vS Data Reaper Report #319

April 10, 2025

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Welcome to the 319th edition of the Data Reaper Report!

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Class/Archetype Distribution | Class Frequency | Matchup Winrates | vS Power Rankings | vS Meta Score | Class Analysis & Decklists | Meta Breaker of the Week | How to Contribute | Credits

Number of Games

Overall 737,000
Top 1K Legend 63,000
Legend (Excluding Top 1k) 140,000
Diamond 4 to 1 90,000
Diamond 10 to 5 127,000
Platinum 102,000
Bronze/Silver/Gold 215,000

Class/Archetype Distribution

Class Frequency

Class Frequency Discussion

From one dominant deck archetype, Rogue has exploded into a multitude of strategies. It has become the most popular class at top legend, with its play rate rising across ladder. Protoss Rogue remains the most popular strategy, but several alternatives are emerging. A Pirate Rogue deck running The Crystal Cove and Watercannon is gaining traction. Cycle Rogue has returned in the first couple of days of the patch. Starship Rogue has awakened from its slumber. The aggressive Bounce Rogue is tweaking its build. Ashamane Rogue is trying various builds after its initial iterations have failed.

Blood-Ctrl Death Knight is one of the most popular decks at every level of play. The archetype has gone through a dramatic transformation after the patch, abandoning Airlock Breach for Vampiric Blood in a triple Blood rune route, heavily focusing on removal and winning through attrition. Starship Death Knight has declined, following the nerf to Arkonite Defense Crystal, but the deck remains visible across ladder. Menagerie Death Knight’s presence is notable, especially outside of legend ranks. The archetype is experimenting with multiple builds: Blood, Rainbow and Frost.

Priest popped off in the first day of the patch, with Zarimi Priest exploding in popularity, becoming the most prevalent deck at Platinum and Diamond ranks. As ZachO writes this, he notices a pig flying outside of his window. Imbue Priest does not share the same fate, with the deck failing to gain much traction after being specifically targeted with buffs. The nerf to Chrono Boost and Artanis seems to have killed off Protoss Priest, while Aggro Priest is seeking alternative builds (Menagerie) to the established Zealot variant.

The change in the interaction between Ursol and Shaladrassil has awakened the Paladin class. With Ursol now capable of corrupting and casting the legendary tree in one swoop, the Shala Pala archetype has emerged. This has also affected Aggro Paladin. Previously established in a Menagerie route, Aggro Paladin is attempting to refine a Shaladrassil top end to act as a secondary win condition. Imbue Paladin remains floundering.

The balance changes heavily impacted the Hunter class. Discover Hunter has disappeared. Zegg Hunter has declined, but remains a visible deck on the climb to legend. Handbuff Hunter is reappearing, leaning on Mythical Runebear as its new cornerstone card. Interest in Imbue Hunter persists.

Mage might be the class that has changed the least after the patch. Protoss Mage is not seeing new developments. It is the popular Mage deck at higher rank brackets. Imbue Mage remains popular at lower rank brackets, but fades at higher levels of play. The archetype now appears to favor the Skyla build, rather than Raylla or the Hybrid Protoss build.

Demon Hunter is in the process of a complete transformation. Armor Demon Hunter has collapsed, but two new strategies in the class are forming. Aggro Demon Hunter has been going through experimentation with various approaches and packages over the last week. Cliff Dive Demon Hunter is the fastest growing deck in the format. On Tuesday, it was just starting to pop up at top legend, so you can barely notice it on this graph. But over the next 36 hours, it has already become one of the most popular decks in the game. It is rare to see a deck explode over such a short period.

Druid’s fortunes look completely different. Dungar Druid may have disappeared, but Imbue Druid has surged. Unlike other Imbue decks, the deck’s presence mostly persists into top legend, a positive sign for its competitive potential.

