vS Data Reaper Report #326

June 19, 2025

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Welcome to the 326th edition of the Data Reaper Report! This is the last report on Into the Emerald Dream.

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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 446,000
Top 1K Legend 40,000
Legend (Excluding Top 1k) 98,000
Diamond 4 to 1 50,000
Diamond 10 to 5 70,000
Platinum 52,000
Bronze/Silver/Gold 136,000

Class/Archetype Distribution

Class Frequency

Class Frequency Discussion

The balance patch has ignited interest in Demon Hunter. The class is no longer bound to Cliff Dive DH, which is a very fringe deck these days. Aggro DH has become one of the most popular decks in the game, while Starship DH has also gained traction as a Starship DK counter.

While Starship DK has been tipped by players to become more dominant this patch, its presence has only slightly grown at most rank brackets. At top legend, its play rate has not changed at all.  Meanwhile, Menagerie and Blood-Ctrl DK have both declined in play.

The nerf to Divine Brew has not discouraged Drunk Paladin at all. The deck has quickly risen to become a top legend pillar once again. Imbue Paladin remains popular outside of legend ranks.

While Spell-Damage Druid’s play rate at top legend dropped by 50% as a result of the nerf to Magical Dollhouse, the deck is showing signs of recovery. Aviana Druid has faded. Imbue Druid sees a small amount of play. New experiments with Hydration Druid can be observed, driven by the addition of Blob of Tar and Endbringer Umbra.

Protoss Mage’s behavior is peculiar. Its presence at low MMR ladder has not changed, yet interest in the deck at top legend has doubled, with high MMR players likely seeking counters to the hyped Starship DK.

Menagerie Priest has slightly declined. Some players have given yet another shot to Imbue Control Priest builds, as they seem to do every patch.

Murmur Shaman is another deck with renewed interest at high MMR’s, becoming very noticeable after a long break on the fringes.

Rogue has collapsed. Both Cycle and Pirate Rogue seem to have been crippled by the balance changes. The class does not appear dead, however, with attempts to revive it through the reintroduction of Fyrakk (Ashamane) Rogue and Protoss Rogue.

Interest in Starship Warlock has slightly grown, but there is no positive movement for Wallow Warlock.

Handbuff Hunter is getting some traction. Starship Hunter has also been given another shot.

Mech Warrior with Umbra is attracting some interest, though Control Warrior remains the popular choice at top legend.

Matchup Win Rates Header

Power Rankings Header

vS Meta Score

vS Power Rankings Discussion

Demon Hunter

  • Aggro Demon Hunter is a top performing deck across ladder. Its biggest counter? Drunk Paladin. There are other decks that do well against it, of a variety of playstyles, so we do not consider it to be unstoppable, nor is it a deck that limits options on ladder. One of the healthier “best decks” you can have.
  • Starship DH is a very strong counter to Starship DK, but the format is not about countering Death Knight alone. Considering its struggles against both Drunk Paladin and Aggro DH, we anticipate it will weaken over time. It should be a decent enough, competitive deck, for those that enjoy it.
  • Cliff Dive DH remains competitive. It might be stronger than it looks, considering a new variant has arrived that looks more promising than its older iterations.

Death Knight

  • Starship DK is kept in check by a variety of decks. Its late game falls short of other Starship decks, as well as the late game powerhouse that is Protoss Mage. Death Knight does well when its starship launch is enough to win the game, but struggles against opponents that can extend the game beyond it.
  • Menagerie and Handbuff DK look fine. Blood-Ctrl DK can be strong enough if correctly built. Most of its variants are suboptimal.

Paladin

  • The nerf to Divine Brew did not do much to hurt Drunk Paladin’s game plan. For those that are familiar with the deck, the nerf seemed soft upon reveal. A mana cost increase would have likely killed the card, but not changing the mana cost means Flickerbot/Sea Shanty timings do not change. The attack buff was not important to the deck.
  • Thankfully, while the deck is strong and currently thrives due to its strong Demon Hunter matchups, it does have effective counters, much like it did before the patch.
  • Imbue Paladin remains a very powerful deck for low MMR players, but drastically weaker at higher levels of play.

Druid

  • Spell-Damage Druid has survived the Dollhouse nerf. The nerf did make an impact on its matchup spread and it is not likely to take over top legend ladder, as it loses to both Aggro DH and Drunk Paladin.
  • Imbue Druid is a bit underrated at lower rank brackets. Its matchup spread is very impressive wherever Drunk Paladin is not popular.
  • Hydration Druid looks fine at lower rank brackets but becomes drastically weaker at legend ranks. It tends to roll over to decks that become more popular at top legend (Drunk Paladin, Spell-Damage Druid, Murmur Shaman).

Mage

  • Protoss Mage is weak to a variety of decks, making it borderline competitive. However, its playstyle is so attractive that a win rate hovering around 48% is enough to keep it popular.

Priest

  • Menagerie Priest is powerful across ladder. Death Knight is the primary nemesis it wants to avoid queueing into. Control Priest sucks. Nothing changed here.

Shaman

  • Murmur Shaman looks competitive.  Similarly to Protoss Mage, it punishes slower decks that give it time and space to execute its win condition. It is even stronger than Protoss Mage in the current format because it deals with Demon Hunter decks far better. It does not get countered by armor gain too. Still, Murmur Shaman is not amazing because decks that are good at snowballing early give it a hard time.

