vS Data Reaper Report #302

August 22, 2024

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Welcome to the 302nd 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 1,531,000
Top 1K Legend 75,000
Legend (Excluding Top 1k) 421,000
Diamond 4 to 1 243,000
Diamond 10 to 5 288,000
Platinum 194,000
Bronze/Silver/Gold 310,000

Class/Archetype Distribution

Class Frequency

Class Frequency Discussion

There is a continuing shift in the Druid class. Concierge Druid is losing favor amongst players at all levels of play. Reno Druid is losing ground at higher levels of play. Dragon Druid is seeing a slight uptick in play, with the deck proving to be the superior choice.

Insanity Warlock has spiked in play at all rank brackets. This was the deck we identified last week that had the most resilient and reliable matchup spread, with the fewest available counters. Players at all levels, but especially those at top legend, seek these well-rounded decks that have a decent chance of winning any matchup. No movement is observed in Pain Warlock.

Death Knight is going through a drastic change, with players exploring Buttons and Razzle-Dazzler outside of the standard Rainbow shell. Frost Death Knight has taken over top legend ladder, while Blood-Ctrl Death Knight and Blood-Reno Death Knight have emerged in small numbers.

Sonya Rogue has spiked in play at top legend, leaving all other Rogue strategies behind. With the deck hailed as one of the most skill intensive decks we’ve ever seen last week, while proving to be extremely powerful in the competitive scene during the weekend, high legend players have backed themselves to master the deck.

Shaman has declined. Interest in Evolve and Pirate Shaman is waning. Rainbow Shaman has only slightly picked up in play.

Overheal Priest is another deck seeing increased enthusiasm at top legend, while Reno and Zarimi Priest see fringe play.

Interest in Handbuff Paladin has picked up, with the deck tipped to be the strongest possible counter to Sonya Rogue at top legend, provided we add some more extreme tech choices.

Warrior is going through a slow decline in play across ladder. Reno Warrior is stubbornly holding on to a sizeable play rate, despite proving to be a garbage deck last week. At top legend, there is a greater awareness of how bad it is, so it doesn’t see much play.

Mage is stagnating. Elemental Mage is fading. Only Spell Mage sees meaningful play at legend ranks.

Pirate Demon Hunter has slightly risen in play. Hunter remains competitively dead.

Matchup Win Rates Header

Power Rankings Header

vS Meta Score

vS Power Rankings Discussion

Druid

  • Dragon Druid remains a strong deck, but one that has declined in its performance across ladder, while staying only slightly above a 50% win rate at top legend. Its win rate is still somewhat inflated due to the high prevalence of the Warrior class. Dragon Druid is the hardest counter to Reno Warrior, taking advantage of the stubborn refusal of a sizeable population to let that deck go. Its matchup spread against the best decks is nothing special. It’s an important counter to Rainbow Death Knight.
  • Concierge Druid has declined further in its performance, now looking like a Tier 3 deck at top legend. Plenty of decks in the format severely punish it.
  • Reno Druid is a stronger counter to Death Knight compared to Dragon Druid, but it’s worse against almost every other opponent.

Warlock

  • Insanity Warlock has also declined in its performance across ladder, especially at top legend, where it is no longer the most consistently powerful deck. The rise of Frost Death Knight, Overheal Priest and Handbuff Paladin, is proving to be troublesome. Players are learning how to expose this deck’s weaknesses a bit better than they did last week.
  • Pain Warlock is getting destroyed at top legend by Sonya Rogue, Frost Death Knight and Overheal Priest. Its strong Druid matchups are not enough to make up for it.

Death Knight

  • Frost Death Knight has gone through a productive refinement phase this week that has proven to be more successful than expected, with several new card choices dramatically altering matchups. It’s now a Tier 1 deck across ladder, including top legend, outperforming its Rainbow counterpart. Its matchup spread has become spooky, showing almost no weaknesses. Its Druid matchups are better than Rainbow’s. It’s only effectively countered by Overheal Priest and Reno Druid. This is a serious contender to become the best deck in the game.
  • Rainbow Death Knight’s Druid matchups are ultimately what’s holding the deck back from becoming a more dominant performer. Frost Death Knight also performs better in the Sonya Rogue matchup, which is very top legend relevant. Rainbow is good, but fair.
  • We’re not too excited about the prospects of Blood-Ctrl or Blood-Reno Death Knight. These archetypes fall prey too easily to Druid, without much of an advantage gained elsewhere.

