Welcome to the 356th 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 | 1,900,000 |
| Top 1K Legend | 47,000 |
| Legend (Excluding Top 1k) | 597,000 |
| Diamond 4 to 1 | 465,000 |
| Diamond 10 to 5 | 201,000 |
| Platinum | 162,000 |
| Bronze/Silver/Gold | 428,000 |
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
Attack Druid, which initially emerged following the buff to Infest the Scullery, is becoming increasingly popular at higher levels of play. It is mainly split into builds that run Elise and builds that omit her. The archetype has yet to gain the same level of traction elsewhere on ladder.
Herald Rogue has returned to the scene following the collapse of Two Rogue. It is split into two variants, with the new Rogue set encouraging it to incorporate a Stealth package. Ayaya Rogue has first appeared following the buff to Aya but has not carved out more than a small presence.
Pirate Warrior has directly emerged as a result of the Warrior class set and taken over the class. It is consistently popular across ladder. There are also two variants here: a Fire spell build and a Dragon build. Dragon Warrior without pirates, or a low count of new pirate cards, maintains a small presence.
Quest Priest is the evolved form of Soothsayer Priest, boosted by the new class set cards centering on the Reborn keyword. These cards seriously leverage the quest reward and turn it into a real win condition rather than just an activator of Medivh’s Triumph. Interest in Control Priest is also high, though drops off at higher levels of play. Thief Priest displays a small presence throughout ladder.
Quest Mage remains its class’ sole competitive representative, which brings some concern of the class’ state following today’s nerf of The Forbidden Sequence. The deck is not uniquely popular either.
Interest in Warlock has also increased following the release of its class set. Rafaam Warlock is quite popular, experimenting with a wide variety of builds, but drops off at top legend. In contrast, Herald Warlock does not exhibit a similar decline and keeps a steady presence at all rank brackets. Its builds become more curated at higher levels of play.
Zee Shaman is the primary choice for its class, though it has declined from its peak, while Mug Shaman is barely noticeable.
Pure Paladin and Quest Hunter see modest play. Remnants of Void Demon Hunter persist. Death Knight is fractured into three archetypes that see bits of play: Unholy, Herald and Egg.
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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
Druid
- Attack Druid is objectively overpowered. It is the strongest deck at every level of play and it has no reliable counter (Zee Shaman has a very slight edge against it). Top legend players know this, which is why this deck is currently exploding at higher MMR’s. Other players are probably not aware of just how strong it is. If left alone, it would have taken over the format. The upcoming nerf to Spiderling could help in slightly curbing its dominance, but the extent of this change remains to be seen.
Rogue
- Despite its popularity, Herald Rogue is not having a great time. The Warrior matchup is a massive issue. Pirate Warrior stomps Herald Rogue hard. We suspect the class’ popularity at legend ranks is driven by its near evergreen attractiveness and the chance to experiment with new cards. It is nowhere near the strongest decks in the format.
- Ayaya Rogue’s competitive viability is highly questionable. Even in an early format with many weak decks, it does not shine.
Warrior
- Pirate Warrior is very strong and competitive, but Attack Druid destroys it in the direct matchup, which is why we see it drop off from Tier 1 at top legend, where Druid becomes extremely dominant. Within the class, there is a surprisingly better choice.
- Recent builds of Dragon Warrior run just a couple of cards from the recent class set. These builds are gaining traction initially at top legend, which reflects their true potential. The key is that Dragon Warrior is not vulnerable to Attack Druid, with the matchup looking like a 50/50 split. This is why it becomes superior to Pirate Warrior once the population of Attack Druid significantly rises. It is a combination of refinement and a more favorable field.
Priest
- Quest Priest is not a terrible deck, but it does get progressively more exposed as we climb ladder. The Herald Rogue matchup is difficult, its skill ceiling is showing signs of a limitation, while several other counters exist that do not let it execute its game plan, leading to extremely unfavored matchups.
- Thief Priest is a strong counter to Warrior, which gives it some relevant role in the format for the first time. However, it does not beat other relevant meta decks. Control Priest is still bad.
Mage
- Quest Mage is okay, but it hard loses to Attack Druid and Warrior. Its ability to counter other decks in the format keeps it in a decent position on ladder, but once the Druid population rises, things get increasingly difficult.
Warlock
- Rafaam Warlock has done surprisingly well this week, but this is mostly because of an extremely bloated Priest population, which it hard counters. Once it faces serious meta contenders, it falls off.
- When refined, Herald Warlock is likely better. The Warrior matchup is extremely difficult and represents the main stumbling block for its success.
Shaman
- Zee Shaman is the only deck that gives Attack Druid a genuinely harder time, but the bloated Quest Priest population as well as its unfavorable matchup against Warrior represent limiting factors.
