When I said “close to playable”, I meant high tier 3, just under 50% expected win rate.
So, not a great choice if you’re trying to hit Legend, but can get you anywhere up to D5 if you’re willing to put in the time and are good enough with it.
Tier 2 by VS Standards has an expected win rate between 50% and 52%. There have been metas where high Legend had no tier 1 decks and only a range of tier 2 decks.
So, how does that not matter?
Also, it’s a little funny pointing me to a chart that I created originally.
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I’m talking about historical averages here.
The point is that this has been the class tier list over the decade:
Tier 0: Paladin
Tier 1: Hunter, Warrior
Tier 2: Shaman, Druid
Tier 3: Rogue, Warlock
Tier 4: Mage, Priest
If you are a paladin main and complain about anything you should be ashamed of yourself
The competitive players are not netdecking the tier 2 decks.
They’re just not.
I mean, I appreciate the effort of creating the chart and all but it’s at best a dubiously relevant column.
Why wouldn’t a competitive player consider a deck with say a 51.5% expected win rate?
The chart isn’t using your personal definition of tier 1 and tier 2. It’s using the VS definition, which defines decks by fixed break points in expected win rate:
Tier 1 = above 52%
Tier 2 = 50% - 52%
Also, you’re ignoring the part that there have been several periods when there were no Tier 1 decks at all (at least in top legend). With no tier 1 decks, those competitive players would have to play tier 2 decks, or just stop playing altogether.
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But they are. You can go to streamers who are high legend and they are playing Tier 2 decks like Quest Druid, etc. They most certainly do.
For example, since I know you want proof.
That’s her playing Murloc Shaman at High Legend. They absolutely play all sorts of decks. If competitive players are not playing Tier 2 decks, then how come the tier 2 and tier 3 decks show up in HSReplay stats? Clearly they are playing them.
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I’m pretty shocked Mage & Rogue are that low.
It’s funny how different the tier 2 numbers are. And there I’m surprised priest is so high.
Maybe until librams got buffed. After librams, they always had… libram paladin to fall back on. And once Libram paladin rotated, mech and handbuff Paladin were pretty good. Then pure and jailer.
I suspect since Ashes of Outland, they just have a very clear vision of what they want Paladin to be, so the cards always end up feeding into that now. Which is largely why Rogue & Hunter have always been so consistent (and honestly Demon Hunter). They know what the class should be. When Paladin used to have a lot of identity issues. It’s a control class, it’s an aggro class, it uses buffs, no it’s tribal based.
Whereas Priest is constantly going through an identity crisis. Which hopefully Benedictus & the new Overheal mechanic will fix.
Holy shh**t
That data is no where near what I was thinking in my head. I was thinking rogue would have top decks across the board and dominate, but looks like that’s just recently and my thinking was biased.
Looks like paladin has consistently been on top. Come to think of it, that’s not that surprising. I still remember secret paladin as an awful cancer.
They only paladin deck I ever enjoyed playing was the OTK murloc Paladin meta. Every other top paladin deck has been cancer imo.
I do recall VS podcasts mentioning in several different podcasts that both paladin and hunter are funny classes, when they have a top deck, hardly anyone plays them unless they are absolutely broken. They say it’s common for a hunter or paladin to have at t1 deck and see maybe 2 percent adoption by the player base.
Meanwhile, if rogue has at t1 deck, or even sometimes a t2 deck, much like thief rogue has been on and off throughout history, it easily sees 10 to 30 percent adoption by the meta.
So clearly some classes can’t be good because they are just too popular when they are.
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I still love the work Aegaeon has done on the table. It STILL amazes people.
The thing is, before I suggested someone make the table, I knew that Priest was low on the chart but no one would believe me. I was making arguments that Hunter and Paladin are consistently safe bet deck crafts for new players. They are consistently good, despite what people say.
I didn’t realize it was THAT bad (although I did predict that Priest had next to 0 decks that were ever Tier 1). I didn’t realize Mage was just as bad and I always thought Warlock was way better than the data showed.
This was my original guess before any data was shown:
The report would be absolutely hilarious and would really spark some hate on this forum. Imagine if the report looked like:
Number of reports at #1
Paladin 37
Hunter 36
Warrior 32
Shaman 28
Rogue 28
Warlock 15
Druid 5
Priest 0
Mage 0
Little did I know, it was MUCH worse.
We need an updated chart! HINT HINT
This is what I’m talking about.
People hate paladin so much, they won’t even entertain the possibility the class have legit issues to be discussed.
But karma’s funny. Since people don’t entertain pally complaints, not much discussion gets done for the class (this thread being a good example, we basiclaly stopped talking about the new cards and is focusing on bashing pallies). Result is the class basically stays the same throughout the metas. Same old same old DUMP STATS HIT FACE. But hey, dump stats hit face WORKS, so pally gets the last laugh. Pally continues to perform, while other classes can struggle with meme experimental deck types that they keep getting.
I’ve mostly been keeping up with my spreadsheet as VS reports came out (except the last few months, but that shouldn’t take too long to catch back up).
I would like to do a follow up post at some point. Was thinking about trying to do it toward the end of this expansion before rotation so there’d be a full Standard year available. But I’m actually going to be fairly busy over the next couple months, so I may need to put off putting together a follow-up post until June or sometime around there.
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I just watched Nohandsgamer play frost aggro mage. Top competitive players are absolutely playing tier 2 decks.
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pocket_train is playing it right this second at Legend 4. He’s chosen it to be the deck he tries to close the season at rank 1 with. If anyone says competitive players don’t play tier 2 decks they’re either lying or misinformed.
The statement was about complaints in general, not power level specifically. I think priest gets the most hate from a generic perspective. Nobody ever wrote a song called Delete Paladin. LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAr-HG7E3Yk
Paladins don’t even know what hate is
Oh please. If songs are the measure, then hunters are #1 in being mocked.
Over 6 million views and 88k likes vs how many on that priest song? Song’s almost as old as HS itself.
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How does that have so many likes? It’s really bad.
That said, if song likes are the measure than Hunter wins at losing. Or “loosing” as the song wants me to say. LOL
lol because it was basically the mindset of mindless aggro. The joke was that they are so easy to play that a dumb orc could play it…and it’s true. Heck, that’s why all the bots play mindless aggro face decks - it takes the least amount of thought possible while still producing results.
Back in the day, the people playing those aggro decks would be confused at seeing a taunt and would still try to attack your face. That’s all new players knew. It’s brain dead play. Thus, the dumb Orc singing.
It was more a dig at aggro than Hunter, but Hunter was THE aggro class back then.
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The funkfin’s power was inspir d by the cyborg drake in the battlegrounds.
Holy crap, did you know 6 million views roughly can be monitized for 7k to 36k USD per year… lol! For such an utter piece of trash video, not bad passive income.
Also I know that video was made for a different era, but that is, at least today, the anthem for all of hearthstone’s standard. FACE NEVER TRADE.
