Meta Power of Classes over time based on VS reports

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Based on a suggestion from Schyla in the thread about this week’s VS Report #199 (link to that post at the bottom of this one), I’ve put together several tables to break down how often each class has had the top deck over time. I’ve also included how many times each class has had decks listed at Tier 1 and at Tier 2.

So, if you’re interested in how the different classes have fared over time, this may be of some use.

In each of the following tables, there are three columns of numbers:

  1. Top Deck: How many times was each class listed as having the top deck that week? There can only be one per report.
  2. Tier 1 Decks: How many times was each class listed as having a deck at Tier 1? There can be multiple decks for a class from a single report, if that class had multiple available archetypes.
  3. Tier 2 Decks: Same as Tier 1 Decks, just with Tier 2.

The tables are divided into a section before Ashes of Outland and after Ashes, since VS made some changes in the rank categories that they provided tier lists for with the change in the ladder that happened then. Most importantly, with the start of the new rank system, they stopped providing a tier list for All Ranks.

So, onto the tables:

I. Data for All Ranks from VS Reports 6-158: WotOG through DoD

VS stopped creating tier lists for All Ranks at the beginning of Ashes of Outland, so this table covers everything before that.

Class Top Decks Tier 1 Decks Tier 2 Decks
Druid 13 62 140
Hunter 20 107 107
Mage 0 27 100
Paladin 44 142 45
Priest 2 28 94
Rogue 15 56 90
Shaman 37 85 90
Warlock 4 58 109
Warrior 18 91 132

II. Data for Pre-Legend Ranks from VS Reports #6-158: WotOG through DoD

Notes: The exact range this covers varied a bit over time. For the first few reports it covered Ranks 5-1, then it shifted to cover 10-1 for a long period, before shifting back to 5-1 and then 4-1.

Also, due to the way that VS set up their display, the data from reports 24-28 (the end of the Karazhan meta) was only available for All Ranks.

Class Top Decks Tier 1 Decks Tier 2 Decks
Druid 13 43 127
Hunter 12 62 112
Mage 4 22 74
Paladin 42 105 78
Priest 5 20 95
Rogue 14 41 93
Shaman 30 56 89
Warlock 6 44 97
Warrior 20 70 126

III. Data for Legend Data from VS Reports #6-158: WotOG through DoD

Note: Due to the way that VS set up their display, the data from reports 24-28 (the end of the Karazhan meta) was only available for All Ranks. Also, because of the old way the monthly ladder reset used to work, there often wasn’t enough data for VS to do a separate listing for Legend during the first week of each month.

Class Top Decks Tier 1 Decks Tier 2 Decks
Druid 13 55 108
Hunter 16 78 98
Mage 4 14 86
Paladin 27 84 76
Priest 7 22 76
Rogue 15 43 88
Shaman 24 49 87
Warlock 7 24 95
Warrior 20 58 123

IV. Data for Diamond 4-1 from VS Reports #159-199: Ashes of Outland until Now

With the release of Ashes of Outland and the new Rank system, VS stopped providing tier lists for All Ranks, so Diamond 4-1 is the lowest rank bracket that has charts consistently available for the remaining time.

(VS did produce tier lists for Diamond 10-5 during AoO, but they stopped for Scholomance, so it didn’t seem useful to include a separate table for that here.)

Class Top Decks Tier 1 Decks Tier 2 Decks
DH 10 24 28
Druid 2 11 16
Hunter 5 33 39
Mage 0 3 29
Paladin 15 44 20
Priest 0 0 10
Rogue 4 20 29
Shaman 2 7 14
Warlock 1 8 7
Warrior 2 20 39

V. Data for Legend from VS Reports #158-199: Ashes of Outland until Now

Class Top Decks Tier 1 Decks Tier 2 Decks
DH 8 22 26
Druid 0 9 27
Hunter 8 32 42
Mage 0 4 31
Paladin 13 36 28
Priest 0 0 11
Rogue 5 20 35
Shaman 3 10 14
Warlock 1 7 12
Warrior 3 22 50

VI. Data for Top 1K Legend from VS Reports #170-199: Scholomance until Now

With the start of Scholomance, VS started including a tier list for Top 1K Legend as well.

Class Top Decks Tier 1 Decks Tier 2 Decks
DH 2 8 21
Druid 1 5 25
Hunter 6 9 31
Mage 0 3 22
Paladin 10 27 32
Priest 0 1 22
Rogue 5 13 36
Shaman 3 8 15
Warlock 0 2 9
Warrior 3 15 39

So, that’s a lot of data.

Hopefully you will find it useful or at least interesting.

This post (as I said at the top) was based on a suggestion from Schyla in the thread about this week’s VS report. Here’s the link to that:

Edit:

Based on a suggestion later in this thread, I've created two additional tables, showing the number of VS reports each class has had at least one Tier 2 or better deck. As with the first six, these are divided into a WotOG through DoD section and a AoO until now section.

