A History of Official Meta Snapshots - Every Expansion Since Old Gods - With Pie Charts!
Blizzard, by way of Dean "Iksar" Ayala, posted a whole thread full of pie charts about every Constructed Meta since the Old Gods expansion. We posted them here for you in easy to digest form, check it out!
Quote from BlizzardBeen doing some research on how diversity/balance affect player population over time and had some fun reminiscing over past metas.
All data represents 1-2 months post-launch of relevant set. Generally, the meta that lasted the longest during that expansion.
Summary
- Biggest Class representation: Druid 45.97% in Knights of the Frozen Throne
- Smallest Class representation: Hunter 0.68% in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
- Biggest Deck representation: Tempo Rogue 24.18% in Rise of Shadows
Shaman has 5 digits percentage like 5 times, and was under 2% more than that... And how did they fare so badly in DoD when Galakrond was one of the time Shaman was busted? Yet in Darkmoon Faire, evolve was rightfully presented as 19.5% out of 24%.
Was galakrond not as strong as people thought?
The statistics were taken mid expansion which would be after the massive nerf to all Shaman Galakrond stuff they put in several weeks in. After that nerf the deck disappeared. Discounting the Tunnel Trogg era, every time after that Shaman had something good Blizzard destroyed it quickly.
I'm so weird. I really don't care about class diversity. I only care about archetype diversity.
I could care less if your aggro deck has a pic of a warrior or a priest next to it. Couldn't care less, actually.
IMHO a meta isn't balanced when all the classes are at 10% representation. The meta is balanced and when the top 6 decks by win rate include aggro, mid-range, tempo, control, and combo.
Give me that data.
Zoo Warlock and Control Warriors with Old Gods that didn't cheese out the game by duping their deck.
Yep you've got to go back to WotoG to find the best meta displayed in the data.
Curious to see some graphs for the older sets aswell. Mainly Undertaker Hunter in Naxxramas - early GvG and Secrtet Paladin in knights of the Frozen Tournament.
My decks in each Meta:
Old Gods - Mid-Range Hunter (amazing call of the wild)
Karazhan - Mid-Range Shaman
Gadgetzan - Jade Shaman and Jade Druid
Ungoro - Quest Warrior
Frozen Trhone - Murloc Paladin (I didn't play much at that time)
Kobolds - I dont remember
Witchwood - Odd Warior and Secret Mage
Boomsday - Odd Rogue
Rastakhan - Spell Hunter
Rise of Shadows - Bomb Warrior
Uldum - Highlander Hunter
Dragon - Galakrond Rogue
Outland - Galakrond Rogue
Scholomancy - Secret Rogue and Soul DH
Darkmoon - Tempo Rogue
Barrens - DeathRattle DH and Rush Warrior
Stormwind - Quest Warrior, Elemental Shaman and Secret Paladin
Alterac - Libram Paladin and Quest Warrior
and yours, what are they?
Here They Are
Old Gods - C'Thun Warrior
Karazhan - Barnes Hunter
Gadgetzan - Jade Druid
Un'Goro - Quest Warlock
Frozen Throne - Aggro Druid
Kobolds - Spell Hunter
Witchwood - Odd Priest and Even Warlock
Boomsday - Mecha'thun Rogue
Rastakhan - Murloc Warrior
Rise of Shadows - Bomb Warrior
Uldum - Highlander Mage
Dragons - Galakrond Priest
Outland - Galakrond Priest
Scholomance - Secret Paladin
Darkmoon - N'Zoth Paladin
Barrens - Core Demon Hunter
Stormwind - Quest Warrior
Alterac - Deathrattle Demon Hunter
Try Those Decks Out
Thanks for asking, wanna share as well...
But after remembering all decks which i played over time i must say i was playing around 3 types of archetype in one expansions pretty often, so i will just mention some interesting decks which i remember i played a lot (like more often than classic decks). Silence Priest (Rise of Shadow) and Elemental Mage (Barrens)
Also, I have a rich list of ideas for deck-building tavern brawls, in 3 categories:
1. Limiting
Example 1: Rarity: "Pauper" mode in MtG (only common cards can be used)
Example 2: Number of entries: already seen in Top2/3/4 and "your 15 cards + opponents' 15 = your decks".
2. Expanding
Ex. 1: build a deck with a full(er) set of cards than are in your collection. Even the playing field for those with limited collections!