Rogue

  • Sonya Rogue is being restrained by several forces. The injection of players learning how to play the deck for the first time has tempered, or delayed, the improvement in its performance over time. Meta developments have also played a major role, with the deck being aggressively targeted through novel tech choices by several archetypes, most notably Frost Death Knight and Handbuff Paladin. Its skill differential is still incredibly high, to the point its performance at the very top end of ladder is likely to be better. But for the large majority of high legend players, it doesn’t look like a major performance outlier in the same vein of Garrote Rogue.
  • Gaslight Rogue is drastically worse, despite holding a big advantage in the matchup against Sonya Rogue.
  • Excavate Rogue has improved through some refinement tweaks, but does not look competitive anywhere on ladder.

Shaman

  • Evolve Shaman is in a similar position to Dragon Druid, where it’s pretty good, but not too good. A strong counter to Druid, but suffers against Death Knight and Sonya Rogue, leading to a decline in its performance at top legend.
  • Pirate Shaman has been mostly abandoned by the player base, as it’s weaker than Evolve Shaman through the majority of ladder. Interestingly, the decks are equally strong at top legend.
  • Rainbow Shaman exhibits the worst matchup against Druid compared to the aforementioned Shaman decks, but performs better against Death Knight and Sonya Rogue, thanks to its off-board burst capabilities, making it surprisingly effective at higher levels of play.
  • Reno Shaman is still figuring out its best approach for the format, but it’s not a great deck regardless of how you build it. Elemental Shaman is irrelevant through redundancy.

Priest

  • Overheal Priest has spiked in its performance, partly due to its internal refinement, partly due to its strength against the developing field. While it is very weak to Sonya Rogue, it beats the decks that try to target Sonya Rogue, most notably Handbuff Paladin and Frost Death Knight. Its matchup spread is generally very balanced, making players feel they have room to outplay their opponents. It is a difficult deck to play, with a relatively high skill differential, though not close to the ridiculous numbers of Sonya Rogue.
  • Zarimi Priest is very strong, but largely ignored. It’s a polarizing deck in the current meta, with some dominant matchups, as well as other matchups that feel awful to play into (Warlock, Evolve Shaman). Players at lower MMR’s don’t care about it because it’s not Control Priest. High level players are mostly interested in Overheal Priest.
  • Reno Priest is terrible. It’s incredible that it still sees meaningful play. It’s basically Reno Warrior’s little brother.

Paladin

  • Handbuff Paladin is proving to be an effective deck throughout ladder, with a meaningful role at top legend that has elevated its performance to be the best at that rank bracket. Its matchup spread is far from perfect, but it’s the strongest counter to both Insanity Warlock and Sonya Rogue, two decks that have been trending upwards over the last week. Players at top legend have been adding some tech cards that make it very difficult for Sonya Rogue to play the game. We’ve noticed this matchup is becoming progressively more difficult for the Rogue over time, offsetting any improvement in the piloting of the deck.
  • The rest of the class is uneventful. Showdown Paladin is inferior to the best aggressive decks, while falling off hard at higher levels of play.

Warrior

  • Warrior is a zombie class. Dead, but still walking. Its play rate ‘should’ be as low as Hunter’s, but players adore Reno Warrior. Unfortunately for them, Reno Warrior is a terrible deck. Odyn Warrior does have more potential when it runs Fizzle, but it’s still not a deck we expect to gain any traction.

Mage

  • You can still do fine with Elemental Mage at Diamond ranks and below, but the deck has lost its competitive relevance after the Lamplighter nerf. We believe what carries its play rate currently is its cheap cost. Spell Mage is just weak and not recommended anywhere on ladder.

Demon Hunter

  • Pirate Demon Hunter is strong. We think its play rate remains low because of its polarizing play experience. It is a dominant counter to Druid, but miserable into Death Knight and Shaman. Players don’t like polarizing decks with matchups that feel pre-determined. They would prefer a deck with a similar win rate, perhaps even lower, but a more balanced play experience. This has been a consistent phenomenon throughout most of Hearthstone’s history.

Hunter

  • There have been attempts to revive Hunter this week, with valiant efforts to refine Reno Hunter, as well as a Mystery Egg Hunter deck. However, neither of these decks exhibit an adequate performance level. Hunter is still bad.

Class Analysis & Decklists

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

 

Data Reaper Report - Druid

Druid decks are largely settled. Some tweaks in Reno Druid have been made, but the deck is largely the same. Dragon Druid is the best choice in the class for the ladder climb at all levels of play. Concierge Druid has become noticeably weaker over time.

Data Reaper Report - Warlock

Warlock decks are also settled. The standard build of Insanity Warlock has consistently been better than the one utilizing the Tourist package over the last week. Unfortunately, Wheel Warlock is not good enough to carve out a place in the meta.

