The first week of the new Hearthstone mini-set Deadmines is on a sail. On November 4, Tian Ding — Blizzard's Hearthstone Data Scientist — tweeted the five best decks in the top 1% MMR. This article will guide you through each deck's strengths.

1. Token Druid

Token Druid has been a strong meta competitor before Deadmines, and now it is even stronger with the new cards. The deck plays out the same as Token Druid before. Play aggressively to build a board that your opponent can't deal with. Once you have enough damage (with Arbor Up), kill them.

Druid of the Reef is simply a strong 1-drop. Although it's not a fancy, game-changing card, it helps with the tempo overall with both the 1/3 taunt option and the 3/1 rush option.

Jerry Rig Carpenter is a fantastic card that helps with Token Druid's weakness — running out of resources quickly. It is a 2 mana card with a 2/1 body that fundamentally draws two copies of Sow the Soil. Now it doesn't have to rely on Composting, which requires a board to draw cards.

2. Garrote Rogue

Garrote Rogue was one of the best decks amongst high MMR players, and it still is with little help from Deadmines. Blackwater Cutlass takes the place of Cult Neophyte, and the rest of the deck is the same.

Blackwater Cutlass helps cycle through the deck and search for Field Contact and Efficient Octo-bot, the core key cards for Garrote Rogue. It is essentially a free card cycle if you have a spell in your hand. Since Garrote Rogue wants a full swing/OTK turn with mana reduction, paying for mana earlier for later turns could be better.

Be aware that Garrote Rogue is a deck that is great in the top 1% MMR. Garrote Rogue is a statistically proven deck with a high-skill cap deck with the most significant gap between the high legend rank players and non-legend players. If you don't have any experience with Garrote Rouge, we recommend watching competitive players' plays before hopping into it.

3. Quest Giant Warlock

Warlock has been nerfed multiple times during a couple of months in United in Stormwind and somehow still survives at the top of the meta. Again, it's a deck we've seen for a long time. The only difference is the addition of Shadowblade Slinger.

Shadowblade Slinger is basically a warlock version of Prize Plunderer, a card that has been taking care of Rogue's tempo and removal for a while. A 1 mana 2/1 minion that can remove almost any minion is quite insane.

There are mainly two different game plans for this deck. Either play giant minions and hit them in the face (ideally with Windfury from Battleground Battlemaster) or remove everything to outlast them to complete the Quest and kill the opponent.

4. Libram Paladin

Paladin is a good friend of Warlock that also got nerfed countless times but still survives in the meta. Libram Paladin is back to the meta, once again, with a new card Sunwing Squawker.

Libram Paladin's tempo plays are based around reduced Libram spells, including buff spells. Hand of A'dal and Libram of Wisdom are great cards that are even better if played for free with a 4 mana 3/4 minion. With Libram of Hope, it could be a 4 mana 3/4 that summons an 8/8 taunt with a divine shield.

5. Quest Pirate Warrior

Finally, it is a new(ish) deck that also fits the mini-set's Pirate theme! Quest Pirate Warrior had been considered a joke for most of the United in Stormwind expansion, but it became a solid meta competitor thanks to many nerfs to other decks and buffs to pirates.

Quest Pirate Warrior has a great deck with the addition of Defias Cannoneer and Mr. Smite. Do you remember what Charge is? Do you remember a card that gives Charge to other friendly minions? Do you know a legendary Warrior deck that killed your opponent with synergies from those cards?

For now, Quest Pirate Warrior doesn't seem to be on a Patron Warrior level in terms of deck power, but it is a decent deck that feels different from the recent meta decks.

Enjoy playing Deadmines with the new decks!