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Pirate Decks Overpowered?

by - 7 years ago

The Aggro Rant

With the release of Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, soon™, a vast number of Hearthstone players began complaining about aggro decks. Pirates, in particular, were the target of that hate because of Patches the Pirate and Small-Time Buccaneer.

“Oh, these cards are dumb, everybody can win with these.”

“Patches OP!”

“The meta is broken because of SMT and Patches.”

These and other comments can be found almost everywhere which raise the following questions.

  • Why does Blizzard print these aggressive cards?
  • Are they overpowered?
  • Is Aggro the problem?

Whether you like to hear it or not, aggressive decks are necessary and healthy to keep late-game oriented lists in check. If we had not these aggressive line-ups, there would be a meta with control decks getting ever greedier. Yes, on the one hand,  the above-mentioned cards can feel oppressive and frustrating when you got no answer. On the other hand, though, aggro normally does not have a lot of reaches, meaning a limited amount of damage until they exhaust. Their gameplan is to finish the opponent as fast as possible, normally around turn six. If the enemy can stall the first turns and get on the board or can consistently heal/block damage, decks like Pirate Warrior cannot finish the job because they usually lack card draw by design. Second, aggro decks are relatively easy to counter. Weapon hate, cheap taunts, armorsmiths and big healing spells can consistently beat the fast line-ups.

To sum this up: Yes, pirates and other aggro cards are powerful, but they can be easily countered if they are heavily represented on the ladder.

patches

The Real Problem of Contemporary Hearthstone

If we take a look back, aggro decks rose and fell with every set released. These decks are ideal for sniping players playtesting new decks and they provide the best investment of time for the ranks risen. The reason why they emerge with every subsequent new release of sets is that they are rather easy to figure out. Pack the most damage a card provides into every slot and abuse obvious early-game synergies whereas control decks need a lot more refinement until they show their full potential and therefore take the stage a lot later in an expansion.

At this point, we have to pose another question: How many of those decks have really persisted? Undertaker Hunter was nerfed, Aggro Shaman was dominant only until Midrange Shaman took over. Mech Mage was powerful until everybody realized that clearing each and every Mech on the board is the way to success. Facing Pirate Warrior? Weapon hate and only a couple of taunts and small AoE and the ‘oh so powerful’ decks looks like a small puppy that nearly scratches your health. You see the point?

Now to the real bane of the ladder: midrange and midrange combo decks.

In Hearthstone history, midrange decks were the most dominant and more importantly difficult to counter archetypes. These lists contain substantial bodies, good tempo cards, burst damage output and card draw to sustain the consistent harm done:

  • Lifecoach Sunrise Hunter (before AND After Unleash the Hounds nerf and before Starving Buzzard nerf)
  • Midrange Combo Druid (before Force of Nature nerf)
  • Patron Warrior (before Warsong Commander nerf)
  • Midrange a.k.a. ‘Tempo’ (Dragon) Warrior
  • Old Gods Midrange Shaman
  • Malygos (Yogg) Druid with Arcane Giants

All of these are examples of really oppressive decks. They are not easy to counter and have the strength of being able to adapt their gameplan according to the opponent with a higher than average chance to win the match-up and almost no hard counter in contrast to pure aggro decks.

The next ones on the list might be Jade Druid or Dragon Priest. Maybe even C’Tun Kun Druid (C’Kun Druid) which is a candidate for being the next ‘fun and interactive’ deck. It just has to surpass its consistency problems. To be fair, the C’Kun archetype is more of a controlish combo deck like Freeze Mage than the Tempo oriented Midrange decks mentioned above.

aya

Conclusion

It is ok to have strong feelings losing against aggro decks. Be comforted though that the initial increase in play is mostly followed by a steady fall. If you face a lot of Pirate Warrior or Pirate Shaman right now, just run a Taunt Warrior or Dragon Priest with a lot of weapon hate, e.g. Hotform’s list, and you are good to go and will be successful against these archetypes when correctly played in at least 70%. Be warned though that in a few weeks more, you will face refined tempo-midrange decks that will be again your worst nightmare and a difficult to counter one.

 


posted in Hearthstone Tags: , , , ,
Martin "OtakuMZ" Z.

Real life physician and afterhour card battler. Martin "OtakuMZ" contributes to the Hearthstone team of BlizzPro since late 2015. Additionally, he contributes analytic articles for Hearthstone and Gwent as a member of Fade2Karma and in his collumn on the Gwentlemen site. He is best known for his infographics which can be accessed at a glance at https://www.facebook.com/hsinfographics and https://www.facebook.com/gwentinfographics


0 responses to “Pirate Decks Overpowered?”

  1. SuperUai says:

    Awesome post! Exactly my thoughts! While Aggro decks can be a pain, they exist in only the limited time frame of play testing, after that, they just go *puff* and the real hurtful pain starts: The Midrange Decks. Great article!