THL Meta Reports: S8/5, Week 4!

BitBeaker is back, and ready to take you through an eventful week's happenings in the Sylvanas League once more. As always, rebobson is also on hand to take you through the Ragnaros League happenings as well. Read on to learn more!

It certainly appears our Priest/Warlock overlords took note of last week as simply a blip, re-asserting themselves by being brought by 88% of the entire League this week. The Priest, Warlock, Rogue combo stayed at last week’s rate of 68%; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A special mention this week goes to the Purple Division, who between 25 players managed to bring exactly 3 different combinations of classes, all of which consisted of Priest, Rogue, Warlock & 1 other class. Druid remains the fourth class of choice alongside the big 3, being brought by 40% of the League, although Mage is steadily gaining traction, 20% of the League opting for the Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock combo. This combination saw an exactly 50% win-rate, going 9-9 with both a DQ win and a DQ loss. Paladin, meanwhile, continues its sharp downward trajectory; Uther’s 67% bring rate in Week 1 seems like a far-away dream now. This week, only 21% of people thought to bring the class, 7 of those alongside the big 3 of Rogue, Warlock and Priest. The class went 8-11, as well as a DQ win; with stats like that and a singular, linear gameplan, it is easy to see why players are looking elsewhere. In contrast, Mage, formerly consigned to these notes about weaker classes reported a positive win-rate of 20(1 DQ)-18(1 DQ), despite its heftier sample size. Meanwhile, in weak-Class watch: Hunter went 1-3, with 1 DQ win, Warrior went 1-1, and Shaman went 0-2. Looking back at Week 1, where I reported on a lack of class diversity, the 5 most popular classes this week have all incredibly seen increases since that first week: Priest has gained 3%, Warlock has gained 11%, Rogue has gained 7%, Druid has gained 15%, and Mage has gained 14%. (Hunter has lost 4%, while Paladin has provided the basis for most of the gains, losing 46% along the way). This is a trend which looks to continue, tune in next week to see just how many Paladins are left and how many Mages have replaced them!

-rebobson

This week we continue to see the same dominant lineup we’ve seen all season: Pr, R, Wlk with a flex spot was brought by 63% of players. While this could signify a stale meta, it might be just the opposite. People are bringing classes that have multiple viable archetypes making it nearly impossible to really pin down what your opponent could be playing. It seems like every week we see a new deck spring up for one of these classes, making it even harder to make predictions. If the trends we have been seeing continue, then we could expect to see Paladin and Hunter continue to drop as Mage increases in play. With the announcement of balance changes, many players may be looking to get the last little bit of life out of their cards due to be affected; I would expect to see plenty of Raza, the Chained and Patches this week. This could be the last chance for The Darkness to shine. Who among you is brave enough to take candle? (paging Team TRYHARD).

-BitBeaker