Welcome to the 351st 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 | 2,054,000 |
| Top 1K Legend | 77,000 |
| Legend (Excluding Top 1k) | 492,000 |
| Diamond 4 to 1 | 350,000 |
| Diamond 10 to 5 | 320,000 |
| Platinum | 211,000 |
| Bronze/Silver/Gold | 604,000 |
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
Hunter numbers continue to grow and are reaching absurd heights that even overpowered classes sometimes do not reach. Face and Companion Hunter reach a combined play rate of nearly 30% above Diamond 4, peaking at near 45% at top legend. Companion Hunter consistently hovers around a 20% play rate across ladder, while Face Hunter spikes at higher levels of play to match it.
Druid has not seen many changes this week, with both Merithra and Token Druid stabilizing.
Rogue has declined at top legend, which we think is caused by the rise of Face Hunter, leading to its underwhelming performance recently.
Leyline Mage is in decline, though some players have not given up yet.
Spell Demon Hunter’s strong matchup against Face Hunter does not seem to attract many top legend players to run the deck, perhaps because the Companion Hunter matchup is not as comfortable. This would explain why the deck is unpopular on ladder despite performing extremely well recently.
Shaman, Priest, Warrior and Paladin all see stable amounts of play across most of ladder, with Death Knight not too far behind. However, all of these classes fade at top legend, where Hunter completely takes over interest.
Warlock is the one class that both fails to attract interest and fails to reach a competitive level.
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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
The meta is not too different from what it was last week in terms of performance. We have not found any reason to update last week’s decklists either. Instead, we will dive into a bit of color commentary rather than discuss matchups and win rate trends this week.
There is nothing offensive or egregious about any deck’s performance at any point of ladder. The imbalance that is experienced on ladder is born out of a disproportionate desire to play Hunter, one that cannot be justified by the strength of the class alone. Hearthstone’s first Class Sets have led to the emergence of Companion Hunter, a deck that is both attractive to play and novel. Leyline Mage fails the competitive test, while Dude Paladin fails the attractive test (and is predictably non-viable at high MMR’s). Druid’s set was scrapped and hastily put together.
And that is it. None of the other classes got new cards, so any player looking to try something new, will end up playing Companion Hunter. This is a natural side effect of Class Sets, which will undoubtedly persist in the future, one that we are not convinced was carefully considered when Team 5 decided to implement it. Unless we successfully create four new archetypes in future class sets, and have them successfully compete with each other for player attention while backburning seven other classes (in which case, is that even a good outcome?), this will happen again. After all, Team 5 of the previous 10 years did not view printing new cards only for a few classes at a critical timing to ever be a good idea, but we have to respect current Team 5’s ambition at becoming true pioneers of their craft and reframe class imbalance and reduced deck diversity as a good thing. An exquisite “class moment”.
The irony is that Companion Hunter can be considered a well designed deck, one that players enjoy even when it is not dominant, in a class that usually struggles to attract attention unless it tops win rate charts. Yet because of the manner and context in which it was introduced, Companion Hunter may be tragically viewed negatively by players, a failure of timing and vision rather than design execution. Indeed, it takes true talent and exceptional vision to come up with a framework in which even good design becomes bad for the game.
And with that, we are out of things to say.
Class Analysis & Decklists
Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid | Hunter | Mage | Paladin | Priest | Rogue | Shaman | Warlock | Warrior
Companion Hunter did not break the format by being the best deck, it broke the format by being the only good content introduced at the mid-way point of Cataclysm. With a new expansion announced in this week’s pre-order content patch, balance changes may arrive in the next week or two with inevitable nerfs to Hunter, meant to discourage players from piloting it. Regardless, if Companion Hunter remains remotely competitive, it should maintain much of its popularity, especially at lower rank brackets. Face Hunter, on the other hand, is top legend skewed, so it may significantly shrink in popularity if its power is reduced.
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Contributors