- Mug Shaman is the opposite. It beats Priest (thanks to Hex) and Pirate Warrior, but struggles against Attack Druid. Though it does not see much play, it is clearly competitive.
Hunter
- Much like Quest Mage, Quest Hunter is neither a power or play rate outlier, but it is still getting nerfed. Since it is also the sole competitive representative for its class, there is a danger that the class gets deleted with the patch. It depends on whether Quest Hunter can adjust after losing such an important win condition.
Death Knight
- Egg Death Knight is a bit underrated. When refined, the deck is perfectly fine. It is very effective against Pirate Warrior. Two notable bad matchups (Attack Druid, Quest Mage) are getting nerfed too. We think most players currently prefer Quest Priest for novelty reasons, as the decks are stylistically similar.
- Unholy Death Knight is a decent aggressive deck, but we suspect it is too ‘old’ and boring to attract a significant audience. Pirate Warrior takes up all the oxygen for this playstyle and does it better.
Paladin
- We can copy and paste what we say about Pure Paladin in every report. Nothing has changed for it in this one.
Demon Hunter
- Void Demon Hunter is not a dead deck and performs surprisingly okay with the right build, exhibiting a balanced matchup spread. Could merit another chance when taking the Attack Druid nerf into consideration.
Class Analysis & Decklists
Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid | Hunter | Mage | Paladin | Priest | Rogue | Shaman | Warlock | Warrior
There are two strong builds of Attack Druid that differ by 4 cards. The Elise build is best used with the Naralex package. The alternative is to run Horn of Plenty and Widow’s Bite. Shaladrassil is always good, even with no way of corrupting it.
Viper is a weak card in the current format and should make even less sense after a Quest Mage nerf. We have consistently excluded it throughout the report.
There are two viable paths to build Herald Rogue. The Stealth build uses cards from the latest class set, with the package fitting relatively well alongside Maniacal Follower. It is straightforward to refine.
The Vanilla build utilizes generically good cards and requires more effort to optimize. Nightmare Fuel and Deja Vu are both underrated and underplayed in the current format, especially at top legend, where mirrors are common. While SI:7 Supplier and Mattias Shaw are often included in lists without an expanded Stealth package, they are not as strong in this context.
In terms of performance, the Vanilla build performs slightly better ( <0.5%). It has a higher ceiling, as it is more flexible, but it requires us to know what we are doing when it comes to the last 7 card choices. The Stealth build is easier to get right, as the package builds itself.
For Ayaya Rogue, we value Ashamane. Deja Vu is better than Sands of Time.
There are two strong directions for Pirate Warrior. The Fire build works well with Living Flame and Erupting Volcano. The Dragon build combines the two tribes. The two builds look similarly strong, though the Dragon build might be slightly stronger at top legend.
A recent development birthed a Dragon Warrior deck with just two Cannoneer cards: Cannonmaster and Hook n’ Heave. This list does not lose to Attack Druid, making it significantly stronger at higher levels of play, where Druid is particularly dominant.
There is one tweak we would make to popular Quest Priest builds. Run two copies of Haunt, while cutting Kaldorei Priestess. Haunt is one of the best performing cards in the deck and running only one copy of it seems egregiously wrong. Priestess looks terrible and we question the usefulness of Priest’s Imbue hero power in this deck. Devouring Plague is slightly better than Follow the Ghosts due to its great effectiveness against Pirate Warrior.
Thief Priest looks fringe viable with its established build. Control Priest is not.
Wanted Poster is one of the best cards in Quest Mage. The featured build cuts the two worst cards in the list to fit the new neutral spell.
Warlock is in an unrefined state, with both of its archetypes looking far from optimized.
The featured Herald Warlock build runs Shadow Rounds to stand any chance against Warrior. Kazakus is the only new card in the list, as others have not impressed us yet.
Rafaam Warlock has a new build that runs Stooge and Annihilation. It is superior to Animancer builds.
While Wanted Poster is a decent inclusion in Mug Shaman, it is not nearly as powerful as it is in Quest Mage. Double Hex is mandatory because of Priest. Lightning Storm is terrible.
Zee Shaman does not require many changes to the list we settled on weeks ago, before it was nerfed. We just added Xavius.
Quest Hunter is losing the ability to discover Agamaggan, which may prove to be crippling to its competitive viability. We will see whether it can adjust. The featured build is for reference.
Egg Death Knight looks good when it runs two copies of Defias Smuggler and Holy Eggbearer. Unholy Death Knight is a solid, under the radar, aggressive deck.
There are no changes in Pure Paladin, with its best build long established.
Void Demon Hunter does not look too bad when it runs Irida.
Attack Druid is clearly the best deck in the game and the format has looked diverse largely because most players are not aware of how strong it is and are focused on experimenting with the new class sets. We are not sure the nerf to Spiderling will knock it off the top of the meta either, so it remains the deck to beat until proven otherwise.
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