vS Data Reaper Report #310

December 26, 2024

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Welcome to the 310th 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 725,000
Top 1K Legend 70,000
Legend (Excluding Top 1k) 305,000
Diamond 4 to 1 78,000
Diamond 10 to 5 98,000
Platinum 67,000
Bronze/Silver/Gold 106,000

Class/Archetype Distribution

Class Frequency

Class Frequency Discussion

Before the patch, we’ve already mentioned that a refined Lynessa Paladin should be the second best deck in the game. With one of its worst matchups in Swarm Shaman nerfed, the deck has finally taken a front row seat, with its play rate spiking at legend. The deck still isn’t too popular outside of legend, where Handbuff Paladin is more popular. Handbuff Paladin similarly benefits from Swarm Shaman’s decline. Libram Paladin is the third notable Paladin deck.

Death Knight is another class that has seen a significant rise in play after the patch, with Rainbow DK becoming one of the most popular decks in the format across all rank brackets. Reno DK’s presence is small, while some interest in Plague DK is picking up.

Initially, Cycle Rogue was struggling to survive following the nerf to Sonya. However, a new build has emerged in the last few days that has completely turned around the archetype. Cycle Rogue is currently spiking in popularity at top legend to an extreme extent, one that is difficult to capture with a graph that encompasses the full week. Based on current trends, Cycle Rogue should become the most popular deck at top legend, with a play rate exceeding 20%. This development does not seem to significantly impact lower MMR brackets. Starship, Weapon and Shaffar Rogue are the other notable strategies seeing play in the class.

We’ve split Discover Hunter into two archetypes. The popular infinite Fizzle/Ceaseless variant and the far less popular Aggro variant that runs Mantle Shapers, the latter only exhibiting a play rate hovering around 1%. Starship, Grunter and Secret Hunter see modest play, keeping the class diverse in its playstyles.

Zarimi Priest is gaining some traction, especially at top legend, with new builds that focus on its OTK potential through Zarimi, the Ceaseless Expanse and Alexstrasza (!). Control and Reno Priest had to be aggregated together following the patch, as the overlap in card choices between the two is too high, with Control Priest way too messy to distinguish from Reno. It is very difficult to know your opponent is playing Reno Priest until you reach the later stages of the game, which causes splitting the two to artificially inflate Reno Priest’s win rate due to recognition bias.

Swarm Shaman has collapsed, leaving Asteroid Shaman as the most popular strategy in the class. It is also the most popular deck in the game at Diamond and Platinum ranks, which is why it seems to attract many complaints. The deck does fall off in play as we approach higher MMR’s. At top legend, a little bit of Nature Shaman is brewing.

Dungar Druid has also drastically fallen in play, though maintains a bigger presence on ladder compared to Swarm Shaman. Spell-Damage Druid is attempting a comeback at top legend. Reno and Station Druid remain fringe decks.

Pirate Demon Hunter is in the process of disappearing, leaving Attack Demon Hunter as the sole representative of the class. Despite being an aggressive deck, it’s more popular at legend compared to the rest of ladder.

Finally, there are some new developments in Mage. Alongside the solidified Elemental Mage, a new Mage deck is beginning to emerge, centered on Supernova. Supernova Mage is a young deck that’s very early in its development phase. Spell Mage running Yogg in the Box and Galactic Projection Orb is a fringe deck at lower MMR brackets.

The same story in Priest is also true for Warrior. Control Warrior is a complete mess, running almost every card imaginable, which reduces Reno Warrior’s unique markers. The good news is that both Control and Reno Warrior are a dumpster fire, so important information is not lost here.

Armor Warlock has enjoyed positive PR due to the World Championship, but the deck’s play rate diminishes at top legend, which means it’s either boring or bad. We suspect it’s the latter.

