Week 2 TESPA Hearthstone Collegiate Championship Meta Report
Welcome back to the TESPA Hearthstone Meta Report! Last week, we looked at a lot of the caveats that could be responsible for abnormally high or low win rates for decks in this tournament. Those caveats and an analysis of the data collected in TESPA week 1 can be found here: https://www.hearthstonetournamentreport.com/week-1-tespa-spring-2019
Just as before, all of the deck codes were loaded onto a spreadsheet, which was then run through a program to decode them and use the cards found to discern the archetype. The deck codes from TESPA open division round 2 were used, along with the deck codes from matches 5 and 6 of the varsity division, which happened at the same time. 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.
After week 1, the deck lists for all teams were posted on the TESPA website, so many teams brought lineups going into week 2 that were good against what their opponents had the previous week.
Week 2 Breakdown:
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. 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.
Last week in our report, two archetypes with very low representation but high win rates were identified: rush warrior and control warlock. With the additional data of week 2, it appears that the success of control warlock was a fluke, while Rush Warrior may actually be a decent deck. Control Paladin and Elemental Shaman may look strong in the chart to the left, but there could be a reason for their success this week. Teams that brought them week 2 nearly all lost week 1, so teams with them had easier competition this week. I suspect that the win rates of these two decks will normalize next week when their users will have to face the defeated players of round 2.
As predicted last week, counter strategies did really well. However, I did not predict just how much better counterpick decks would get. I previously wrote off decks like Big Spell Mage and Quest Rogue as hopeless, but they improved in win rate substantially this week. These decks went from sub 40% win rate decks to viable counterpicks in anti-aggro or anti-control lineups. Surprisingly, the only counterpick deck to have a bad week was Mecha'thun Druid. Perhaps UI and Hakkar are strictly better options.
Meta Breakers:
Even Quest Mage, a deck no one has been playing since the rotation of Ice Block, looks like a viable option if you are very confident the other team will have an Odd Warrior. According to HSreplay, the hardest counter to Odd Warrior is the banana buffoon OTK quest mage (~94% win rate). Sure, the best play against Midrange Hunter, Paladins, Odd Rogue, and Secret Mage is the concede button, but I suspect it would not have been brought unless the opponent had Odd Warrior week 1. One thing worth noting: if you want to play quest mage, run Shifting Scrolls instead of Tome of Intellect. Many people still don't know about the patch, but shifting scroll was changed to count towards quest completion. It's pretty common to get random garbage spells, but the nice thing about shifting scroll is that the garbage spell won't stick around, you don't have to play that pyroblast or deck or wonders. Also, shifting scroll doesn't require a 1 mana investment to get the spell.
Mecha'thun Warlock and Mill/Hakkar Druid looked decent last week, but they seem even better now. These decks are probably good, along with Rush Warrior, because they are incredibly effective in the right match ups, but are still ok if the opponent doesn't have the anticipated lineup. The druid and warlock are not bad against board-flooding aggro if it replaces the odd warriors, and Rush Warrior takes win off combo decks if aggro isn't around.
Topsy Priest may not be a new deck to the competitive scene, but it hasn't been a staple of the HCT scene the last two months. However, alongside quest mage it seems to be an effective counter to lineups with a known Odd Warrior. Because the deck has access to psychic scream, it can also contest decks with sticky boards like Cube Hunter much better than mage, which struggles to OTK before being run over by cubes and dinosaurs.
Finally, Odd Quest Warrior grew substantially in power this week. One possible reason is the rise of very passive OTK decks like those mentioned above. The quest build is certainly less effective against decks that rely on minion pressure, but it has a real fighting chance against quest mage and turvy priest. Since odd warrior was the only control deck in most warrior lineups, it makes sense that lineups with Odd Quest were able to find success against OTK if the warrior won against 1 of the 3 OTKs.
Combined Stats: Weeks 1 and 2
Analysis was also done on the combined match data of weeks 1 and 2. The numbers for popularity, average wins, and percent matches won are the same numbers that appeared in the data tables for weeks 1 and 2, just averaged between the two weeks in order to use all available match data. However, percent growth is a new statistic representing the change in a deck's popularity between weeks 1 and 2. This number is the prevalence week 2 divided by the prevalence week 1. Decks with numbers greater than 100 increased in popularity, while decks with numbers below 100 decreased in popularity.
As seen in the chart via percent growth, there was a general increase in popularity for most of the well known meta decks, fueled by a decrease in the "other" archetypes as players began to take the tournament more seriously. Odd Paladin, Midrange Hunter, and Evenlock also experienced a fall in prevalence week 2, likely as players running them week 1 switched lineups to counter opponents and few players started using them as counter options. However, polarizing archetypes had the biggest growth: many anti-warrior decks increased 50% or more in popularity, while heavy control with decks like big spell mage also experienced growth.
