Welcome to the 347th 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 | 3,070,000 |
| Top 1K Legend | 91,000 |
| Legend (Excluding Top 1k) | 462,000 |
| Diamond 4 to 1 | 761,000 |
| Diamond 10 to 5 | 726,000 |
| Platinum | 432,000 |
| Bronze/Silver/Gold | 598,000 |
Class/Archetype Distribution
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All Ranks
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D1to 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
Herald Rogue’s numbers have grown at lower rank brackets, but stabilized past Diamond 5. It continues to evolve in its card choices, becoming increasingly focused on performing well in the mirror matchup due to its popularity.
Dragon Warrior has surged and completely transformed. A new build direction has taken over the archetype, cutting the Herald package for a faster and more aggressive curve, with the intention of rushing down Rogues and Demon Hunters more effectively.
Demon Hunter has declined. Although the deck remains popular at top legend, it seems to have ceded some ground to Dragon Warrior elsewhere. This is a curious development on the surface, as Demon Hunter performs well against Dragon Warrior, but other factors may also come into play here.
One of them is the rise of Merithra Druid. Utilization of Wickerfang in the archetype has drastically increased. It is now a consensus card at top legend, while in the process of becoming one elsewhere.
Face Hunter has declined at all levels of play. It is possible that Dragon Warrior’s new aggressive build has taken some audience away from Hunter. In another development, we are seeing Quest Hunter gaining a little bit of traction through a few different builds.
Aura Paladin has significantly risen in play at most rank brackets, continuing on its momentum from last week. Furthermore, Aggro Paladin has emerged with a build that resembles its pre-rotation iteration, replacing Crusader Aura with Flight Maneuver as its core win condition. It made a lot of noise in the first couple of days of its arrival, but has gone a bit silent since.
Quest Mage is another archetype experiencing internal transformation, with new builds emerging that run Techysaurus. The addition of Raptor Herald back to Standard is also making an impact. Quest Mage’s play rate numbers have not changed much though.
Herald Shaman is the one archetype that looks completely settled in its build. It is a popular ladder choice outside of legend ranks, but loses traction at higher levels of play, relegated to a fringe top legend presence.
Herald Death Knight is stubbornly popular and has even grown in its numbers over the last week despite showing no competitive viability. Only top legend players have mostly given up on the deck.
Control Priest is declining at all levels of play, as more players realize it is a weak ladder performer. Warlock is further declining too.
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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
Warrior
- Dragon Warrior has emerged as the top performing deck on ladder at all levels of play this week. Its new build counters Rogue harder, while performing better against Demon Hunter too, becoming only slightly unfavored in this matchup. Demon Hunter and Druid have the potential to fight back against it, which suggests that the format may settle into a cyclical pattern of several decks feeding off the growth of their better matchups. What should keep Dragon Warrior as one of the top performers is the player base’s love for Herald Rogue.
- Egg Warrior is the strongest Demon Hunter counter in the format but its polarized matchup spread makes it relatively inconsistent, though its overall win rate is decent. A rise in Quest Mage is a potential issue, as this is one of its worst matchups, nearly as bad as Shaman with Hex.
Rogue
- Herald Rogue is no meta tyrant, it is simply a deck that has captured the hearts of players, who will persist with it as long as its win rate is decent enough. Its high popularity has left it vulnerable to being targeted by Dragon Warrior, which is mostly responsible for its decline to a sub 50% win rate. Will this dent Rogue’s popularity? Perhaps slightly, but we are under no illusion of some collapse. There is no sign of it happening.
Demon Hunter
- Spell Demon Hunter has taken a hit in its performance. The matchup against Dragon Warrior is not as easy as it used to be, while Merithra Druid is proving to be a tough and popular opponent. Still, the deck is strong at all levels of play and further traction in Warrior may lead to Demon Hunter bouncing back. The fight for the #1 spot is not over.
- Herald Demon Hunter remains fringe competitive, so we do not expect to see much movement in it.
Druid
- Merithra Druid is a Tier 2 deck with Wickerfang. Its top legend standing shows it, which is where everyone runs Wickerfang. Its win rate is also quickly rising elsewhere, as its best build trickles down. It is a strong performer against both Dragon Warrior and Spell Demon Hunter. Its Rogue matchup is slightly unfavored, which prevents it from being elite, as well as a vulnerability to aggression (Hunter, Paladin).
Hunter
- Face Hunter stocks are dropping. Dragon Warrior is now clearly the better aggressive deck, with an even better matchup against Rogue (!), while convincingly beating Hunter in the direct matchup. The Spell Demon Hunter matchup is also horrendous. The Quest Mage matchup is what may help it bounce back in the future.
- Quest Hunter may not look good in the aggregated stats, but one particular build looks competitive and may push the archetype in the right direction towards a 50% win rate if it is widely adopted.
Paladin
- Aura Paladin enjoys the decline of Demon Hunter and rise of Druid, though Dragon Warriors can be tough. It is an elite ladder climber that settles to a middling performance at top legend due to a low skill ceiling. Not different from the story of many Paladin decks before it.