Warlock has understandably declined following the massive nerfs to Location Warlock. The class is mostly focused on experiments surrounding a Mill Warlock deck. Very recent attempts at a Wheel Warlock comeback have also been observed, but this happened after the database for this report closed, so you will not see the deck in these graphs (we might mention it, though).

Murmur Shaman’s presence at top legend has completely collapsed, leaving it at a fringe state. Imbue Shaman has not picked up steam. Terran Shaman barely sees any play.

Terran Warrior sees little play, especially at legend ranks, where the class is almost non-existent. Food Fight Warrior has fallen off.

Matchup Win Rates Header

Power Rankings Header

vS Meta Score

vS Power Rankings Discussion

The current meta is wide open. From the first day of the patch, a new “Meta Breaker” has appeared every day, to the point it was difficult to capture all these developments with a single data snapshot. The format continues to develop at a frantic pace, with most classes displaying competitive potential, even ones that are perceived to be weak. This could end up being one of the most diverse and dynamic formats we have seen in years. There are more competitive decks than players can wrap theirs heads around. Let us take a look at the state of each class and how much room it has to improve and develop.

Rogue

  • Protoss Rogue initially looked extremely powerful, as it counters Zarimi Priest (the most popular deck on day 1 of the patch) and has a good overall matchup spread. However, the field is changing and players are targeting the deck. Blood-Ctrl Death Knight is a very hard counter to Protoss Rogue, while Cliff Dive DH (the hottest deck in the game right now) similarly destroys it. These latest trends are pushing Protoss Rogue down to a Tier 2 position at higher levels of play.
  • Pirate Rogue shows great potential as a Tier 1 contender across ladder, at a similar power level to Protoss Rogue. Blood-Ctrl Death Knight and Cliff Dive DH remain difficult matchups, but they are ‘softer’ compared to Protoss Rogue, so we expect Pirate to slightly outperform Protoss over the next week.
  • Cycle Rogue has gone off the boil relatively quickly. Unlike the duo of Pirate and Protoss, its matchup spread is far more vulnerable, losing to a wider variety of decks. We expect it to struggle to find further traction, unless it displays remarkable improvement through refinement or skill. It can slightly improve in its build, but not to an extent of hitting a positive win rate.
  • Starship Rogue has proven to be the most skill intensive deck in the format, displaying significant improvement in its performance at higher levels of play. It is the one Rogue deck that counters Death Knight, with a dominating 80% win rate against Blood-Ctrl. It greatly struggles in other matchups, so we will have to see whether its steep learning curve can keep it a Tier 2 performer at top legend, as the meta is becoming more hostile to it. Everywhere else on ladder, it is unplayable, because of how difficult it is to pilot. Its late game is complicated to navigate, with many matchups requiring different approaches.
  • Bounce Rogue does have some room for improvement through a build tweak, but it is a relatively straight-forward aggressive deck, so we do not see the same potential growth as we see in other archetypes.
  • Ashamane Rogue looks weak, but this is a build issue, as it is heavily weighed down by suboptimal lists. Most players have not figured out the correct approach for the archetype, which we have identified. A refined Ashamane Rogue has great potential at higher levels of play (at least Tier 2), so do not write off this deck just yet. Ashamane is a very powerful card.

Death Knight

  • Blood-Ctrl Death Knight is seeing great success, becoming more powerful at top legend due to the increased popularity of Rogue, a class it tends to counter extremely effectively (except Starship Rogue). Late game lethality is low, so there are not as many ways to punish a deck that plays a dedicated attrition playstyle with Kil’jaeden, compared to last year. However, counters to Blood-Ctrl are emerging and the deck is in the process of declining from its current lofty heights at high MMR’s.
  • Starship Death Knight does not perform as well against Rogue as Blood-Ctrl, as its game plan does not solely revolve around removal and attrition. This is why it currently looks worse. However, Starship DK is a hard counter to Blood-Ctrl DK and is not as easy to punish with direct counters due to its more proactive game plan. It is very possible that Starship will look like the better deck next week.
  • Menagerie DK is very strong, with multiple builds showing great potential. Its snowballing potential is enormous, establishing it as a hard counter to decks that cannot beat it off the board in the early game. It gets hard countered by slower Death Knight decks, due their plethora of board clears, and Menagerie DK’s reliance on keeping the board. If Blood-Ctrl DK declines though, Menagerie DK is likely to get even stronger.

