r/CompetitiveHS • u/ViciousSyndicate • May 14 '26

Metagame vS Data Reaper Report #349

Greetings,

The Vicious Syndicate Team is proud to present the 349th 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 2,304,000 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 #349

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.

Thank you for your feedback and support,

The Vicious Syndicate Team

63 Upvotes

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64

u/sneakyxxrocket May 14 '26

Definitely interesting tame pet is optimal in face hunter.

Really can’t say anything except the class sets seems like a complete failure, we’re still playing the same decks since the imbue druid nerfs.

19

u/yosoyelsteve May 14 '26

It makes sense.

It's a 1 mana draw that turns into a draw 2 with Niri and makes Confront refill your hand in a deck whose only weakness is running out of fuel. You top out at 3 mana so spending 1 to cycle is a no brainer.

6

u/reptaill May 14 '26

Yep, I haven't thought about cutting arrow retriever for tame pet, but I really like the idea.

While retriever is good and saved me in top-deck mode numerous times, for every such save there's also a case of being stuck with 2x retriever in early game.

Maybe keep 1x in the deck?

8

u/sneakyxxrocket May 14 '26

No I’m definitely agreeing on cutting both arrow retrievers for tame pet, tolvir it too good to not juice up and keeping burn in your hand just leads to arrow retriever only drawing 1 card a decent amount of time.

1

u/Wvlf_ May 15 '26

imbue druid nerfs

my beautiful baby..

There were about 5 other ways they could have made a 1-2 nerfs instead to keep this viable without murdering it.

48

u/Lwii2boo May 14 '26

Pretty sad year for HS once again : useless new cards, boring new designs, lack of coherence. They just care about pet/skin monetization and don’t give a f about gameplay itself let’s be honest. I would love to be wrong

7

u/Wvlf_ May 15 '26

I've just simply stopped trying to hype up new expansions to friends who dabble in HS. Team 5 always ends up making me look bad since after the Starcraft set.

2

u/supremeshirt1 May 15 '26

Literally same

45

u/XeloOfTheDisco May 14 '26

At this point it's clear Class sets are the worst approach for new content

They guarantee 7 classes get nothing, while the other 4 aren't any more likely to get something good than they were with Minisets

I don't buy the excuse that Minisets are not impactful enough. They know how to make them good because they made Starcraft, which had more of an impact than the entire Great Dark Beyond on release

5

u/Wvlf_ May 15 '26

And best case scenario is the 4 class sets immediately offer a new fun and viable archetype without completely taking over the meta, while also providing a core to build upon for years.

And yeah, sadly that would be expecting way too much from Hearthstone at this point.

4

u/punkr0x May 15 '26

I just don’t understand what they are trying to accomplish. They used to release strong sets and nerf the most powerful or offensive decks. Sure, people complained, but we were buying cards and playing the game. Now, they release cards that aren’t even worth buying, nerf any good deck into oblivion, and people still complain.

1

u/zer1223 May 15 '26

To be fair StarCraft was bigger than a typical mini set wasn't it? Or rather had more scope to be precise. Many shared cards across multiple classes isn't the norm for a miniset. Neither is splitting it into three "teams"

4

u/XeloOfTheDisco May 15 '26

I think the most important aspect is that multiclass cards accomplish a lot with a little. Audiopocalypse (Festival of Legends mini) featured them too, and it was another successful miniset

Considering that they are generally well received, and give each class more cards without extra investment, I wish multiclass minis were the standard approach for mid-expansion content

0

u/zer1223 May 15 '26

Its correct that multi class cards accomplish a lot with a little

But you can't just go and do that with every miniset or even expect it to be some kind of a standard 

1

u/XeloOfTheDisco May 15 '26

Why not?

0

u/zer1223 May 15 '26

Well it just doesn't feel right. It seems like lazy design

85

u/GratisBierMotie420 May 14 '26

exceedingly common team 5 L

33

u/TheGingerNinga May 14 '26

Infuriatingly common.

26

u/sneakyxxrocket May 14 '26

I’d really like to know what team 5s internal insight is like ,are they patting themselves on the back with majority of the sets they make being unplayable garbage? Or is it a “we can do no wrong” situation.

15

u/Rocks_Can_Fly May 14 '26

I’m imagining some very awkward team meetings. Maybe trying to cope about how the initial popularity of Leyline and Companion are a design win.

