Welcome to the 283rd 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 | 1,972,000 |
| Top 1K Legend | 70,000 |
| Legend (Excluding Top 1k) | 244,000 |
| Diamond 4 to 1 | 394,000 |
| Diamond 10 to 5 | 334,000 |
| Platinum | 307,000 |
| Bronze/Silver/Gold | 623,000 |
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
The most notable change in the format compared to last week is the emergence of Topior Druid, which sits alongside Reno Druid. Treant Druid has declined due to its worsening Rogue matchup. Excavate Rogue’s play rate has long reached saturation at top legend, though its play rate continues to increase outside of it.
There’s not much else going on, as most classes are waiting to see what they’re getting from the upcoming mini-set. There is a need of an injection of power here, but more importantly, an injection of compelling options.
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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
- It took some time, but Excavate Rogue is finally looking like a real meta tyrant at higher levels of play and not just a strong and popular deck. Its resilient matchup spread and refusal to give up any ground to competing strategies thanks to productive refinement, has eventually led to Rogue beating down other classes through the power of matchup attrition. Over the last couple of weeks, it has improved its performance against several decks, some of those initially presenting an advantage over it. This has shown that a deck that is impossible to reliably counter may eventually develop into a big problem, even if results don’t show it to be a major power outlier initially.
Druid
- Druid has proven to be the only class capable of standing up to Rogue. Topior, Reno and Dragon Druid exhibit small advantages in the matchup against Rogue, which have not been dented over time.
- Topior Druid is generally a very similar deck to Reno Druid in its overall win rate and matchup spread, but might be a little worse overall, with its late game win condition coming online later and looking slightly less reliable against defensive minded decks. When it comes to matchups that require better board control and pressure, the consistency of Topior does seem to help.
- Treant Druid has improved its performance this week mainly because of the rise in Topior Druid.
The Rest
- Control Warrior is the only non-Rogue, non-Druid deck that seems to hold up well enough at top legend to produce a positive win rate. Its matchup against Excavate Rogue is 50-50. Its matchup against Topior Druid is also 50-50, which is better than its matchup against Reno Druid.
- A notable spike in performance comes from Plague Death Knight, which has a very good matchup against both Topior Druid and Reno Druid.
- That’s pretty much it. Across most of ladder, plenty of decks offer decent choices for the climb. At high MMR, Rogue, Druid and Warrior (in that order) look like the clear best choices.
- The format is generally very stagnant at this stage. Most classes don’t have new developments, so if we’ve left a class section empty, it means we’ve evaluated the existing decklists and found them to still be optimal.
Class Analysis & Decklists
Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid | Hunter | Mage | Paladin | Priest | Rogue | Shaman | Warlock | Warrior
We like the build we’ve settled on last week for Excavate Rogue. It performs very well. Tess Greymane is a popular card in the deck but doesn’t perform well unless you run Sketchy Stranger. We’ve noticed that Stranger boosts Tess’ late game power quite significantly, so if you like Tess, we recommend cutting Neophytes for Strangers. Astalor is the card that makes way for Tess.
Wishing Rogue has followed Excavate Rogue in abandoning Concoctions. This was not necessarily the right move, but we have no more data on the concoction direction, so we’re featuring the best excavate path. The deck’s power, based on its small sample size, is not comparable to Excavate Rogue.
We’ve had a chance to properly look at Topior Druid this week. Our conclusion is that Lifebinder’s Gift isn’t great, but it helps boost the power of Topior, while we have no idea why Finley is such a common inclusion. It’s barely good enough in Rogue.
Chad Warlock has started to run Glacial Shard over Mortal Eradication as the 30th card. Sludge Warlock is swapping Tour Guides for Flame Imps, a change driven by the rise of Topior Druid.
We’re pleased to announce that we will publish a Comprehensive Preview article for the Deepholm mini-set, which will be out next week, on January 17th.
Tune in if you’re interested in our thoughts on what kind of impact they may have on the format.
Until then, enjoy the last days of the current meta.
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MagicHamsta here, Finley in druids/rogue can acts as a reno/rheastraza activator by allowing you to cycle the deck. It also acts as an answer searcher if your hand is bad/too heavy.