Priest

  • In the first 12 hours of the patch, Zarimi Priest was the strongest and most popular deck in the game. Things have drastically changed since. It was the first domino to fall in a daily process of rising and falling Meta Breakers. There is a long list of effective Zarimi Priest counters, especially in the Rogue class, so we expect the deck to fall out of fashion to some degree. We do not expect a further decline in its performance though, as it hard counters one of the newly emerging decks in the format. We will not spoil it for now.
  • Aggro Priest is a strong ladder climber that hits a wall at higher levels of play, where Death Knight and Rogue numbers peak. Changes in the format could push things in a more favorable direction for it, as we expect both of these classes to take a step back.
  • Imbue Priest is the worst deck in the game. Forget it until the next buff.

Paladin

  • Shala Paladin is a competitive deck, but its current playstyle does seem to leave it with little room for further improvements. It is a strong counter to slow decks that give it time to ramp into Ursol, but it greatly struggles against strategies that can pressure it before it gets there. We do not expect it to become a meta powerhouse, unless it reinvents its game plan.
  • Aggro Paladin can run Shaladrassil too. It offers a more stable matchup spread as a result, since it can win through board pressure without needing Ursol. However, that does curb its performance against slower decks, as it is not as consistent in leveraging the tree.
  • Imbue Paladin is still not competitive viable.

Hunter

  • Handbuff Hunter looks powerful and may have an important role to serve going forward, as it is a hard counter to Cliff Dive DH (70-30). This is a case of one scam deck stopping another scam deck from scamming (A buffed Runebear shields the Hunter from Cliff Dive damage). The way to beat Handbuff Hunter is through removal, so Death Knight handles it relatively well.
  • Zegg Hunter has become weaker with the nerfs, but it is still powerful throughout ladder. It should remain an extremely effective deck to climb to legend with. It looks strong against Cliff Dive DH too.
  • There is no denying that players are desperate to make Imbue Hunter work, but the deck is undoubtedly trash. This is some Tickatus Warlock/Reno Warrior level of cope here, considering how popular it is and how little it wins.

Mage

  • Mage does not appear to be in a great position in the format, but it is suffering from refinement issues. The Skyla variant of Imbue Mage is the deck Mage players will want to play, as it shows more promise than all other Mage decks. We can see it becoming a respectable 50% win rate deck. Protoss Mage is a bit too weak following the nerfs and the same can be said for the hybrid Imbue/Protoss variants.

Demon Hunter

  • The best deck in the game was blowing up as we were working on the report. Cliff Dive DH looks nuts. Its matchup spread is near flawless, beating down Rogues while only getting countered by Handbuff Hunter. We will note that every day since the patch launched, a seemingly overpowered deck appeared and it was answered the next day or two, so we will see how the field responds to the massive spike in Cliff Dive DH. The format is certain to look very different.
  • Aggro Demon Hunter is already strong, but has plenty of room to improve through refinement, as it has been experimenting with various packages and there are ways to optimize it better. It also appears to do well against Cliff Dive DH and may get stronger should Blood-Ctrl DK decline. The death of Armor Demon Hunter has given life to Demon Hunter decks that feel a lot more like Demon Hunter.

Druid

  • Imbue Druid is now the best Imbue deck in the format and a serious meta contender. Its matchup spread is very smooth and balanced. Pirate and Protoss Rogue give it the hardest time, but Rogue could take a step back in its popularity, leading Imbue Druid to a very powerful position. The deck does not have any other significant counters, so we can even see it elevate to Tier 1 with the direction the format is headed. No fear in running into Cliff Dive DH either.
  • Dungar Druid is gone. Play pattern wise, replacing Dungar with Imbue was a great trade-off.

