The Hearthstone Winter Championship’s most meta-breaking decks

Of the sixteen players heading to the Bahamas for the 2017 Hearthstone Winter Championship, the vast majority are bringing Aggro Shaman. They’re bringing Reno Warlock. They’re bringing Pirate Warrior. We all know what those decks do.

But there are some brave souls doing something more interesting with their decks. The likes of b787 and DocPwn are hoping to shock the competition with some much more creative builds.

Fellow Hearthstone nerd Ozzie Mejia and I combed through the decklists of the players at the tournament to find our favorites. These are the decks that will break the meta at the 2017 Hearthstone Winter Championship.

Taylor’s pick – b787’s Reno Priest

Reno Jackson will have a major presence at HCT Winter, with 12 of the 16 players running at least one version of the adventurer’s deck. But no one is committing to the style quite as hard as Chinese player b787.

Rather than running just the standard Reno Warlock deck or even the Reno Mage deck like most players, he’s running both of them and Reno Priest. Three of the five decks he’s bringing to the tournament are centered around Reno Jackson. (The other two are the requisite Aggro Shaman and Pirate Warrior.)

While all Reno decks are control-oriented in nature, the Priest version takes that to even greater heights. With a plenty of spot removal (Shadow Word: Pain/Death) and seemingly endless board clears (Doomsayer, Wild Pyromancer, Shadow Word: Horror, the Auchenai Soulpriest/Circle of Healing combo, Dragonfire Potion), the deck is more than capable of staving off the aggression that will be coming b787’s way in this aggro-heavy tournament.

The most interesting inclusions in this particular Priest list are Raza the Chained and Justicar Trueheart. Raza is an easy addition to any Priest Reno deck, but combining him with Justicar’s double Hero Power ability opens up a huge number of options. Not only can he keep his Ysera around forever, he can use the combo to deal shocking amounts of damage when paired with Auchenai Soulpriest or Embrace the Shadow.

Interestingly, unlike other Reno decks, there aren’t too many ways to blast someone from high health to nothing in a single turn. b787 will be playing a war of attrition, wearing his opponents down while retaining a high health pool. If he can kill before then on the backs of Sylvanas Windrunner or Ysera, great. But if he can’t, he’ll be settling in for the long haul.

Ozzie’s pick – Water Rogue (run by various players)

Miracle Rogue has been a staple of Hearthstone since the game’s inception. It’s undergone some changes thanks to new cards and nerfs to existing ones, and this tournament, by all indications, looks to be the deck’s last hurrah. A handful of players are already looking to the next frontier for this class, however, and if you believe them, the Rogue’s future is full of Murlocs.

Chun Pong “Yulsic” Ng and SamuelTsao are two of the players using the Water Rogue. This deck centers around stealth minions, including Finja the Flying Star. The Rogue’s spells can weaken opposing minions enough to allow Finja to score a kill, summoning Bluegill Warrior and Murloc Warleader from the player’s deck. This not only gives the Rogue valuable board presence, but also makes it easier to draw Leeroy Jenkins, the deck’s main win condition. Other stealth minions are given a +2/+2 boost from Shadow Sensei, which gives SamuelTsao’s iteration of the deck (which runs the 5/5 stealth Stranglethorn Tiger) a bit of an edge.

While every version of the deck being run at this tournament utilizes Azure Drake for card draw, another major Rogue tool, Conceal, has been left on the cutting room floor. With Miracle Rogue on its way out, it appears that the Water Rogue players are already looking ahead to the future meta, learning to win games without the aid of this long-time staple.

James “Greensheep” Luo’s version of Water Rogue may be the riskiest and the most intriguing to watch. He leaves the stat-boosting Shadow Sensei out of his deck entirely and instead uses weapon-boosting cards like Deadly Poison and Naga Corsair. It’ll be interesting to see whether boosting the Rogue’s Hero Power weapon will lead to success, especially compared to the other Water Rogues.

Taylor’s pick – Fr0zen’s Kun Druid

Because HCT Winter is being played on the pre-Patch 7.1 version of Hearthstone, I didn’t expect to see much in the way of Druid at the tournament. And if it did show up, I assumed that it would be Jade Druid.

Frank “Fr0zen” Zhang was out to prove me wrong. The American player is bringing a Kun the Forgotten King/Aviana combo deck all the way to the Bahamas.

Likely the riskiest play at the tournament, Fr0zen’s deck relies on one thing and one thing only: Getting Aviana and protecting her long enough to pop off. In an ideal world, that means plopping down both Malygos and Gadgetzan Auctioneer, firing off damage spells and drawing cards until you’ve spent nine mana, dropping Kun, and starting all over again. Either that or dropping her and Kun in the same turn and getting off a spell rotation to finish the enemy off. If he can play Emperor Thaurissan beforehand, even better.

Obviously, that’s a perfect draw. He won’t always get that. Fortunately, there’s enough in his deck to delay the game until he finds his key combo pieces. He’s got removal, Taunt minions, and enough card draw to keep his hand full in Azure Drake, Nourish, and Bloodmage Thalnos. And mana will be aplenty with all the ramp he’s running. Kun Druid is one hell of a fun deck to watch.

However, if he doesn’t manage to find his Aviana, he’ll struggle to actually land the killing blow. The unreliability of the deck could very well be Fr0zen’s downfall as the tournament wears on, but expect the crowd to erupt if he manages to pull off the combo.

Ozzie’s pick – Doc Pwn’s Jade Druid

The Jade Druid’s main strategy is to suffocate the board with massive Jade Golems. Board-clearing plays like Twisted Nether, Shadowflame, and Dragonfire Potion aren’t enough, because it often doesn’t leave enough mana to re-establish board presence, so the Druid can simply keep piling on more Jade Golems. For the opponent, clearing the board delays the inevitable until there are no more answers for the 10/10 or 12/12 Jade Golem on the other side.

What makes Julien “DocPwn” Bachand-Fleurent’s Jade Druid so intriguing is that it contains the ultimate trump card: Yogg-Saron. The Old God hasn’t been seen much since his pre-BlizzCon nerf, because he’s widely considered a far greater gamble than before. The severity of his nerf, however, has made it easy to forget that he still remains a potent card and one of the only answers in a marathon versus Jade Druid or Jade Shaman. That’s because Yogg-Saron can not only clear the board, but he’ll also provide other valuable resources, like summoned minions or Secrets, to help prepare for the opponent’s next turn.

More than ever, though, Yogg-Saron is an all-or-nothing, last gasp effort. If the first spell eliminates it off the bat (like through a self-Shadow Word: Death), it’s certainly a loss. But in situations where DocPwn might be facing down a loss anyway, why not take this gamble? The potential for success is higher than most people think, especially given how many spells Jade Druid uses over the course of the game.

He may not be the beast he once was, but DocPwn recognizes that Yogg-Saron can still be a game-changer.

For how our deck choices play out, stay right here on the Yahoo Esports Hearthstone hub.

Follow Taylor Cocke on Twitter @taylorcocke and Ozzie Mejia @Ozz_Mejia.