VS Data Reaper Report is out. It's a 3 (and 1/2) class meta

Multiplayer Discussion
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https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-320/#tab-698621

VS Released its latest meta report with the current meta trends. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to most players at higher ranks, since this has been the story in legend for the past week. But diamond and below is probably lagging behind a bit so here’s the summary.

Drunk paladin – Absolute powerhouse. Strongest deck in the game. Hard counters or simply beats every other deck in every class except for one rogue. Any rogue deck. All of them. Harbinger of the blighted is the only think keeping drink paladin out of tier S status. But Rogue popularity is dominant at higher rank brackets despite a few crippling matchups of its own.

Cliffdive Demon hunter – Stomps nearly everything in the game. Demolishes rogue. Beats the tar out of anything unrefined. However… drunk paladin wins handily against it.

Rogue – Protoss Rogue, Pirate rogue, Ashamane rogue, Starship Rogue, you name it. Rogues are exploding and they’re extremely powerful. Harbinger of the blighted is an oppressively powerful opener that almost nothing in the format can handle. When followed up by some archons it’s lights out for 90% of classes. Paladin included.

Death Knight – Handbuff death knight gets bonus points for being one of the only two decks that actually beats cliffdive demon hunter. In this sense it’s position in the meta boils down to “inferior drunk paladin”. It loses to rogue, beats cliffdive demon hunter, but also loses to several decks that drunk paladin handily beats (zarimi priest is a big one)

Druid – The strongest imbue deck with a well rounded matchup spread. ranked 5 or 6 overall among classes

Priest – Zarimi priest falls below druid in low tier 2 and is nearing tier 3. Zarimi priest gets destroted mercilessly by all THREE major meta players. Cliffdive demon hunter, protoss rogue, and drunk paladin are all either bad matchups, very bad matchups, or oppressively bad matchups.

Warlock – Wheel warlock is the best warlock deck. Some here know it as armor warlock. Its status is viable, but not good because paladin decks like to bully it out of its lunch money.

Nearly everything else — Mage, Hunter, and Warrior exist. Yup, that’s about all there is to say about them that’s noteworthy.

Shaman – Doesn’t exist

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Harbinger of the blighted creates a lot of non-game blowouts if you high roll it in the early game. It is carrying the class. I like tempo decks, but creating 3 or 4 minions on turn 1 or 2 is a bit outrageous. You need that kind of tempo to make rogue work because if you dont get ahead on board early, you probably lose.

Id rather other rogue cards like eudora and maestra be a bit stronger than for rogue to have weak legendaries and a busted 2 drop that makes most of their strategies work.

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I can’t get behind the harbinger love/talk as its just so unbelievably unreliable. Are we serious here? As if rogue has any consistent early board pressure when it needs the perfect 4 (2 if you’re technical) cards upon mulligan.

Shadowstep or the spider 4/4 stealth shadowstep + harbinger before turn 2 has like a 5% chance of happening. Even lower with prep+spider+harbinger. These are lottery odds here people.

I rarely do it early and opponent rogues rarely pull it off.

Shadowstep in hand and a harbinger happens average on turn 4. Harbinger and spider shadowstep are even more rare and later in game.

Although i’ve done the coin harbinger shadow step harbinger prep 4/4 spider combo once early in emerald dream release. Happened once in my 260+ games

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I’ve been lurking in the threads over the past week but I’ve held my tongue on commenting up until now because I was waiting for the data to come in to prove what I’ve been witnessing was accurate. But I’ve been playing in the legend meta for the past week. I was sitting in legend 500 bracket over the weekend and let my rank fall a bit since after getting bored with the same 3 classes over and over and over. Let me tell you guys, Paladin is broken. Its a power outlier. Drunk paladin is beyond degenerate. The amount of stats it drops on curve are far out of line. Lightbots and sea shanty drop a board of 8/8’s and 5/5’s by turn 4 or 5. And you can’t trade into his crap because every freaking minion has divine shield!!. And we’ve already discussed the Ursol Shaladrisil interaction in other threads. That’s just backbreaking.

Cliffdive demon hunter ressurecting ball hogs ad-infinum is nauseating enough, but when the inquisitors start slamming you in the face on top of that it’s just disgusting. Seriously, you cant attack the demon hunter because of all the damn life steal. The ressurection package demon hunter got isn’t targeting arconite defense crystals anymore, but paired with cliffdive and big minions that charge your face its just oppressive.