Warlock

  • Not many players expected Location Warlock to survive the balance changes, but it did. The deck is obviously significantly weaker, but somehow managed to maintain a positive win rate across ladder. The question is whether players will care to keep playing it. Our suspicion is no. Something else is happening to the class that should make players forget all about Location Warlock.
  • Cliff Dive DH emerged on Tuesday. Wheel Warlock emerged on Wednesday. Based on preliminary results, this is yet another Meta Breaker brewing at top legend. A Tier 1 performer. A hard counter to Death Knight that maintains balanced matchups against most opponents. The decks that beat Wheel Warlock? Zarimi Priest is an oppressive counter. Imbue Druid is a strong counter. You now understand why we do not think Zarimi Priest will disappear, and why we are high on Imbue Druid.
  • There is no reason to keep hitting our head into the wall hoping that Mill Warlock work. Wheel Warlock has carved a better path for a defensive Warlock deck to thrive. A lot of players at top legend have been headbutting walls this week, to little success.

Warrior

  • Everyone seems to think Warrior is dead. It is far from dead. Terran Warrior is still fine and we can see some potential in Control Warrior too. Unfortunately, we simply did not have enough data on Control Warrior to refine a list we are comfortable featuring, but remember that Cliff Dive DH struggles against big taunts… We will let you fill in the blanks. Hopefully, there will be some cooking next week.

Shaman

  • Shaman is the only class that is truly dead and there is nothing that we found that shows any competitive promise.

Class Analysis & Decklists

Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid | Hunter | Mage | Paladin | Priest | Rogue | Shaman | Warlock | Warrior

 

Data Reaper Report - Rogue

Rogue is displaying a ridiculous amount of deck diversity, with most decks taking advantage of the power behind Harbinger of the Blighted.

Protoss Rogue can adjust to the balance changes by replacing Chrono Boost with Robocaller. Artanis now corrupts Shaladrassil, while both cards work well with Robocaller due to their unique mana costs. Metal Detector has grown in priority due to the deck’s more expensive curve.

A card we are not impressed with is Griftah. Sonya also performs poorly, but she gives the deck a better chance against Death Knight, which is Protoss Rogue’s biggest counter, so we are hesitant to cut her.

A Watercannon Pirate Rogue deck that utilizes The Crystal Cove alongside Bargain Bin Buccaneer looks very powerful. This is the one Rogue deck that does not utilize Harbinger of the Blighted. We do wonder whether that is correct, but the deck does have a very specific game plan that may not fit with Harbinger. We have no data on the card in this archetype anyway. This deck also runs Shaladrassil without any intention of corrupting it, due to the extra damage it offers. Nightmare with Sailboat Captain is a plan to keep in mind. Marin the Manager is a popular card that does not look good in this deck.

Cycle Rogue started the patch strong but fell off behind other Rogue decks later. The best direction cuts Playhouse Giants. The archetype does not seem capable of supporting them well enough post-rotation. The burn plan is the deck’s primary game plan. Bounce Mauler with Web of Deception and Shadowstep before popping an Oracle to burst down slower decks. Use those bounce effects earlier on Harbinger to overwhelm faster decks.

An aggressive Bounce Rogue deck can further improve through refinement. Dread Corsair does not seem to pull weight with Waggle Pick and Raiding Party. Lucky Comet is very strong. A couple of solid 3-drops help increase the deck’s consistency, as SI:7 Agent is not a real 3-drop.

Starship Rogue is the best Rogue deck against Death Knight, which tends to counter most other Rogue decks. Some lists do not run Harbinger, but it seems like a no brainer. We may want to save our bounce effects for the late game if we are dealing with attrition decks, but Harbinger is a terrific win condition in faster matchups, where we do not need to be worried about value and simply want to contest board.

