Hearthstone Arena Tier List

Hearthstone, the deck-building phenomenon by Blizzard, sees continuous success and support among its fans.

With the introduction of patch 19, the game has experienced continuous changes. These intend to enhance the gaming experience by balancing the existing meta.

There’s a lot to unpack here if you’re looking to take Hearthstone Arena seriously in competitive, ranked matches.

To ease this, we’ve compiled a tier list that ranks the classes (deck builds) from best to worst.

Each class is unique, but certain builds have an objective advantage over the others. A description and overview of the best cards in each class are also provided to help you further.

Note: This is a tier list for the Arena game mode of Hearthstone. We’ve made a separate tier list for the Battlegrounds game mode, which you can find here.

S-Tier

High win rates in competitive play and ranked matches. Decks can be effective at any stage of a match, lessening possible pitfalls for players of varying play styles.

Class	Notable Cards	Description
Paladin	Blessing of Authority Turalyon, the Tenured Zephrys, the Great Truesilver Champion Underlight Angling Lord	The Paladin’s decks fit perfectly with an aggressive play style. You can build a powerful setup quickly and with minimal effort. Dragon synergies still constitute a chunk of the meta, so Paladin thrives off that. Low cost, common units like Truesilver Champion also get the job done most of the time. The Paladin class is very easy to pick up for beginners, who will see high success as they go on more matches. All its traits together make Paladin the only true overpowered class in Hearthstone at the moment.

A-Tier

A-Tier classes are not as overpowered as S-Tier ones, but they can easily close that gap with experience and skill.

Class	Notable Cards	Description
Hunter	Primordial Explorer Zephrys, the Great Desert Spear Trueaim Crescent Nagrand Slam	Primordial Explorer remains one of the top reasons to build a Hunter deck. The Hunter shines due to its excellent value-resources tradeoff. Like Paladin, you could go very far with little resources when using a Hunter deck. Similarly, you can see your aggressive plays rewarded because of Hunter’s great hero powers. The thing that holds Hunter back from S-Tier is its lack of late-game options. In tight matches, the Hunter deck is far from a sure win.
Druid	Marsh Hydra Twilight Runner Keeper Stalladris Winged Guardian Emerald Explorer Speaker Gidra	The Druid class best suits players who want consistently good performance throughout the match. While not having the same burst as more aggressive classes, Druid shines in its speed and mana pool accumulation. Treant and Guardian Druid decks are the optimal ways to use the class. Try out the Druid class if you’re looking for consistency with a bit of versatility sprinkled on.

B-Tier

These classes are still part of Hearthstone’s meta. They need a few adjustments to work in optimal condition, but otherwise, they’re solid decks all around.

Class	Notable Cards	Description
Warrior	Rattlegore Imprisoned Gan’arg Reaper’s Scythe Livewire Lance Lord Barov Warmaul Challenger	A quick look at Warrior decks might make you think to play aggressively. The best players, however, know that the strength of Warrior class lies in control tactics. The key to success using Warrior is to build your deck up for a late-game push. Pirate decks are built for this exact purpose, to make you unstoppable towards the late game.
Demon Hunter	Marrowslicer Netherwalker Big ‘Ol Whelp Dalaran Crusader Imprisoned Antaen Priestess of Fury	The Demon Hunter deck is perfect for an aggressive play style right from the start of the match. It aims to overwhelm the opponent quickly before they can even get steady footing. The Demon Hunter deck does this by capitalizing on fast and powerful burst damage. Countering the Demon Hunter is a case of controlling its hero units and limiting the weapon cards they can use. Additionally, this deck has a hard time dealing with large minions with high HP.
Mage	Jandice Barov Evocation Power of Creation Firebrand Reno the Relicologist Combustion Dragonqueen Alexstrasza	The Mage class focuses on powerful attacks for offense and several tricks for defense. They’re not as overpowering as other offensive classes, but they make up for it with great utility and match control. A Highlander deck setup is considered the best arsenal for the Mage class right now.

C-Tier

These classes won’t blow you away, but they’re still solid picks if you know what you’re doing.

Class	Notable Cards	Description
Rogue	Backstab Eviscerate Preparation Edwin Vancleef Secret Passage Coerce Clever Disguise	Rogue is fun to play because of how well it controls the early game. Once the match draws on, Rogue relies on setting up powerful combos and synergies to gain an advantage. The main downside to this is that your success depends largely on how well you dominate the early game and how proficient you are at setting up your combos. Since the initial release of the game, the Miracle deck is still the number one go-to for the Rogue class.
Warlock	Flame Imp Voidwalker Diseased Vulture Darkglare Nightshade Matron Hand of Gul’dan	The Warlock class is hard to use. This is especially true for beginners because of its mechanics that require immense strategy in every match. It’s used in slow or fast-paced gameplay to take advantage of its Hero Powers. The best deck build for Warlock is the zoo warlock or zoolock build. It’s an aggressive deck, designed to flood the board with cheap minions to gain control.

F-Tier

These are the worst classes to use in Hearthstone given the current meta. While every class in Hearthstone is viable with enough mastery, F-tiers are inherently disadvantaged from the other tiers.

Class	Notable Cards	Description
Shaman	Torrent Invocation of Frost Corrupt Elementalist Kronx Dragonhoof Boggspine Knuckles Galakrond, The Tempest	The Shaman needs to play aggressive, but you won’t reap the rewards until after several turns. It has powerful burst damage when set up correctly, but almost always falters against experienced players.
Priest	Psychopomp Convincing Infiltrator Catrina Muerte Mass Resurrection	The Priest is considered the most annoying class to play against because of its resurrection mechanics and controlling style of play. Outside of all the healing, the Priest struggles to finish off matches due to its poor offense and even worse utility.