So, here they are:

VII. Number of VS Reports each class had at least one Tier 2 or better deck — WotOG through DoD

Note: Because some of the archived reports on the VS site were missing or never originally included the Pre-Legend and Legend Tier lists, each column is based on a different number of reports. There are 153 Reports available for All Ranks, 147 for Pre-Legend, and 133 for Legend.

So, each column will report the raw number of reports each class had at least one Tier 2 deck or better with the equivalent percentage of the total in parentheses beside it.

Class All Ranks Pre-Legend Legend
Druid 123 (80.39%) 103 (70.07%) 93 (69.92%)
Hunter 115 (75.16%) 96 (65.31%) 93 (69.92%)
Mage 98 (64.05%) 76 (51.70%) 79 (59.40%)
Paladin 115 (75.16%) 113 (76.87%) 103 (77.44%)
Priest 88 (57.52%) 80 (54.42%) 67 (50.38%)
Rogue 108 (70.59%) 104 (70.75%) 96 (72.18%)
Shaman 113 (73.86%) 98 (66.67%) 87 (65.41%)
Warlock 109 (71.24%) 92 (62.59%) 68 (51.13%)
Warrior 133 (86.93%) 121 (82.31%) 110 (82.71%)

VIII. Number of VS Reports each class had at least one Tier 2 or better deck — AoO until Present

Note: Since VS did not start including a Tier list for Top 1K Legend until Scholomance, the Diamond 4-1 and Legend columns are based on 41 Reports, while the Top 1K Legend column is based on 30 Reports.

Class Diamond 4-1 Legend Top 1K Legend
DH 38 (92.68%) 36 (87.80%) 23 (76.67%)
Druid 25 (60.98%) 26 (63.41%) 19 (63.33%)
Hunter 41 (100%) 41 (100%) 28 (93.33%)
Mage 25 (60.98%) 28 (68.29%) 17 (56.67%)
Paladin 29 (70.73%) 29 (70.73%) 28 (93.33%)
Priest 10 (24.39%) 8 (19.51%) 17 (56.67%)
Rogue 34 (82.93%) 36 (72.18%) 26 (86.67%)
Shaman 15 (36.59%) 16 (39.02%) 14 (46.67%)
Warlock 14 (34.15%) 16 (39.02%) 11 (36.67%)
Warrior 33 (82.31%) 39 (95.12%) 29 (96.67%)
32 Likes
2

So, i’m gonna give a look at pre legend ranks (since we don’t have much data for top 1k), as these ranks seem to be the most competitive, overall.

From 6-158, the classes with the least top deck time, from worst to best are Mage (4) Priest (5) and Warlock (6). This is also true from 159-199.

By tier 1 decks, from 6-158, we have the three worst ones as Priest (20), Mage (22), and Rogue (41) closely followed by Druid and Warlock (43 and 44). From 159-199, it’s Priest (0), Mage (3) and Shaman (7).

With Tier 2 decks, the worst ones are, from 6-158, are Mage (74), Paladin (78) and Shaman (89). 159-199 are Warlock (7), Priest (10) and Druid (16).

So basically, Priest is consistently outside of the top decks, and consistently outside Tier 1. This is a disposition closely followed by Mage.

Also of note is the HUGE disparity between the numbers.
In the same time frame, Paladin, the best class by numbers, had 5 times as many top deck time as Mage and Priest combined, 3 times as many tier 1 deck time and almost as little tier 2 time as Mage.

Basically Paladin is good, at worst, and busted regularly, and Mage and Priest worst classes then?

2 Likes
3

The Tier 2 listings are probably less likely to demonstrate as much about power levels than just the amount of variety available to each class.

In particular, some groups of cards gave a huge boost to the number of tier 2 decks that some classes had during different eras. For example, the strong core for building combo decks that Druid received from the Mammoth sets gave them a huge boost to the number of T2 decks, since there were a lot of reports in which Druid had three or four different combo decks all appearing at Tier 2 (or even Tier 1). Warrior likewise got a big boost from having options like Bomb, Enrage, Big and Control all showing at Tier 2 before the most recent rotation.

There are clusters like that for almost every class, but there are big differences in how often those sorts of thing appeared and how long they lasted.

So, the number of Tier 2 decks may be a better gauge for how flexible each classes options have been, rather than their overall power.

3 Likes
4

That’s a fair assumption i didn’t imagine. So we can see the numbers in tier 2 as flexibility (or at least, “Standard Base set Strength”) and the numbers in tier 1 and Top decks as actual Power in that timeframe?

Btw, Paladin is also the Champion of top and tier 1 decks at D4-D1 from 154-199.

5

I think that’s probably a decent baseline to start from.

