It has been rough several months. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan wasn’t the dynamic tug-of-war that its concept suggested, where the three crime factions use their special mechanics to vie for dominance of the Goblin capital. The bitter reality turned out to be an aggro oppression, dictated by a handful of one drops and highlander decks sweeping in with their polarized gameplay: Draw Reno and win or miss Reno and die.

With the pro scene still dormant even just a month away from the first HCT Championship, barely any tournaments found the key to diversifying the metagame and find break the aggro/highlander dichotomy. Featuring a two-ban format, ESL’s Trinity Series continues to be the only competitive example where Shaman and Warrior aren’t choking other archetypes out of life.

The HCT circuit itself has also undergone a few trend changes, which is admirable considering its rigid format. The Europe Playoffs had a midrange vibe as the game’s dominant region had found an algorithm to protect itself against the aggro wave and at the same time devise new deck techs against the highlander controls.

On that line of thought, the way HCT metagames have worked for the past year has been this: Europe sets the initial trend, as its playoffs are chronologically first. Then, the Americas tries to find a way around, expecting a lot of players to copy line-ups from the Europeans. Finally, Asia does its own thing.

Following the logic above, it was expected that the Americas will go aggro for its playoffs. The region has always played aggressively and now it was a perfect time to abide the traditions, since Europe had set a midrange trend and aggro is that archetype’s natural predator.

This weekend it’s APAC’s time, the last major tournament to happen before Spirit Claws and Small-Time Buccaneer get the nerf treatment. Therefore, this is also the last chance to graph the original Gadgetzan meta while at the same time looking at a region that has often not played by the rules.

Individual deck types notwithstanding, APAC is still playing the same old aggro meta we’ve seen, only faster. The Americas already had increased aggro proclivities, but those are even more apparent in APAC, whose aggro deck representation in all line-ups is up to 44%, compared to AM’s 39%.

As with nature, the Hearthstone meta has therefore also self-corrected. Combo and Midrange decks’ numbers have decreased to the point where Combo decks such as Miracle Rogue are almost extinct as they can’t survive vicious attacks long enough to collect their pieces. At the same time, control decks have gone up whole 14% compared to the AM meta. The flat circle of “aggro beats midrange, midrange beats control, control beats aggro” has manifested once again.

These number adjustments to the core archetypes do not reflect major changes to the distribution of the individual deck types, however. The “fantastic four” of Tier 1 decks—namely RenoLock, RenoMage, Pirate Warrior and Aggro Shaman—are still holding the metagame hostage as they constitute staggering 70% of all deck types represented. To put this number into perspective, the remaining 20 deck types are all crammed in that small 30% pie slice. On average a non-Tier 1 deck has a representation of 1.5%, while the same statistic for a Tier 1 deck is 17.5%.

Hearthstone is as far away from a diverse meta as it gets.

Things get interesting when one gets to examine individual deck types in-depth. The APAC region is a weird mix of playstyles, including Southeast Asia’s Americas influences, Taiwan’s China influences and South Korea’s own variations and iterations, which makes it a fascinating research subject.

That said, Asia-Pacific is the only region which has dared resurrect archetypes of the old days. The Karazhan-style Malygos Druid and Malygos Miracle combo make company to Zoo in a delightful little throwback to pirate-free times. Furthermore, the Finja package used by Frank “Fr0zen” Zhang in his Pirate Warrior on his way to a top four at the Americas Playoffs has found its way to Aggro Rogue decks as well.

The mere fact that combo decks such as Malygos Druid and Malygos Miracle—which are even slower than traditional combo decks such as Questing Miracle, for example—exist in an aggro-infested meta is riveting. If this was any other tournament, one could make the assumption it’s a line-up mistake, but the APAC Playoffs represent the very best players of the region and it likely represents a curve-ball strategy to counter slow decks while piloting a deck not many players have experience playing against.

That said, nothing beats the line-up of Yong-Lee “Lojom” Beom. The Korean veteran and runner-up from the Hearthstone Inven Tournament came very close to a Blizzcon spot last year, losing in the Last Call semi-finals and is yet to represent his country on a major stage, but his choice of decks raise not one or two questions.

Lojom’s line-up is of “be the aggro, beat the aggro” persuasion, but with a twist. Parallel to his standard Aggro Shaman and Pirate Warrior, Lojom is playing what can only be described as defensive midrange Paladin and Warlock decks.

Both lists lack true win-conditions (Ragnaros Lightlord in the Paladin deck as the notable exception) and all Lojom aims to do is survive. The decks are heavily teched with cards like Acidic Swamp Ooze, Sen’jin Shieldmasta, Humility and double Dirty Rat and their only goal is to disrupt face and weapon damage. From there: Stabilize, exhaust enemy resources and turn the tides of battle.

If past Playoffs are any indication, these left-field line-ups rarely make it through, but APAC is weird enough that Lojom and his Malygos-piloting colleagues might just make it work. It will all become clear this weekend, when the line-up for the Winter Championship is completed.

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