vS Data Reaper Report #304 – Vicious Syndicate (2024)

Welcome to the 304^th edition of the Data Reaper Report!

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Number of Games

Class/Archetype Distribution

Class Frequency

Class Frequency Discussion

The main story of the first week of Traveling Travel Agency is the rise of Big-Spell Mage, fueled by the blowout potential of Portalmancer Skyla. The archetype has been extremely popular across ladder, but recent trends suggest its momentum has been halted. If we strictly look at the past couple of days, the deck’s play rate relaxes. Its greatest decline is seen at top legend, where it might settle at a 15% play rate.

Druid seems to have diversified. Reno Druid is still the most popular deck, but not by a significant margin. Dragon Druid is experimenting with Tsunami builds. Dungar Druid is a new Ramp Druid deck built around the neutral 9-mana legendary and resembles Witchwood-era Ramp Druid with Master Oakheart. Interest in Spell Damage Druid is relatively higher at top legend. The archetype started dropping Concierge before the mini-set.

One of the clearest answers to Big-Spell Mage’s popularity has been Pain Warlock. As the fastest deck in the format, Pain Warlock can rush down Mage before it can even drop Skyla. Insanity Warlock’s presence is smaller.

Reno Shaman has become significantly more popular following the addition of Turbulus and the tourist package. Big Shaman is close to its play rate at top legend. Most other Shaman decks have faded away due to an absence of interest.

Death Knight is seeing changes. While players at lower rank brackets are still stuck on Rainbow DK, players at top legend have largely pivoted to Blood-Ctrl DK’s ability to answer Tsunami boards through removal, as well as its strength in aggressive matchups. Frost DK has declined.

Pirate Demon Hunter is in a similar position to Pain Warlock. Due to its fast-paced nature, it’s capable of getting under Mage effectively, making it a relatively popular choice.

Players at lower MMR brackets are still obsessed with Reno Warrior. At top legend, Odyn Warrior is beginning to creep up, with a refinement process taking place.

Rogue is a mess, mostly fractured into an assortment of Thief-style archetypes (Excavate, Wishing, Cutlass). Top legend players have mostly given up on the class, save for one deck that’s rising in play: Weapon Rogue with Sharp Shipment and Swarthy Swordshiner.

Handbuff Paladin is not too appealing in the current meta due to its slow pace, which is ill-equipped to deal with Big-Spell Mage. Showdown Paladin is fringe as usual. Lynessa Paladin has picked up more interest in recent days at top legend.

There are multiple Hunter decks, but none of them have gained a lot of traction. There was initially some hype for Reno Hunter, but that quieted down. Token Hunter runs a list centered around Pet Parrot. Secret and Egg Hunter can also be found.

There is still a small, but stubborn population of Reno Priest players out there. At top legend, Overheal Priest is the main deck of choice.

vS Meta Score

vS Power Rankings Discussion

Mage

• Big-Spell Mage is a good deck, but it’s nowhere near being the dominant deck that its play rate implies it to be. It gets countered by several aggressive decks. It loses to some of the slower decks too, so it isn’t choking out late game strategies from being viable. Its win rate is relaxing across the board, while at top legend, it’s nearing 50%.
• We strongly suspect that the main reason Big-Spell Mage became so popular is that it’s the standout fresh deck coming out of a mini-set that didn’t add much else to the table. There is clearly a desire to play the deck that doesn’t strictly come from its power level.
• We still fully expect to see the deck nerfed due to the play pattern of Portalmancer Skyla, which is a huge power outlier compared to the rest of the deck. A nudge on Skyla might keep the deck competitive without outright killing it, but further nerfs do run the risk of deleting the strategy entirely, as the deck is very sensitive to mana breakpoints. A more reasonable presence of Big-Spell Mage might be beneficial to the format, as it tends to beat decks that possess a lot of burst from hand.
• Not much else is going on in the class. Elemental Mage tends to look good early on in a format but is likely to fall off as things settle down. Spell Mage is terribly positioned against the current field.