Finally, Ashamane Rogue is the least refined Rogue deck. We have a suspicion that Naralex/Ysera is bait. A build that minimizes the minion count with Dig for Treasure is a concept we pitched in the theorycrafting article, but what was missing from the prototype is Harbinger of the Blighted. The card is a big boost in the deck’s performance. The featured build is novel, but data driven. Recent iterations possess a minion shell that supports the deck’s survival into Ashamane, but it might just be Harbinger that does all the work, as other minions are just not very impressive.

Remember. Slower matchups: Ashamane. Faster matchups: Harbinger.

Blood-Ctrl Death Knight has transformed into a pure fatigue deck, focused solely on removal rather than offering any real pressure on the opponent. This development comes following the disappearance of Armor DH and further decline of late game lethality. If Death Knight simply prolongs the game, it is favored.

This is why Vampiric Blood is now better than Airlock Breach. If all we care about is gaining life and cycling into Kil’jaeden, it makes sense. Airlock Breach has also become a weaker card due to the rise of Shaladrassil and Corrupted Awakening.

Pyromancer/Poison Breath further ensures an answer to any board-related threat we encounter, such as Plant Golems or Archons. Dirty Rat pairs well with our board clears.

Starship Death Knight is one of the strongest counters to Blood-Ctrl Death Knight. This deck isn’t purely defensive, so we are not convinced Pyro/Poison Breath works as well here as it does for Blood-Ctrl. Hideous Husk’s performance in this archetype fell off a cliff.

Menagerie Death Knight looks strong through multiple variants. We’ve curated three directions that look similarly powerful and have similar matchup spreads: Blood, Rainbow, and Frost. Pick whatever you like. Menagerie Jug carries.

Data Reaper Report - Priest

There has been a debate whether Zarimi Priest should run Prize Vendor or Ancient of Yore. The answer is both. Thrive in the Shadows is the bait card in the deck that we would cut to make room. Everything else looks straightforward. Illusory Greenwing is good because of Tormented Dreadwing.

Aggro Priest has now split into two different directions that seems equally powerful. The Zealot variant got weaker due to the nerf to Chrono Boost but remains viable. The Menagerie variant has popped up and looks competitive.

No hope for Imbue Priest currently. We think the next buff it receives will be more impactful.

Data Reaper Report - Paladin

Shala Pala is one of the hottest new decks in this format. The featured build looks clean. We have maximum tutoring potential through Maul, Grillmaster, Robocaller and Armaments. We have maximum coin generation to cheat out Ursol earlier. We have a cheap curve, so that we can dump our hand for the Shaladrassil chain.

Mull for the weapons. Keeping Ursol and Shaladrassil is a viable plan, especially if we have Metal Detector. Moonstone Mauler fuels Dragonscale Armaments.

Aggro Paladin can either build around Menagerie Jug or Shaladrassil. The two variants have surprisingly similar matchup spreads. The major difference is that the Tree variant is significantly stronger against extremely defensive decks like Blood-Ctrl Death Knight, while Menagerie is slightly better in faster matchups. It breaks even.

Data Reaper Report - Hunter

Handbuff Hunter has emerged, replacing the old Zergling game plan with a Mythical Runebear game plan. Remember Penguin serving as the deck’s third minion? Wisp is taking up the mantle. Huffer is another buff target we should consider.

The alternative game plan is to overwhelm the opponent with R.C Rampage, which can be helped by the minion summoning weapons in the deck.

Imbue Hunter is cutting Alien Encounters and some of its weak enablers. We think the deck should experiment more with the buffed Resplendent Dreamweaver. The deck runs plenty of bad cards that are easily replaced anyway. We would like more data on Dreamweaver to determine whether it is still not worth running.

Zegg Hunter is still fine, running the same list.

Data Reaper Report - Mage

Protoss Mage does not change. The best Imbue Mage build is now the Skyla build, as it performs best against Death Knight.