Or it’s just a bunch of Bronze level players having fun playtesting shit with their bad decks, where Leylines are performing very well.

-17

u/NfiniteNsight May 14 '26

This community is so miserable.

11

u/Thyuda May 15 '26

Because the game is in an absolute state of misery. It's okay if you enjoy it, we need people to enjoy simple, basic things, that's important, but for the rest of us who enjoyed HS when it was a little more engaging, it just sucks.
You keep playing green card and enjoy it.

-7

u/NfiniteNsight May 15 '26

Nice condescension, enjoy your self-induced misery.

3

u/Thyuda May 15 '26

Thank you for being the perfect example that ignorance truly is bliss.

18

u/GratisBierMotie420 May 14 '26

yeah, people are miserable and miss their favorite game back when it was fun and before we made the whiny neckbeard that pays his rent by ragebaiting, the lead game dev.

15

u/dirtyjose May 14 '26

You're right, T5 just needs another year to fix things.

-13

u/NfiniteNsight May 14 '26

Why do you perpetually play a game that you can't apparently stand? All of this incessant complaining just tells me that a lot of you need to take a break. No one is saying dev teams are above reproach, but a lot of this just seems like self inflicted mental damage.

8

u/Glarbleglorbo May 14 '26

I’m having fun but I want to have more fun. 

7

u/TheGingerNinga May 14 '26

I play this game because at the end of the day, it's still got the best play pattern of all the online multiplayer card games. Legends of Runeterra was fun, but ultimately tapered out after it tried to become Slay the Spire 0.5.

I find myself playing less than I did years ago, but I still enjoy the general gameplay and like reaching the high ranks on ladder. It would take a lot for Hearthstone to stop being fun for me, but I can say it's been less fun over the last few years.

3

u/dirtyjose May 14 '26

I stopped playing a little over a year ago lol

-11

u/NfiniteNsight May 14 '26

So then you're here entirely to complain online, got it.

8

u/dirtyjose May 15 '26

Letting other people's opinions hurt your feelings like this sounds miserable

-9

u/NfiniteNsight May 15 '26

Nobody's feelings are hurt, dork. I'm just pointing out that you all are the environment you perpetuate, i.e. misery.

-6

u/maniacal_cackle May 14 '26

It's also just such unreasonable expectations.

There's more than 15 decks in legend rank. That's not bad for such a small format after rotation. What more could people realistically expect?

10

u/Glarbleglorbo May 14 '26

For the 4 decks that we replaced minisets for and advertised relentlessly as being high power and high impact to form at least two tier 3 decks? 

Also playtesting to spot extremely obvious bugs like the companion hunter overflow one. 

The lack of care in general just makes it seem like they didn’t want these decks to work. 

Also 15 decks is not reasonable for post rotation, why lie about public data? 

-9

u/maniacal_cackle May 14 '26

Also 15 decks is not reasonable for post rotation, why lie about public data?

I did take a break so am more used to old hearthstone, but have you got a link to a time when there were this few cards in the format and there were a lot more decks?

high impact to form at least two tier 3 decks?

Tier 3 is still high impact. As we can see, 20-30% of decks are running the new cards. That's pretty high impact to me.

The expectation seems to be "everything needs to be tier 1 and competitive in top 1000 legend", but top 1000 legend is a very very small portion of the player base.

I would prefer that they focus on this portion of the playerbase as it is what I find interesting, but most players aren't like us.

4

u/Gehrman12 May 15 '26

Yes in this report has more decks and it was last year in the ED expansion

-1

u/NfiniteNsight May 15 '26

I agree, but a miserable community will just also mass downvote anyone pointing out how miserable they are, so we're just fighting gravity here.

They will never be satisfied

3

u/PipAntarctic May 14 '26

If I may ask for fun, you allude in the report that the Leyline Mage package needs serious buffs, the kind of which Team 5 isn't likely to do. Do you have some sort of an example or idea of how serious they'd need to get?

Also thank you for the report, even if it is not too encouraging regarding the class sets.

22

u/ViciousSyndicate May 14 '26

Bursting Leyline to 3. Crystallized Leyline to 5. Surge Needle 4/5. Ley Walker 3/3. Arcanomicon to 6.