Tier 2 can say something about power, and Tier 1 something about variety, but at the baseline, it would be hard to sort everything out without a much more detailed breakdown. And the ability to track individual archetypes rather than just bare numbers per class.

6

The problem is that for you to actually hit tier 1 you have to actually have cards that are good in a vacuum.

In general i not even care about mage being tier 1 or whatever tier but to the consistent nerfs for the dumbest reasons someone can imagine.

Mage not needs a “redesign” mage needs to just be keep quietly instead of every single year get bashed out of the game because the number of players playing the class exploded.

That would create a consistent base for the class not need devs to create “a dumb gimmick” every single year to try to make it viable.

And without the need for that it’s design would normalize.

Basically the more devs nerf mage for reasons other than power:

  1. More dificult it gets to actually create new designs for the class.

  2. More unhealthy mage gets in wild because of unintended interactions between archtypes that somehow got in the same class.
    Basically how APM mage was born.

This isn’t something that can be avoided.

People either keep mage quiet for a year or this gonna repeat again and again. It isn’t a “negotiation”.

You can’t solve all issues with nerfs.

7

So, I was right when I said Mage and Priest get treated differently.
I’ll just wait here for all the players who said I was wrong and biased to apologize.

5 Likes
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Thanks a ton for doing this!!!

I was spot on with the Warrior/Paladin/Hunter/Shaman call out haha

And right about Priest and Mage…also didn’t realize how little Warlock is on the list.

Now, time to read the comments and see what people make of it.

4 Likes
9

I particularly think this Just proves Blizzard never knew what to give those two classes, as Far as Basic sets Go, and knew even less on how to expand on their Power levels.

By contrast, Paladin lack of tier 2 decks but huge amounts of tier 1 and Top decks probably means Paladin base set can’t work with most things, allowing few combinations, but Blizzard knows well enough how to make Paladin good.

10

If you’re asking me, all Blizzard knows how to do is murder spell based classes to cater to the whims of players who know nothing of balance.

2 Likes
11

Yeah, that was a bit of a surprise to me too.

Warlock’s presence on the lists is really propped up heavily by the decks built on their LK and K&C sets. So, outside of the time from K&C through through the end of the Year of the Raven, they’ve struggled quite a lot too.

1 Like
12

Yeah, it’s obviously apparent here that spell-based classes have it the worst overall…(minions win a minion based game, who knew?)

I think a key takeaway here is that if you are a new player, your best bet is to just craft Paladin. It will be the better investment.

When in doubt, craft Paladin.

8 Likes
13

Thank you Aegaeon for the list. I’ve always known Mage and Priest have been treated like dirt, but now everyone else does too.

3 Likes
14

Well, if you want to see what a good meta for Mage looks like, it’s the Ungoro meta (VS Reports #44-58).

That pretty much seemed like the Golden Age for Mage decks with up to three separate decks at Tier 1 or Tier 2 in basically every report. And the only times Mage had the top deck in any rank category were from that meta as well: 4 reports each as Top Deck for Pre-Legend and for Legend.

15

I guessed that as well. Un’Goro was my favorite expansion.
(Though I detested Waygate)

1 Like
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Aegaeon, what do you think about putting this post on Reddit? I think It would expand a Lot upon the discussion and bring those numbers to Far more people.

This is some good data, i think more people need to look at It

4 Likes
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I personally don’t have a Reddit account, but if you wanted to repost it there, that would be fine.

2 Likes
18

What an interesting read, thank you for putting this together.

1 Like
19

Very interesting thx for putting it all together.

IV. Data for Diamond 4-1 from VS Reports #159-199: Ashes of Outland until Now

With the release of Ashes of Outland and the new Rank system, VS stopped providing tier lists for All Ranks, so Diamond 4-1 is the lowest rank bracket that has charts consistently available for the remaining time.

(VS did produce tier lists for Diamond 10-5 during AoO, but they stopped for Scholomance, so it didn’t seem useful to include a separate table for that here.)

Class Top Decks Tier 1 Decks Tier 2 Decks
DH 10 24 28
Druid 2 11 16
Hunter 5 33 39
Mage 0 3 29
Paladin 15 44 20
Priest 0 0 10
Rogue 4 20 29
Shaman 2 7 14
Warlock 1 8 7
Warrior 2 20 39

This list kinda says it all,2 classes lol.
List V is also interesting,i guess thats 3-4 classes.

I didnt realize how lopsided the meta has been the past year but this clearly shows.
Releasing DH was a mistake,even if we look at the tier 1 decks on list 4 then its dominated by 5 out of 10 classes for over 1 year. Why have 10 classes when only 5 can play something decent for over 1 year.

This compilation is kinda depressing.

20

Why is it a minion based game? That is only 1 aspect of the game. The game has been about a combination of minions,spells and to a lesser extend hero powers since the start and that goes for pretty much every class.
Its the quality of the spells themselves that has been lacking for some classes lately.