DreamHack's Hearthstone Grand Prix circuit kicks off this Friday in Austin. It is the first of four Grand Prix events DreamHack will host for Hearthstone in 2016, with two more in Sweden and another in Spain. For Hearthstone tournament watchers, this tournament holds extra interest, as it is the first major tournament for which players have had significant time to experiment with decks in the wake of the recently released Whispers of the Old Gods expansion.
With 200 players playing at DreamHack Austin and using a Swiss format that you see in games such as Magic: The Gathering, expect to see a lot of variety in the decks. These early expansion tournaments are the most fun for me, at least, because the tournament meta remains largely unshaped. Players from 18 countries are signed up for the tournament, with the field containing many of the best-known players in the world, including World Champions James "Firebat" Kostesich and Sebastian "Ostkaka" Engwall and most of your favorites from Tempo Storm, Team Archon, and Cloud9. This is an open tournament, not an invitational one, so the pros will have to work just as hard to grab a share of the $27,500 prize pool.
Although it's too early to know which decks will be the most popular, we have some clues as to some of the new decks and reimagined old decks that the new cards have brought into existence. Below are some of the key decks to watch out for, some new and some classics with a new twist.
Zoolock
No deck in Hearthstone has been more enduring than the Zoo Warlock, first developed by Andrey "Reynad" Yanyuk in the early days of Hearthstone. The cards used in Zoo have changed greatly the past two years -- cards such as Shieldbearer that aren't played in Arena these days actually made appearances -- but the game plan of playing lots of low-cost minions, tapping and seizing firm control of the board is a flexible one, as it revolves around the Warlock's Life Tap hero power, rather than a specific card in the meta.
Zoo has lost a few valuable cards, none more valuable than Imp-losion, which allowed you to do two to four damage to a minion (four if you're playing against Reynad) and summon a 1/1 Imp for each damage dealt. But Zoo adapts well to game changes and has already turned one ho-hum card from the buildup into an MVP: Darkshire Councilman. A three-mana 1/5 card that gains +1 attack every time you summon a minion, players have found it far easier to snowball and turn the Councilman into a 3/5 or a 4/5 (or even better). Summon-friendly new cards such as Possessed Villager and Bilefin Tidehunter have greatly helped the engine for the Councilman and kept the now nerfed Knife Juggler a powerful card.
Renolock
Without Old Gold-Warlock decks seeing a whole lot of play so far and Renounce Darkness risky, the other likely Warlock possibility is another expansion spin on an old favorite, the Reno Warlock. The loss of Molten Giant hits the Renolock hard, but the nice thing about a Reno Jackson deck is that with very few (or no) two-ofs, a single loss of a card isn't quite as serious as when the card makes up 1/15th of your deck. Earthen Ring Farseer and Refreshment Vendor do their best to replace Antique Healbot, but one card, the Psych-O-Tron -- yes, that's a reference to the 1992 Megadeth song Psychotron -- fills in admirably for Sludge Belcher, a key card in any variant of warlock.
With only one deck per hero allowed, players won't have the ability to bring both, so if they bring a warlock, they'll have to choose, based on a guess of the lineups they'll be facing.
C'Thun! C'Thun! C'Thun!
C'Thun was the first Old God revealed, and with everybody getting the card for free upon logging in, it's a card that everybody playing the game has likely experimented with. It's not just a gimmick: C'Thun is a very expensive card, but doing 10 or 12 or 15 or 20 random damage upon play is a powerful effect. He's not just a fun card, but one that can be a serious win condition if you're running the whole C'Thun shell.
