Hearthstone: The Witchwood Guide - Best decks for the new meta
Everything you need to know about Hearthstone's eighth card set.
Some five years after the game was first revealed, Hearthstone is now enjoying its eighth expansion overall. The latest set - The Witchwood - is themed around the haunted woods located around Warcraft's Gilneas region, and is packed full of the kind of spooky creatures you'd imagine from such a setting.
In our Witchwood guide you'll find an overview of every aspect of the new expansion, from the cards themselves to the evolution of the single-player content that first made its debut in last year's Kobolds and Catacombs expansion.
Our colleagues at sister-site Metabomb are busy preparing decks and deck guides for the launch window and beyond. We'll add them in here as soon as they're ready, so you can get stuck straight into the latest creations for the new Hearthstone meta.
UPDATE: 14TH APRIL 2018
We've not only added in a massive heap of new decks for you to mess around with, all of the most significant decks in the new meta have been updated with the latest deck lists too. We're going to keep updating these articles over the weekend and will have another update for you shortly.
Witchwood cards
In total there are 135 new cards being added to the game with the release of The Witchwood.
Each of the game's nine heroes are getting their own exclusive cards as always, with the remainder distributed into the Neutral pool of cards. Each hero is also getting two Legendary cards to play around with - the standard distribution these days.
Perhaps most interesting of all is the Shaman's new Legendary, Hagatha the Witch. This is the first hero card to be released since last summer's Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion, and only the Shaman gets a piece of the action this time around.
When played for eight Mana, Hagatha deals three damage to every active minion (including your own), and gives your hero five points of Armour. You also get a new passive Hero Power called Bewitch, which adds a random Shaman spell to your hand whenever you play a minion.
Witchwood decks
Now that the Witchwood era is officially under way, we're able to bring you loads of deck lists that have been cooked up by the community. Here's everything that's been published on Metabomb so far:
Druid
Top Rated Decks
- Hand Druid (Witchwood)
- Spiteful Druid (Witchwood)
- Big Dragon Druid (Witchwood)
- Taunt Recruit Druid (Witchwood)
Experimental Decks
Hunter
Top Rated Decks
Experimental Decks
Mage
Top Rated Decks
- Secret Tempo Mage (Witchwood)
- Big Spell Mage (Witchwood)
- Elemental Mage (Witchwood)
- Odd Mage (Witchwood)
Experimental Decks
Paladin
Top Rated Decks
Experimental Decks
Priest
Top Rated Decks
Experimental
Rogue
Top Rated Decks
Experimental Decks
Shaman
Top Rated Decks
Experimental Decks
Warlock
Top Rated Decks
Warrior
Top Rated Decks
Experimental Decks
Metabomb is also maintaining a regularly updated guide to the best Witchwood decks, which will be tweaked and pruned as the meta starts taking shape! If you're struggling to keep up with the cost of the game, have a look through the site's round-up of budget Witchwood decks - there's something to suit every pocket there.
Witchwood keywords
There are a total of two new keywords being added with the Witchwood expansion: Rush and Echo.
Rush is a lot like Charge, except minions with the Rush ability can only attack enemy minions on the turn they're played. They can't actually hit the other player straight away, which tames their power level somewhat.
Echo cards can be played over and over again on the same turn, as long as you have the Mana necessary to keep casting it. It remains to be seen how popular these cards prove - they've had a bit of a lukewarm reception overall so far.
Odd / Even decks
There are two special neutral Legendaries coming with The Witchwood.
The first of these - Baku the Mooneater - upgrades your Hero Power if your deck only contains odd-cost cards. The second - Genn Greymane - reduces the cost of your Hero Power to one Mana if you only have even-cost cards in your deck.
There are going to be a lot of very interesting experiments with these two characters at the start of The Witchwood meta and beyond. To see what kind of limitations they'll place on deck building at launch, Metabomb is in the process of putting together overviews of excluded cards for each hero, in each case:
| Baku the Mooneater | Genn Greymane |
|---|---|
| Odd Druid | Even Druid |
| Odd Hunter | Even Hunter |
| Odd Mage | Even Mage |
| Odd Paladin | Even Paladin |
| Odd Priest | Even Priest |
| Odd Rogue | Even Rogue |
| Odd Shaman | Even Shaman |
| Odd Warlock | Even Warlock |
| Odd Warrior | Even Warrior |
Monster Hunt
Last year's Dungeon Run saw players digging deep underground to deal with a series of boss encounters in a roguelike single-player mode for Hearthstone.
This kind of content is coming back with The Witchwood, and will do so in the form of Monster Hunt. In this new adventure you'll first pick one of four unique explorers, then head into the woods to deal with a series of monsters, expanding and improving your deck as you go.
Metabomb also has a Monster Hunt guide if you'd like to start brushing up on the finer detail of what's involved with this side of the expansion.