Week 1 TESPA Hearthstone Collegiate Championship Meta Report
Hello and welcome to the first ever TESPA Hearthstone Collegiate Championship Meta Report. Over the next few weeks, this series of articles will try and explore what lineups work and what lineups don't in TESPA. Our hope is that the data will not only reveal the best decks for the current meta in TESPA, but also reveal strategies that will be relevant in both conquest and the new specialist format. Yes, there are caveats to looking at the data in this sample, but keep reading, as we will cover as many as we can and look at how they could be affecting the results.
For those who aren't familiar with the unique format, TESPA starts with a preliminary round of 7 matches for the open bracket. Anyone can sign up for this bracket as long as they are in college, and it has around 500 teams of 3! This means a lot of matches are played every week, and it provides a lot of data to analyze. After the 7 weekly matches, all teams that go 5-2 or better will advance to a smaller field for swiss. There is also a varsity division, which has fewer teams and is only open to schools with official eSports programs. However, teams in it play 2 matches every week instead of 1. For this report, data is taken from all matches played this week, so it is weighted slightly in favor of the varsity division since it played 2 matches instead of one. However, the open field is so much larger that it will probably control most of the statistical trends.
In order to determine what decks are strong in TESPA, we first need to determine what the decks used are. A spreadsheet contains all deck codes, and they were run through a program to decode them and use the cards found to discern the archetype. Then, the teams with each set of decks were matched to the number of game wins the team had in their match that week. Since 3 wins is needed for a win in best 3/5, all teams with 3 game wins were given a match win. Below is a summary of the information gathered. Popularity is how many teams in TESPA brought the deck, AvgWins is the average number of wins a team with the deck got (0 to 3) in a match, %MatchesWon is the percentage of teams with the deck that won their weekly match, and %TeamsWith is the proportion of the field that included the deck in their lineup.
The list of all archetypes that a deck could be classified as was generated based on all of the archetypes on either Vicious Syndicate or HSreplay. If an archetype was present in TESPA but not on either of those sites, it was marked as "Other" alongside the class. (Shoutout to WashU B-Sports which brought Cold Blood/Vallera the Hollow "Odd Rogue" and actually won a game with it) Decks used by less than 5 teams this week in TESPA were excluded from this chart due to insufficient sample size for estimates of power. (None of them looked any good anyhow) There are many decks used by only a few teams in this chart, but I left them in as potential archetypes to follow in the future weeks, even though their popularity week 1 alone was small.
As seen in the chart to the left, Control Warlock and Rush Warrior were played by very few teams, but nevertheless had extremely high win rates. It will be interesting to see if these win rates normalize or stay at current levels over future weeks. One possible explanation in this case is that only teams with substantial experience with these off-meta decks decided to bring them, and that they would not perform as well in the hands of unfamiliar players. Hakkar Druid, Even Shaman, and Cube Rogue also look at least somewhat viable, and are also worth following to gain a better understanding of their power.
However, there are some underrepresented decks that don't require additional data to understand how good they are. These include Topsy APM Priest, Control Paladin, and the "Other" decks. Chances are if a deck isn't known to Vicious Syndicate or HSreplay, it probably isn't a good idea to play it in a tournament.
Meta Breakers:
Even though the top 2 decks in TESPA this week are probably flukes, the number 3 deck is one whose power should be very familiar: Even Paladin. 59% of the teams that decided to bring the deck won their matches, and that includes a sample of 88 teams. Additionally, teams with Even Paladin won on average 2.1 games in their matches. An average over 2 is good because it indicates that even when teams with the deck lost, they probably put up a good fight and did not get swept. Coming up behind Even Paladin are Odd Rogue and Odd Control Mage. One possible reason for the success of these two archetypes is that they are two of the best decks out there against Midrange Hunter. Considering over half of the TESPA field brought a Midrange Hunter, its presence could have helped these archetypes find success.
Also doing quite well in TESPA so far are Cubelock, Cloning Gallery Priest, and Miracle Rogue. While these decks are familiar and capable of incredibly efficient board swings, I suspect another reason for their success is selection bias. These decks are complex, and it is unlikely that players unfamiliar with them would pick them up for TESPA week 1. The complexity of these decks also means that they are often more common at higher levels of play, and not all TESPA players are of the same caliber. In my experience, the median TESPA rank is around 5 at the end of a season. Good teams may just be bringing these decks more often than bad teams. It will be interesting to see how the win rates of lineups with these decks change as some of the bad players drop/get knocked out.
