The Return of Metagame Madness

I've got enough results from Regionals around the world to start doing some metagame breakdowns again. I've got results from 7 Regionals so far. A couple of quick notes.....I didn't include Dream Machine Championships in this list.....I'm going to have separate breakdowns for hero, faction, and class.......I don't have actual lists for most of these decks, but I will try to give you an idea of what each hero is trying to do at the end of the numbers......and I don't have complete results for each event so that's why the totals don't add up to a factor of 8. So without further ado, here is your metagame breakdown:

Alliance-29
Horde-24

Shaman-14
Warlock-11
Hunter-10
Warrior-6
Druid-6
Paladin-3
Mage-3
Rogue-1
Priest-1

Phadalus the Enlightened-13
Pagatha Soulbinder-5
Telrander-5
Sen'Zir Beastwalker-4
Bulkas Wildhorn-3
Gorebelly-3
Azarak Wolfsblood-3
Dizdemona-3
Aleyah Dawnbringer-2
Zenith Shadowforce-2
Elendril-2
Graccus-1
Grennan-1
Morganis-1
Thangal-1
Kayleitha-1
Omedus the Punisher-1
Ta'Zo-1
Ruby Gemsparkle-1
Grumpherys-1
Radak Doombringer-1

A lot of these numbers may come as a shock to a lot of you. I know I was surprised as I started seeing it all come together. The first thing of note is that the Alliance is now slightly outperforming the Horde. Before TtDP it really wasn't close as the Horde was running away with it. I think two major things have contributed to the Blue team closing the gap. Untargetable allies which are much harder to deal with (especially for control decks) and access to better equipment and to a lesser extent ability removal. Especially in the aftermath of the TAWC Warrior deck, I think a lot of people went to Chipper and Moira to help hate the deck out, which is a factor in rising Alliance numbers. It will be interesting to see if the Alliance maintains these numbers now that the Bulkas deck appears to be fading.

Moving on to the class breakdown, there's not a lot of change here. Shaman stays on top but unlike the other top classes, Shaman numbers are made up almost exclusively of one hero. It does say a lot about the power of the Shaman class that it's still on top, though.

Next in line is Warlock, which is a class that got a lot of good stuff in the new set. One thing of note to show the power of the class as opposed to the power of one deck is that Warlock is represented by three different heroes, each with at least two appearances. Pagatha is growing in popularity, and I think Warlocks will start to close in on Shamans as the weeks go on.

Hunter remains near the top. Like Warlocks, there are three heroes represented here, again with at least two appearances each. I think that Elendril is starting to be bypassed as the default choice for Alliance beatdown, so his numbers will slip. However, I think mid-range Sen'Zir is still a very solid deck which might be less played right now because of the "new car smell" that a lot of the other decks have. As the new wears off, I think Sen'Zir will come back. There is also a Hunter solo deck that has a lot of ammunition that could become popular.

Warrior hold onto fourth, but in a tie with the new kid. This is where the Warrior was before Dark Portal, behind Shaman, Warlock and Hunter but ahead of everyone else. It's a little surprising Warrior didn't post a little better numbers after DF:Austin. I didn't think at the time that the TAWC Bulkas deck was strong enough to withstand the amount of hate that would be thrown at it, but I thought it would last longer than it did. On a sidenote, I'm not saying that the deck is bad, it was an excellent metagame choice for one event and was played by very good players. I just don't think it has the ability to survive when everyone knows about it. It's also very difficult to play which lends itself to lower numbers.

The surprise on the list is the Druid class. I would expect to see even more Druid decks now that Pierre Malherbaud has won a Darkmoon Faire with Telrander. The difference is that this deck is more fun to play, and it's a class that a lot of people wanted to see rise up because they just weren't that good before. Expect to see Druid move up to at least number four on this list in the next few weeks.

After that, there's a drop off to the Paladin and Mage followed by the Rogue and Priest bringing up the rear. The only surprise down here at the bottom of the barrel to me is the Priest. Omedus was gaining in popularity before theset release, but apparently all those players have abandoned him for the new guys.

