Kobolds and Catacombs, Hearthstone‘s latest expansion, is finally here.
Last night 135 new cards were added to the game, and players around the word are already trying to figure out the new meta.
One of the best ways to try and get a handle on the early meta is to watch what the pros are playing. The first days of the expansion are some of the busiest for Hearthstone‘s Twitch streamers, meaning you’re likely to find someone playing your favorite class at any given time.
To help you out, we’ve brought together four of those decks from the first 24 hours to give you an idea of where to start.
Cocosasa’s Aggro Paladin
“Cocosasa” had early success with his Aggressive Paladin, hitting rank one legend in the opening hours of the expansion. He didn’t climb massively far with it, but that’s still an impressive feat.
The deck is not trying to do anything particular new—Aggro Paladin is a tried and tested strategy. But this deck makes use of a few new cards to take it over the edge. Chief among those is Call to Arms, possibly the most immediately scary card to use the new keyword Recruit. When you play Call to Arms, you’ll summon three cheap minions. With Classic cards like Knife Juggler and Dire Wolf Alpha, this doesn’t just mean small tokens.
Cocosasa is also running two new weapons, Unidentified Maul and Val’anyr. The tempo of Val’anyr as a game goes longer can be invaluable, and Unidentified Maul gives the deck great flexibility.
NickChipper/Raven’s Spell Hunter
So, Spell Hunter might be good. Maybe. MAYBE. Let’s not jump to conclusions. It’s early doors. But a lot of players are pretty excited about its potential. There’s obviously a lot of variation in these lists, the above is a hybrid of pro player Mykola “NickChipper” Velychko and Hearthstone Championship Tour caster Alex “Raven” Baguley.
Obviously key in the deck is Rhok’delar, the Hunter legendary weapon. It fills your hand with Hunter spells—as long as your deck doesn’t have any minions in it. That doesn’t mean it has to be exclusively spells, you can play Deathstalker Rexxar, and weapons like Eaglehorn Bow and Candleshot.
The Lesser Emerald Spellstone is also really strong. Just because you don’t play any minion cards, doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice full board.
StanCifka’s Demon Warlock
Speaking of Spellstones, the Amethyst Spellstone is helping to push control Warlock decks in a positive direction.
Stanislav Cifka is one of the players messing around with the class right now with this Voidlord deck. Others are putting other new legendaries in, particularly, Rin the First Disciple. But Cifka’s deck is one you can likely build pretty easily.
The amount of heal that can be achieved with the combination of the Spellstone, Drain Soul, and of course the hero power of Bloodreaver Gul’dan, this deck can really stay in the game. The Bloodreaver effect would lend itself to a ton of Demons in the deck, but all this deck has is the new Voidlord. However once those have been in play, obviously you get Voidwalkers in the mix too. That means you can summon a full board of taunts.
Brian Kibler’s Big Recruit Warrior
If you want a real challenge, Brian Kibler has been playing around with this control Warrior deck.
Brian Kibler loves his dragons, so obviously this deck has a strong Dragon package. It makes use of Y’Shaarj and the new Recruit mechanic to try and make for some huge swings. Gather Your Party and the Woecleaver help to pull these big minions out of your deck.
Kibler also uses Geosculptor Yip to try and give the deck even more big threats. Meanwhile, Unidentified Shield and Reckless Flurry give the deck even more utility and deck control.
Is this deck any good? That’s very much an unanswered question. But it’s a lot of fun, and Kibler is your guy for those ambitious concepts.