Cliff Dive Demon Hunter performs even better with Ball Hog and Ravenous Felhunter, which we can tutor with Tuskpiercer. Our top end Cliff Dive targets should be Inquisitors and Magtheridon. Briarspawn Drake is not worth running.

Running Jumpscare is the equivalent of trolling yourself, as the card actively hurts the deck’s game plan. We are amazed this card even made it to lists and impressed the deck still performs exceptionally well despite sabotage-level deck building. Defiled Spear makes sure we can always activate Inquisitors to hit face when we pull them with Cliff Dive.

Aggro Demon Hunter is another deck in the class that is relatively unrefined. The featured build goes all-in on Dirdra as a Ravenous Felhunter target. Plucky Paintfin serves as a hard tutor, while Tuskpiercer can also find it. Dirdra is the strongest card in the deck, so you want to find it as soon as possible.

Data Reaper Report - Druid

Imbue Druid looks much more competitive. The buff to Symbiosis was nice, but what really helped the archetype was the nerf to its strongest counter: The Ceaseless Expanse.

The Tourist package does not seem worth running. Shaladrassil is good, even if we do not corrupt it with Malorne every game. Griftah looks better than Zephrys, which is a popular choice. Trail Mix is the worst card in the deck, but the best of the rest.

Data Reaper Report - Warlock

Location Warlock might be ignored but remains competitive despite its brutal nerfs.

The hottest trend is the emergence of Wheel Warlock, which looks like a potential meta breaker. The game plan is to stall and cycle into Kil’jaeden. In plenty of matchups, slapping Kil’jaeden early is correct. Wheel is an essential hard counter to Death Knight, but not needed in every matchup.

Cursed Campaign is meant to target Ancient of Yore, which makes us gain insane amounts of armor while drawing. Eternal Layover clears the board with Ultralisk Cavern and can reset Ancient of Yore.

We do wonder whether Fractured Power and Rotheart Dryad should be given a chance in this deck. Fractured Power is not the best with Caverns, but Caverns on 3 is not as important to the deck, while dropping Ancient of Yore early could be powerful. Dryad can tutor Kil’jaeden, which is valuable, since Kil’jaeden is not just a fatigue canceller in this deck.

Wisp and ‘Eat! The! Imp!’ is a cute combo, but they can theoretically make way. Our featured build shows a proven path (this is the second best deck at top legend, after all), as well as a suggested experimental path with not much data behind it (Zilliax can be Perfect/Twin or Perfect/Haywire).

Data Reaper Report - Warrior

Terran Warrior is still fine, despite being completely forgotten. The defensive build we featured last week works fine. The deck does well against Death Knight.

Data Reaper Report - Shaman

Shaman is the one dead class in the format. Murmur Shaman has been deleted. Terran Shaman has disappeared. Imbue Shaman is still terrible.



Ah, yes. Cliff Dive Demon Hunter and Wheel Warlock. The Meta Breakers we all expected at the launch of this patch…

The current format is one of the most volatile we have ever experienced. Every day, something new emerged to completely change the picture. If we ignored post-database developments, we would have provided you with an outdated picture of Standard, so we have made significant efforts through commentary and deck refinement, to provide you with the very latest trends. The meta is going to be completely different next week and there is no telling what other novelties and discoveries are in store for us.

This could be one of the most interesting Standard formats in recent memory, a result of a very good balance patch from Team 5 that correctly addressed the discrepancy in power between the Starcraft mini-set and everything else. Now, the meta is wide open. Things we did not think could be viable, are becoming viable. Enjoy the current decks featured in this report and do not miss next week’s report. It could be yet another banger.

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Contributors

EndofDaysTzachilookitzjoe

2 Comments

  2. Who could have guessed that killing all viable decks while releasing no cards would hurt Shamans?
    Definetely not Team 5 it seems.
    Hopefully this miniset releases something relevant.

    Good job with the report as always guys.

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