Druid

• Reno Druid is a decent deck with a good matchup against Mage, but it gets hard countered by the aggressive decks that try to target Big-Spell Mage. Pain Warlock and Pirate DH give it a very hard time.
• Dungar Druid looks competitively viable, with some potential to improve further through refinement. It has a good Mage matchup. However, we don’t expect the deck to become significantly more powerful in the current field due to the same issues facing Reno Druid. It also gets countered by Reno as a card.
• Dragon Druid is unfavored against Mage, while performing better against attrition decks. Beating Mage is currently the name of the game, so it isn’t doing too well, especially when its aggressive matchups are terrible.
• Spell Damage Druid doesn’t look good but has a lot of potential to improve through refinement. We think this deck could be more viable at top legend if it runs Owlonius.

Warlock

• Pain Warlock is thriving in the current format due to the heightened focus on rushing down Mages and Druids. No deck does it better than Pain Warlock, so it looks very powerful despite possessing a checkered matchup spread with plenty of weaknesses. The decline of Death Knight, for example, has been very beneficial to Pain.
• Insanity Warlock is worse due to an unfavored matchup against Big-Spell Mage. Its general position in the format is quite weak, mostly boosted by the player base’s infatuation with bad Reno decks.

Shaman

• Reno Shaman is the most popular Shaman deck, while also looking like the worst Shaman deck. Classic. While its late game has improved thanks to the Hunter tourist package, it still falls short in most late game matchups, while struggling against Mage.
• Big Shaman is supremely strong thanks to its good matchup against Big-Spell Mage, as well as the two main aggressive decks that target it (Pain Warlock, Pirate DH). As established before the mini-set, it’s not easy to counter. Ramp Druids do have an edge, but otherwise you need a very robust removal toolkit (Warrior) or extreme burst damage to circumvent Walking Mountain.
• Other Shaman decks have fallen to the wayside, but it’s not because of power reasons. Evolve Shaman is still very good. Rainbow and Pirate Shaman’s play rates are low, but based on our estimate, they’re in the same Tier 1 spot where Evolve Shaman is sitting.

Death Knight

• Blood-Ctrl DK’s recent rise in popularity is not a coincidence. It did get better thanks to its good Mage matchup, as well as its strong Warlock/Demon Hunter matchups. However, it’s still a sitting duck to late game strategies. It gets destroyed by any deck with a late game clock. Even the slower ones, such as Reno Shaman, slap it around.
• Rainbow DK is poorly positioned in the format because it doesn’t have Blood-Ctrl’s removal toolkit to handle Tsunami boards, while its pressure plan is far slower than Frost’s. We feel this archetype is currently redundant.
• Frost DK has fallen out of favor, as it’s not fast enough to kill Mages and Druids consistently. There is a solution we’ve found that helps the Mage matchup drastically, so it’s worth checking out.

Demon Hunter

• Pirate Demon Hunter benefits from the current format in the same way Pain Warlock does. It destroys Druids while being fast enough to rush down Mages before Skyla can even come down. Furthermore, it has a good matchup against Pain Warlock, so it surpasses it at top legend, where the matchup becomes more common. We have no concerns over its power level, as it gets countered easily if it ever becomes more popular (Death Knights and Shamans handle it well).

Warrior

• Things initially looked very grim for Warrior, but a very recent development has ignited Odyn Warrior to show a lot of promise at higher levels of play. Its win rate is spiking, a product of two factors: the decline of the tough Big-Spell Mage matchup from its initially ridiculous play rate in the early days of the patch, as well as its own refinement.
• Based on its current trajectory, Odyn Warrior should become a Tier 2 deck at top legend. It is sturdy enough against aggressive decks (when it’s refined, still some work to do there), while possessing late game lethality that can kill defensive decks.
• Reno Warrior is the biggest punching bag of the format. Free wins to almost everyone. Second most popular deck on ladder. It’s easier to hit legend thanks to Reno Warrior.

Rogue

• Almost every Rogue deck out there is complete garbage. Rogue is so bad that some of its decks are even worse than Reno Priest. This is a reminder that Maestra costs the same amount of mana as Skyla.
• Thankfully, it turns out that Rogue does have a Tier 1 deck called Weapon Rogue. It performs very well despite having a terrible Mage matchup because it obliterates slower decks with its damage output. One to watch out for, though we do wonder what kind of audience it’s able to attract. The deck is binary in its game plan. Alterac Poison Rogue without the Wildpaw Gnolls.