Ex.2: play with modified/unreleased/to-be-released/user-generated-competition-winning cards.
Ex.3: Before a new core set rotation, let people vote on cards they want to see in core, by including them in decks and winning games w them! Share the stats and proclaim the winners! (might have to allow access to all cards for it to be fair/representative)
3. Raise the stakes
Leaderboards, 12W/3L, Win-with-all-classes for a special reward, the above-mentioned win-to-cast-your-vote method.
Leaderboard idea: "Get the most achievements within a single game (start from 0)" - previously unlocked achievements grant rewards as usual.
Weighted average
Rogue: 16.3%
Druid: 12.5%
Hunter: 11.73%
Warrior: 10.71%
Demon Hunter: 10.55%
Mage: 9.59%
Warlock: 9.41%
Priest: 9.37%
Shaman: 8.66%
Paladin: 8.1%
With some margin for error, because many of the slices aren't even labeled so I had to approximate.
The golden class in Hearthstone is ROGUE
The dumpster classes in Hearthstone are SHAMAN and PALADIN. Surprised? Not if you've been paying attention, really.
I asked for meta stats in the comments under Iksar's first AMA here a few months back. +++ I feel heard! +++
What we need now is MORE DATA, MORE OFTEN.
Some ideas (not sure all of these are possible)
CARD STATS:
Most included neutral card (by expansion?)
Most included neutral Legendary card.
Most crafted (Legendary) card.
Rarest collected card (I bet it's the Golden Geblin Mechatorque that was gifted for using $ in the shop back in beta)
OTHER COLLECTION STATS:
Rarest card backs (collected by the fewest number of players)
Rarest hero portraits
Rarest Achievements
OTHER QUESTIONS:
What % of players play only 1 game mode per week vs % who play 2, 3, 4, or all 5.
What are some unexpected patterns observed in player's overall activity?
What do people most complain about that is not clearly evidenced (or is even contradicted) by game data?
What have been the most played Tavern Brawls?
Any plans for more stat summaries in-game? I specifically want to see more Duels stats, similar to BG premium.
Stats are important for a healthy discourse within the community, and sharing also means caring! Thanks for reading!
This is funny, really shows you that sometimes there is a very vocal minority for their disdain for certain archetypes - so many people complained about quest warrior, and its literally only shown for the AV expansion, at sub 5%, and not even shown in Stormwind meta lmao.
Quest Warrior wasn't a thing until they buffed the Pirates (overbuffed, as they had to roll one of them back!) and then released more broken pirates in the miniset.
If they had split the numbers before and after the miniset things would have been a lot different.
Journey to Un'goro is the clear winner for a meta
Really? Quest rogue was disgusting
The charts are very colorful and all, but ... Did Dean learn anything about diversity and player population?
I can't resist a good spreadsheet so I made some stats :p
In average, Rogue is the most played class with 16.28%
All classes have had their lowest. The highest of those lowest is for Demon Hunter (4.45% in Barrens) then Druid (3.49% in Darkmoon)
Similarly, the lowest highest is Mage (17.01% in Shadows)
Mage and Demon Hunter have never been the most played class in a meta. Demon Hunter, Druid and Rogue have never been last.
Shaman is the most polarizing class. In 18 metas, it has been first 4 times and last 6 times (so in between only 8 times)
All in all, Rogue has seen most love (4th in average) while Paladin, Priest and Shaman have seen the least (6th in average)
Careful with the "never" thou. These charts are just snap shots 1-2 months into the expansion cycle. For instance the Darkmoon faire had two rounds of nerfs with about 3 weeks distance, from which this chart is taken from, so it seems like evolve shaman ruled the expansion but only for 3 weeks.
Yes of course. I only used the data that was taken into account in this article. But it is not very reliable, just like all data ;-)
One thing that strikes me is how small a portion the Genn/Baku decks actually were. At least within the confines of the charts... sounds like they aren't exactly complete in terms of timeline.
Even Paladin very early when it was completely broken, a decent showing from Odd Rogue later on, but the rest is just a tiny fraction.
I still think it was good to rotate Genn/Baku early, however. The even/odd decks were so heavily hero-power focused, so the games played out in really predictable ways, which was boring.
But then again... these figures don't really match my memory. Where's Odd Paladin? Odd Warrior is a blip. These were decks that felt much more prominent in the game than these tables show. I dunno.