Finally, the last of the standout decks in TESPA is Even Warlock. This deck had a prevalence at Winter Playoffs that I don't think very many people anticipated, and I think the pros may have been on to something. The deck has a balanced match up spread, and makes a lot of sense in conquest, especially with a priest ban. It's easy to imagine it fitting with pretty much any other 3 decks in a lineup and working pretty well. It is important to keep in mind that the match win rate reflects match wins, not how well a deck actually did in a lineup. It is possible therefore that some of Evenlock's strength comes from it not holding back other lineups. If there is a group of 3 decks that works well together, Evenlock may be the deck that goes along best with what the other 3 want to target and ban, not that it makes other lineups better.
Solid + Popular Decks
While not exactly meta breakers, there were a lot of popular decks that did reasonably well. The most important of these is Midrange Hunter. Midrange Hunter was included in just over half of lineups, and had a win rate just above 50%. Considering how often it was that two lineups with Midrange Hunter faced each other, a win rate just above 50% suggests that the deck is actually very good. Too many mirror matches will push the win rate of a deck close to 50%, so a popular deck with a 50% win rate could actually be better than the win rate would suggest. In the case of Midrange Hunter, lineups with the deck have an average games won of over 2, so it seems like a great option for teams worried about getting swept.
Other decks with win rates right at 50% include Control Priest, Mill Druid, Mecha'thun Warlock, and Wall Priest. These decks aren't as easy to play as some of the strong aggro options, but they seem capable of doing well. Cube Hunter, Odd Warrior (Both Taunt and Dr. Boom plans) and Odd Paladin don't appear quite as good, but they are also more polarized than a lot of the top tier options like Midrange Hunter and Evenlock. These 3 are all known to have multiple match ups close to 40/60. It's possible that this week these decks just didn't hit the right opponents. In future weeks, counter strategies become more popular because teams can see what opponents had the week before. It will be interesting to see if the power of these decks rises as counters are employed, or if these decks' polarity is exploited.
Some of the most popular archetypes, however, look weaker than variance can currently explain. These include Odd Secret Mage, Mecha'thun Druid, Zoo Warlock, and Secret Paladin. Part of the struggle of these decks can be explained by the fact that they are very cheap. None of them contain very many epic or legendary cards, and when they do they are often cards that players have already crafted. New and inexperienced TESPA players may be using them to fill out lineups when they can't play these decks optimally or any decks optimally. This could be a cause of win rate deflation, because these decks have very high winrates on ladder according to Vicious Syndicate and HSreplay.
Decks That Appear Truly Bad
If nothing else, I believe that Big Spell Mage, Secret Hunter, Malygos Druid, Spell Hunter, and Quest Rogue are bad decks in TESPA. While these decks were fairly common in TESPA this week, teams including them won 1/3 or less of their matches. Additionally, teams including these decks were unlikely to have close series, typically only winning 1 or 2 games. The struggles of Malygos Druid, Secret Hunter, and Spell Hunter can be somewhat explained by the fact that Midrange Hunter and Mill Druid are known to be better options on ladder, so only bad teams brought the former three decks. However, that explanation still feels unsatisfactory with such incredibly low winrates for these decks.
I cannot think of any good explanations for how Big Spell Mage and Quest Rogue are better than they look. These decks look terrible, and it makes sense as they are arguably the two most polarized decks in the game. Quest Rogue is very unlikely to win against decks with aggressive game plans, and Big Spell Mage is very unlikely to win against decks with any kind of combo. Their polarity may be less of an issue when teams have a better idea what opponents will bring in future weeks, but it's difficult to see these decks ever surpassing 50% in matches won.
Summary + Closing Thoughts
While polarity tended to be a bad thing for decks week 1 of TESPA, it is possible that this won't hold true in future weeks. Decklists are out, so predictability and counter lineups will rise along with the teams that utilize them. Even Paladin is almost certainly a great conquest deck, so it will be interesting to see if teams pick up on it or continue to prefer the weaker Odd Paladin. Rush Warrior and Control Warlock look fantastic right now, but they may not after a real sample size is accrued. Note to TESPA players: don't bring Big Spell Mage, Secret Hunter, Malygos Druid, Spell Hunter, or Quest Rogue, they are terrible.
Let us know what you think of this first week's report! We will try to put these articles out on a weekly basis, so we can always try looking from different statistical perspectives. Let us know what you would like to see next week, and see you then!