Moving on to the specific heroes. Anything with less than 3 appearances I'm going to leave alone for now, classifying it as rogue (not the class).

Shaman rush is still king, but now it's for the other team. Phadalus has channeled Grennan and stormed out to a commanding early lead. All but one of the Phadalus decks were listed as Shaman rush, so we're just going to say that Phadalus is Shaman rush unless otherwise specified. Players likely made the switch to Alliance to get the untouchables and better equipment removal. Getting Chain Lightning really helps against other decks packing untargetables which is one of the reasons Shaman has taken over as the Alliance beatdown deck. Based on past history, I would expect to continue to see a lot of Shaman rush for the foreseeable future.

After Phadalus, there's a big drop to what I'm going to classify as the Tier 2 decks. First up is Pagatha Soulbinder. The Pagatha decks want to play a control game. Some of them still want to use the Spirit Healer/Lok'holar combo as the win condition. The deck has a lot of good answers to rush with Infernal and Cannibalize plus Rain of Fire out of the board. Pagatha seems to be a popular hero around message boards, so I think she will maintain a good level of success.

Tied with Pagatha is a real shock, Telrander. These are Cat Form beatdown decks. Considering that DF:Frankfurt was won by one of these decks, I expect to see a huge surge in popularity in the coming weeks. Whether it can keep going now that people no it's a real deck and not a gimmcky idea will determine its long-term fate.

Next on the list in a familiar spot is Sen'Zir. He continues to quietly post numbers solid numbers while not being talked about very much. Like I said before, I think his numbers will get better as the new wears off of the set, but one thing that is alarming for Sen'Zir players is that the matchup with Shaman rush isn't that good.

Now we get down to a deck that actually has caused a lot of panic over on the UDE boards as people seem to think it's the end of the game, Bulkas Wildhorn. This deck doesn't like a full complement of Chippers with quests to get them back. Thankfully, the game will go on. Bulkas is beatable. It's still a solid deck, but I would wait to play it until some of the hate dies down.

Next up is the guy who's been waiting to break out for almost six months now, Gorebelly. When we were testing for Austin, we had a Gorebelly list that we really liked (and still do) but we thought there would be a lot of it there and didn't want to play mirror matches all day. Gorebelly faces the dilemma of being pretty bad against a Shaman rush deck maindecking its Chippers, but incredible against the Pagatha decks as the Spirit Healer/Zygore is generally too slow to stop it. As long as Phadalus rush stays at the top, Gorebelly will face an uphill battle.

Next, we have a newcomer to the list, Azarak Wolfsblood. While I haven't seen the lists for these, I'm going to assume they are the Rapid Fire based control decks since Sen'Zir is a better hero for aggressive decks with the better talent and better flip. This was another deck that we really liked in testing. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the deck, it relies on the same premise the Bulkas deck does of using a Ranged Weapon and Wraith Scythe for a ton of healing and double swings. It lacks Cruelty and heavy armor but gets Rapid Fire, Lightning Reflexes and pets. Our version used Blackcrow (because it's free to swing with Edgemaster's Handguards) and pumped it with a few things like Eye of Rend and Deathdealer Breastplate. It would win a lot of games through Rapid Fire. It's a solid deck that is a lot of fun to play and is actually very good against beatdown as long as Chipper doesn't destroy you.

Last in what I'm going to call Tier 2 for now is Dizdemona. Everyone's favorite gnome has taken on a more aggressive stance since we last saw her. A lot of players have gone to Dizdemona as their beatdown hero of choice for her excellent flip ability and the opportunity to play Lowdown Luppo. Lowdown Luppo is one of the hardest allies in the game to get rid of. They also get access to a very underrated quest in Operation Recombobulation. This card can be deadly on the draw when you are forced to try to seize the tempo away from your opponent. With an even board you can complete operation and swing your team into theirs just making one for one trades and getting all of your dudes back in the process. In the end though, I think Shaman is a better beatdown choice at the moment because of Chain Lightning, so Dizzy will probably hang out here near the bottom of the second tier for a while.

The rest of the decks I'm not going to cover today because this post is already getting long and they haven't yet proven that they are something that needs to be prepared for when preparing for your next Regionals.