Matchup Win Rates Header

Power Rankings Header

vS Meta Score

vS Power Rankings Discussion

Paladin

  • Lynessa Paladin is a powerful deck across ladder, but unlike other decks that do well on the climb to legend, it does not fall off at top legend, where it makes up one of the three dominant forces in the meta. Its main counter is Death Knight, which explains why Rainbow DK has become so prominent at higher levels of play. Zarimi Priest is another deck that does a good job of getting under Paladin. Lynessa Paladin’s strong matchup against Cycle Rogue bodes well for its future, and we think it can do even better against Rogue if it wants to.
  • Handbuff Paladin looks very dominant everywhere. At top legend, it takes a small dip, but one that keeps it a Tier 1 performer. You might expect the deck to eventually fall off at higher levels of play, as it’s done plenty of times before. However, so far, we’re seeing no indication that it is relenting in its performance. It has a strong matchup against both Lynessa Paladin and Cycle Rogue, with tech cards potentially becoming relevant again if Cycle Rogue explodes. Zarimi Priest and Discover Hunter are the decks that give it the most problems, in the absence of Swarm Shaman.
  • Libram Paladin is okay. Clearly, it’s an inferior deck to Lynessa or Handbuff, but it’s a solid performer across ladder. The collapse of Swarm Shaman has massively benefited all three Paladin decks.

Death Knight

  • Rainbow Death Knight is the biggest counter to Lynessa Paladin. Airlock Breach makes it difficult for the Paladin to consistently OTK the Death Knight, while the DK normally wins if it the matchup becomes a grind. However, Rainbow DK is vulnerable to a wide variety of decks with strong late game lethality, as observed in Druid and Hunter. The Cycle Rogue matchup isn’t easy, while even Zarimi Priest gives it serious problems now. The deck may struggle to maintain a positive win rate at higher rank brackets next week.
  • Reno Death Knight’s matchup spread is similar to Rainbow’s. Reno is just a bit worse overall.
  • Plague Death Knight is getting a bit of traction and might become more attractive over the next week, since it’s a strong Cycle Rogue counter that also does well into Lynessa Paladin. Considering its further scope for improvement through refinement (it’s very unrefined), you would think there is a meta breaker brewing here. However, its matchup strengths are a bit too specific. It basically punishes draw heavy decks, while struggling against most decks that don’t draw like maniacs and give the Death Knight excessive Plague value.
  • Frost Death Knight isn’t bad, it’s just less attractive than other decks. Attack DH and Weapon Rogue seem to have more traction as “burn” decks, while there are other aggressive decks that perform better.

Rogue

  • Cycle Rogue’s new form seems very powerful. In fact, the deck is more powerful than it was before the patch. There are two reasons for it.
    • Dungar Druid, its biggest established counter, has drastically dropped off in its play rate. Cycle Rogue still has some effective counters, but it generally looks more comfortable than it did before. The meta has become less hostile to the deck. That could change if players start targeting it aggressively again. So far, we’re not seeing signs of it.
    • Sonya was overrated as a win condition. Many players treated Sonya as an Odyn, or a Sif, in terms of impact on the archetype. But Sonya was never near that level, especially when it was reliant on an objectively weak enabler in Scoundrel. Sonya was a good card, but it was far more effective at pissing off players than it did at dominating Hearthstone games. Perhaps, this new build would have proven to be better than Sonya even before the patch, but we will never know, because the perception around Sonya was unshakeable.
  • Speaking of Cycle Rogue counters, Weapon Rogue is by far the most brutal option if all we want to do is kill Cycle Rogue. This is an 85-15 matchup in favor of Swarthy Swordshiner. Of course, Weapon Rogue is a very polarizing deck that gets destroyed by other decks in the format (mostly decks with good taunts), but if Cycle Rogue blows up at top legend, this might not matter. The normal drop off we’ve come to expect from the deck may not happen this time.
  • Starship Rogue has gotten worse. Sonya no longer working with Starship Schematic and Breakdance hurts. More than it hurts Cycle Rogue, it seems.
  • There was a point this week when we thought Shaffar Rogue would take up Cycle Rogue’s spot to some degree. Cycle Rogue’s incredible recovery means that Shaffar has gone back to the shadows. Players don’t seem to be very fond of this deck anyway.

