Hero Series Lineup Trends - Week 8

Altenberg breaks down the Hero Series Week 6 Lineup Trends, so you don’t have to.

After a wonderful Spring Break trip to Singapore, I’m glad to be back home and ready to jump back into THL action and crank out more Lineup Trends articles.  I’m sorry to have missed a week, but I’m sure you all did fine without me. While I didn’t have a write-up for Week 7, I can sum it up very quickly.  The same three popular lineups from Week 6 showed up again in Week 7, and after hinting that the Warrior lineup was looking good in Week 6, it did even better in Week 7 going 8-4 in matches and 31-21 in games. There was also a new lineup that popped up in Week 7: Druid-Hunter-Paladin-Priest that went 4-3 in matches and 13-14 in games. Unfortunately it didn’t receive enough interest in Week 8 to be worth mentioning in the Lineup Trends article, but I will keep my eye on it. And that about sums it up for Week 7.

For Week 8 we again see the same three popular lineups we've been seeing, and they are starting to normalize in their performance now that we have plenty of data. But there is also an older Rogue lineup that resurfaced for Week 8, which I’ll mention below. Generally speaking, there hasn’t been much shake-up in the most popular classes, but Mage and Warlock are both declining in usage a little bit, while Druid is seeing a slight increase.

Week 8 Popular Lineups

Lineup #1 – Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Warrior







Week 8 Stats
17 Lineups
Matches: 9-8 (53%)
Games: 33-36 (48%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 3-1 (75%)
Paladin: 1-2 (33%)
Priest: 2-5 (29%)
Warrior: 3-0 (100%)

Total Season Stats
50 Lineups
Matches: 28-22 (56%)
Games: 111-100 (53%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 6-2 (75%)
Paladin: 1-5 (17%)
Priest: 8-11 (42%)
Warrior: 13-4 (76%)

This lineup has continued to see an increase in usage from week to week and was the most popular lineup last week. Warrior has presented some interested match-up challenges for opponents, and as the ban data is clearly showing, it is not the best ban target. When facing this lineup Paladin or Priest are your best bans.  Despite having an average week last week (winning record in matches, but losing record in games), overall on the season, this lineup is still looking very good with a 56% win-rate in matches and a 53% win-rate in games. Warrior has traditionally been a great choice in LHS because of it's polarized match-up spread, and that appears to still be true.

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Lineup #2 – Hunter, Paladin, Priest, Warlock







Week 8 Stats
13 Lineups
Matches: 6-7 (46%)
Games: 24-23 (51%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 1-1 (50%)
Paladin: 0-4 (0%)
Priest: 5-2 (71%)
Warlock: 0-0 (0%)

Total Season Stats
58 Lineups
Matches: 25-33 (43%)
Games: 118-127 (48%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 4-7 (36%)
Paladin: 5-10 (33%)
Priest: 21-23 (48%)
Warlock: 1-1 (50%)

The popularity of performance of this lineup has been steadily decreasing over time, to the point where it now has an overall win-rate below 50% in both matches and games. This was once a dominant lineup choice, but for whatever reason, Warlock in the flex spot just isn’t getting it done.

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Lineup #3 – Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest







Week 8 Stats
12 Lineups
Matches: 6-6 (50%)
Games: 27-23 (54%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 2-0 (100%)
Mage: 1-1 (50%)
Paladin: 0-1 (0%)
Priest: 3-4 (43%)

Total Season Stats
66 Lineups
Matches: 30-36 (45%)
Games: 127-142 (47%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 5-2 (71%)
Mage: 3-2 (60%)
Paladin: 7-11 (39%)
Priest: 15-21 (42%)

This lineup has held steady as the 2nd or 3rd most popular lineup each week, but unfortunately it isn’t a dominating choice. In fact, after seeing 66 uses over the past 4 weeks it has a win-rate well below 50% in both matches and games, suggesting that it may not be the optimal choice. When looking at the ban data, those random Hunter bans seem to be propping up the win-rate even more.  The most popular Paladin and Priest bans should keep this lineup in check.

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Lineup #4 – Hunter-Paladin-Priest-Rogue







Week 8 Stats
7 Lineups
Matches: 5-2 (71%)
Games: 18-10 (64%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 1-0 (100%)
Paladin: 0-0 (0%)
Priest: 3-2 (60%)
Rogue: 1-0 (100%)

Total Season Stats
20 Lineups
Matches: 15-5 (75%)
Games: 49-29 (63%)
Opponent Bans
Hunter: 2-0 (100%)
Paladin: 1-1 (50%)
Priest: 10-4 (71%)
Rogue: 2-0 (100%)

This is a deck that I have been keeping an eye since Week 4, and it finally had enough popularity in a given week to make the list as a popular lineup.  It was one of the most popular lineups before the 2nd Rastakhan nerfs, and as people have discovered, Odd Rogue is still pretty good, even without Cold Blood. When you also consider that Quest Rogue is still a thing and there’s a new Pirate Rogue that looks pretty good too, not to mention Tempo/Miracle Rogue, then you suddenly have three or more viable Rogue decks that do well in the current meta-game. A 75% win-rate after 20 matches so far this season should get people to take notice and I think this lineup needs to be taken seriously, especially after it has gone 10-4 when its Priest is banned.  Yikes.

Week 8 Class Popularity

1. Hunter – 82 Lineups
2. Priest – 73 Lineups
3. Paladin – 71 Lineups
4. Mage – 37 Lineups
5. Warlock – 36 Lineups
6. Warrior – 33 Lineups
7. Rogue – 20 Lineups
8. Druid – 18 Lineups
9. Shaman – 1 Lineup

Conclusion
Hunter, Priest and Paladin continue to dominate the class selections, although the 4th “swing” class has now become a 3-way tie between Mage, Warlock and Warrior. Of the three, the Warrior lineup seems to be doing the best, but as I mentioned above, Rogue should really be in the conversation as it can match up well against Priest and Hunter, two of the three most popular classes. I have to give a shout-out to Cody as the only person in all of Hero Series to bring Shaman last week. He lost to Rizen, but that’s ok, because he should keep on holding onto that Shaman dream…it’s not a dead class!  Is it….is it?

With all the hype building around the standard rotation and the new expansion “Rise of the Shadows”, we’re stuck with a bunch of old cards for another three weeks at least. So until then, enjoy what you can out of the game, and as always, good luck and have fun!

-Altenberg

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