It's incredibly difficult for most Hearthstone players to keep up with the metagame, as it's much more fast-moving than nearly any other online card game. New sets come out often and the most popular players are experimenting all the time, meaning it can be hard to recognize what the best and most popular decks in Hearthstone are in a given season.

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That said, there are a few strategies that nearly any skilled player will be able to tell you are the best decks in the format. Whether you want to try brewing your own competitive Hearthstone decks or are just curious what cards you'll run into most often in competitive matches, these should answer all the questions you have about the best decks in Standard.

8 Rush Warrior

Art of Rokara from Hearthstone
  • Rokara
  • Bumper Car
  • Stage Dive
  • Parade Leader
  • Sword Eater
  • Troublemaker

Rush is a fairly new mechanic that aims to replace Charge, with the only difference being the inability to attack Heroes in the first turn the minion is summoned. This hardly holds the Rush Warrior deck back, though, as this just means its fast minions like Bumper Car and Rokara can hit with more Health and gain Attack gradually through support cards.

For Warriors, this mainly includes cards like Stage Dive that let you draw your Rush minions immediately, and Parade Leader to grant a huge attack boost to your various Rush minions as soon as they enter battle. Compared to other Warrior strategies, it'll have a lot more staying power and resilience against other aggro decks thanks to the emphasis on Health over Power.

7 Spell Mage

Full art of Apexis Blast from Hearthstone
  • Apexis Blast
  • Font of Power
  • Incanter's Flow
  • Netherwind Portal
  • Flamestrike
  • Cram Session

With so many players including spells that deal with minions, it's easy to counteract many of the most overpowered Hearthstone decks by having no minions whatsoever. This is exactly what Spell Mage decks do, using cards like Apexis Blast and Fireball to deal damage to foes. The first of those even gains an absurd boost of summoning a free 5-cost minion thanks to the lack of minions in your deck.

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These bonuses from cards like Apexis Blast and Font of Power are hardly vital, though, as the deck will often be able to just burn the opponent out with the Mage hero's ability to deal damage to a minion or hero. This means all your cards just have to deal with the opponent's minions, making for an easy victory while your opponent fails to build a board presence.

6 Token Druid

Full art of Glowfly Swarm from Hearthstone
  • Glowfly Swarm
  • Dreamway Guardians
  • Arbor Up
  • Gibberling
  • Adorable Infestation
  • Lightning Bloom

Token Druids are some of the longest-standing decks in the Hearthstone metagame, mostly because they manage to make a wide enough board that few players have enough answers to them. Cards like Dreamway Guardians, Arbor Up, and Glowfly Swarm just provide too many benefits to your team, and others like Solar Eclipse and Gibberling can make even more tokens when you cast a titular token spell.

Otherwise, your main goal in this deck is to buff your tokens as much as possible, with cards like Savage Roar buffing them further. The main way this wins, though, is a wide set of spells that make your cards alarmingly inexpensive, such as Lunar Eclipse and Lightning Bloom that let you cast spells far earlier than you should normally be allowed, permitting you to build up a board presence alarmingly quickly.

5 Control Priest

Full art of Cabal Acolyte from Hearthstone
  • Cabal Acolyte
  • Xyrella
  • Mindrender Illucia
  • Soul Mirror
  • Sethekk Veilweaver
  • Raise Dead

Compared to the minion-free Spell Mage, the Control Priest might seem less like a hardcore disruption plan and more like a mid-range general. This deception is important to the deck's strategy, as Control Priest decks are incredibly hard to counter on account of cards like Cabal Acolyte, which steals an opponent's minion, or Xyrella, which deals damage to enemy minions based on how much health you've restored.

Simply put, nearly every one of your cards will destroy or disrupt an opponent's actions. From Mindrender Illucia swapping your hands and decks with an opponent for a turn to beating down large creatures with the poison-wielding Venemous Scorpid, you should always have a superior board that constantly puts theirs down. If they do overwhelm you, Soul Mirror will let you duplicate every enemy minion and forcing a battle, leaving you the victor nearly every time.

4 Secret Rogue

Tenwu of the Red Smoke from Hearthstone
  • Ambush
  • Bamboozle
  • Prize Plunderer
  • Wand Thief
  • Field Contact
  • Tenwu of the Red Smoke

Secret Mage decks are especially popular in Wild thanks to a wide set of Mage spells that prevent your foes from taking actions, but Secret Rogue can do an even more effective job in the current Standard format. Those who haven't played Rogue secrets will find it as a somewhat defensive aggro deck, putting out weak minions like Prize Plunderer and Wand Thief after Secrets are triggered for some exceptional card draw or damage effects.

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The Secret cards themselves are also quite spectacular on their own, with Bamboozle transforming your creatures into higher-cost ones and Ambush giving you free Poisonous minions to counteract theirs. Eventually, your opponent is bound to run out of creatures. By then, you can run over them with large neutral creatures like Jandice Barov or just loop your Combo effects by returning them to your hand with Tenwu of the Red Smoke.

3 Deathrattle Demon Hunter

Full art from Death Speaker Blackthorn from Hearthstone
  • Death Speaker Blackthorn
  • Vengeful Spirit
  • Razorboar
  • Razorfen Beastmaster
  • Renowned Performer

Most veterans of Hearthstone are plenty aware that many of the best Standard decks are built around singular cards. For Demon Hunters, the best of these is Death Speaker Blackthorn, who summons three Deathrattle minions from your deck for no additional cost and at full strength, giving you an immediate board presence in the late game.

It doesn't play like many Deathrattle decks that usually just chain abilities, and instead uses Deathrattle as a calling card for minions like Vengeful Spirit and Quilboar draw and summon minions with the ability for free. It's a surprisingly clean strategy that might seem heavy on death and destruction but is actually much more about swarming the board with aggressive monsters.

2 Face Hunter

Art of Piercing Shot from Hearthstone
  • Piercing Shot
  • Quick Shot
  • Arcane Shot
  • Trampling Rhino
  • Knife Vendor
  • Wound Prey

Mages have always been the masters of burn, but many players can tell you that Hunters are currently the holders of the best burn deck in Hearthstone. This includes many quick damage spells like Quick Shot, Piercing Shot, and Arcane Shot that are primarily meant to deal damage to opponents but can also hit small minions if your foe pops off too quickly.

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The other main win conditions mainly involve minions that damage foes, whether it's the Knife Vendor dealing 4 damage to both heroes or the Trampling Rhino to deal excess minion damage to the opposing hero. It's not as aggressive as a creature-heavy aggro deck, but much more diverse in playstyle than a traditional burn deck.

1 Libram Paladin

Full art of Lady Liadrin from Hearthstone
  • Lady Liadrin
  • Libram of Hope
  • Libram of Wisdom
  • Libram of Justice
  • Aldor Truthseeker
  • Aldor Attendant

Paladins may very well be the best class in Hearthstone, and the Libram Paladin deck could be argued as the current best deck in Standard. This deck builds an early board presence with Paladin hero ability tokens before using cards like the Libram of Wisdom, Libram of Justice, and Libram of Hope to buff your creatures and generate massive creatures.

This deck thrives at its high-cost minions that decrease the cost of Librams, such as Aldor Truthseeker, and others that let you copy any spells you cast on your friendly minions, like Lady Liadrin. These minions are powerful in their own right, but when given a constant stream of buffs, you can easily build your own titanic creature out of something as simple as a 1/1 token.

Next: Hearthstone: The Best Legendary Minion Cards