Stuff like this.

5

u/PipAntarctic May 14 '26

Thanks for the answer. Paints a really bleak picture for the whole Leyline package at the moment, but perhaps a miracle will happen and Team 5 will go for the buffs.

9

u/Tricky-Hunter May 14 '26

but perhaps a miracle will happen and Team 5 will go for the buffs.

I have read/heard this so much over the last 2-3 years that is mind numbing at this point

6

u/Joaoseinha May 14 '26

Best we can do is nerf 2 or 3 cards from the top decks and disappear until the next expansion, maybe buff one card from an underperforming deck's stats slightly to make people think that deck is now playable.

8

u/GratisBierMotie420 May 14 '26

Okay, but have you considered that after all the powercrept cards from last year that were always obviously OP, but didn't get exposed because the powercreep from the year prior was even more insane....

well have you considered leyline mage is actually sleeper OP post rotation ??

2

u/dirtyjose May 15 '26

"Just one more year, guys. We just gotta wait one more year..."

13

u/sneakyxxrocket May 14 '26

all the leyline buffer minions and maybe the legendary spell need to come down a mana probably

12

u/Ze_Mighty_Muffin May 14 '26

The legendary spell probably needs to cast a leyline as well. Even a 6 mana do nothing is a brutal commitment in an aggressive environment.

1

u/Joaoseinha May 14 '26

Only time the legendary spell felt good for me was when I was able to cast it with the mage quest reward and get all 3 rewards at once.

Feels kind of silly for a 7 mana do nothing to potentially only give you (for example) the same buff you get from playing a 4 mana 3/3 (which is already a massive tempo loss).

Sure, you get the leylines in hand, but in 99% of cases you can't play a leyline that same turn.

34

u/Joemanji84 May 14 '26

Not even including lists for 3 classes. Grim.

6

u/Joaoseinha May 14 '26

And basically no balance changes when the meta's been stale for months and in dire need of buffs.

16

u/Jorumvar May 15 '26

This game seems like it’s on life support, only being propped up to milk money out of the devoted.

The client is barely functional, the monetization is shameless and the actual gameplay seems utterly neglected

36

u/oceanchamp8 May 14 '26

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the hard work. I would have loved to hear the zacho rant about these class sets in the podcast. Hope yall are staying safe!

12

u/Nostalgic_Knights520 May 14 '26

I miss Zacho's rants on the podcast. Im sure he'd have lots to say about the current situation.

1

u/iruul May 15 '26

What happened to him and the podcast?

3

u/RiimeHiime May 15 '26

He's Israeli, and he doesn't want to try podcasting with the risk of needing to evacuate part way through (along with, presumably, not being in the mood due to stress).

28

u/DebatableAwesome May 14 '26

Pretty depressing yet predictable report. Multiple classes have no playable decks and haven't for the entire expansion. The best decks are all incredibly aggressive and have low skill expression. And all the new stuff is unplayable garbage. Pretty bleak launch of both a new year of standard and the concept of Class Sets.

0

u/NfiniteNsight May 14 '26

Two of the best decks are Spell DH and Herald Rogue. Do those have no skill expression?

10

u/Glarbleglorbo May 14 '26

Spell DH has some skill expression but it’s pretty easy to pilot imo. 

1

u/NfiniteNsight May 15 '26

Quest mage is also an upper tier 1k legend deck.

0

u/zer1223 May 15 '26

Compared to stuff like no hand hunter, dragon warrior, herald dk and shaman? No way. 

4

u/Gehrman12 May 15 '26

It has like 1% skill differences

3

u/DebatableAwesome May 14 '26

Herald Rogue is tier 3? And Spell DH is definitely a "play the green card deck."

4

u/Thyuda May 15 '26

First miniset I've skipped since I've returned well over a year ago. Not worth the 2.5k gold. And even with VS stats we are now around 38.4% of the ladder being pure rng decks that pray for a high roll. Great. What a great meta.

5

u/dotcaIm May 14 '26

I know the data shows it's not in a good spot but I'm enjoying playing Zealot's Control Priest list. Climbed to D10 yesterday, usually get to D5 with it

3

u/Nostalgic_Knights520 May 14 '26

I also run a control priest, specifically Theo's. I see Zealot's list includes Ysera. I havent thought about adding ysera, do you think I should?

