2020 Hearthstone World Championship Predictions
Hey everyone! It’s been a long time since I did one of these but with the return of Choose your Champion I thought it would be fun to do lineup analysis again. I haven’t had a lot of time between deck list reveals and the end of voting to get this done so I’m sorry for getting this out late. Thanks to Hat, Bill, Valdus, and Oofrick for advice on what players will be banning.
My starting point to make predictions was to make a table with matchup win rates for the decks represented at worlds. I prioritized using the win rates from Vicious Syndicate at legend when possible, as I feel it is the closest numbers available for worlds contenders. When there wasn’t enough data, I took the numbers from D4->Legend. If VS didn’t have data for a deck, I turned to HSReplay using the highest rank stats available. Using these match up stats, I tried to predict the group stage results. If you think these numbers poorly represent the how worlds lists would do in a given matchup due to tech choices or a skill ceiling, feel free to brainstorm how predictions might change.
Group A:
You might be asking ”How do you know that Glory will beat Jarla 45.6% of the time?” Well, I don't. But I do know that if Glory and Jarla have their best decks against each other banned away, an average legend player piloting one of Glory's other 3 decks will beat another average legend player piloting one of Jarla's other 3 decks 47.7% of the time based on Vicious Syndicate or HSreplay stats. Over the course of a match, this difference in chance for each game means that Jarla has a 54.4% chance of taking a match victory. Obviously, the highest tier of play may have slightly different match ups, but I hope that the trends of the match ups would still be similar. Tech choices are also a factor that could move matches by several percent, the data uses many different lists made for ladder.
To determine the probability of surviving groups, I had to account for the fact that each player's first match is predetermined. Therefore, they can play the same person twice and the chance of beating the player they play first is more important than the chance of beating other players. The importance of each win rate can broken down by thinking about it like this:
-The first match is against one known person
-The second match is against one of two people, who are close to equally likely to win
-The third match can be against any of the other three people in the group, but it is only played half of the time
At this point, the chance of leaving a group was determined by finding the probability of getting WW or WLW or LWW and dividing the sum of these probabilities by the sum of the probabilities of WW, LL, WLL, WLW, LWW, and LWL (this sum should be 1 if I did everything right).
Slashes indicate ban priority, before slash is higher priority IMO
In group A, Bloodyface looks like the safest pick to make top 4. Glory went for a lineup that doesn’t ban DH, using a Silas OTK instead of ETC. This helps him against very aggressive decks, but the combo win condition is much less consistent against paladin in particular. His best bet for victory is lining up warrior into DH but he will find himself in a difficult position whenever DH slips through. HIs first match in particular is against Jarla, who has his lineup’s worst nightmare. Since the first opponent is especially important, this tanks his odds of a top 4. Jarla’s decks look weak statistically, but they are likely stronger than they seem. The stats on Control Priest and Combo DH are more deflated than for any other decks in this meta due to their skill testing nature and the prevalence of bad builds that contribute to their data. If these stats are as much as 2% lower than they should be relative to the field, Jarla is likely to move into top 4.
XiaoT went for an anti-control strategy that is unlikely to pan out against Bloodyface. Luckily for him, the other two group A players have slower decks that he can do well against, creating a reasonable path for him to top 4 through the losers side. There are a lot of anti-warrior strategies in worlds, but Bloodyface made the smart choice to avoid the class. She is in a great position to run over XiaoT and Jarla’s anti-control decks and take the group A 1 seed.
Group B:
Group B is for Bombs. Everyone in B except Monsanto opted for Wrenchcalibur, which is unlikely to work out since there are no ETC or control warriors. Bankyugi also decided Reno Priest is stronger than having a Demon Hunter, which statistically seems like a horrible decision. Luckily for Syf, he gets to play Bankyugi first giving him the best odds in the group of a top 4. Monsanto brought enrage instead of bomb warrior, which was a good choice and gives him a small edge against his group. He doesn’t ban DH though, which statistically hurts as the class is so strong. I think having paladin instead of the rogue would have improved his lineup a lot, and possibly put him in a position to win worlds. I think he expected to see more priests.
Top 4:
Just for fun I made a top 4 bracket with my predicted people. I decided on Jarla over XiaoT because I think the stat deflation on Jarla’s decks means his odds are a couple percent higher. Bloodyface looks well positioned to beat any bomb warriors from group B, although she would like to avoid Monsanto and his enrage warrior lineup. Even if she does face him, the weakness of his rogue leaves her with an edge. Jarla really would like to avoid group B bomb lineups and face Monsanto if possible. Monsanto wants to ban both his paladin and warrior, but at least he can beat up on Combo DH, assuming the stats are correct on that deck.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, this leaves Bloodyface as the clear favorite to win worlds, with Syf at number 2. Jarla and Monsanto also have some merit as choices, although statistically they seem disadvantaged. If the stats are very far off on the power of combo DH and control priest, Jarla could do well. If his Rogue gameplay is perfect and he cheeses everyone with Edwin T1, Monsanto could also do well by beating shaman and DH with his other decks.
Yet it is important to remember that decision making still matters in Hearthstone and Bloodyface is making her third consecutive worlds appearance. She’s there for a reason, proving herself countless times over as a Hearthstone grandmaster. Therefore, I’m excited to pick her again for Choose your Champion.