And rogue… harbinger of the blighted is stupid. Rogue has more early game board presence and removal than it has any right to., Turn 1 coin harbinger shadowestep harbinger play harbinger prep web of deception should be illegal and banned in every major country by all relevant governments. That’s just disgusting. But rogue has a premium removal toolkit and an overabundance of draw and from hand damage to finish the job. That’s why it destroys paladin so easily. It ACTUALLY OUT BOARDS a paladin. The reason cliffdive demon hunter beats it silly is because ball hogs keep the demon hunter healthy with life steal while silmultaneously removing the rogue minions, so they buy time for the big cliffdive play. And rogue has no healing, so when illidari inquisitors start smashing face its lights out.

For all the attention people have been paying zarimi priest, it gets ruined by all 3 of those decks. I think zarimi’s blowout turn is degenerate too, but these other decks are even worse.

But despite all this I think there’s an elephant in the room that needs to be talked about more – Shaladdrasil. No, not the Ursol interaction. Shalddrisil ITSELF. Its too easy to corrupt. Of all the things this meta has shown me, its that shaladdrisil should be 8 mana. Maybe we touch harbinger of the blighted, maybe we tweak lightbot. Maybe we have to up cliffdive to 7 mana. But Shaladdrisil is a common denominator in ALL of these decks. Rogue runs it even when it can’t corrupt it just because 5 damage to everything and 0 mana sap wins games. Druid runs it becaus eit WILL corrupt it and it closes out games. Cliffdive demon hunter runs it because illidari inquisitor costs 8 and he play sit from hand. And paladin is the forefront of how busted it is. That card needs a mana increase. 7 mana is too cheap for such a powerful card.

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It checks.

The issue is that VS texts are getting to the point of sensacionalism lately but Just ignore the exagerration and it checks.

Trade the Impossible to beat deck to best deck in game.
Rogue you can say that the class got a powerful Foundation that can pivot in any build.
And so go on.

Would suggest a better look into stuff nerf past year instead of nerfs from the start If anyone want a nuanced suggestion that does not involve Power reset fanaticism.

It is mind boggling for example that skyla was not reverted after all the other changes done to the big spell mage package and rogue cards from perils in paradise.

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You dont need all of that, just 1 harbinger and a bounce is enough to start snowballing a game. Id rather rogue have good tempo spread across its other early game options instead of it all being packed into this one card. It says a lot about the power level in the game when rogue needs a busted harbinger to carry the class.

These 0 mana 3/3s and 8/8s are coming down too fast. Even in a favored matchup, drunk pali is too good at spamming out threats early.

I agree Shaladrassil is universally good. It makes almost any deck better. Im not a fan of it being able to be corrupted at all all of the corrupted cards are too strong lol. Having a neutral spell be this powerful leads to a zilliax experience where you just see it almost every game and its annoying

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Personally I think there are valid concerns in most of the threads. I think the zarimi blowout turn is stupid. I would be in favor of nerfing Naralex to instead of discounting dragons to (1) have it read “Your dragons cost ‘4’ less” or something like that. You could still drop all the cheap dragons with him to flood a board, but it breaks the briarspawn zarimi chain.

And with that said, a personal tangent: I’ve actually cut the top end of my zarimi priest because you die before making it to turn 8 against the big 3 classes. Instead of briarspawns and naralex I’ve been playing with Tyrande, Moonwell, and ritual of the new moon, along with gorgonzormu. I’ve cut a small amount of draw to throw in sasquawk and clay matriarches. It’s shockingly good into the otherwise oppressive rogue lists. Tyrande double casting ritual of the new moon when it summons 6 drops is pretty damn good! and tyrande double casting a 9 or 10 mana cheese is amazing. This is the direction I think zarimi priest SHOULD go. Take away the ability to OTK. Make it a value deck. And if you want them to counter kiljaedean decks force a tech card like… oh say… puppet theatre (I’m trying that out myself)

Cards I think are most problematic though

Lightbot /sea shanty – Both drop too soon for my liking. Lightbot is the bigger offender but ive seen both on 4 or 5

Harbinger of the blighted – Yes it IS a problem card. No, you cant convince me otherwise. Rogues have lots of minions upwards of full board as early as turns 2 and 3 and by 5 and 6 you’re forced to wipe a full board every turn or die to minions and from hand burst.

