The best Hearthstone decks in The Witchwood expansion

Heathstone’s The Witchwood expansion is about a week old and the meta is just starting to settle. (And if you aren’t familiar with that one, “meta” is a term to describe the decks that are seeing the most play.) These meta decks are the most powerful, and sometimes popularized when a streamer shows a deck doing well. Then the deck gets copied by other players. Sites like HSReplay and Tempo Storm publish their list of strong decks. Then you see them pop up everywhere on the ladder.

The meta will vary depending on where in the ladder you find yourself or if you play Casual. In Casual, you’ll see all kinds of strange ideas, but also many meta decks. In Ranked, you’ll see plenty of meta decks, but they won’t always match up to the best of the best, as the average player doesn’t have the budget to craft all of the Legendary and Epic cards needed. At Rank 20 and up you’ll see decks using more basic cards, while at Ranks 20-15 you’ll see meta decks that are probably missing a few pieces. But the time you up to Rank 10, every deck you see is a meta deck with every card and Legendary.

But no matter what your card collection looks like, you can use the meta to your advantage.

How to use the meta to win games

While the meta represents a bit of groupthink, understanding it is a part of the game. Knowing the current meta decks will help you anticipate the general kind of decks you’ll face. Is the meta more aggro, midrange, or control? When you know what you’re up against, you can be ready to counter it.

Being familiar with the meta can also aid in guessing your opponent’s strategy, his strengths, and his weaknesses. Does his deck struggle with big minions? How much AOE does he have? It helps you stay one step ahead. You can make better educated guesses about the cards your opponent might be holding and how they will attack you. Once you know their win condition, you can try to stop it even if your only counter move is to kill them before they can execute their complete strategy.

Let’s see those decks

I’m going to highlight some of the best performing decks on the ladder as well as some good budget decks. All of the decks highlighted here are showing winrates over 50% according to the tracking site HSReplay, so you have winning deck options no matter what your card collection looks like. (And you don’t need every card from the deck to play it. Most deck lists offer helpful suggestions for replacements.) Just remember: whatever the published winrate of a deck, when you first start using a new deck, your win rate will be lower. Like learning a new class in World in Warcraft or a new hero in Overwatch, it takes time to learn to pilot a new deck well.

So let’s take a look at the best decks so far.

Mythic Decks

Even Paladin

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Call to Arms, The Glass Knight, Avenging Wrath, Sunkeeper Tarim, Genn Greymane, Sea Giant

Even Paladin uses a 1 cost hero power from Genn Greymane to always have a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit on the board. Divine Shields let you use those to make good trades. This is an adaptable token deck which can cheat out big minions early on like Sea Giant or Crystal Lion. Depending on the weakness of your opponent, you can go wide with lots of little minions or get out big minions. Sunkeeper Tarim or a Lightfused Stegadon can generate a huge swing turn.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

Spiteful Druid

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Malfurion the Pestilent, Ultimate Infestation, Spiteful Summoner, Leeroy Jenkins, Prince Keleseth, Grand Archivist

With only one spell in the deck, you’ll always get a 10 mana minion from Spiteful Summoner. The rotation did wonders for the card as there are fewer big minions to choose from. You’re going to get an 8/8 or a 7/14 most of the time, and sometimes you’ll even get a 12/12. The utter lack of spells means minions are your only removal. You build a board, and buff it with the likes of Prince Keleseth and Fungal Mancer.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

Odd Paladin

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Level Up, Baku the Mooneater, Corridor Creeper

Odd Paladin is a Zerg deck, but it’s more midrange than aggro. You throw wave after wave of Silver Hand Recruits at your opponent, buffing them with cards like Level Up, Fungalmancer and even good ole Stormwind Champion.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

Heroic Decks

Cube Lock

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Skull of Man’ari, Bloodreaver Gul’dan, Voidlord, Lord Godfrey, Spiritsinger Umbra,

Doomsayer, Voodoo Doll, Carnivorous Cube, Mountain Giant

Look at all those Epic and Legendary cards. I call this guy Wallet Warlock. Cube Lock lost little in the latest card rotation and all of its core components remain. Voidlords and Possessed Lackeys keep Spellbreakers in almost every other deck. Lord Godfrey is a better Twisting Nether. Voodoo Doll gives Cube Lock yet another way to pop Cubes and Possessed Lackeys.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

On Curve Secret Paladin

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Sunkeeper Tarim, Call to Arms
This is one of the cheaper better performing decks available. This deck skips the hero power buff from either Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater. It combines the flood of Odd Paladin with the Divine Shields of Even Paladin with secrets to disrupt your opponent’s plans.