While we've seen experimentation with C'Thun in a wide range of decks, we're most likely going to see the Druid and Priest variants this weekend. Patron Warriors and Freeze Mages are likely to be preferred to their C'Thun versions, Rogues are more likely to be using N'Zoth as their Old God of choice, and Shamans and Warlocks mostly do their own thing. Druid doesn't have an obviously preferred variant right now, and it has two powerful C'Thun accompaniments in Klaxxi Amber-Weaver, a four-mana 4/5 that can become a 4/10 and Dark Arakkoa, a six-mana 5/7 with Taunt. Priest, a class that needed help this expansion, also got two C'Thun related Cards in Hooded Acoylte, a three-mana 3/6 that synergizes with healing, and Twilight Darkmenter, a five-mana 6/5 that can restore 10 health.
Aggro Shaman
Likely the aggro deck of choice this weekend, Aggro Shaman survived the new expansion relatively unscathed. I looked back at an Aggro Shaman deck I used back in January, and only two cards of the 30 were missing: the two Crackles. Crackle, due to the random nature of the damage caused, was always a dicey play. Shaman's missing the card got something even better: the Flamewreathed Faceless. A four-mana 7/7 is so powerful that the Overload barely matters -- a Shaman would rather be playing a three-drop on turn five than be the sucker having to deal with the card from the other end of the board.
Midrange Shaman
Midrange had been mostly a forgotten deck in the League of Explorers era, but Shamans playing slower decks were treated well by the expansion. The Flamewreathed Faceless is just as much a pain for the opponent when you're playing a Midrange Shaman, after all. Master of Evolution, a four-mana 4/5 that can transform a friendly minion into a more powerful one, and Thing from Below, which can give Shaman a 5/5 taunt at minimal costs, are big additions to the midrange version of the Shaman deck. Aggro is a tested deck and quite refined at this point, but Midrange Shaman might end up being the more powerful in the long run.
Aggro Paladin
Aggro Paladin had a brief moment in the limelight last year but was generally pushed aside by Secret Paladin, powered by the ever-so-annoying Mysterious Challenger. This time around, Aggro Paladin has a new engine -- the Steward of Darkshire that gives every summoned one-health minion a Divine Shield. If the Steward sticks on the board for more than a turn, the army of Divine-Shielded tokens might be next to impossible to easily remove, especially if the Paladin can follow it up with Rallying Blade or Blessing of Kings.
Patron Warrior
The loss of Death's Bite was a big one for Patron Warrior, and you'll have a hard time finding a player to say otherwise. Unstable Ghoul, another Grim Patron engine, also went away, but unlike with the Ghoul, the player using Death's Bite's Deathrattle had most of the say about when to trigger the effect. But Warrior got Ravaging Ghoul, three-mana 3/3 that deals one damage to all minions as a Battlecry. Add in the one-mana Blood to Ichor ping, and Warriors once again have several ways to summon an army of annoying drunken 3/3 dwarves.
N'Zoth
C'Thun got all the headlines for the expansion, but N'Zoth's effect is just as powerful (and some would argue even more so). Where C'Thun unleashes a torrent of damage on the board, N'Zoth summons your Deathrattle minions that already died, giving you an instant board in most cases. Classes that have powerful Deathrattles are the most likely to get the most out of N'Zoth. One such class is Rogue, with Undercity Huckster, Unearthed Raptor, Tomb Pillager and Xaril forming a solid base of minions for N'Zoth to work off. Paladin has only Tirion Fordring to resurrect, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better Deathrattle card. Even Hunter might be a possibility, though I expect the Hunters we see this weekend to be more the traditional Aggro Hunter SMOrcing away than any N'Zoth hunters. N'Zoth decks are still in their infancy, but the effect is so powerful that top players will likely find a way to leverage it sooner or later.
Freeze Mage
Freeze Mage is a rarity in that as of yet, none of the new cards have found their way into the Freeze Mage archetype. But going all the way back to beta, Freeze Mage always lurks in the shadows, ready to strike at an uncertain meta with its ability to make the opposing player's minions essentially irrelevant to the course of the game. With Freeze Mages no longer having to fear the sudden burst potential of Druids using Force of Nature/Savage Roar, players can freely ban the nemesis of the Freeze Mage, Warrior, and feel at least somewhat confident about the matchups.