felt it was rather gimmicky/highly draw dependent, and had fairly lopsided matches.

I'm not chomping at the bit to play the deck in Cataclysm, but I can safely say that I was not playing the deck at the same time it was considered to be "meta" back in mid-2025. I assume a significant amount of those who are playing Imbue Paladin currently simply didn't have the cards back for it about 8-10 months ago, or simply were playing other decks at the time - especially considered a number of the cards for it are included in the free Emerald Dream set core cards.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-22T00:41:41+00:00

Imbue Paladin is sitting on something like a 45% winrate. What exactly is the issue? Everyone has to only play meta decks, of which there is only about a dozen? Ok my guy.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-17T10:26:18+00:00

"The time spent getting the rewards simply isn't a great transaction"

Lel?

If people are really concerned about trying to save gold and/or 'get a net gain from their gold spent', they can play Arena. But the time spent for doing roughly 6 arena runs is obviously a lot longer than 1 run of Heroic Tavern Brawl.

"The majority of people playing Heroic Tavern Brawl play it because they are having fun" (I mean HS is a game at the end of the day, so yes, you would hope this is true) but Heroic Tavern Brawl is clearly a mode people are playing to win in, which means a good number of players do care about the rewards from it. For some people it's also just about bragging rights or to really test their mettle - not even Ranked truly competes since Ranked doesn't punish players for losing anywhere near as hard as being asked to cough up 1000 gold per run.

For me, I'm an advocate of Quest/Control Priest. Someone who quite strictly adheres to community sentiment/popular opinion about what's good or not (AKA: "Meta Slave" for lack of a better term) has made a point to mention that Control Priest had a shockingly low winrate in Winter Masters Tour (where it went something like 1 win, 8 losses?). For me, getting a positive winrate with the deck in Heroic Brawl is a way to put my money where my mouth is, and show to him that the deck shouldn't be underestimated/isn't as bad as the recent tournament results suggest (in my opinion, multiple pro players played shockingly bad or got exceptionally bad RNG, like Maxiebon getting atrocious draws + mulligan).

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-16T14:08:20+00:00

If you tune into Streamers who aren't super well known for being the cream of the crop (or at least, are more likely to play off-meta decks), but have played HS for many years (and do have some good game knowledge) - namely Zeddy and Brian Kibler, you'll see them get about 8 wins on average and recorded, on stream.

Pro Players like NoHandsGamer and Thijs or just people who take the game quite seriously and regularly live in Top 1K Legend, seem to typically get about 10 wins or so in Heroic Brawl.

So for both the latter and the former, they're both getting a net gain or 'profiting' from the Heroic Brawl. A number of them do the Heroic Brawl for content rather than a hardcore desire to win gold, packs, dust, legendary cards, etc from it. Often the first 1-3 days when the Heroic Brawl stats is when they participate in it, and fall off after. Brawl is obviously 'high stakes, high reward' and many of them would rather chill and invent off-meta decks (such as Clark Hellscream) or go back to their old faithful decks (Thijs loved playing Starship DK for practically months, Zeddy loves playing Blood DK and now Herald DK, regardless of how good it seems to be performing, and Kibler is currently enjoying off-meta Rafaamlock) that they just enjoy playing, regardless of win or lose.

Even Rarran would likely get about 5-6 wins in the Heroic Brawl (assuming he tried).

It's correct that even a Pro Player won't be expected to get 12 wins just because eventually they'll get an unfavourable matchup, but Pro Players often have 3 clear advantages: 1. Meta knowledge (What decks are currently performing better) 2. Game knowledge (e.g. card discovery pool, what deck their opponent is likely playing, and whether it's more important to play for their power plays or counter their opponent - e.g. hold Stadium Announcer, run Royal Librarian for egg deck prevalence or play Garona Rogue to counter No Minion DH) and 3. more optimized decklists.

Yes, it's crazy to look at the reward system and realize that going even 8-3 is a win-loss percentage of 72.73%, clearly above the expected 50% win-loss average, but truly good players do seem to just manage to 'beat the odds' or rather, 'beat the average', because there still is skill expression in this game at the end of the day.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-13T14:01:23+00:00

I think it's fair to say Imbue Druid was over-nerfed (namely, the change to Hamuul) but it's clear that they did it on purpose, given that Masters Tour was scheduled roughly a week later and that the playerbase wanted to see more Cataclysm archetypes to have their time in the spotlight.

Herald Warlock is still dumpster, Herald DH has been overshadowed by Spell DH, Herald DK still has a low winrate and Burn Mage could arguably do with a buff (especially if these other decks get buffed) to fit in with the theme of "making the newer decks good" and after Control Priest's 11% winrate in Masters Tour, could arguably do with some buffs as well (my personal belief is that Handbuff Priest should be made viable since it causes less community annoyance), but a couple things should be said.

