Hearthstone: United in Stormwind’s latest update, Patch 21.3, is officially live and will be making multiple changes across all of the games modes.
With several changes coming to Arena, Battlegrounds, Constructed, and Duels, here’s what you can expect from each of the metas that are receiving updates.
What to expect from the Standard constructed meta
With massive nerfs to three top-tier and rising classes, there will be more breathing room for slower strategies to find a spot within the meta.
Shaman could ward away aggressive decks effortlessly with a one-mana Perpetual Flame and pinch out control decks when Stormcaller Bru’kan with Tame the Flames came online. With a one-mana nerf to the former and an extra Overload card requirement for the latter, this makes Shaman less efficient against both types of decks.
Warlock needing more health to complete the first and second part of its Questline will slow down these decks considerably, making them more vulnerable to aggressive decks and may finally make them less present in the larger meta at hand. Runed Mithril Rod was an incredible tool for Warlock due to its ease of access to draws and mana discounts have historically been powerful within all of Hearthstone’s metas.
Aside from these nerfs, seven cards are receiving buffs in Warrior, Mage, and Hunter. The buffs to Beast Hunter, Hero Power Mage, and Pirate Warrior will give new archetypes a chance to cement a higher spot on tier lists. Out of the three, Pirate Warrior has the best odds to do so since having extra health on three different important minions lets it control the board much easier.
What to expect from the Wild constructed meta
This is the second time in Hearthstone’s history where a card needed to be banned within the Wild Format. Warlock has dominated Wild win rates, according to HSReplay, and a lot of players turned to the class as well, which gave it a high pick rate. While players who are fans of slower control strategies could hope that all of the card changes will give them a chance to try out those tactics again, Wild is still an incredibly fast and powerful format.
What to expect from the Battlegrounds meta
While fans of both Standard and Wild constructed formats have a lot to look forward to with a new meta, Hearthstone’s other game modes are receiving updates too. The most updates are coming to the popular Battlegrounds mode with nerfs to top-tier heroes Shudderwock and Galewing. There are also adjustments to Master Nguyen’s hero power offerings, but it’s unknown what the odds are before or after this update.
In addition to the changes happening to heroes, there will be adjustments to 16 different minions. A majority of the buffs are going to Quilboars, Pirates, and Elementals, while nerfs go toward Beasts, Demons, and Dragons. Another quality-of-life change is that turn timers are now reduced by five seconds for turns three through nine after they were temporarily increased so players could get used to all of the new content.
Demons and Beasts were dominating the overall meta due to how effective their new minions and strategies were. Beasts had Leapfrogger, who could see their stats hop to astronomical heights when combined with cards like Monstrous Macaw and Baron Rivendare.
Aside from the effect nerfs to both Monstrous Macaw and Leapfrogger, Reanimating Rattler is moving to a higher tier, making it less likely to grant your Beasts Reborn.
Demons have multiple scaling options with Wrath Weaver, Bigfernal, and Insatiable Ur’zul. All of them relied on playing multiple Demons, which Impatient Doomsayer was able to provide incredibly easily and early. But now that Impatient Doomsayer is a tier higher and less likely to trigger a ridiculous amount of her Avenge ability during combat, Demons will have a rougher early to mid game.
Pirates are receiving minor stat buffs to help mitigate failure if they can’t get their snowballing engine online. And some Quilboars will be receiving partial or full reverts to their previous nerfs since being released. With both pools of minions receiving stat or effect buffs, expect to see players fish for more of these minions in their strategies.
What to expect from the Duels meta
Priest receives its fourth banned card from deckbuilding in the form of Voidtouched Attendant’s removal. The one drop from Priest allowed for powerful early curves and combos that could end opponents quickly if they were unable to answer it due to the extra damage of her ability. With All Together Now being moved to Passive Treasure Pool Two, the only chance you have to draft it is after round three of matches as opposed to being able to draft it after the first round.
Party Replacements, Rally the Troops, and Ooops, All Spells were potent passive treasures that were able to take over games incredibly quickly due to how they could be immense payoffs for Battlecries (Rally), Spells (Ooops), or were just strong on their own (Party).
Now that each of these treasures has been moved into the Ultra Rare pool, players are less likely to find or fight against them, which will make the meta feel less swingy less often because players will be missing out on powerful tools.
What to expect from the Arena meta
As with all Arena updates Blizzard provides to the mode, the team usually doesn’t delve into many details regarding specific card bucket offering adjustments. While the main goal of the change is to bring each of the classes around a 50-percent win rate, one class, in particular, received a specific ban to one of its premier cards.
Hunter can no longer draft Ramming Mount, which was a win-more card due to its ability to make any attacking minion immune. This allowed a Hunter who went first to effortlessly control the board because removal is much harder to come by in Arena.
The classes that were above a 50-percent win rate, according to HSReplay, in the past meta were Hunter (54.1 percent), Warlock (53.7 percent), Mage (51.2 percent), and Paladin (51.0 percent). Meanwhile, the classes that were below 50 percent were Shaman (48.3 percent), Priest (47.7 percent), Demon Hunter (47.2 percent), Rogue (45.6 percent), Warrior (39.7 percent), and Druid (36.3 percent).
With Ramming Mount’s departure and the bug fix to card offering adjustments, players could try out the struggling Druid and Warrior or may need to think twice when picking Hunter.
You can test the new Battlegrounds, Constructed, Duels, and Arena meta now since Hearthstone’s Patch 21.3 is live.