Speaking of Big Spell mage, it's time for me to admit I was wrong last week about the deck. It looked truly terrible week 1, likely due to an unknown meta. The deck relies on appropriate techs and an absence of combo. However, it is clearly an effective aggro stopper for players that anticipate decks like zoo and odd paladin. When lineups decided to run odd warrior, they often didn't do great because of OTK, and because warrior alone doesn't stop aggro lineups.
Aggro lineups can easily just ban warrior and find success if decks like Big Spell Mage and Control Priest aren't paired with the warrior. The much higher win rates week 2 of control priest and big spell mage suggest that these decks are really strong against aggro in lineups targeting it, because aggro still has an uphill battle even when warrior is taken away from control lineups.
Even though much of this report has focused on the rise of all control or all OTK lineups, aggro hasn't disappeared and is still very very strong. On both weeks Even Paladin has been the clear best deck among the popular archetypes, and this makes sense as it is very strong against Hunter and OTK, while still contesting control fairly lineups effectively. Even with the most anti-aggro lineups of Control Priest, Big Spell Mage, Evenlock, and Odd Warrior, aggro can still win matches. It is important not to forget the impact of better play or RNG.
Evenlock, Wall Priest, and Midrange Hunter also have very balanced match up spreads and pair well with Even Paladin in conquest beat down strategies, as with good techs and better play, any match up can be won. Midrange Hunter may have had a rough week 2, but I think this could be due to some abandonment, many good teams went for counter strategies and dropped the deck for a more polarized one. Since Midrange Hunter still had a respectable win rate, I don't think the deck is in too bad of a spot.
Another beat down option is Pirate Miracle Rogue. This deck, piloted by Bunnyhoppor to second place in HCT Winter recently, is very powerful in the right hands. While more polarizing than the 4 beatdown decks in the paragraph above, it has a strong 53% win rate so far in TESPA. As suggested in the week 1 report, a lot of the deck's success could be due to selection bias: Pirate Miracle Rogue requires expensive cards and many weaker players may pass it over for the easier to pilot odd rogue. But while Odd Rogue looked fantastic week 1, it had a terrible week 2 and miracle rogue did not.
On the subject of bad aggro decks, Odd Rogue isn't the worst option: Odd Secret Mage, Zoo, Even Shaman, Spell/Secret Hunter, and Secret Paladin had underwhelming performances both week 1 and week 2. Secret/Spell Hunter is just so much worse than midrange after the spellstone nerf that only bad players are bringing it to TESPA. Odd Secret Mage and Zoo may be suffering a bit because they are cheap and weak teams are using them to fill lineups, but they definitely seem weaker than other aggro options, and probably only ever fit into anti-combo lineups. Secret Paladin, however, is a bit of a surprise. It had winrates below 40% both weeks, which suggests that the deck is actively causing lineups with it to lose. Most ladder data seems to show that when it comes to paladin, secret is a viable alternative to odd and even, but this isn't the case in TESPA. In TESPA, even is king, and odd is mediocre, but secret paladin must not work without the surprise factor on ladder.
Bunnyhoppor
Finally, there is one other group of decks that did well and could be very strong going forward: the cube decks. Cubelock took a bit of a hit in match win rate week 2, but hunter and rogue held at about the same win rate, suggesting that people either did not try to counter them or were not successful in doing so. These decks are relevant in that they offer a way to counter passive control decks effectively while still having a solid chance against lineup switches since they can contest aggro far better than the likes of Quest Rogue and Topsy Priest.
Closing Thoughts:
Based on the results of week 2 in TESPA, it is clear that if you can counter your opponent's previous lineup in conquest, you should do so. Super polarized lineups with all OTK or all control were able to take advantage of teams that brought the same decks two weeks in a row. However, a small number of proactive decks like Even Paladin and Miracle Rogue did well in spite of the counter meta by just contesting all lineups. One notable thing about these decks is that even when lineups with them lost, the series were usually very close, as shown by the high average wins. Rush warrior, a potential meta breaker identified last week, still looks very strong so it will be exciting to see the deck's win rate develop as more matches are played.
As teams that continue to counter opponents succeed and teams that don't look at opposing decks before submitting their own lose, it will be interesting to see if the hard-counter lineups continue to find the same success as the strong consistent ones. The format is swiss, so winning teams that use counter strategies will play each other more and more. The hard counters may work better or worse depending on the hard counters brought in response.
That's it for week 2, check back for week 3 after this week of matches is complete. Thanks and let us know what you enjoyed and how we can improve!