Strongest Decks in Hearthstone’s New “Twist” Mode

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft has just introduced a new mode called Twist that will continue to change and evolve at an exciting pace. At the moment, Twist is being introduced in a Beta capacity and will be coming soon after a short break after the Beta test. The format’s rules and card sets will rotate and change presumably on a monthly basis once fully released. The current card and rule set is referred to as “New Age” and will remain in use for the entirety of the June and July Beta seasons. 

New Age is regular Hearthstone with 2 major changes, it includes a large number of sets (but not all) and no neutral cards. The sets being used make it very different from Standard and Wild, and the lack of neutral cards makes each set completely different. This includes the Core Set, Ashes of Outlands, and every set that comes out after this set, which is 13. The full list is, “Core, Demon Hunter Initiate, Ashes of Outland, Scholomance Academy, Madness at the Darkmoon Faire, Forged in the Barrens, United in Stormwind, Fractured in Alterac Valley, Voyage to the Sunken City, Murder at Castle Nathria, March of the Lich King, Path of Arthas, and the Festival of Legends,” which creates a very unique card pool.

The early metagame is bound to change as new strategies come into popularity. At the moment there are a few very strong decks that will likely remain viable for the remainder of the New Age season. Because this is a very populated and new game mode, players will frequently trade places within the top ranks of Legend on an hourly basis.

The most popular deck within the Legend rank is most likely Questline Demon Hunter. Several players across the world have achieved #1 rank in Legend using slightly different Questline Demon Hunter decks. It is so powerful that many in the community are calling for it to be nerfed or patched, even some of the players who used it to climb to #1 in Legend. Although this is a balance issue, Questline Druid may be just as effective. It is easier to nerf a single deck as opposed to two, making it certainly seem possible that neither will receive any changes and this metagame will be accepted.

Considering these are short seasons and this is a “Beta” season, there is a chance that there will be no balance changes implemented before the season ends and the legal Twist card sets potentially rotate.

Meta Decks

Questline Demon Hunter

Five Questline Demon Hunter decks that climbed to #3 Legend or higher very quickly into the launch of the Twist mode.

Haleh OTK Mage

The Haleh OTK Mage deck is an interesting Combo deck that relies on stalling until two Haleh, Matron Protectorate are on board. Once these are on board, you will be rewarded with 8 damage split among all enemies for each spell cast. This does require stalling for a fair bit of time, but this deck has climbed to Legend numerous times so clearly it is an effective strategy in the current metagame.

Haleh OTK Mage, a combo deck that relies on stalling until a certain combination of cards is played to win in a single turn.

Questline Druid

Questline Druid provides the player with +3 Attack from their Hero Power, and each time Guff the Tough is played, the player is given an additional 8 Attack and 8 Armor. Questline Druid uses a variety of means to send Guff the Tough back to hand and then play it the next turn. This allows the player to swing for 11 Attack each turn this combo is done, and the +3 Attack will remain on the Hero Power of course. This is very difficult to fend off unless you have some large minions that need to be dealt with, or taunt minions at the very least.

Questline Druid is a deck that is not necessarily a combo deck but does essentially rely entirely on one card.

Aggro Demon Hunter

This deck is being highlighted for the reason that it is a powerful Demon Hunter deck that does not rely on the powerful Final Showdown questline card, so it will likely remain effective if Questline Demon Hunter is nerfed. Demon Hunter was a bit strong on release and the inclusion of this set and all sets that came after means Demon Hunter has a powerful pool of cards.

Aggro Demon Hunter is a deck that will likely remain effective if only the most problematic cards in Questline Demon Hunter are nerfed.

Totem, Token, and Control Decks

Totem Shaman is a menace in Standard, and with even more Totem synergies in Twist, it can hold its place in the metagame. Token Druid is becoming a very powerful Twist deck, with many different players using it to climb to Legend. Token Druid is able to generate a very large board by turn 4-5, making it a powerful and fast Midrange deck. Control Priest is one of the more popular Control options (outside of OTK Haleh), generally controlling the board with cheap and powerful spells due to Love Everlasting.

The win condition can of course be simply draining the opponent of resources, but playing Blackwater Behemoth with board control is as strong as it gets. Player Neon31 climbed to #71 in Legend using Control Priest and had a surprisingly short average game time of only 6.3 minutes. Control Warrior is a strong control option as well, although it tends to be a bit less popular in Legend. This is likely at least partially due to the fact that Control Warrior is a deck that results in longer average game times. 

Four decks in the current Twist meta. The first two decks fall into the midrange category and the last two obviously fall into the control category.

Less Popular Meta Decks

While these decks are played a bit less in Legend, there are a large number of different viable decks in this format. Some of these will likely become more refined over time and join the metagame, especially if Questline Demon Hunter and/or Druid receive a nerf. These are mostly theory-crafted decks, so many of them will also see major changes and improvements after being played and tweaked.

Paladin has long maintained a powerful pool of class cards. Paladin even has class cards that have “no neutral cards in your deck” as a requirement, making this class a popular pick. Silver Hand Recruit, or Dude decks, are popular as well, making up about half of Twist Paladin decks. Big minion decks will always remain popular, especially in a format that seems to be lacking in Aggro options. Wild has many more Aggro deck options if that is more up your alley because at the moment Twist is largely dominated by Control Decks and Midrange Decks at the moment.

Theory-crafted decks by Hearthstone content creators, off-meta options that may become more viable with small changes.

Give these Hearthstone meta decks a try or build your own in Twist, an innovative spin on the Wild format. Possibly think twice before spending all of your crafting dust on Questline Demon Hunter though, because normally balance issues this tremendous end up getting tremendously nerfed. This mode is breathing new life into Hearthstone and allows players to see old card sets in an entirely new light.

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