vS Data Reaper Report #311

January 2, 2025

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Welcome to the 311th 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 680,000
Top 1K Legend 70,000
Legend (Excluding Top 1k) 288,000
Diamond 4 to 1 72,000
Diamond 10 to 5 90,000
Platinum 61,000
Bronze/Silver/Gold 99,000

Class/Archetype Distribution

Class Frequency

Class Frequency Discussion

The explosion of Cycle Rogue, most concentrated to legend ranks, has occurred as expected. But, Cycle Rogue did not reach the numbers of the most overbearing scenario. Instead, it is stabilizing under a 20% play rate at top legend, suggesting it is not taking over the format as some feared. Weapon Rogue, its strongest counter, has slightly risen in play, while other Rogue decks, such as Starship Rogue, remain fringe.

Lynessa Paladin has declined in play across ladder, a peculiar development for a deck that looked so strong last week, while Handbuff Paladin has seen a small uptick in play. Libram Paladin is declining, but very gradually.

Rainbow Death Knight is showing no signs of a decline. Reno Death Knight sees little play, while interest in Plague Death Knight has slightly picked up, likely due to its strength against Cycle Rogue.

Interest in Druid has picked up, with the class doubling its play rate at top legend compared to last week. Dungar Druid is a strong counter to Cycle Rogue, so it makes sense why it would rise in play, but a resurgence of Station Druid is also very notable, with a new build of the archetype touted as a strong Lynessa Paladin counter. Spell-Damage Druid isn’t growing, but it is cleaning up in terms of refinement.

Priest has stayed put. Both Zarimi and slower Priest decks are not displaying a significant change in their play rates or build compositions.

Hunter has declined, a result of Discover and Starship Hunter dropping off. These decks seem attractive to play, but their performances against the field may not be stellar. Meanwhile, Aggro-Discover and Grunter Hunter have shown stronger results, but they’re not picking up traction as they could be less attractive to play.

Mage looks very stagnant, with Supernova Mage losing momentum, while Elemental Mage has been uneventful for a long time.

Asteroid Shaman has declined across ladder. It is still a popular deck outside legend ranks, but top legend players have dropped it like a rock. Swarm Shaman is fading away. Nature Shaman has not generated any positive momentum. Some players are experimenting with a Dungar Shaman archetype.

Attack Demon Hunter is in decline, though it does appear to experiment in a new direction.

Warrior is a zombie class. Competitively dead, yet exhibits life through a noticeable play rate, a product of the obsession with Reno Warrior amongst low MMR players, as well as the fixation on Control Warrior amongst high MMR players.

Warlock is another class that seems competitively dead, but that doesn’t stop players from continuing to lose with Armor and Wheel Warlock.

Matchup Win Rates Header

Power Rankings Header

vS Meta Score

vS Power Rankings Discussion

Rogue

  • Cycle Rogue is a powerful deck with a good matchup spread, but it doesn’t look like the deck is unstoppable. There’s an effort to counter it more aggressively, with several of its counters looking like some of the stronger decks in the format. There’s no need to dig deep to find a strategy that gives Cycle Rogue a hard time. Another thing that’s very noticeable about the new iteration of Cycle Rogue is that it’s significantly easier to play, with the new build performing extremely well even at lower MMR brackets. It appears that Sonya was a skill expressive card that made Rogue’s win condition less accessible, while the new Asteroid build is more intuitive to pilot for less experienced players.
  • Weapon Rogue is now the best performing deck at top legend, a somewhat absurd development considering the deck’s polarizing matchup spread. The deck’s high win rate is simply a product of its dominating matchup against the increasingly popular Cycle Rogue, while counters such as Lynessa Paladin and Discover Hunter have declined. Despite this high win rate, the deck might feel like a queue simulator.