Hunter

  • Discover Hunter is fun and popular, but it is not particularly strong. Its late game value plan just doesn’t match up well against decks that kill you if you sit around and try to grind them out, such as Asteroid Shaman, Grunter Hunter or Lynessa Paladin. It is also very bad at stopping early game snowballing, as evident by its struggles against Zarimi Priest and Attack DH. We don’t expect this deck to improve, though the Cycle Rogue matchup being 50-50 means things will probably not get worse.
  • Aggro-Discover Hunter is the deck that’s genuinely strong, but players don’t want to play. They want to Fizzle to infinity, not curve out early game minions and cheat out Mantle Shapers. If you’re willing to do that, you should have a lot of success at any level of play.
  • What’s that? Starship Hunter is… good? For the first time since the launch of the expansion, this deck has a positive win rate… across ladder! Looking at its matchup spread, the cause is clearly the popularity of Death Knight. Starship Hunter farms Death Knights thanks to its Biopod game plan, which makes Airlock Breach a laughing stock. Hunter deals way too much damage for that to matter. Its matchups against the “big 3” aren’t great though. Unfavorable against Cycle Rogue and Lynessa Paladin, while the Zarimi Priest matchup is horrible. For Starship Hunter to thrive, it needs a healthy diet of Death Knights.
  • Grunter Hunter is another deck that’s very strong into Death Knights. Its matchup against Zarimi Priest isn’t bad either, but it has a terrible time queuing into Lynessa Paladin and Cycle Rogue, which is why we expect the deck to decline in its performance at top legend over the next week. It should remain very powerful on the climb to legend, since those two decks are very high MMR skewed.
  • We often talk about the most skill intensive decks in the format, but what about the deck that’s the easiest to play and has the lowest ceiling? It’s Secret Hunter. Tier 1 everywhere on ladder except top legend, where it underperforms in the average matchup by around 8% compared to its Diamond rank matchups.

Shaman

  • Asteroid Shaman is a similar deck to Grunter Hunter in its behavior. It has strong late game inevitability, but gets countered by the Lynessa Paladin/Cycle Rogue pairing. The high MMR skew of the pairing means it is Tier 1 everywhere except top legend, where it sinks to Tier 3. We don’t expect significant changes in its standing in the meta.
  • Swarm Shaman’s performance has drastically declined to the point it hovers around a 50% win rate, sinking under it at legend. This deck was popular because it was busted, and even when it was busted, it wasn’t as popular as it could have been. At its current power level, it has no chance of stepping out of fringe territory.
  • Nature Shaman, based on its low sample estimate at top legend, projects to be a Tier 2 deck. The cockroach is back.

Druid

  • Dungar Druid may have dropped in play to a drastic extent, but the deck is still competitively viable. It remains a strong Cycle Rogue counter, which means its top legend standing could flirt with Tier 1 over the next week. The Lynessa Paladin matchup looks like 50-50, while it remains favored against Death Knight. Aggressive decks such as Zarimi Priest or Attack DH are not too prevalent. This deck is very clearly a threat.
  • Spell-Damage Druid does not look impressive currently. However, the archetype is very unrefined. There is a specific build that shows significantly more promise. We can see this deck developing into a Tier 2 contender post-refinement, depending on how much it can improve the Lynessa Paladin/Cycle Rogue matchups.
  • Station Druid remains a scuffed Dungar Druid, while Reno Druid is not recommended.

Priest

  • Zarimi Priest is elite across ladder. The deck is getting better by leaning towards its late game, rather than focus on its early game board control. Latest iterations of Zarimi Priest utilize a more controlling playstyle, which might be why the deck is becoming more popular. It has a good matchup against Lynessa Paladin, but Cycle Rogue is one of a few troubling encounters. If Dungar Druid comes back to counter Rogue, Zarimi Priest will continue to eat good. We expect some decline in its performance at top legend, but we’re not sure it gets knocked off Tier 1.
  • We can tell you, based on evaluating Reno Priest strictly from the deck tracker users’ side, that the deck is a Tier 3 performer. Not too bad, but we don’t think it will get much better than that. Control Priest is trash.

Mage

  • Supernova Mage does not look impressive, but its scope for improvement through refinement is high. Its matchup spread is very balanced, so we can see it developing into a solid Tier 2 performer. The biggest issue is Cycle Rogue, so it’s probably not going to be a good choice to play at high MMR’s over the next week. That matchup looks like hell.
  • Elemental Mage is having a good time without Swarm Shaman suffocating it. Very strong choice for a late climb to legend, but falls off at higher levels of play, and expected to get worse there due to a difficult Cycle Rogue matchup.
  • The current iteration of Spell Mage is a funny deck, but a bad one. Not for winning.

Demon Hunter

  • Attack Demon Hunter is doing fine, but Paladin and Death Knight thriving is not ideal. The deck struggles against both Handbuff and Lynessa Paladin, while having no answer to Airlock Breach. The good news is that it’s strong against Zarimi Priest and Cycle Rogue, so it should remain relevant at higher levels of play, on top of looking very strong at lower ranks, where the meta is more diverse.