Frost Death Knight looks extremely promising and may become the most well-rounded deck in the format thanks to emerging discoveries. Last week, we mentioned Frost Strike as the first card we would cut from Death Knight decks. It seems that players have found a game changing alternative in Cold Feet. Cold Feet is a backbreaking card in some matchups, such as Dragon Druid, Handbuff Paladin and Sonya Rogue, where it might as well be considered a Time Warp. Adding Tidepool Pupil alongside Cold Feet makes the deck particularly gross in its ability to lock out the opponent from playing the game. This helps increase Marrow Manipulator’s effectiveness, as it connects face more often through the denial of minion development.

Rainbow Death Knight is seeing more success by replacing Frost Strike with Frosty Décor. We do wonder whether there’s merit to explore Cold Feet in this archetype too, though the synergy isn’t quite as strong on paper with the absence of Horn of Winter. Frosty Décor is a very nice follow-up to a turn 4 Buttons.

Blood Death Knight builds have been attempted, but neither Blood-Ctrl nor Blood-Reno look particularly competitive. Razzle-Dazzler seems to be leveraged better when it’s paired with more proactive shells. The Druid matchups for these decks are rough.

Data Reaper Report - Rogue

Players have been searching for the best cards to put in the final 2 slots of Sonya Rogue. Elven Minstrel seems to be one of them, as it helps us tutor our impactful minions. Another card that doesn’t perform too badly is Speaker Stomper, thanks to its strong performance in the mirror. An alternative popular choice is Deafen.

There is a Weapon Rogue deck brewing, one that exhibits competitive promise on a small sample size and runs a Sonya/Griftah/Pupil package. Might be a Tier 2 deck in the current meta.

Data Reaper Report - Shaman

We’re happy with most of the Shaman lists we’ve settled on last week. Rainbow Shaman is a deceptively strong deck that we think is being slept on.  The Hagatha build performs well, but the Conductivity variant initially floated by ZachO could be just as strong, if not stronger, in the developing meta. Having OTK potential is becoming increasingly important. We just added Patches to the original list.

Reno Shaman may want to maintain a relatively proactive shell, but with a better late game through Shudderblock, Marin, and Incindius.

Data Reaper Report - Priest

Overheal Priest has gotten stronger over the last week thanks to meta developments as well as the establishment of Birdwatching and Tidepool Pupil as core cards. They make a big difference to the consistency of the deck, as well as its burst potential.

Data Reaper Report - Paladin

Handbuff Paladin is a great deck in the current meta. Top legend players have been using it to target Rogue with the addition of several tech cards. The best ones are Cult Neophyte and Customs Enforcer. Razorscale and Speaker Stomper are other options. Norwis recently hit #1 legend by running all 8 tech cards. This makes the deck over 70% favored against Sonya Rogue, but significantly hurts its other matchups. You’d have to run into an incredibly high density of Sonya Rogue to make that worthwhile. For the large majority of ladder, Handbuff Paladin performs best by running no tech cards whatsoever. The primary featured build is the best one up until the number of Sonya Rogues becomes very noticeable. Then you might consider Neophyte/Enforcer. Going full tech is something we can’t see being worthwhile unless Rogue takes up a huge chunk of the field, perhaps at the very tippy top of ladder, as Norwis likely experienced.

Data Reaper Report - Warrior

Reno Warrior is really bad. The featured build is clearly the best one though, so if you’re insistent on playing this deck, please run this list so that your suffering is significantly lessened. Odyn Warrior is also bad, but less bad if it runs Fizzle.

Data Reaper Report - Mage

Elemental Mage can still do a good job on the climb to legend if you’re a new player who’s looking for a cheap deck to grind games with. Spell Mage is bad at lower MMR and higher MMR.

Pirate Demon Hunter is unlikely to gain further traction due to its matchup polarity. Feels insane if you run into a lot of Druids. Feels unplayable when you’re running into Death Knight. On average though, it’s quite strong.

Data Reaper Report - Hunter

Nope.



Frost Death Knight is now primed to take over its class thanks to its ability to lock out opponents and pressure them with great effectiveness. The deck translates well at all levels of play and solves Death Knight’s struggles in the Dragon Druid matchup thanks to Cold Feet. Cold Feet is also a game changer against Sonya Rogue and Handbuff Paladin, which are becoming increasingly common at top legend. If you’re looking for a fresh Tier 1 deck that’s well-rounded and exhibits few weaknesses, this is a great choice that we suspect will trickle down to all rank brackets over the next week.

Frost Death Knight

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