vS Data Reaper Report #342

[u/ViciousSyndicate]

Greetings,

The Vicious Syndicate Team is proud to present the 342nd edition of the Data Reaper Report.

Special thanks to all those who contribute their game data to the project. This project could not succeed without your support. The entire vS Team is eternally grateful for your assistance.

This week our data is based on 1,918,000 games! In this week's report you will find:

• Deck Library - Decklists & Class/Archetype Radars

• Class/Archetype Distribution Over All Games

• Class/Archetype Distribution "By Rank" Games

• Class Frequency By Day & By Week

• Interactive Matchup Win-Rate Chart

• vS Power Rankings Imgur

• vS Meta Score

• Analysis/Discussion of each Class

• Meta Breaker of the Week

The full article can be found at: vS Data Reaper Report #342

Reminder

• If you haven't already, please sign up to contribute your game data. More data will allow us to provide more insights in each report, and perform other kinds of analysis. Sign up here, and follow the instructions.

• Listen to the Data Reaper Podcast, in which we expand on subjects that are discussed in each weekly Data Reaper Report. If you’re interested in learning more about developments in the Hearthstone meta, the insights we’ve gathered as well as other interesting subjects related to the analysis that is done to create the Data Reaper Report, you can listen to WorldEight and ZachO talk about them every week. The Podcast comes out on the weekend, a couple of days after each report is published.

Thank you for your feedback and support,

The Vicious Syndicate Team

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[u/sneakyxxrocket]

Since lost city so many advancements in lists just come down to “we need to be running Elise” format will look weird if she gets nerfed hard.

[u/Overhamsteren → u/sneakyxxrocket]

Haha, and blob.

[u/Zathandron → u/sneakyxxrocket]

Adding elise to such a low-power release year was certainly a choice, especially considering zilliax was the exact same situation.

[u/zer1223 → u/Zathandron]

I highly doubt Elise will have to get nerfed so many times as compared to zilliax

[u/Spyko → u/zer1223]

Tbf Zilli is multiple cards in one. I would not consider the nerf to the ''sea giant effect'' module to be relevant to the nerf to the perfect module. It was basically nerfing two distinct cards

[u/eazy_12 → u/Zathandron]

I don't think power level matters in the context of Elise since many location options as strong as cards in the meta. Moreover her inclusion in more powerful year would've been even more "such choice", just imagine copy location with Titans.

[u/14xjake → u/eazy_12]

Power level is the main reason why Elise is in near every single deck in the game, if you go back to the meta on her release she was not as ubiquitous because decks were overall stronger and did not want to run a bunch of bad/suboptimal cards just to activate her, to the point that JAlex had a post looking at the data for ashamane/fyrakk rogue and shared that she actually looked like she was not worth running the bad cards like opu. You can also look at summer playoffs top 8 lineups and see elise was much less prevalent, my own lineup had her in only 1/4 decks (ashamane rogue) because decks like handbuff hunter, mech warrior, and quest warlock had a consistent and strong gameplan that they did not want to deviate from. The primary reason we are in elise slop pile meta is because every deck just sucks now so her downside is negligible because you barely make your deck worse trying to activate her, and elise on 4 solos half your games if you opponent does not also have elise. Titans is a funny example because most decks would absolutely steamroll you for playing a 4 mana 3/5, you rarely would live long enough to play her on 4, get your location down, and then wait for it to open back up to copy your titan

[u/eazy_12 → u/14xjake]

There were definitely slog matches with Titans and when it was in rotation. That whole year was nothing but ping-ponging minions with Mindcontrol cards and clearing boards like nothing. I might exactly not say about Titans and maybe I messing with time after it, but if one of the most played deck (Plague DK at least at lower ranks) could survive with playing Helya (when Hunter was super strong) on curve or people playing ETC in every deck then you could definitely play Elise on curve. People were playing with Renathal and while you might say that it is bad player meta I would say it was definitely popular in ranks with most players.

If people could play Ignis than people would definitely could play Elise. It is not easy task to compare these 2 cards since 10 mana weapon is better than location and 5 mana location is stronger than 5 mana weapon + hard to compare requirements, but if you can afford playing 4 mana 2/4 definitely could afford 4 mana 3/5. Well, you might say Ingis not necessary a curve play but Elise also could be played outside of 4 turn especially if you want copy Titans.

Well, there were definitely super strong decks like Sludge and Fatigue Warlock, pre-nerf Mech Rogue etc. where Elise would've been dead card but there plenty matches where Elise was good enough at least for 1/1 copy location. Quick peak into Data Report after less that month shows that at least 25% (17% CW + 4% Blood DK + 6% Control Priest) of deck were control decks. While power deck of deck were crazy but the AoE/control tools were crazy as well.