Warrior

  • Warrior looks very questionable, but we’ll wait another week for Control Warrior to figure itself out, because right now it’s all over the place and some directions could be stronger than others. Reno Warrior is absolutely hopeless.

Warlock

  • Warlock is unequivocally garbage. Armor Warlock was a clever choice for the World Championship due to its unique matchup spread (Good vs. both Shaman and Druid, while countering Control Warrior), but it’s horrible on ladder. Wheel Warlock is not much better.

Class Analysis & Decklists

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

 

Data Reaper Report - Paladin

With the decline of Swarm Shaman, Lynessa Paladin no longer wants to run two copies of Prismatic Beam. We’ve also dropped Sanc’Azel from the deck, leaving us with two slots to fill. We’re not big fans of a Greedy Partner/Gold Panner package, so in our search for options, we’ve stumbled upon Resistance Aura and Cold Feet.

Resistance Aura is very strong against Rogue, while Cold Feet is effective against decks like Zarimi Priest. We would like to see more data on these cards, as they are promising based on their low sample metrics.

Handbuff Paladin wants to run Air Guitarists over Custom Enforcers now, as Enforcers don’t make too much sense against the Sonya-less Cycle Rogue.

We’ve added Interstellar Wayfarer to Libram Paladin, cutting Prismatic Beam, which was mostly in the deck because of Swarm Shaman.

Rainbow Death Knight is the strongest control deck in the game. Fistful of Corpses is good in the current format. Threads of Despair, not so much. We dislike Marin, as it is too slow to matter in late game matchups against high lethality strategies while not offering any defensive utility. Bob and Yogg are better cards.

Reno Death Knight is a very similar deck, following the same principles in its build.

We’ve added Chillfallen Baron to Frost Death Knight, replacing Thalnos and Natural Talent. Baron is an underrated and underplayed card in Rainbow DK too. We do wonder whether this deck could have more success by cutting Zilliax for Incindius but have no data on the latter in this archetype.

Plague Death Knight might be a serviceable choice if you’re looking to counter Cycle Rogue. Common lists are very unrefined, so it has room for improvement through the featured build.

Data Reaper Report - Rogue

Cycle Rogue managed to replace its Sonya-based win condition with ease. This isn’t too surprising considering that Sonya was never one of the best cards in the deck or close to it. The deck now runs an Asteroid package and The Ceaseless Expanse. This works very well with Incindius and Ethereal Oracle, which have become best buddies in multiple decks. Speaker Stomper is the 30th card and can be replaced by anything that comes to mind.

Starship Rogue still performs best with Ethereal Oracle. Some players are experimenting with a hybrid Cycle/Starship Rogue, but it’s far worse than simply playing a good list of Cycle Rogue. Eudora has shown some promise in the last few days. It might be a better choice in this format than Tess. Incindius is another card that could make sense.

Weapon Rogue no longer concerns itself with Shaman, so the best approach is to replace removal with more damage.

Shaffar Rogue does not need Southsea Deckhand in the current meta. If it can survive, it has a good chance of grinding out slower decks.

Data Reaper Report - Hunter

The slower, more popular variant of Discover Hunter isn’t well positioned on ladder since the format has access to a lot of late game damage that makes an infinite Fizzle plan less effective. We like Bob here. Eredar Brute has replaced Mind Control Tech inside ETC due to Dungar Druid’s decline.

Aggro-Discover Hunter looks much stronger. Ticking/Pylon Zilliax still performs well enough in this deck, but we’re on the lookout for alternatives. We think the main reason Zilliax has only survived in this deck is Alien Encounters spam through Tidepool Pupil. Mixologists don’t seem that great after getting a decent sample of them.

Grunter Hunter’s build is very solidified. Catch of the Day doesn’t seem great unless we’re playing at top legend, where players do a better job of avoiding playing minions into our Grunt. Even then, keeping Catch of the Day in hand can be awkward when we’re trying to buff our Grunt. This is why we consider Food Fight to be a stronger Grunt enabler.

Starship Hunter is starting to run Incindius, for the same reason Discover Hunter does. The card is a decent fit for the discover package. We’re still not convinced about Parrot Sanctuary.

Secret Hunter can cut Power/Haywire Zilliax, since Dungar Druid has declined.