Hunter

• Token Hunter is a bit of a sleeper. You can think of it as another Pain Warlock/Pirate DH type of deck, which rushes down Mage and Druid with great effectiveness. It also has some room to improve through refinement, so it looks like a great deck to climb to legend with. Much like Demon Hunter, it counters Pain Warlock thanks to its damage output.
• However, it does seem to drop off more at higher levels of play. We’re a bit skeptical of further traction for the archetype. Aggressive decks struggle to see play when they’re deemed “redundant”, even when they are genuinely strong. See Pirate Shaman and Zarimi Priest as recent examples.
• Reno Hunter was overhyped initially but has come back to earth. It struggles against good decks. Secret Hunter is strong at lower ranks. Egg Hunter has stagnated after the launch of the mini-set.

Paladin

• Handbuff Paladin is in a weird spot. It loses to both Mage and Druid, so players are disinterested in the deck, yet it maintains a reasonable performance level thanks to the rest of its matchup spread, which is very solid. In a settled environment, it likely gets worse, so players have naturally picked up on the bad vibes.
• Lynessa Paladin started slow but is getting progressively better each day, thanks to refinement involving Robocaller. Initially, it looked unfavored against Mage, but the matchup has become completely even. Recent trends suggest Lynessa Paladin will continue to get better. This deck isn’t talked about enough but has potential to be one of the stronger decks in the format.

Priest

• Overheal Priest is very quietly the strongest deck at top legend, with an incredible matchup spread that shows very few weaknesses. Hilariously, its biggest counter is the hapless Reno Warrior. Obviously, Reno Warrior is not very common at top legend. Note that most of its improvement in performance at higher levels of play is down to its skill ceiling, not the lower number of Reno Warriors.
• Reno Priest is not the worst deck in the game. Progress.

Class Analysis & Decklists

Death Knight | Demon Hunter | Druid | Hunter | Mage | Paladin | Priest | Rogue | Shaman | Warlock | Warrior

The most important thing about building Big-Spell Mage is to accommodate enough 2-drops to activate Greedy Partner consistently. Cult Neophyte is strong in the mirror. Wandmaker offers Skyla fodder. Instrument Tech finds us Metal Detector.

• Mage Class Radar
• Big-Spell Mage
  • Skyla Big-Spell Mage
• Elemental Mage
  • Lamplighter Elemental Mage

Reno Druid seems to be moving away from Dorian and on to more reliable value. The tension in Reno mirrors when it comes to playing Rheastrasza has pushed players to run Fizzle, which can potentially give us two copies of our cornerstone legendary.

Dragon Druid has been experimenting with Tsunami builds, but the featured build is the one that performs best against Mage, as it is crucial to Crystal Cluster into Yogg or Zilliax in this matchup.

Dungar Druid seems viable, though not too strong. It seems that cutting Dorian leads to better results in the current meta. If you want to focus on not getting destroyed in aggressive matchups, adding the second copy of Oaken Summons is an option (over Ragnaros, for example), but if Demon Hunter and Warlocks are common in your rank, you probably want to avoid queueing this deck altogether.

Spell Damage Druid is generally weak, but running Owlonius yields better results. Burndown is a decent card in the deck.

• Druid Class Radar
• Reno Druid
  • Dragon Reno Druid
• Dragon Druid
  • Cluster Dragon Druid
• Dungar Druid
  • Ramp Dungar Druid
• Spell-Damage Druid
  • Owlonius Spell Damage Druid

Cult Neophyte has long been utilized in Pain Warlock to lukewarm results, but we’ve warmed up to the card in this format, as it is strong against Mage. Cursed Souvenir is a card we’ve been looking to cut for a while but haven’t found a clearly strong alternative until now.

Insanity Warlock has been trying Soul Searching. The card is decent in the deck, but not worth adding a 4 mana 4/4 to it.

• Warlock Class Radar
• Pain Warlock
  • Mass Pain Warlock
• Insanity Warlock
  • Pupil Insanity Warlock

Reno Shaman is clearly stronger running a Hunter tourist package with Turbulus. So far, Zephrys has only proven to be good enough in Reno decks such as this one. It’s an Elemental you can use with Trusty Companion, which gives it another small upside. Hagatha benefits massively from the Hunter spells that become available to it in this deck. Giant Tumbleweed is uncuttable though, because it’s our clean answer to Tsunami.

We haven’t found a reason to change any of the other Shaman decks.