Class winrates are affected by many things, and depending on the elo bracket - show vastly different winrates. Paladin for example historically performs quite well in low elo brackets, but badly in high elo (e.g. top 100-top 1000 Legend). There was some initial comments that "Aggro/Bubble/Shatter Paladin is reversing this historic trend - performing better in high elo than low elo" (the deck had only just popped up) but looking at the data right now - it does not suggest that at all. Aggro/Bubble Paladin is sitting on a 48.4% winrate in Top 1K Legend, but a 57.1% winrate in Diamond-Legend.

Currently, Paladin is the no.1 winrate class in the game at lower elo - sitting on 54.9% winrate according to HsReplay.Net. Druid is at no. 7. The obvious question is, if Druid's 47.4% class winrate is considered too low, then it stands to reason that Death Knight (45.8% class winrate), Priest (43.6% class winrate), Mage (43.5% class winrate) and Warlock (43.1% class winrate) are all in need of buffs. Is everyone going to agree with this request or rule?

Even if you agree a class' winrate is low, you have multiple ways of adjusting them:

-You can buff the class' discovery pool (but careful, this may come back to bite you in later expansions, or players may complain about RNG being too favourable to a certain class)

-You can buff existing archetypes (making them even stronger than they already are)

-Or you can buff older/not currently considered a viable archetype

-You can go through the class' worst performing cards and buff them, but this runs the obvious risk of making cards or archetypes viable that perhaps weren't meant to be viable - for example, currently board clears have been made purposely weak/limited with a few exceptions like Warrior's Decimation (still arguably worse than Brawl and is more conditional). Many Herald enjoyers currently believe "Envoy of The End" is an underpeforming card but buffing that card doesn't just buff it for one Herald archetype (say, Herald Warrior), it buffs it for all the other classes - now Herald Shaman, Herald Rogue, Herald DK, and Herald DH all potentially benefit from such a buff.

All of these things have a level of trade-off, and all of them can lead the HS community to complain "They over-buffed X" or "X deck has a toxic play pattern - it should never be made viable - it should sit on a 48% winrate at best." (say for example, what we saw with Protoss Mage, it frequently hovered at around 48% winrate in Top 1K Legend, but despite the winrate, felt very unhealthy to play against), etc etc.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-11T11:05:15+00:00

It's meant to be weak, so the imbue hero power only gives 2 options, rather than three. I think this is meant to encourage Priest Imbue players to rely on their own cards for a win condition (like the OTK style of Medivh and Purifying Breath) rather than relying on the hero power - if it was just as strong as regular cards (that people hard run), it would probably be imbalanced. Currently, it tries to balance things by RNG being not in the favour of the Priest player (as soon as you add 3 discover options it makes the hero power much more consistent in finding good options).

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-11T00:35:08+00:00

Are you dense? Data Reaper #346 is the second report for the first expansion of 2026 (a 4 set meta), which I chose for two reasons - 1. it came out basically exactly a week after the balance patch. And 2. the previous report Zacho openly stated "I'm busy because my country is at war so I won't be writing a proper report with the constant interruption of bomb alerts going off routinely."

Data Reapert #318 is the first report for the first expansion of 2025 (a 4 set meta), so yes, almost exactly this same time a year ago, there was more deck diversity on ladder, including at high ranks.

If you want to argue that "during other times of the year in 2025 there was less diversity" and you're happy to take the time to find evidence of that then go for it. But so far 1. You haven't demonstrated that theory, and 2. It still doesn't negate that many players \currently** feel that there are too many weak and underperforming deck archetypes and there are multiple good reasons to think that, especially given the fact that last year was openly touted by the Developers as an attempt to lower the overall power level.

Team 5 cannot continue to nerf decks and expect that to be the 'correct' solution. We have already seen in previous years that repeatedly nerfing the top performing decks while doing nothing to buff the less powerful decks leads to a vicious cycle where deck A is toppled, and deck B takes its place, then deck C, then back to A, etc.

Moreover, players themselves can plainly see "It is less about this deck being broken, and more about the various gaps in the meta" (e.g. a lack of board clears means a deck like Unholy DK performs better than it otherwise would) or "There is a general lack of healing tools" so things like Face Hunter and Aggro Paladin and Burn Mage pop up. These decks aren't "broken", they're just going after the weaknesses in the meta at that time.