Paladin

  • We don’t see any justification for Lyenssa Paladin’s decline in play this week. Perhaps, players have been spooked by the rise of Druid. Understandably, the emerging Station Druid is a hard counter to Lynessa Paladin, but its numbers currently don’t appear to have a drastic effect on Lynessa Paladin’s overall performance.
  • Handbuff Paladin is extremely underrated, which is not surprising considering the deck is old. As long as Zarimi Priest doesn’t take off, its matchup spread looks fantastic. It remains strong at top legend since it has a good matchup against Cycle Rogue, while breaking even with Lynessa Paladin and Rainbow DK.
  • With the meta becoming more refined and competitive, Libram Paladin is falling behind. The deck is still okay, but significantly inferior to the first two Paladin decks.

Death Knight

  • Rainbow DK’s standing in the format is becoming more tenuous. The decline of Lynessa Paladin and rise of the Rogue/Druid pairing do not serve its interests. Its high popularity is maintained, we suspect, by its control playstyle. Reno DK might actually be performing a little better now, but it’s a bit too close to call.
  • Plague DK did get a little better thanks to the rise of Cycle Rogue, but the deck’s matchup spread is still littered with issues. Frost DK maintains a good performance at lower rank brackets, but seems to be collapsing at higher levels of play.

Druid

  • It’s easy to understand why Dungar Druid, an effective Cycle Rogue counter, is looking stronger this week. Station Druid’s meteoric rise in win rate has less to do with matchups. It is a great counter to Lynessa Paladin, which is why it gained some traction, but its weaker matchup against Cycle Rogue suggests that the meta should have become more hostile to it over the last week. Indeed, Station Druid’s rise in win rate occurred despite a worsening meta, due to a breakthrough in its refinement. A new build is performing dramatically better than older iterations. Station Druid also completely demolishes Dungar Druid and Weapon Rogue.
  • Spell-Damage Druid is another deck that has drastically jumped in its performance. Players have simply dropped earlier builds of the deck, switching to the one we’ve highlighted last week.

Hunter

  • Discover Hunter has worsened throughout most of ladder, nearing a Tier 4 win rate. Only at top legend, does the deck look mediocre, rather than weak.
  • Aggro-Discover Hunter remains very powerful, yet ignored by the player base. If you needed an incredibly good example of players ignoring a powerful board-centric deck in favor of a value-oriented strategy, you’ve got one here. Two decks built around the same package. One plays for the board. The other builds towards infinite board clears. The first is much stronger. Players are more interested in the second.
  • We warned that Starship Hunter was going to decline from where it was last week, and it did. It doesn’t line up well against the best decks, so things get harder for Starship Hunter as it sees more of them, especially at higher levels of play.
  • The current state of the Hunter class provides very good insight to what players actually want. How often do you hear people complain about the lack of interaction in Hearthstone? How often do you hear that a win condition is ‘toxic’ because it has ‘no counterplay’? Grunter Hunter has a win condition with an effective form of counterplay that top legend players are better at utilizing. Turns out that players are not eager to play decks with win conditions that have effective forms of counterplay, even when they’re very strong. How else would you explain the complete lack of interest in an OTK deck that is as powerful as Grunter Hunter? The perception alone of a deck that builds towards something that your opponent “may” nullify through their actions is a strong enough turn off. Food for thought to those glorifying “interaction”.

Priest

  • Zarimi Priest remains very powerful across ladder, but top legend trends have not been kind to it. The rise of Cycle Rogue, an oppressive and demoralizing matchup, has pushed Zarimi  towards a 50% win rate. What’s more is that Zarimi appears to be losing its edge against Lynessa Paladin. This development has shaken the deck off its status as part of the “big 3”.
  • Reno Priest remains a Tier 3 performer. Control Priest is unplayable. Remember that the stats for these decks continue to be aggregated due to deck recognition limitations.

Shaman

  • Asteroid Shaman’s performance has declined across ladder, with a bigger collapse seen at higher levels of play. At top legend, it is basically unplayable. We’ve mentioned last week that its matchups against Lynessa Paladin and Cycle Rogue are simply too weak to sustain its existence where these decks are popular. Against top legend Cycle Rogue players, the matchup is 20-80! No wonder nobody there wants to touch this deck. Yet outside of legend ranks, it remains Tier 1.
  • Swarm Shaman has settled into mediocrity. A board-based deck with a middling win rate means no one wants to touch it.
  • Nature Shaman has not gained any traction compared to last week, which we suspect is caused by the more impressive performance of Spell-Damage Druid.
  • The small sample of Dungar Shaman suggests the deck is competitive, possibly hovering between Tier 3 and 2.