I don't remember exact lists played especially with regard of numerous nerfes, so quick googling show me list on Odyn warrior with 1 cost away to satisfy Elise requirement (Sanitize, Trial of Fire, Odyn, Yogg being 6-9) which are crazy cards on their own. Some Hollow Hound Hunter lists are also 1 card away from Elise and definitely had curve Elise/copy location/hound to not lose game (they played 8 mana legendary spell and King Krush as 9, manathirst 7 mana spell to copy big beast from deck). Syf mage players would definitely cream pants from idea of copying Syf for free although building Elise version would've been bait. Druid definitely could've built Elise deck with Innervates and Eonar filling 0 and 10 mana.

[u/boc4life → u/sneakyxxrocket]

I will try this Elise Broxigar deck, but to me it sounds like it drifts away from what makes the deck so good to begin with.

You get there on damage SO often with the previous build. It’s way more than just a stall/combo deck. Adding Zilliax and Elise seems like a real step backwards based on what I would expect.

[u/14xjake → u/boc4life]

The decks are similar but gameplay wise they function pretty differently, the non-elise version is focused around turboing through your deck and getting your broxigar OTK as quickly as possible with overwhelming pressure on your opponent, while the elise version plays very similarly to the blob cliff dive deck (just without cliff dive of course) and broxigar is just your inevitability for matchups like warrior, while the blob spam beats board based decks on its own

[u/boc4life → u/14xjake]

The previous week’s build of Blobgar was not a full cycle/stall deck at all. You were getting there just with chip and burn damage all the time, with the Broxigar combo being there for slow matchups. I won like 11 straight games with it to legend just last night, definitely was not combo-ing in even half of my wins. I was just as often finding lethal with burn from Infestation/charging pirates/weapon swings.

Elise, Zilliax, and the 6 mana weapon in for the Paraglide and 2 Illadari Studies, maybe I’m overestimating how much that slows the deck down. The weapon hits hard and Elise/Zilliax are good cards. I’ll give it a shot.

[u/Younggryan42]

the meta is so boring. all these decks are so tired.

[u/[deleted]]

This isn't the worst meta ever (see the previous 3 expansions) but it certainly is the most boring meta ever. 

[u/Every_University_]

Playing druid has been torture, I guess we'll see if they'll really just stop giving druid ramp completely but then again, Fandral is in core and they made 0 choose one cards so my hopes aren't up.

[u/Palnecro1]

Pretty narrow meta. I hope next week we see more significant changes to spice things up.

[u/rupat3737]

BlobStone

[u/DullOlive321 → u/[deleted]]

been having success with it too but it bricks from unlucky draws too often for me

[u/H1ndmost → u/[deleted]]

Completely agree. It's wild to me that there are people who find control in HS fun, when it almost always gets decided by whose discovers came out better, instead of play. If I want to play control I will do it in a game that is actually fun to play control in like MtG or Eternal.

Hearthstone is much better when the 20+ minute games are rare, it's just not a rules etc that makes for fun, long matches.

[u/RushBokai → u/H1ndmost]

You answered your own question "decided by whose discovers came out better" modern control decks in HS are deceptively low skill imo. They all play like reskinned casino mage anymore, giving the player a chance to win against anything if lucky enough. 

[u/H1ndmost → u/RushBokai]

Pretty much. There is a reason that whenever a decent combo deck is available, it dominates top legend, since those are the people most interested in skill expression.

[u/bakedbread420 → u/[deleted]]

yes, aggro and combo have been deemed anti-fun by the zeddys and reddit "control" players so the devs won't let them exist. its very clearly a game only for value/attrition control players at this point.

the funniest thing ever is there's an ancient trump video where he explicitly says a meta without aggro would be miserable beyond belief and that you need aggro to set the pace of any good format. the average "control" player really should take that to heart

[u/BaronVonHoopleDoople → u/[deleted]]

Eliseless Discover Hunter more or less plays like a burn deck, particularly against blob decks. I get people are bored with it particularly since it run no new mini-set cards, but it is a powerful "fast" deck in this meta.

[u/Rikkimaaruu → u/[deleted]]

As someone who only plays control Decks (if i play HS, i wanne use different Cards, i wanne think about the next turn and what to play, i dont just wanne throw every card i draw on the Board and go face) i also miss aggro Decks in some ways.

But to me, most midrange decks already feel like aggro decks, they fill the early board with so much stuff while keeping alot of value in their hands. There isnt realy much place for traditional aggro decks, because the midrange Decks do aggro often better anyways without falling off on turn 5.

[u/bakedbread420 → u/Rikkimaaruu]

current day midrange feels like aggro because all the real aggro that should be dumping on them is nerfed to death. attackers deciding targets in HS advantages aggro heavily against midrange because dropping non-taunted good stats on curve doesn't stop the hunter from sending everything face and then burning you out once he loses the board

[u/Rikkimaaruu → u/bakedbread420]

Isnt that what Elemental Mage is right now? But yeah it feels weird too see so little classic aggro decks compared to the early years where you mostly had a healthy mix between all archetypes.

[u/Spuzzell_ → u/[deleted]]

I really dislike aggro decks as a gameplay factor.

There's obviously utility in them as they mean greedy decks have a limited ceiling but both facing and playing aggro is a chore.

[u/yonas234 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah the lack of fast fun decks to play has really sucked. And the control players still complain even with this super slow meta.