On the eve of Hearthstone’s World Championship – and a mere two weeks after the release of Rise of Shadows and the Standard rotation – I caught up with Lead Final Designer Dean Ayala to chat about how the current meta looks from Team 5’s perspective, the discussion around Elysiana, the rise of Nomi Priest and whether Darkest Hour is a problem in Wild.
IGN: Let’s start off focusing on Standard. How has the launch been from your perspective? Are things as expected? How’s the meta looking?
Dean Ayala: In terms of the decks that people are playing, I’d say that we’re very happy. I mean, rotation always carries with it a lot of change; there are very few decks that aren’t affected by three expansions going away and another one coming in. So there’s very few decks that didn’t change very much. Hunter has a deck that’s maybe the closest to what it was, but even that, there’s ten cards missing.
Source: IGN.com How Healthy is Hearthstone Right Now According to Blizzard?