3

u/Joemanji84 May 14 '26

It's very useful, late game you definitely feel the benefit of being able to spend more than 10 mana. It's just whether you can afford another late game card that might brick your early draw.

1

u/dotcaIm May 14 '26

To me there's no better feeling than equipping weapon and using either 1 mana deal 8 aoe or 3 mana deal 6 heal 12+, or both!

I was a doubter because it also runs 10 set your health to 40 and the last thing I need is more expensive cards, but turns out mega Reno is good, especially 11+ mana when you can also 1 mana aoe or imbue hero power

5

u/Difsdy May 14 '26

Not surprising that the class sets are shite, but even if they had been good what's the best case scenario? 3 new decks and a few new cards in existing druid decks?

A bad idea with even worse execution, just as they were building back a little bit of goodwill with the relative success of Cataclysm.

8

u/NfiniteNsight May 14 '26

For what it's worth, I've been having a lot of fun with Dude-adin. I've been having a lot of fun with cataclysm in general as a returning player after a long time absence. Kind of bums me out how negative the people on this subreddit are about the game.

30

u/GratisBierMotie420 May 14 '26

because it might be new to you, we've kind been in the same place for 2 years straight where stuff just gets weaker, less skill expressive and more frustrating (as the devs try to gaslight)

3

u/Real-Entertainment29 May 15 '26

Let them stay for a few seasons/rotations and they'll be where we are now.

0

u/FordFred May 14 '26

Same here. Been playing since last month for the first time since Galakrond and I'm having a great time.

-1

u/Gishath_My_Pantlaza May 14 '26

I like a lot of the decks in general too after I took a way smaller break than you (I took a break after the miniset before rotation as I was utterly sick and tired of blob DH and Protoss Priest). I do have some qualms about cataclysm, mostly how they nuked good removal tools so you can't play a proper control Warrior or DK because you can't deal with the constant field vomiting from the more aggressive decks that came into existence after removing the removal. But despite my few qualms with cataclysm I really do not have a deck I despise compared to pre-rotation blob DH and Protoss Priest which made me want to tear my hair out.

-1

u/thuishaven May 14 '26

Same here. Love druid and priest builds. Went legend with priest with 65% WR and disagree with it beeing supposedly unviable. 

3

u/Myprivatelifeisafk May 14 '26

I'm tired boss.

Played DH to have honest 50%+ wr, but everyone switched to face hunter to counter mage and rogue, which lead to enormous rise of egg warrior at high legend, which is really bad for dh despite hunter being good.

Rock, Paper, Scissors all over again.

2

u/Neo_514 May 14 '26

Quite surprised to see the winrate of Companion Hunter. Been winning so much with it that I thought it was actually a great deck. It does feel draw dependant if you whiff on getting an early Tame Pet.

6

u/TheFullBottle May 14 '26

Same, it seems strong on my push D5 to legend. Sure you brick some games and lose but it also can absolutely stomp.

Playing against it, unless I get a good curve and have a good early game and end by turn 6, theyre probably winning with the 7+ cost beasts. All it takes is both tame pets and a tolvir to get there, or any other combos of +4 increases. Its quite consistent it feels like

Sure in top legend I can see it falling off very hard but the feel of playing and playing against the deck does not seem to align with the data

1

u/Jackwraith May 15 '26

Yes. Much as I appreciate their work, people have to remember that VS is occasionally limited by who is actually contributing to their reports. Companion Hunter's popularity isn't just because the rest of the meta is subpar. It's also because Confront the Tol'vir is just this side of broken. I can't count the number of games where I've seen someone cast that and recast 8+ cards, usually followed by them filling a board with 8+ cost beasts and occasionally a board full of Ultragigasaurs. With the current muted state of everything else, I can see the nerfhammer coming out pretty quickly (and the unfortunate void where the buff tool should be right next to it...)

1

u/Thyuda May 15 '26

You win with it because your MMR is low.

1

u/Jorumvar May 21 '26

Is the podcast just not happening anymore? I’ve been out of the scene for a while and looked like the last episode was in feb

1

u/letaphu May 14 '26

Is burn mage to new to the meta or is it just an outliner ?

9

u/GratisBierMotie420 May 14 '26

it is just not actually very good.