Welcome to the 336th 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 | 2,929,000 |
| Top 1K Legend | 52,000 |
| Legend (Excluding Top 1k) | 846,000 |
| Diamond 4 to 1 | 523,000 |
| Diamond 10 to 5 | 395,000 |
| Platinum | 278,000 |
| Bronze/Silver/Gold | 835,000 |
Class/Archetype Distribution
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All Ranks
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D1 to D4
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Legend
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Top 1K Legend
Class Frequency
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Weekly
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Daily
Class Frequency Discussion
In a dramatic twist, Rogue has usurped Hunter at top legend and become the most popular class. This is driven by the rise of last week’s Meta Breaker, Protoss Rogue, as well as increased interest in both Cycle and Starship Rogue.
Discover Hunter has drastically declined and now only exhibits a 16% play rate at higher levels of play. While that still places it as the most popular deck, it is a stark contrast to its dominance just a couple of weeks ago, when it seemed headed towards a 30% play rate. Furthermore, Discover Hunter is seeing internal changes, with non-Elise builds gaining significantly more traction. Quest Hunter and a Windrunners tutoring Spell Hunter deck have appeared in low numbers.
Control Warrior is maintaining a consistent and steady play rate across all levels of play. Dragon Warrior is mostly in decline, but interestingly, it is rising in play at top legend.
Hagatha Shaman has surprisingly declined at all levels of play, which makes us wonder if it has taken a hit in its performance.
Blood-Ctrl DK is rising in play, while Bonechill Stegodon builds of Herenn DK are continuing to attract attention.
Protoss Mage has slightly declined at competitive ranks brackets. Elemental Mage has picked up some play and become more noticeable.
There’s a small increase in Cliff Dive DH, but nothing groundbreaking. Peddler and Aggro DH do not exhibit much movement.
Aviana Druid is strangely seeing more play at top legend. Other Druid decks continue to experiment. We have renamed Hydration Druid to Azshara Druid. We will explain later why.
There are no noticeable changes in Paladin, Priest or Warlock.
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All Ranks
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D4 to Legend
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Legend
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Top 1K Legend
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Legend
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D1 to D4
vS Meta Score
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Top 1K Legend
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Legend
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D1 to D4
vS Power Rankings Discussion
Rogue
- Protoss Rogue has managed to maintain its strong matchup spread despite its significant rise in play. Ultimately, it is a good deck at top legend because it beats Discover Hunter and Control Warrior, the two most popular decks at this rank bracket. At other rank brackets, it performs fine, but is not particularly special. There are multiple answers to it.
- Cycle Rogue has piggybacked on Protoss Rogue’s rise. It has a small edge in the direct matchup and benefits from the decline of Discover Hunter.
- Starship Rogue is a competitive deck that hard counters Control Warrior and goes 50-50 against Hunter, but has issues in other matchups that prevent it from exhibiting a stronger win rate. It is also, like all three main Rogue decks, relatively more difficult to play compared to other options.
Hunter
- Discover Hunter may have lost its grip on the top legend format. It is still a strong deck, but it no longer looks unstoppable. The decision between an Elise build and a non-Elise build is entirely matchup dependent. If the Hunter is encouraged to play faster, it can cut Elise. If the Hunter is encouraged to play slower, Elise is important.
- Face Hunter looks fine when properly built. Spell Hunter seems competitive as well. Quest Hunter is at the strongest state we have seen it. We think some refinement can help nudge it further.
Warrior
- Though it is generally outclassed by Hagatha Shaman, Dragon Warrior has established itself as a strong deck at all levels of play over the last couple of weeks. What is different this week is its power surge at higher levels of play. Why is it suddenly so strong at top legend, where it even eclipses Hagatha Shaman? This comes down to one matchup: Discover Hunter. The top legend trend of cutting Elise from Discover Hunter has shifted this matchup dramatically, to the point that Hunter now struggles against Dragon Warrior more at higher levels of play than it does at Diamond or Platinum ranks. It is a complete reversal of what we have seen from this matchup two weeks ago. Of course, that does not mean cutting Elise is wrong, because Dragon Warrior is not very popular, but this does open up the possibility of Dragon Warrior taking advantage of the situation and finding success by countering both Discover Hunter and Protoss Rogue.
- On paper, Control Warrior should have declined in its performance considering the rise of Protoss Rogue and the decline of Discover Hunter, but it has also benefitted from the declined popularity of Elise in Discover Hunter and the change in its own card choices that improve some of its other matchups (More Bulwark and less Dirty Rat).
Shaman
- Hagatha Shaman is unmoving. It remains the best deck on ladder outside of top legend. Has gotten stronger at top legend due to the decline of Discover Hunter. However, there is now an effective answer to Shaman if you are not a high MMR player. The Elise variant of Cliff Dive DH is a reliable counter and one of the best decks on ladder in general.
Death Knight
- Herenn DK has cleaned up this week. The Bonechill Stegodon variant has improved its performance through refinement and no long drags the archetype down. Blood-Ctrl DK has taken a step back in refinement. Its best builds are very good and its worst builds, which tend to be more common at lower rank brackets, are very bad.
Mage
- Elemental Mage looks like a decent deck to climb to legend with. We have a suspicion that its rise in play has caused a larger percentage of its players to be humans, which led to the improvement in its win rate on the opponent’s side. We just cannot conclusively prove it.