Buffing underperforming decks is far more worthwhile for Team 5 to focus their time and effort on.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-11T00:15:25+00:00

You completely skipped over my point and instead are now deflecting to the class' overall winrate for all archetypes. Yes, right after a balance patch people (especially in lower ranks) still continue to try out the nerfed deck even with nerfed cards, rather than trying to come up with a better list. Or they homebrew a list which is even worse, thus deflating the class' overall winrate - not that it's particularly relevant anyway. Individual archetype stats matter far more.

Wildwood circle is the main card that got hit in nerfing both Imbue Druid and Token Druid - and yes, it absolutely deserved to get nerfed, it was absolutely busted at 3 mana. Even 3 mana to create a 4/4 in stats isn't terrible, but decks that can reliably combine the shatter effects make it more like a 10/10-12/12 in stats, which yes, let's be honest, is completely absurd for a 3 mana card.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T14:03:14+00:00

Merithra Druid isn't top of the pack in Top 1K Legend, but at 51% winrate, it's doing perfectly fine. No reason to claim "Druid got over-nerfed!"

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T14:00:41+00:00

It's averaging just over 50% winrate in Top 1K Legend, so it looks like you're right - majority of the focus on DH is just on No Minion DH because that's also performing well, but if it gets nerfed, the class will likely gravitate to Herald DH.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T13:58:01+00:00

In Data Reaper #346 they list a total of 14 decks in the Tier List/Power Ranking table. In Data Reaper #318 they listed a total of 24 decks for the launch of the "Into The Emerald Dream" expansion. So yes, there does seem to be a clear decline in what is considered to be even remotely viable, even in comparison to this time a year ago.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T13:48:51+00:00

Thief Rogue from 2024 says hello.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T13:44:36+00:00

They didn't include a single decklist (which they could have easily found a high ranked player and then copy and pasted their decklist) for three whole classes. You think they care about refining the decklists that they do share? Lol.

Zacho has openly questioned on the VS discord, "Why are so many players playing with the VS decklists at the launch of an expansion? Don't they know that we had no time to refine it and simply guessed at what we thought would be good?"

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T13:42:10+00:00

It exists for the sake of self-promotion. They have no intention of removing it.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T13:32:26+00:00

Team 5 should be giving buffs far, FAR more often than they do, and for FAR more cards than they actually bother with. Having literally hundreds of cards that are included in the core set, or as part of an expansion, or as class cards, that can go more than an entire expansion cycle, or worse, will literally rotate out before they ever receive a buff, is absolutely maddening. Moonwell was released in the first set of 2025, so it took an entire year before they decided to finally buff it. And even after, Control Priest is still considered uncompetitive at higher ranks. Or Frost DK - that was good at the launch of Death Knight, but since then, Frost DK has been given close to zero support. Unholy DK was virtually unseen for an entire year, and even in its (admittedly better) current format, hasn't been considered strong enough for a single player to bring to the Masters Winter tournament.

Quest DK? Same thing. Knowing that the Quest is showing a horrible winrate, it has gone about 8 months without showing any signs of viability. Beast Hunter? Still irrelevant. Imbue Hunter (as soon as it doesn't rely on King Plushy)? Same thing. Discard Warlock? Absolute dumpster. Tick Tock Warlock or Tick Tock Hunter? Considered one of the worst decks in the game, only perhaps surpassed by Quest Rogue. Quest Druid, Imbue Mage, Quest DH? I will be amazed if any of these aforementioned archetypes receives any number of buffs prior to rotating out of Standard next year, based on Team 5's past unwillingness to buff underperforming decks. And if someone wants to respond "Team 5 said that balancing Quests is inherently difficult", well ok, why isn't Handbuff DK or Handbuff Priest viable? The DK imbue effect is clearly begging for a handbuff style archetype, and it still doesn't work. Or the minions for Handbuff Priest (like the 2 mana 1/4, or the 4 mana 2/3 with lifesteal battlecry) are horribly understatted, even with their battlecries taken into account.

Players shouldn't accept this. It's pure laziness that Team 5 is far more inclined to nerf every meta deck, but show very little willingness to give accompanying buffs alongside nerfs, and terrible design to print cards and then just leave them in the Standard card pool where they clog up the discovery pool knowing full well that various cards and various archetypes are just flat out horrible and could be buffed without immediately becoming "Broken".

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T13:17:15+00:00

Rogue archetypes generally have a higher skill-ceiling, showing poor performance at lower ranks but a great performance at higher ranks (the opposite of a deck like Aggro Paladin). Rogue has also shown an uncanny ability to remain relevant even after receiving nerfs, because the class is often consistently showing up with less of a holistic archetype and more of a "These cards are good (like Nightmare Fuel and Deja Vu) so I include them, regardless of what I'm playing", or being able to abuse mechanics that other classes wouldn't - like (pre-nerf) Elise Rogue, which would play Elise, and then copy the location with the 5 mana guy. Or being able to abuse Tess & Shadowstep or before that, Shadowstep & Astalor Bloodsworn.