Link to deck

Spiteful Priest

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Spiteful Summoner, Curious Glimmeroot, Cabal Shadow Priest, Grand Archivist
Like Spiteful Druid, Spiteful Priest counts on getting a big minion as early as turn 6. It can get an explosive start with Northshire

Cleric into Shadow Ascendant, or Shadow Ascendant into Shadow Ascendant with the Coin. It can take over a low attack minion with Cabal Shadow Priest. Duskbreak is the only AOE so you need to pick your spots. Scaleworm provides spell-like removal. My only complaint is that I’m not a fan of including Grand Archivist in this build.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

Zoo Warlock

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Bloodreaver Gul’dan, Prince Keleseth

Welcome back Zoo Warlock. When you tire of dominating with your Cubelock, you can sit back and play this classic deck. The Witchwood version can put the pressure on from turn one and never let up. There’s a little RNG involved as you don’t have any way to cheat the Doomguards out without their Battlecry, but if you get them back from Gul’dan, it can provide a powerful closer.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

Quest Rogue

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Preparation, The Caverns Below, Patches the Pirate

I call this deck Johnny Five and it is alive. Now that a player has hit #1 in the world with Quest Rogue, I expect it will be higher on future lists. It’s a deck that looks to complete the quest as fast as possible. Sometimes it can even play the completed quest on curve at turn 5. Then it floods the board with many 5/5s. It’s still weak to aggro and needs to get the right cards at the right time.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

Quest Warrior

Epic and Legendary cards needed: Fire Plume’s Heart, Reckless Fury, Brawl, Gluttonous Ooze, Primordial Drake

Quest Warrior was a decent deck before, but it had a bad matchup with Jade Druid. Fortunately for this archetype, Jades are now banished to Wild. Quest Warrior’s wall of taunts helps protect you from the minion-based decks prevalent right now. Few decks can claims as much AOE as Quest Warrior and your taunt minions are beefy enough to survive most of it. Once the quest completes, you throw can burn your opponent down with huge fireballs.

Link to deck and in-depth guide

Normal (Budget) Decks

Midrange Hunter

Midrange Hunter is a deck which always seems to be around. It can have fast starts, build a huge Scavenging Hyena and keep the pressure going with Savanah Highmane. The only new cards needed are Dire Frenzy and Wing Blast.

Link to deck

Tempo Crow Mage

I would put the more expensive version of this deck in the Heroic tier, but the budget version can work as well. Vex Crow is a common and lets you build the board while going face with spells. Once you build up your resources a bit, you can start to add more expensive cards like Aluneth, Archmage Antonidas, Primordial Glyph, and Pyroblast.

Link to deck

Token Druid

Players may have forgotten how this deck was once the terror the ladder. With Witchwood, Oaken Summons can cheat out a Violet Teacher to help you build a board. Buff them up, then Savage Roar for a victory.

Link to deck

Combo Priest

This requires only two copies of a single Epic card: Shadow Visions. The game plan is to get the board, buff minions’ health, and healing them. When you get their health high, turn it into damage with Inner Fire. Be sure to have silence ready for any pesky taunts in your way.

Link to deck

Odd Face Hunter

This is the most expensive of the Budget decks and requires one Legendary: Baku the Mooneater. The rest of the deck has only one Rare and no Epics. This strategy is simple. Hit the face. Hit the face again, and after that, hit the face again. Blackwald Pixie gives you 6 face damage on turn 7, if the game has lasted that long.

Link to deck

Where’s Shudderwock?

This article highlights powerful deck with positive win rates, with every deck tracking at over 50%. The much-hyped Shudderwcok Shaman doesn’t make the cut as it only has a 40% win rate. This isn’t to say the card — which Blizzard may be planning to nerf —doesn’t need an adjustment. (And it’s a little worrisome the animation issue hasn’t already had a hotfix.)

Unlike most combo decks where you have to play the cards in a certain order, Shudderwock decks only require you to have played the needed Battlecry cards at some point during the game. Have you played these cards at some point in this game? Great, you win.

But there are some counters. I think the biggest problem with Shudderwock might the rotation of Dirty Rat. With Dirty Rat, you could pull out the combo pieces from your opponent’s deck. You’d still need a way to kill them the same turn which wouldn’t always be the easiest thing to do with all the AOE Shudderwock decks run, but it gave you a counterplay. Losing because you didn’t draw your counter card feels better than losing when there was nothing you do other than go full face every turn.

Looking for more decks?

If none of these decks suit you, you can track down others on Hearthstone Top Decks and HearthPwn, where you can search by class and card to find just what you want.