• Shaman Class Radar
• Reno Shaman
  • Turbulus Reno Shaman
• Big Shaman
  • Rainbow Big Shaman
• Rainbow Shaman
  • Conductivity Rainbow Shaman
• Evolve Shaman
  • Nostalgia Evolve Shaman
• Pirate Shaman
  • Attendant Pirate Shaman
• Elemental Shaman
  • Lamplighter Elemental Shaman

The only notable development in Death Knight is the return of Cold Feet to Frost Death Knight. The card is very strong against Big-Spell Mage, giving the Death Knight more time to pressure before getting blown out by Skyla or Surfalopod.

This game plan does not work in Rainbow Death Knight, as the deck is too slow to take advantage of Cold Feet.

Blood-Ctrl Death Knight can beat Mage by playing the removal game. We are not impressed with Zephrys in this deck, so we’ve stuck with the same build.

• Death Knight Class Radar
• Blood-Ctrl Death Knight
  • Rainbow Blood-Ctrl Death Knight
• Frost Death Knight
  • Feet Frost Death Knight
• Rainbow Death Knight
  • Double Rainbow Death Knight

No changes for Pirate Demon Hunter. Infernal Stapler and Job Shadower are horrendous cards in the archetype.

• Demon Hunter Class Radar
• Pirate Demon Hunter
  • Pain Pirate Demon Hunter

Odyn Warrior is showing competitive promise, after a poor start in which it massively struggled against Mage. The key for this matchup is running Brawls, so you have 4 copies of the card to answer Tsunami. Brawl is also strong in the Druid matchup.

Alloy Advisor is strong in aggressive matchups, enough to justify its inclusion. We suspect that Verse Riff is overrated, as it doesn’t seem to perform well in the slow matchups it’s mostly intended for. We would like to see how the deck performs without it, as Rockstars/Sleep already provides massive amounts of burst post-Odyn. Ignis is terrible in the current format. Fizzle is also not great. Some of this deck’s card choices are very meta dependent.

• Warrior Class Radar
• Reno Warrior
  • Incindius Reno Warrior
• Odyn Warrior
  • Alloy Odyn Warrior

Rogue is a very messy class filled with terrible decks that we’ve decided not to work to refine as it felt like a pointless task. Whether it’s Excavate, Wishing, Cutlass, or Gaslight, it’s all looking strictly non-viable. Spell-Damage Druid has some hope, so we featured a deck for it. Here, there’s no hope.

The one exception is Weapon Rogue with Swarthy Swordshiner and Sharp Shipment. Dig for Treasure always finds Swordshiner, so it’s a priority mulligan target alongside Quick Pick. You don’t care about any other card.

• Rogue Class Radar
• Weapon Rogue
  • Digging Weapon Rogue

Token Hunter has made its return, focused on Pet Parrot replay value.

Monkey Business might be one of the worst cards the class has ever played in a competitive deck. Its performance is so poor that we think the deck’s win rate would go up if we swapped it for Chillwind Yeti. Get that thing out of here.

Pizza did hit #1 legend with this Reno Hunter build early in the patch. It looks clean, but the archetype isn’t particularly good.

• Hunter Class Radar
• Token Hunter
  • Parrot Token Hunter
• Reno Hunter
  • Moo Reno Hunter
• Egg Hunter
  • ABJ Egg Hunter
• Secret Hunter
  • Mantle Secret Hunter

Robocaller looks great in Lynessa Paladin alongside Prismatic Beam, giving us a way to answer aggressive matchups with greater consistency. The curve in the featured build makes Robocaller draw 3 cards almost every time after the first dialing. Robocaller is also strong with Living Horizon.

• Paladin Class Radar
• Handbuff Paladin
  • Sandcastle Handbuff Paladin
• Showdown Paladin
  • Cheese Showdown Paladin
• Lynessa Paladin
  • Robocaller Lynessa Paladin

Overheal Priest is an elite deck at top legend, requiring no changes to its build. Reno Priest is dead. Zarimi Priest is likely fine, but no one cares.

• Priest Class Radar
• Overheal Priest
  • BirdwatchingOverheal Priest
• Zarimi Priest
  • Rod Zarimi Priest

The current format is so much more than just Skyla spam. There are many decks out there with great potential that you don’t hear about much. Hopefully, this report highlights some of those sleepers that are worth exploring further, such as Lynessa Paladin, Weapon Rogue and Odyn Warrior.

The crème de la crème of the current format is Overheal Priest, which has been around for a while, but its excellence is almost a secret amongst high level players. If you know how to play this deck, it might feel like there are no counters to it.

• Overheal Priest

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