Welcome to the 317^th edition of the Data Reaper Report! This is the final report for The Great Dark Beyond.

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Quick Links

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

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Number of Games

Overall	617,000
Top 1K Legend	47,000
Legend (Excluding Top 1k)	134,000
Diamond 4 to 1	57,000
Diamond 10 to 5	78,000
Platinum	70,000
Bronze/Silver/Gold	231,000

Class/Archetype Distribution

Class Frequency

Class Frequency Discussion

As we hit reveal season time, developments in the format normally reach their conclusion. What we’re seeing is the consolidation of the established meta decks.

Ctrl-Terran Shaman is rising in play across ladder, while taking over at top legend, where it is dwarfing the numbers of Terran Shaman. Death Knight, Hunter and Warrior numbers have gone up too. Weapon Rogue is in decline. Protoss Rogue has lost most of its top legend player base over the last few weeks. Druid, Warlock, Priest and Mage are taking a step back too.

The only internal shift worth mentioning is happening in Terran Warrior, switching from a grindy Boomboss build into a more lethal Odyn build, which we’ve featured last week.

vS Meta Score

vS Power Rankings Discussion

Once again, Ctrl-Terran Shaman looks dominant at top legend, completely reversing last week’s developments, which seem to have curbed it to some degree. The main cause is the change in Terran Warrior. A nice example of the change in Terran Warrior is the matchup against Zerg Death Knight. While Death Knight is still significantly favored, the matchup is no longer a complete stomp.

While Warrior has unquestionably improved with its new Odyn build, the one matchup it lost percentages against is Ctrl-Terran Shaman. This matchup is now a softer counter, which means Ctrl-Terran Shaman is facing a more favorable field. Ultimately, Ctrl-Terran Shaman is so strong at higher levels of play that the meta is required to counter it relentlessly to keep it honest.

Terran Shaman is the best deck across most of ladder, but one of its best counters (Ctrl-Terran Shaman) is growing in power and prevalence, pushing it to Tier 2 at top legend.

The other big change is the decline in Weapon Rogue, which has been negatively impacted by the rise of Hunter. The deck greatly influences other decks’ performance levels due to its polarizing matchup spread.

Discover Hunter, which counters Weapon Rogue and suffers against Ctrl-Terran Shaman, is the deck seeing the greatest decline. Meanwhile, Location Warlock loves the decline in Weapon Rogue. Protoss Priest and Protoss Rogue, two other Weapon Rogue victims that don’t mind running into more Shamans and Warriors, are also looking a little better.

With an eye on the future, it needs to be recognized that the Heroes of Starcraft mini-set has completely taken over the game from the moment it launched. Starcraft decks, apart from Weapon Rogue and Dungar Druid, have been the only competitive decks seeing play.

The 32.0 patch coming in less than two weeks should have a lot of balance changes, partly aimed at bringing down the dominance of Starcraft decks going into rotation. While nerfing the Terran and Zerg factions looks like an obvious decision, leaving Protoss alone could be risky. Protoss are weaker than Terran and Zerg, but they are still a strong set of cards when compared to most other strategies that are not Terran or Zerg.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Protoss end up surprisingly dominant post-rotation, or whether Team 5 view Emerald Dream as an expansion that can compete with Protoss, as well as the nerfed Terran and Zerg.

Note: We’ve gone through every deck in the game and did not find worthwhile novelties to feature. The lists from last week should serve you well this week too.

Class Analysis & Decklists

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

 

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• Shaman Class Radar
• Terran Shaman
  • Siege Terran Shaman
• Ctrl-Terran Shaman
  • Fizzle Ctrl-Terran Shaman
• Swarm Shaman
  • Pod Swarm Shaman

• Death Knight Class Radar
• Zerg Death Knight
  • Frost Zerg Death Knight
  • Rainbow Zerg Death Knight

• Rogue Class Radar
• Protoss Rogue
  • Archon Protoss Rogue
• Weapon Rogue
  • Swordshiner Weapon Rogue

• Hunter Class Radar
• Handbuff Hunter
  • Penguin Handbuff Hunter
• Discover Hunter
  • Zerg Discover Hunter
• Secret Hunter
  • Mantle Secret Hunter

• Warrior Class Radar
• Terran Warrior
  • Odyn Terran Warrior

• Druid Class Radar
• Dungar Druid
  • Artanis Dungar Druid
• Hero Power Druid
  • Protoss Hero Power Druid

• Priest Class Radar
• Protoss Priest
  • Mothership Protoss Priest
• Zealot Priest
  • Aggro Zealot Priest
• Zarimi Priest
  • Zealot Zarimi Priest

• Warlock Class Radar
• Location Warlock
  • Tourist Location Warlock

• Mage Class Radar
• Protoss Mage
  • Mantle Protoss Mage
• Elemental Mage
  • Lamplighter Elemental Mage

• Paladin Class Radar

• Demon Hunter Class Radar

Shaman has been the dominant class for most of this expansion, starting before the mini-set with Swarm Shaman and continuing with Terran Shaman. Terran Shaman is the most dominant ladder climber in the game, while Ctrl-Terran Shaman has been the focal point of the format at higher levels of play. It has suffered a temporary setback with the Fizzle nerf but quickly brushed it off. Efforts to counter it have been intense, but the deck is simply too well-rounded to suffer for long.

Rotation, the 32.0 balance changes and the Emerald Dream expansion should completely change the tone of the game going forward. It will certainly be challenging to evaluate cards in the context of a game that might be drastically different in terms of overall power level. We will try our best to make those guesses in our Comprehensive Preview.

Stay tuned for all the expansion content you’re familiar with on this website. We’ll see you soon.

• Terran Shaman
• Ctrl-Terran Shaman

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Contributors