Hearthstone's Wild allows decks to be created without restrictions, but which decks are actually the best in this format?

Compared to nearly any other online card game, Hearthstone has perhaps one of the best extended formats of any. This would be Wild, a format that lets you use cards from the entire game's history in order to create powerful brews and intimidating threats, many functioning faster and more reliably than anything in Standard.

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This means you'll have to build very carefully if you want to win, and this will involve some extremely specific cards and strategies. These can be extremely difficult to play and build if you've never participated in a Wild match before, but with these classic Hearthstone staples and archetypes, you should absolutely be able to take on the best players in no time.

One of the hardest-to-counter strategies in competitive Hearsthone has been Secret Mage decks, which rely heavily on casting Secret spells that are triggered from specific events, such as Counterspell and Flame Ward to deal with your opponent's overpowered spells. These decks win can vary massively from hard burn to milling out opponents, but Wild has the freedom to access all kinds of excellent minions that benefit from your secrets.

These include Kabal Crystal Runner and Sayge, Seer of Darkmoon, your top-end cards that can have lower costs or greater effects based on the number of secrets you've cast in a given game. Others like Occult Conjurer will simply duplicate themselves if you have a facedown secret, letting you overwhelm the board without your foe being able to cast spells.

Murlocs have been a long-standing meme in the World of Warcraft fanbase, but they're just as important in the Wild metagame thanks to a wide set of Murloc synergy cards. Many of the best support options include Shaman Class cards like Ice Fishing and Tinyfin's Caravan to help you draw endless minions, making it the ideal class for this archetype.

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Your actual Murlocs are all relatively simple, and the main goal is to pack in as many as possible that have ability text that includes the word "Murloc" in it. This includes Lushwater Mercenary to gain a boost of Attack and Health, Murloc Warleader to grant your 0-cost and 1-cost Murlocs additional Attack, and even Gentle Megasaur to Adapt your cheap Murlocs into terrifyingly powerful monsters.

Druid decks are often built around throwing as many creatures as you can at your foe, and this is just as true of the best Wild Druid decks. The idea is that every card is meant to be flexible, with options like Living Roots and Power of the Wild granting your choice of either Health and Power changes or a token to gum up the board.

Your neutral creatures are the main win conditions, though, with a strong synergy of pirate cards like Parachute Brigand and the infamous Patches the Pirate to help give a little extra reach. It isn't inherently a pirate deck at its core, but their inexpensive synergy combined with powerful Druid spells makes for a wide and fast board presence.

Speaking of Pirates, it should be mentioned that Warrior players can often push even harder with this synergy thanks to the sub-mechanic of weapons being able to buff the lower-power minions in your roster. This is because cards like N'Zoth's First Mate and Ancharrr give a huge amount of buffs and card draw to your weakest minions like Patches and Sky Raider. As a result, you can put up a better fight if your game goes long.

This slower strategy means you can also play some more expensive minions like Leeroy Jenkins and Skycap'n Kragg, giving you many more options than just a blitz-style aggro deck. Besides this synergy, some great general cards like Leeroy Jenkins and Wriggling Horror give your team just a little more strength whenever you want to go for a big sudden attack.

Warlock Zoo and Warlock Aggro decks have been another consistent archetype throughout Hearthstone history, and it remains one of the best decks in Wild that Hearthstone has ever seen. Some of the best inclusions are undoubtedly Raise Dead and Kobold Librarian, extremely low-cost spells that damage your hero for excellent board and card advantage.

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The best part of this deck, however, is its high-end minions that your foes will struggle to take down without multiple cards. These include the expensive-but-titanic Flesh Giant and Molten Giant that cost less if you damage yourself through other Warlock cards, and even some generally some hateful cards like Cult Neophyte and Loatheb to make your foe's spells cast additional mana.

Veteran Hearthstone players are plenty aware of how absurdly powerful Paladin decks can be, as at least one will often be running much of the Hearthstone metagame in any given Standard season. With Wild comes a wider selection of spells, leading to a fair number of Paladin options with fully different strategies.

Odd Paladin is perhaps the simplest, revolving around Baku the Mooneater who can upgrade your hero power to summon twice as many 1/1 minions for creatures like Warhorse Trainer to buff up further. This means you'll have a good play each turn and still be able to blast out odd-value Paladin staples like Righteous Protector and Steward of Darkshire to run Divine Shield minions into easy-to-win boardstates.

If you want something slightly less gimmick-heavy for your Paladin deck, Handbuff strategies can lead to much more exciting combat with fewer Paladin-specific mechanics. This utilizes cards like Smuggler's Run and Grimestreet Outfitter to buff low-cost minions in your hand, letting them be far stronger and letting you dish out a wide board of giant creatures once you've got four or five mana.

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These creatures can be extremely inexpensive to craft, such as the simplistic Bluegill Warrior and Crabrider Murlocs. Even better is that you can also run cards that search your library for 1-health minions to load your hand further, such as Salhet's Pride and First Day of School.

The last and often best Wild deck in Hearthstone may be none other than Reno Priest. This singleton deck is named after cards like Reno Jackson and Zephrys the Great that have powerful effects when a player has no duplicate cards. This is hardly a downside, as you are just encouraged to build your deck with a wider variety of minion-destroying cards like Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Death to deal with any aggressive opponents.

You can even play a great variety of damage spells that minions like Mo'arg Artificer will be able to buff, such as Spirit Lash and Breath of the Infinite. As for final win conditions, you may eventually be able to play Raza the Unchained to eliminate the cost of your hero spell, and Shadowreaper Anduin to replace your Hero Power with a damage-dealing move that can single-handedly eliminate your opponent's life total.

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Gene Cole is a Canadian freelance writer with a B.A. in psychology and criminology. He works hard to keep an open mind towards a huge variety of games, and loves learning about how different people make and play them. In his free time he loves wandering aimlessly in Slime Rancher, fiddling with competitive games like Poker and Magic: The Gathering, and (amateurishly) attempting to speedrun Super Mario Odyssey.