Cliffdive – probably the biggest offender, but to be honest the ressurection package and ball hogs is also getting to be an issue. The VS podcast touched upon how insurmountable the recursion package really is. So I’m not actually sure what should be done with demon hunter. All I know is SOMETHING needs to be done, because it wins against anything and everything that isn’t paladin or handbuff death knight. The deck simply does too much and is too damn strong.

Naralex – I’d like him to just discount dragon cost by a flat 3 or 4 mana, not make them cost 1 no matter what they started at

Shaladdrisil – needs to be 8 mana. No way around it. Far too many classes corrupt it too easy and abuse it ahead of curve.

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I don’t know about harbringer.

People not want everything to be playable?
If they want then that is the model. It is a pick your Poison choice.

Stuff like that is only a issue when Evergreen but i personally can Deal with 2 years of harbringer.

Zarimi can probably eat another requirement nerf so people stop using It as combo Tool.

We really aren’t in that bad of a game RN

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To be honest, I’m less bothered by harbinger than the others. I do think there are ways to deal with rogue. I did mention how I tweaked my priest list for a reason. By adding in the swaps I mentioned I’ve turned what feels like a 30-70 matchup (or worse) into one I feel comfortable with. The biggest issue with harbinger is that even if you have an answer if your deck you MUST have it on curve every game. Don’t draw fly off the shelves by 4? You’re dead. And even when you do it’s an uphill battle. I think the bigger issue with rogue is the overall package. Harbinger throws down a boat load of stuff early, but rogues draw and early game removal toolkit is premium.

You simply cannot stick a minion on turns 1-5 against a rogue. It’s next to impossible. So you’re stuck backpeddling until you get enough mana to make a play where you can have a minion survive a turn, and by then you’re down to 15-20 life and the rogue is threatening lethal with from hand burst… which it ALSO has a lot of. I’ve had games where I had a 4/6 petal peddler and a 3/5 petal peddler on turn 3 from birdwatching targeting the peddlar and a coin (and them buffing each other end of turn)… and the rogue just deleted them from hand without even trading her minions into them next turn. That’s also why paladin loses to rogue. Demon hunter is the exception – ball hogs kill the rogues minions when they die while also lifestealing. Other classes aren’t so fortunate.

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Zarimi is a easy call talking about Priest.

Dragons aren’t really combo pieces and even the ones used are clumky making you need to many cards.

No zarimi = no glue. You still hit hard but not enough to justify 5 card combos.

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Zarimi shouldn’t be touched at all.

Fix Pally urgently. Fix Cliff Dive - it’s been problematic before, it will continue to be.

Fix Imbue Druid. People will learn to play that deck sooner or later.

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Sure but people should First learn to play.

And sincerely zarimi Just slots in the dumb stuff that should not even been printed slot.
Everyone on any game know that extra turns only result in BS happening.

I think the most important is to First have the game develop and then change. Not the opposite.

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Doubt anything gets touched. They will release the miniset and won’t release a balance patch for 2 weeks after that. That means 1 more month of no balance changes.

I hope that’s not the case, but I get the feeling it is.

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8 class meta

there are 8 different classes with decks at tier 1 and tier 2

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Yeah I dont know at what rank you are playing but it is not an 8 class Meta at legend. At least not for me. All Paladins and Rogues. Ive seen one DH in the last 2 days.

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This is the only definitive nerf i think everyone can agree on. It needs to be 8 minimum or maybe even 9 because the corrupted cards are just that good.

A few cards need cost adjustment up. The good part of all of this is that it is all pretty much solvable with cost adjustments.

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Happy to see that the results are close to D0nkey’s, in the way I filter them at least, and hence VS’ existence and fees are not needed.

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So your solution is to NOT touch Zarimi the most broken card in all the game, but nerf imbue druid which is kinda crap? Yep, rogue player brain right there.

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I dont think the card should be corruptable at all because the corrupted ysera cards are way too efficient for their cost. They wont change though that so i guess i would be okay with it getting a mana nerf

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Can we stop posting the meta snapshot of the 1%? Our amazing developers (may the road rise to meet their steps) didn’t design this game for elitist 1%ers, they designed it so that WE ALL may bask in the luminous radiance of the brilliance that is Hearthstone without needing to confront our own inadequacies.

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