- Aggro Paladin looks strong on the climb to legend, but is ultimately inferior to Aura Paladin. It also drastically falls off at higher levels of play, to a far more extreme degree. Its skill ceiling is the lowest in the format, becoming unplayable at top legend. Resembles pre-rotation Aggro Paladin.
Mage
- Quest Mage is experiencing a meteoric rise in its performance at higher levels of play, a product of both refinement and a high skill ceiling, the latter leading to players improving with it over time. A second week win rate spike often happens with these skill outliers, as history shows. At top legend, only two decks beat it: Face Hunter (hard counter) and Dragon Warrior. We believe top legend players will embrace this deck in the coming days and it may exceed a 10% play rate there very quickly. The hardest deck to play in the format, by some distance, according to our internal metrics.
Shaman
- Herald Shaman is a fine ladder performer, but simply does not match up well against the best decks, in the most brutal and competitive field at top legend. It is only slightly favored against Merithra Druid, while going even or losing against the rest. This is why it is popular at lower ranks, while ignored at higher MMR’s.
Death Knight, Priest and Warlock
- There is no indication of a change in these classes’ prospects. Herald Death Knight’s popularity is a product of its attractive playstyle and cope. Control Priest is another attractive, yet fraudulent deck. Egg Warlock is the best of the three, sitting on the fringes of competitive viability, but not making it there.
Class Analysis & Decklists
Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid | Hunter | Mage | Paladin | Priest | Rogue | Shaman | Warlock | Warrior
Herald Rogue has seen some significant developments in its card choices. Deja Vu and Nightmare Fuel have spiked in play and look impressive. They are strong cards in the mirror matchup, for obvious reasons. Nightmare Fuel is a strong card in the current format despite its uselessness against Demon Hunter. The mirror matchup is simply twice as common. This recommendation applies for both the Mistress and the Imbue variant.
The Imbue variant has space to fit in Mirrex too, for further copying shenanigans. You are now rewarded for being greedy, so we have added back Shaladrassil in the Mistress variant.
Dragon Warrior’s performance has reached another level thanks to the emergence of a new Volcano variant that drops the Herald package and runs a very low and aggressive curve. This significantly improves the Rogue matchup, where the Warrior wants to rush the opponent down. The featured build drops Precursory Strike from the most common build of this new variant, replacing it with Slam. Slam performs slightly better as we do not have many expensive minions in the deck to activate Precursory Strike consistently.
No changes in Egg Warrior. It is a great counter to Spell Demon Hunter and Face Hunter but is slightly unfavored against Rogue.
After looking at more Spell Demon Hunter data, we dropped Press the Advantage from the Nespirah build to fit in Lasting Legacy. We also added back two copies of Horn of Feasting, sticking with one Eye Beam. Horn of Feasting is too good.
There is a notion that Nespirah performs better at higher levels of play, but surprisingly, the opposite is true. The card falls off at higher levels of play. The non-Nespirah build is superior at top legend.
Merithra Druid looks strong with Wickerfang. Interestingly, Endangered Dodo has gotten worse at Diamond ranks and below due to players starting to play around Dodo more, while at higher MMR’s, the card is more likely to catch players off guard as Dodo is not common. Still, we would probably stick with last week’s build.
For the first time, Genn does not look entirely awful in Face Hunter, but we are more curious about Sands of Time. The spell has started to see play in the archetype and looks decent. Never cut Niri, as it is a good card against Rogue.
Quest Hunter is not refined, but one variant looks more promising than others and we estimate it to be competitive. We are featuring the promising list without alterations.
The new Aggro Paladin behaves similarly to the pre-rotation one. A board flooding deck that looks to vomit its hand, this time to set up Flight Maneuvers. Flight Maneuvers is tutored by Violet Treasuregill into Dragonscale Armaments.
New Quest Mage builds are making waves on ladder, running Techysaurus. The return of Raptor Herald to Standard is a major boost to the deck too. The featured list looks clean, though we are not married to Smoldering Grove.
No changes in Herald Shaman. Lightning Storm continues to be a common choice despite looking relatively underwhelming. Hex is not as powerful as it was when Imbue Druid was running rampant but remains superior in more matchups. It’s a small difference. Some players 1-1 split, but we like to say which card is currently better.
This week’s biggest story is the emergence of a new, superior build of Dragon Warrior that has put Herald Rogue in its place and overtook Spell Demon Hunter as the strongest performer on ladder. We do not expect the current meta to have one dominant deck, which is nice to see. There are eight competitively viable classes, while the other three do not fail the attractiveness test. They just need a power boost. Herald Death Knight and Control Priest are popular, despite their weak standing, and could become memorable decks for many players if given a stronger chance to compete.
There is clearly strategic scarcity in the format, as the number of competitive decks post-rotation has fallen off a cliff. This is a product of the weaker card pool, as well as the narrow design from The Emerald Dream and The Lost City of Un’Goro, which we firmly believe are two of the most poorly designed expansions in the game’s history. However, Cataclysm’s design represents a significant improvement. If future expansions follow its example, strategic diversity should recover.
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Contributors