- Nothing has changed for Arcane or Protoss Mage.
Demon Hunter
- Cliff Dive DH is powerful. The Elise build is nuts and is a reliable Hagatha Shaman counter, making it one of the best choices to climb to legend with. The top legend meta is not as favorable, since the Discover Hunter/Control Warrior matchups are tough, but the deck is comfortable against Rogue.
- Aggro DH is good against both Discover Hunter and Rogue, but there is no interest in this deck at higher levels of play. Peddler DH is weak against most of the strong decks.
Druid
- The best Hydration Druid deck list does not run Hydration Station. A novel list cuts the 10-mana resurrection spell for Briarspawn Drake, imitating initial concepts of killing opponents with a Briarspawn Drake/Zin-Azshari combo in other shells (Krona Druid). This build is 2-3% better than the established Hydration build, turning it into a legitimately competitive option rather than a gimmick. Hard to call it Hydration Druid anymore when its best build does not run the card it is named after.
- Spell-Damage Druid is not terrible at higher levels of play but it does not really beat anything besides Control Warrior. Aviana Druid remains a bad gimmick.
Paladin, Priest & Warlock
- Paladin is fine, just falls off at higher levels of play, as it tends to historically. Protoss Priest is okay, but not great. Rafaam Warlock is an Un’Goro quest deck at launch. It is horrifically bad. Most Whizbang decks have a better win rate. There is no world in which it becomes competitively viable in the future in its current state.
Class Analysis & Decklists
Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid | Hunter | Mage | Paladin | Priest | Rogue | Shaman | Warlock | Warrior
Starship Rogue is seeing more play. As a result, we have been able to produce a more refined list. We have not seen a reason to change other Rogue decks.
Shadowstep is a bit weak in Protoss Rogue. The deck might be better off cutting it, but we do not think players will bite on this idea. The card is historically perceived to be far more powerful than it usually is.
Discover Hunter seems to like Brewmaster more these days. The final Elise activator is the main decision left. We have not collected enough data on Meadowstrider. Shaladrassil, Devilsaur Mask and Wisp are popular options. We suspect Wisp is the strongest of the three currently.
The Eliseless variant looks better after cleaning up the build and adding Brewmasters. It is stronger against Hunters and Rogues but weaker to Warriors and Death Knights.
A build with more early game minions that keeps Niri looks decent for Face Hunter. Arcane Shot is not important.
Spell Hunter is a deck built around tutoring the Windrunner sisters and then bouncing them (mostly Sylvanas) with Brewmasters. To tutor them consistently with Birdwatching and Fetch, the rest of the deck is made up of spells and Naielle.
Quest Hunter should run Zilliax rather than Kerrigan. The featured list looks more refined after the archetype gave us a bigger sample size to work with this week.
Grom Hellscream started to appear more in Dragon Warrior, and its metrics have also gone up. We have not seen Epoch gain traction this week, so we can no longer tell how it performs. The Keeper variant has declined in play.
The best Control Warrior build is clearly the featured one.
There is nothing new in Shaman. Hagatha Shaman looks solved. We do not think Nebula is necessary for the deck, as Wish Upon a Star already provides it with late game power.
We have not found a reason to change Protoss Mage. Blizzard is bait. Tide Pools is bait.
Stitched Giants are playable, but not necessary in Blood-Ctrl DK. We have dropped Bob and Horseman from last week’s list to bring back Sanguine Infestation. We do not think Infestation should be cut from the deck even after the nerf.
The Bonechill Stegodon variant is now looking cleaner and more competitive in Herenn Death Knight. Eternal Layover and Soulrest Ceremony are weak cards. Horn of Winter is not needed to activate Elise. We would try out Glacial Shards.
The Elise variant of Cliff Dive Demon Hunter is incredibly strong. Perfect 30.
The idea of running Briarspawn Drake with Zin-Azshari has infiltrated Hydration Druid and turned it into Azshara Druid. A list that cuts Hydration Station to accommodate Briarspawn Drake drastically outperforms the alternatives. It seems that this shell is more stable and can fit in the Drake win condition without a big sacrifice.
The reason this build is more effective is that there is little counterplay to a massive Briarspawn Drake being copied. The opponent can get OTK’d on the spot. To avoid playing any minions is almost impossible to do for most decks. In contrast, Hydration Station is a grindy finisher that gives the opponent time to respond.
Aura Paladin looks solidified. It is a good deck to climb to legend with but gets outclassed by Shaman.
Priest has stagnated. Every week, we try to find a remotely playable Aviana Priest deck list, but the archetype is unfortunately irredeemable garbage.
The featured Wallow Warlock list is not too bad. It is very possible the archetype becomes competitive after rotation, or another massive balance patch.
Protoss Rogue has saved top legend ladder from being completely choked out by Discover Hunter. Cliff Dive DH can contain Hagatha Shaman elsewhere on ladder, if given faith.
This week’s Battlegrounds content patch suggests there will likely be a balance window for constructed next week. It is possible that top performers will be nerfed, but we are more concerned with whether Timeways underperformers receive buffs. The format is not too bad in terms of balance and play patterns, but novelty is missing.
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Contributors
“We have a suspicion that its rise in play has caused a larger percentage of its players to be humans, which led to the improvement in its win rate on the opponent’s side.”
What on Earth does “which led to the improvement in its win rate on the opponent’s side” mean?