Hearthstone, the deck-building phenomenon by Blizzard, sees continuous success and support among its fans. Currently, at patch 18.2, the game has seen waves of changes intended to enhance the experience of players by balancing the existing meta.
There’s a lot to unpack 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 plays unique from each other, but certain builds that have an objective advantage over the others.
A description and an overview of each class’s best cards are also provided to help you further. Let’s dive right into the list.
Note: This is a tier list for the Arena game mode of Hearthstone. We’ve made a separate list for that found here.
Table of ContentsShow
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 playstyle. You can build a powerful setup quickly, 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, and they’ll see high success as they go on more matches. All its traits combine to make Paladin the only true overpowered class in Hearthstone at the moment. |
A-Tier
Not overpowered as S-Tier but 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 on using a Hunter deck. Similarly, you can see your aggressive plays rewarded because of Hunter’s excellent 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
Good classes that still constitute part of Hearthstone’s meta. Need a few workarounds to get them working in optimal condition, but otherwise 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, making you near unstoppable towards the late game. |
| 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
Classes that won’t blow you away but are 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 in 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, especially for beginners because of its mechanics that require immense strategy in every match. It is utilized 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 is an aggressive deck designed to flood the board with cheap minions to gain control. |
F-Tier
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 as 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 because of poor offense and even worse utility. |