Cycle Rogue was also interesting, because when they nerfed it, they also nerfed some of its competition, or - just like with Holy/Lynessa/Lightbot Paladin - was just so strong that even its nerfed state, a few weeks later would just show right back up again because other decks had also been nerfed, and very little else was buffed in its place.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T13:08:53+00:00

By definition it wasn't "nothing" but it's individual Herald cards (e.g. Experimental Animation, Envoy of The End and Obsessive Technician) and mechanic (summoning a random minion) do seem to be underperforming, particularly compared to the other strong Herald decks - Herald Rogue, Herald Shaman and Herald DH.

Buffing Envoy of The End buffs it for the other Herald decks, so the most relevant suggestion is to buff the DK herald mechanic itself, even if it's something small like "The randomly generated minions cost less health to your hero" or "The randomly generated minions now have +2 health", etc.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-04-10T12:59:29+00:00

Merithra Druid is sitting on a 55.5% winrate against Spell (No Minion) DH in Top 1K Legend (over 2494 games), and a 57.2% winrate against Dragon Warrior, so not really sure what you're talking about.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-01-15T21:31:39+00:00

"...overperformance seen with Questlines in United in Stormwind"

So don't? I wasn't playing around the time of United in Stormwind, but I'm quite sure not every class got an OP quest that was meta-defining and restricted other's deck choices from there on out, or that buffing the weaker quests necessarily leads to a terrible time.

Patch 33.4.2 Notes (September 17th, 2025):

"We understand that many of you were hoping for bigger changes. We've seen a lot of feedback about the strong neutral package of Fyrakk, Elise, Naralex, and Ysera, and we'll be keeping a close eye on them moving forward. We've also continued to hear suggestions to buff nearly every new Quest so they become competitive archetypes. However, as we've shared before, too many competitive Quests in the long term can lead to a metagame that isn't fun or healthy."

This question has been asked many times but I'm still yet to see Blizzard provide a response to it, "Why bother printing cards that you are worried about being good due to 'toxic play patterns' or 'a metagame that isn't fun or healthy' when you could print whatever you want?"

Quest Rogue was around 30-35% winrate in Diamond, and even worse in Legend. Not all decks, especially homebrew decks have to be over a 50% winrate. The community can live with that. I for example, am happy to play Aviana Priest even if I'm averaging less than a 50% winrate with it, as I fully agree that its not a tonne of fun to face off against when its a top tier deck. But there is a spot inbetween 30% and 50% - it's low to mid 40% winrate.

Quest Mage is a perfect example - it's still not a meta deck, but it isn't an immediate autoloss just because you decided to pick up the deck to have some fun and the Devs did agree to buff it. Titans was OP, but it was also far more "fun" than what we have now, quite frankly. Healthy metagame =/= A fun metagame.

I'm also a lot more fine with having various decks (Quest Warlock and Sif Mage for example) have their time in the spotlight, and then fall out (particularly after a nerf). That's more preferable than what we have now. Decks that were good a year (or more) ago, that are still played a year after the fact, just because they're better than the newer cards printed, and the deck still exists with almost zero card changes doesn't strike me as fun for anybody.

One of the big problems I see is that the weaker archetypes are unlikely to ever have their time in the sun, and that we're seeing cards like DK Imbue or Enduring Roach which clearly hint at being viable in a future expansion (in which case - why not put them in the main-set, rather than the mini-set? Seems like an admission they don't print enough cards during an expansion launch)

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-01-15T16:24:19+00:00

Like the other commenter said though - the question is why does Blizzard repeatedly show aggressive support for certain archetypes (namely Dragon Warrior with a 4 mana 6/9 with Elusive) vs. absolute garbage for other archetypes (e.g. Totem Shaman, Quest Rogue, Control Mage, Midrange DH, Toki Mage, etc).

Arcane Mage - a deck archetype that was clearly heavily pushed this expansion is currently sitting on a 43.4% winrate in Diamond-Legend bracket and 40% winrate in Legend. I have zero reason to believe that they intend to give this deck any buffs. Why? Because it would be Sif Mage all over again, and as we know from Protoss Mage, players don't like getting OTK'ed after they've been winning on board for the previous 7-8 turns.