Mage

  • Supernova Mage looks bad. Its horrendous matchup against Cycle Rogue makes it unplayable at higher MMR’s, the rest of its matchup spread isn’t great either. We’re not optimistic this can be solved through further refinement.
  • Elemental Mage is good and fine. It’s a great deck for those with a new/limited collection to climb to legend with for the first time, especially when Saruun is not a mandatory card, so no legendaries are required. This keeps the deck popular at lower rank brackets. At higher levels of play, players are not enamored.

Demon Hunter

  • Attack DH is another polarizing deck, similarly to Weapon Rogue, so results with it could be inconsistent. It performs at a similar level to Weapon Rogue at lower ranks, but dips at higher levels of play. It has a good matchup against Cycle Rogue, but it doesn’t demolish it like Weapon Rogue does, so it gets outclassed in this role. It also has a major problem dealing with Death Knights. It will be hoping that Dungar and Station Druid rise further in play, as these are the matchups it excels at over Weapon Rogue.

Warrior & Warlock

  • Nothing to see here. Garbage.

Class Analysis & Decklists

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

 

Data Reaper Report - Rogue

Glacial Shard looks like a decent option for Cycle Rogue, replacing the underwhelming Speaker Stomper. Valeera’s Gift is just a bit too weak in Weapon Rogue, so we’ve replaced it with Stick Up.

Data Reaper Report - Paladin

Handbuff Paladin is experimenting with Festival Security. The card seems worthy of filling the last two slots, which have been contested by Air Guitarist and tech cards like Neophyte/Enforcer/Razorscale.

Nothing new in Death Knight, as it seems like its decks have figured out what cards they want to play for the most part.

Data Reaper Report - Druid

Spell-Damage Druid has cleaned up its build. Burndown is starting to get added to the deck again, replacing Gold Panner.

Station Druid looks rejuvenated with a new build. The focus here is on a greedy and powerful late game, on top of having a lot of armor gain.

Data Reaper Report - Hunter

Hunter decks look solved and solidified. Aggro-Discover Hunter is massively underplayed compared to how good it is.

Data Reaper Report - Priest

We remain impressed by the more late-game-oriented Zarimi Priest build and measure it to be the superior path across all levels of play.

Data Reaper Report - Shaman

Murloc Growfin has improved its performance this week to the point it’s a close call again between Miracle Salesman in Asteroid Shaman.

Nature Shaman likely wants to drop Miracle Salesman, but the deck hasn’t gained traction since last week.

A new Dungar Shaman build has started to pop up and shows some promise as a middling performer (Tier 2/3). The goal is to cheat out Dungar with Murmur and Parrot Sanctuary. Murmur can also help us cheat out a Hagatha Slime that casts Nebula.

Data Reaper Report - Mage

Tsunami did not gain traction in Supernova Mage. The focus appears to be playing Supernova as quickly as possible thanks to coin generations. Greedy Partner needs a sizeable package of 2-cost cards to work. Its performance is very underwhelming if you run less than 10 2-cost cards.

A new build cuts the weakest cards in Attack Demon Hunter for a full Pain package with Sauna Regular. Ball Hog helps us recover some health and is a decent target for Through Fel and Flames.

Data Reaper Report - Warrior

Not much can be said about Warrior. Not recommended.

Data Reaper Report - Warlock

Warlock is clearly the worst class in the game.



While Lynessa Paladin and Cycle Rogue remain the most influential decks in the format, some decks not under scrutiny are currently performing better.

Handbuff Paladin is probably the best deck you can play for a stress-free climb to legend, with strong matchups against both Lynessa Paladin and Cycle Rogue, which keep it a force at top legend too.

Weapon Rogue’s brutal destruction of Cycle Rogue is its main selling point at top legend. We don’t think this deck will ever get too popular. It’s a polarizing deck with a very rigid game plan, which Hearthstone players, especially at higher levels, don’t consider attractive.

But damn, it sure wins a lot right now.

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Contributors

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