The main takeaway is that Zoo Warlock’s numbers have declined while Cube Warlock is seeing more play. Warlock is another diverse class that has seen the composition of its 4 archetypes significantly change as a result of the balance changes. Tempo Rogue is the second most common archetype, and it’s the most experimental archetype in the game, filled with so many different builds as well as an incredible amount of unmitigated garbage. The most popular Rogue archetype is now Odd Rogue, a deck we anticipated to greatly benefit from the fall of Druids and Odd Paladin. Kingsbane Rogue has severely shrunk in its size and is attempting to reinvent itself through more aggressive builds. It also boasts a diverse set of archetypes: Resurrect Priest, Control Priest, APM Priest and the erratic Combo Priest are the most common archetypes for the class, but Mecha’thun and vanilla Quest builds are also around (APM runs the quest but it’s not a “quest” deck, so it’s entirely separated). The class launches itself to the 2 nd spot in popularity from rank 4 onwards. Things have really opened up for Priest after the balance changes. The two main approaches to Midrange Hunter are the classic Houndmaster version, and the Master’s Call version. It has a diverse set of builds and is at its early stages of refinement. The wildcard is Midrange Hunter, which is currently growing in popularity and is more common at higher levels of play. All three of these archetypes are very similar, or identical, to their pre-patch versions. Secret Hunter’s prevalence behaves similarly to Spell Hunter, while Cube Hunter maintains more consistent numbers across the board. However, Spell Hunter’s numbers get cut in half at legend compared to the 1-4 bracket. Outside of legend rank, Spell Hunter is the most popular deck in the game by a large margin. Hunter currently displays 4 common archetypes: Spell, Secret, Cube and Midrange. At legend, the numbers drop to around 25%, which might indicate that while Hunter is certainly strong, and there’s probably a good reason why it’s the most popular class at every rank, its power level might not be at unmanageable levels.
This is exhibited by its prevalence at the 1-4 bracket where it approaches 35% of the field. As we’ve said in our balance changes breakdown last week, Hunter was likely to be an extremely safe and reliable method to climb ladder in the early days.
#SPELLHUNTER BOOM PATCH#
We expected this, since Hunter was a very powerful class before the patch and was completely unaffected by it. The early days of the post-patch meta are infested with Hunters at a pretty extraordinary level.
This is important to consider when assessing archetypes’ performance levels later. New decks are being tested, many cards are being tested in established archetypes, and different archetypes are in very various stages of refinement. The balance changes have completely changed the meta and sent every archetype into a spiral. No part of what it does even eventually returns that tempo back to you.While this is the second Data Reaper Report published for Rastakhan’s Rumble, we must treat it as if it’s the first report of an expansion. And this card couldn’t be any more negative tempo if it tried. There is no such thing as control hunter. This isnt nearly as strong as everyone is acting like it is. If you are playing a beast deck…this is an entirely inferior call.Īnd paying 3 mana to then pay even more mana for a weapon youd never use otherwise…ugh. If you are playing a secret deck…you already dont need draw for them. This card will typically pull a secret you dont need, a beast that is weaker than what you could have main decked, and a weapon that hasnt seen play ever. And you have a very high chance of getting mechs that are already direct removal without the rush. Boom turns all 3 of those random mechs into direct removal. People comparing this to omega assembly are absolutely missing the point behind assembly being included. Only 1/3 of this card will have any synergy with your given deck. This card has to compete for deck slots against cards which 100% fuel their decks.
#SPELLHUNTER BOOM FULL#
Oh, on paper its sick.īut hunter is full to the brim with inter-class synergy. I dont think theres any reason to believe this card should see a mana cost nerf. I do foresee a potential mana increase but I don’t see it warping the metagame.Īlso, people said (and some still) say the same about Master’s Call.Īnd before DK Rexxar, it was always, “Omg, Facehunter 2.0!!!” The text clearly states Hunter beasts, secrets and weapons: all the class stuff is better than secrets, weapons, and beasts in general. But a lot of people are acting like it’s the n