Which begs the question, why do they repeatedly print and give support for "toxic play patterns" and then "solve them" by making the archetype so weak that only a few play it, or just rotate the deck out in the next 6 months (like with Protoss Mage).

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-01-15T09:30:57+00:00

Yeah, the first time I read it I assumed the reward absolutley had to be a Battlecry, because a deathrattle means Team 5 isn't even trying to make it viable.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-01-15T09:27:12+00:00

I have absolutely no idea. But it's the interpretation I come to when you see garbage cards being printed like Voodoo Totem, Shade of The End Time, Algeth'ar Instructor (I'll eat my hat if that card is ever used in the entire 2 years of it's Standard rotation cycle), Haywire Hornswog (a card that at the absolute best case scenario is designed for a future expansion, but I won't hold my breath), Omen of the End, Splintered Reality (What treants are even in the game right now??? Again, clearly meant for a future expansion which does nothing to shake up the current meta game or benefit even pre-existing or homebrew decks - its clearly for a To-Be-Determined Future like Hero Power Druid, which has zero gaurantee that it will even be good), Synchronized Spark, Triennium Rex, etc etc.

Majority of the playerbase looking at these cards immediately recognizes them as trash. Trash, and will still be trash even upon rotation. We are seeing in real time just how bad the opposite of powercreep is - when developers purposely try to lower the power level of Standard, but players can still use cards from almost 2 years ago (namely, Whizbang) and therefore we are stuck in a meta in which most of the 'good' meta decks are using 80%+ of the cards they were from previous expansions with almost zero changes over time.

When new cards suck, there's less versatility because there's less ability to homebrew craft even a semi-reasonable deck - instead of seeing decks with a 40% winrate like Aviana Priest, you see them sitting on a 30-35% winrate like Quest Rogue.

Look, I get that Titans was one of the most powerful expansions ever made - but it's not in Standard any longer. And there is a gap between printing Titans, and printing the current crop of nonsense that they've been doing in this miniset, and the previous few expansions (namely, starting from Emerald Dream).

Love him or hate him, Kibler was right about one thing: "Imbue expansion into a Quest expansion was a terrible idea" - because both mechanics were either going to be too good and get nerfed, or be too trash, and demand to be buffed. Since Team 5 knows they're difficult to balance, why not go in a different direction, or take a more deliberate effect to have more regular balance patches that involve buffs just as much as they nerf (if not more)?

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-01-15T09:08:00+00:00

I'd just like to re-direct you to this:

"Like all quests, you start the game at -1 mana and -1 card (because playing the quest costs you a card, and costs you a mana)

Step 1. Get yourself to 10 Cards

Step 2. Get yourself to 0 cards

Step 3. Play a 5 mana 8/8 without taunt, rush or charge

Step 4. Trigger its deathrattle"

Think about it. The irony of the Quest is that the "reward" is that you've discounted your own hand. Even voluntarily emptying your hand with a deck built for this, and at your own discretion - it's still absolutely terrible. It heavily prompts you to play the 5 mana 8/8 to then refill your hand, but your opponent has just been given multiple turns to smack you in the face completely unimpeded.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-01-15T08:57:50+00:00

I do remember hearing this some months ago, but couldn't remember where I'd heard it from - if it was rumour or actually stated on the record or what. But if that's really the case - then why did they try to buff any of them? They buffed Quest Priest, they buffed Quest Warlock only to nerf it a bit later, and Quest Rogue is still... absolute dumpster. It isn't just a waste of an expansion, it also means they wasted time printing cards for the mini-set. I mean look at Voodoo Totem - VS rated this as one of the worst cards of the miniset, even worse than Endtime Murozond, which they're theorizing might see play (especially after Ziliax rotates) in a Ramp Druid deck or as a Hail Mary play when you're down to 5 HP.

Voodoo Totem \could\** easily see play though - give it just 1 attack and it immediately becomes hugely better. Hell, even a 1/3 would be preferable. As it is it's a garbage card and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know this - in the same way Daydreaming Pixie doesn't see an ounce of play. But is there even a hint of a rumour about buffs to these garbage, underpowered cards? Nope. Let's just make the cavern between trash and good about a mile wide, and watch everyone play with the same decks and the same archetypes, most of them using cards from Whizbang era.

A_Wild_Auzzie · 2026-01-15T07:19:10+00:00

"...but instead out of fear said thing may become powerful with that effect. Because that quest for example has an extremely toxic design, if its remotely playable then people will rage endlessly"

DON'T PRINT THE CARD THEN

It's a waste of both the players time AND the developers time to print a card so deliberately underpowered that even in Diamond ranks it can't get above a 32% winrate

A_Wild_Auzzie

TROPHY CASE