Metagame Madness 5/24

Sadly, I was only able to get results from 3 of the regionals held this past weekend. If you have results for Lafayette, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Saint John, Pompano, Valley Park, or Tulsa from last weekend please send them in so I can get them added for next week. If you are attending Regionals this weekend in Kansas City, Portland, Rockville, Brighton, Marietta, Rochester, Houston, or Jacksonville please send those in as well.

On to the numbers. From now on, each hero will have two numbers. The first is total top 8's, the second is top 8's this week. This will help give us an idea of what is being played right now while not losing sight of which decks have done well in the past.

Alliance- 44/15
Horde- 34/8

Shaman- 21/7
Hunter- 15/5
Druid- 12/6
Warlock- 11/0
Warrior- 10/4
Paladin- 4/1
Mage- 3/0
Rogue- 1/0
Priest- 1/0

Phadalus- 19/6
Telrander- 11/6
Pagatha- 5/0
Sen'Zir- 5/1
Bulkas- 5/2
Gorebelly- 5/2
Azarak- 5/2
Elendril- 4/2
Dizdemona- 3/0
Aleyah- 2/0
Zenith- 2/0
Grennan- 2/1
Graccus- 1/0
Morganis- 1/0
Thangal- 1/0
Kayleitha- 1/0
Omedus- 1/0
Ta'Zo- 1/0
Ruby Gem.- 1/0
Grumpherys- 1/0
Radak- 1/0
Nimaasus- 1/1

This week the Alliance extends its lead over the Horde based on the popularity of Phadalus and Telrander rush decks. The Horde has more variety in hero selection, but the Alliance is holding down the top two spots. One quick note as I'm about to start classifying these decks into tiers. When I say a deck is Tier 1 or Tier 2, etc., I'm not talking at all about how GOOD that deck is. The only thing I'm referencing when I put a deck into a certain class is how many times that deck has made top 8. You may think the Bulkas Cruelty deck is an unbeatable force of nature and is definitely a Tier 1 deck. You may or may not be right about the unbeatable part, but all that matters when I say a deck is Tier X is how many times it has finished at the top. Whew, let's get back to the important stuff.

I feel like there's enough separation now to distinctively give Phadalus and Telrander the Tier 1 tag, while Pagatha, Sen'Zir, Bulkas, Gorebelly, Azarak, and Elendril will get the Tier 2. I'm going to drop Dizdemona to Tier 3 for now since she got blanked this week.

The interesting thing of note here is that both Tier 1 decks are Alliance and 5 of the 6 Tier 2 decks are Horde. One thing to note about the Tier 2 decks is the presence of both Sen'Zir and Azarak. The Sen'Zir decks are almost always mid-range decks like we came to expect before Dark Portal. Azarak, however, is a different monster. There are two equally viable Azarak based builds. One is the solo Rapid Fire Azarak, and the other is a mid-range similar to Sen'Zir but that plays Warmaster Hork and gets the full effect from Hidden Enemies. I know for a fact that three of the five Azarak decks here are the Rapid Fire deck. The other two I do not know which they are. It could be reasoned though, that if they are similar to the Sen'Zir decks that mid-range Horde Hunter could be considered a low Tier 1, high Tier 2 archetype instead of two similar middle of Tier 2 decks.

It will be interesting in the coming weeks leading up to Darkmoon Faire: Chicago if any of the Tier 2 decks can rise up to fight off the Alliance based aggro decks.

Taking a look now at how each class is faring, Shaman continues to hold down the top spot and actually was once again the most represented class in top 8's beating Druids by one. Hunters have become the second most popular choice mainly based on the fact that three different heroes all have solid representation in top 8's. Hunter decks easily offer the most versatility in design from one hero to the next while still maintaining the ability to win. Druid has now moved into the top 3 and was second for the week based on the Telrander Cat Form deck. The deck continues to do well this week which is a sign that maybe it can stand up to some of the hate being thrown its way.

Warlocks drop down to fourth this week with no top 8's in the Regionals we know of. Keep in mind this was an unusually small sample this week, but it's still telling that there wasn't a single Warlock in the mix after they came out of the gate so well.

Warriors have dropped now to 5th. The Bulkas deck continues with moderate success. It's not nearly as dominating as people on message boards would have you believe, but it's still a solid choice. Gorebelly solo seems to be being held in check by all the Alliance rush at the top of the standings. Rush has always been Gorebelly's weakness and when they pack Chipper and recursion it tends to make a bad matchup worse.

There's still a definite gap from the cool kids to everyone else. Paladins got one this week to make them the coolest of the not cool. Mages, Rogues, and Priests continue to struggle. When you look at this week's results by class, there is a definite dividing line in the classes. Four classes combined to take 22 of 23 reported decklists while the other 5 classes managed just one spot between them.

That's all for this week's metagame breakdown. Hopefully next week we'll have more results to go on.