Data Reaper Report - Priest

Zarimi Priest is shifting its build more and more towards a ‘control’ direction, in which it runs board clears alongside Ethereal Oracle and a pseudo OTK with The Ceaseless Expanse and Zarimi. An Alexstrasza inside ETC makes this plan fool proof against Rainbow Death Knight and its Airlock Breaches. We play Alex inside ETC to avoid weakening our Scale Replica.

This is another deck where we wonder about Incindius. Incindius might be too slow for this deck, but after evaluating so much data in other decks about its synergy with Oracle, we’re starting to imagine it everywhere. A copy of Nightshade Tea, or Griftah, can be cut if you want to experiment.

Reno Priest looks like a Tier 3 deck in the current meta when refined. It’s just never refined. People love playing garbage in this archetype, rather than opting for a clean Elise build.

Data Reaper Report - Shaman

We’re confident about Asteroid Shaman’s “perfect 30” build. Murloc Growfin is weaker than Miracle Salesman. Shudderblock and The Ceaseless Expanse seem important.

Swarm Shaman wants to cut Zilliax and at least one Hozen Roughhouser after the nerf to Sigil of Skydiving.

Nature Shaman is very possibly back to a competitive level at top legend. We’re not sure why everyone runs Fizzle in this deck. The card is horrible against everything except Warrior. If it was good against Rainbow Death Knight, we would advocate for it, but the card is atrocious in that matchup. This deck just wants to draw as quickly as possible and burn down the opponent by turn 7 at the latest. An Airlock Breach on turn 6 shouldn’t save the Death Knight.

The only card we’re debating currently is Miracle Salesman. We like how strong it is on turn 1, but realize it falls off after. It can be cut for Spirit Claws and a second copy of Overdraft.

Data Reaper Report - Druid

Crystal Cluster is now a card of a very questionable power level. The way Dungar Druid is trying to accommodate it is by running Lifebinder’s Gift to discount it.

Spell-Damage Druid is unrefined. A game changer that could elevate its aggregated performance is Woodland Wonders. Incindius also seems like a good card in the deck. Currently, we don’t see a reason to run Cover Artist, though it is a feasible option that can be accommodated relatively easily by cutting Thalnos. Some players run Freya for the same purpose. The featured 30 looks very good though and doesn’t seem to lack damage against most opponents. It depends on how many Rainbow DK’s you meet, basically.

We’ve had to drop Crystal Cluster from both Station & Reno Druid. We can’t say we have much faith in these decks.

Data Reaper Report - Mage

Supernova Mage is the fresh deck in the format. Though it doesn’t seem to perform too well, it’s got decent scope for improvement. Watercolor Artist and Tsunami are a promising pairing that don’t see much play and we want to see more data on. Incindius is another card that performs very well in its small sample size.

Spell Mage has now become a Yogg/Orb deck, rather than burn-focused. The deck can be fun, but it’s not good.

No changes to our Attack DH build. Chaos Strike is a bad card that keeps getting played.

Data Reaper Report - Warrior

Warrior doesn’t look good. The featured Control Warrior list is the best we could do. It might not be terrible. Forget about Reno Warrior…

Data Reaper Report - Warlock

Warlock is bad. Just don’t play it.



One of the most impactful decisions of the last balance patch was not nerfing Ethereal Oracle. We can see the argument for keeping it around, as it has undoubtedly helped some of the decks introduced in the Great Dark Beyond maintain a competitive level. Nerfing Oracle may have sent us back to a stagnant Whizbang/Perils meta.

However, the untouched Ethereal Oracle is greatly encouraging off-board playstyles with high late game lethality. It is the card responsible for keeping Cycle Rogue strong. It is propelling Incindius into becoming one of the most influential legendary cards in the game. It has shifted Zarimi Priest into a late-game-oriented playstyle where it repeatedly clears boards and utilizes an OTK. Decks such as Spell-Damage Druid and Nature Shaman could be coming back too, giving people on Reddit the opportunity to complain about more decks that they will never encounter on ladder because they’re stuck in Platinum.

The three decks listed below seem to be the ones currently shaping the format, especially at higher levels of play. Zarimi Priest is probably the best choice if you just want to hit legend before the month ends (or Handbuff Paladin). We expect to see a lot of changes in the format next week, as the field will surely respond to the explosion of Cycle Rogue.

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