Rogue

  • Rogue is alive. Both Fyrakk and Protoss Rogue look strong when refined. Protoss Rogue needs to fully commit to a superior build over a trap build, the latter is more common at lower rank brackets. Fyrakk Rogue does have a near perfect build that sees play at top legend, but its superior performance there is also caused by its relatively higher skill ceiling. We would not be surprised to see Rogue become popular at top legend once again, though it is extremely unlikely that it returns to anything resembling pre-patch numbers.

Warlock

  • Starship Warlock is a good deck at top legend, but the class is not good elsewhere. The class generally struggles against Imbue Paladin, which is why it is only strong once that deck disappears. Starship Warlock’s biggest upsides in the current format are its good matchups against Drunk Paladin, Menagerie Priest, and Starship DK. However, it is a polarizing deck that gets hard countered by multiple popular decks.

Hunter

  • Handbuff Hunter is one of the best performing decks on ladder. Extremely underplayed for how effective it is, though we know its cheesy playstyle is unattractive. It does well against both Demon Hunter and Paladin. The decks that beat it either have the tools to deal with the giant Mythical Runebear through a robust defensive toolkit, or snowball fast enough to run the Hunter down (Menagerie Priest).

Warrior

  • Decks like Mech or Terran Warrior seem okay at lower levels of play but hit a wall once you reach more competitive ranks. Control Warrior is the only relevant archetype at top legend. It does relatively well there because of its good matchups against Aggro DH and Drunk Paladin, but gets countered by most decks that have a strong late game. This is typical of a removal merchant that does not have a lethal win condition.

Class Analysis & Decklists

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

 

The best Aggro Demon Hunter build after the patch is the one focused on Ravenous Felhunter and Ball Hog. Umbra is a good addition to the variant, though it is mostly strong in slow matchups.

The variant with the larger pain package is also successful, though it is clearly inferior to the first variant by a clear margin (~2%). One build related mistake in the deck is not running Sock Puppet Slitherspear.

Umbra is core to Starship Demon Hunter. We would run two copies of Dimensional Core and one Mixologist (filler card).

The best build of Cliff Dive Demon Hunter is a novel list that runs Blob of Tar and Colifero! Your goal is to transform a board of pirates into either Ragnaros or Inquisitors. We find it interesting that Blob of Tar can compete with Ball Hog for Ravenous Felhunter’s attention in the class. Perhaps, it is worth testing in other archetypes in the future.

Tindral Sageswift is strong in Starship Death Knight thanks to its interaction with Orbital Moon. A greedy Maladaar build with Shaladrassil helps this archetype apply more pressure in the late game, an alternative to the Foamrender approach we discussed in an earlier report. The Pyromancer/Poison Breath combo is not worth it currently.

Data Reaper Report - Paladin

Vicious Slitherspear is not as strong in the current patch, so we see it getting cut more often in Drunk Paladin builds to turn Libram of Clarity into a purer Flickerbot tutor.

Data Reaper Report - Druid

Hydration Druid looks fine at lower ranks of ladder thanks to the additions of Blob of Tar and Endbringer Umbra. Other Druid decks have not changed their optimal builds.

Data Reaper Report - Mage

Protoss Mage is cutting Artanis to fit in two copies of Warp Gate. This idea used to be worse before the patch, but we have noticed that the second copy of Warp Gate now performs better than Artanis. The goal is to make it easier for the deck to drop a Colossus earlier to stabilize.

Data Reaper Report - Priest

No changes in Menagerie Priest. Control Priest remains uncompetitive but does not look as terrible as it used to.

Data Reaper Report - Shaman

Murmur Shaman is not particularly strong, but it is competitive. No changes to the build. There is a relatively new Asteroid Shaman build that should probably try Living Flame. We struggle to believe Paraglide is a better card in this deck.

Data Reaper Report - Rogue

Fyrakk Rogue looks competitive at higher levels of play when refined. One card choice we cannot agree with in the popular top legend build is running Marin the Manager over Shaladrassil. Marin is one of the most overrated cards in Standard.

Protoss Rogue is competitive too. The featured build is significantly better than one running a Cindersword package.

Data Reaper Report - Warlock

There are no changes in Warlock. Starship Warlock is the only deck that looks competitive in the class.

Data Reaper Report - Hunter

Handbuff Hunter is popping off with the same list we have settled on before the patch.

Data Reaper Report - Warrior

Both Terran and Mech Warrior (with Umbra) appear playable at lower ranks of ladder but fall off completely at the higher end. At top legend, only Control Warrior seems to have a chance. We do wonder if Blob of Tar is worth a shot in this archetype. It sees no experimentation despite having success in Druid’s Hydration Station deck.


Current Standard is in a fine spot. No deck is overbearingly powerful. Aggro Demon Hunter is a relatively inoffensive “best deck” that can be successfully targeted, especially by top legend players.

The last patch successfully toned down classes without outright killing them. The nerf to Drunk Paladin might be considered a miss, but the consequences to the format are not severe. Most importantly, no class appears to be hopeless going into the next expansion, so there is no need for a drastically powerful set to help a failing class “catch up”.

Our expansion content will arrive starting next weekend. No big changes to the schedule from previous expansions. We will see you then.

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