Summary of the 10/22/2022 Vicious Syndicate Podcast (Second one of the 24.4.3 patch) – October 22, 2022 at 09:06PM

Listen to the most recent Vicious Syndicate podcast here – https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-podcast-episode-107/

As always, glad to do these summaries, but a summary won’t be able to cover everything and can miss nuances, so I highly recommend listening to their podcast as well. Next VS report will be out this Thursday (October 27th), with the next podcast coming out on the weekend.

General – At the beginning, ZachO and Hat talk about ZachO’s tweet earlier this week talking about taking Theotar out of multiple decks, and he was questioned if this was a data driven decision. ZachO mentions he had a dedicated Theotar analysis for this VS Report, where he examined Theotar’s performance in every archetype in the game. After analyzing its performance, Theotar really should only go into 5 decks, and the card currently sees 2x more play than it should. Card perception is still more important than the actual power level of the card, so as mentioned last week if the card’s playrate stays high, Team 5 may have to make another adjustment to the card. ZachO goes over Theotar’s performance in (almost) every deck it’s been in this week, and the class sections should reference it.

Rogue – Was the most complicated class to cover in the most recent report, and ZachO says there’s already some things he mentioned in the last podcast that he’s changed his mind on in regards to the class. The secret package in Rogue post patch looks significantly better, and ZachO attributes it to Beast Hunter. Beast Hunter generally punishes passive plays, which is what secrets are. ZachO would still like to see more data on 30 card Thief Rogue. He believes it performs much better than 40 with the little amount of data he has, but he also points out the deck is not refined at all either. Gravedigger performs significantly better in the archetype than Theotar. The card does a similar effect as Theotar and can be Shadowstepped much cheaper, making Theotar redundant. The addition of Perjury also made Gravedigger much stronger, and ZachO admits most people underrated Perjury’s effect of being able to give you a guaranteed 2 turn uptime for secrets. ZachO also mentions Theotar is the worst card in Thief Rogue by far, to the point it’s almost as bad drawing Theotar as it is drawing Maestra or Renathal. The 1 mana increase was more impactful for Rogue than other classes since you’d previously be able to Shadowstep Theotar, and that play now costs 2 more mana. Drawing Theotar off of Shroud is also back breaking. Thief Rogue’s main problem with the 40 card build is that it loses in the late game to other decks like Mage and Druid. It takes longer for you to find your power spike turns versus other late game decks that can outvalue you quicker. Something ZachO noticed after the patch is how much worse Blood in the Water got, and how much better Sprint got for the class. Because of this, ZachO is interested in running Bone Spike and Sprint in 30 card Thief Rogue and dropping cards like Gone Fishing, a low impact card. ZachO says he was originally down on Vanndar Secret Rogue, but the numbers on the most recent report for the archetype surprised him. People aren’t playing Crabatoa in the deck for some reason. To make way for Crabatoa, you can either look at cutting Theotar (which is the worst minion in the deck), or cutting a secret. Theotar is better in this archetype because of the potential Vanndar discount, but it’s a very borderline inclusion if you run it. When it comes to Miracle Rogue, ZachO says the Edwin variant is the superior build and you should run it over the Sprint version. Because the Edwin variant sees significantly less play than the Sprint variant, Miracle Rogue’s winrate can be a lot better than it is right now. There’s probably a good chance we will see a rise in counters to Miracle Rogue, which will push down its winrate. Shark Rogue’s current performance is the best ZachO has ever seen from the archetype, and the variant running Auctioneers is potentially Tier 2 at Top Legend right now. The deck seems to be worse than Miracle Rogue, but the deck has an upside where it doesn’t just lose to removal since you can make a 25+ attack weapon and win. Very difficult deck to play though. Bomb Rogue is also good based on a very small sample size. Bomb Rogue does well into Miracle Rogue and Relic DH since it can outrace those decks, and the drop in Renathal decks is helping it. Hat is personally happy the playerbase seems to be rejecting Bomb Rogue.

Warlock – Implock the best deck in the game outside of Top Legend, where it runs into its counters in larger numbers (Bless Priest, Naga Priest, Miracle Rogue). If you’re currently sitting at Diamond 4, there is no better deck to take you to Legend than Implock. The curse variant isn’t necessarily better than the Denathrius build, but it is more versatile since it gives you flexibility to win in the late game with curses. Renathal does not help you survive against curses at all.

Druid – On the podcast a few days ago, ZachO was pessimistic about Jailer being used in the class. After analyzing the card, ZachO says it looks significantly better after the patch, and believes the Hunter matchup was the reason Jailer looked unplayable in every deck previously. He now recommends running Jailer in both the offensive and defensive variants of Ramp Druid, although ZachO still recommends running the defensive build due to the Implock matchup. The offensive variant might be more viable at Top Legend if there’s not a lot of Implocks running around (this also means this might be the more viable build for tournaments). The offensive variant destroys late game matchups (ZachO notes it gains 10% in the Relic DH matchup) and wins the mirror. Hat also notes the absurd dust cost for the offensive Ramp Druid variant at over 21,000 dust. Theotar is dramatically stronger in Ramp Druid than almost every other archetype its in, so you still run it.

Mage – If you’re playing anywhere above Diamond, you need to play 30 card Spooky Mage. Renathal does nothing to help with the Implock matchup. Build is pretty solidified. At lower ladder ranks you can run the 40 card variant, but if you do, make sure to run Multicasters since they help with the deck’s consistency. Theotar looks terrible in both 30 and 40 card variants. Big Spell Mage is a minion dense deck anyways, so the Renathal build looks much closer in performance to the 30 card variant. In the current format, cheesing out with Balinda isn’t as important. A lot of people are still running Theotar in the 30 card Big Spell Mage, which is 100% incorrect. Theotar is barely good enough to make the cut in the 40 card list. ZachO would also like to see more data on Denathrius in 40 card Big Spell Mage. If Sylvanas is decent enough for the deck to run, Denathrius should be too. Theotar in Mage is only good in mirrors and against Paladin after they’ve played Order in the Court.

Demon Hunter – Finley started to see play in Felic DH, and it looks good. ZachO personally likes running Meltranix and Okani in the deck because he likes the player agency of distrupting the opponent, but the “correct” thing is likely to drop Okani for Finley. Finley can be a game saver in getting relics into your hand. You can pick 2 out of Okani, Meltranix, Finley, and Aldraci Warblades to run in the deck, and that can be a tough decision. Aggro DH hasn’t seen much development.

Priest – #1 Naga Priest fan Hat begs everyone to play Naga Priest, as it’s the best deck at Top Legend. Counters a lot of decks and is more resilient to Bless Priest’s counters. Bless Priest’s purpose is to be a hard counter to certain decks. ZachO says he shares the same sentiments of pro players in not being a fan of Bless Priest’s play patterns, but he hasn’t pushed for nerfs to the deck since its playrate has remained relatively low and primarily only sees play at Top Legend. There is very little agency playing against the deck; it basically does nothing for multiple turns and then instantly creates a ton of stats on the board, and the game comes down to if you have removal on the spot for it or not. Boar Priest is fine with a winrate close to 50%. Quest Priest can be a niche counter to other meta decks but has a lot of bad matchups. Thief Priest is a worst Quest Priest. Theotar still makes sense in Thief and Quest Priest since they don’t have good late game and need that disruption to win those types of games.

Paladin – There’s been a lot of frequent new developments in Control Paladin. ZachO says this is the first time in a very long time he’s seen this many players at higher levels of play actively work on refining a Paladin archetype. The builds featured in the VS Report feature cards ZachO has seen enough data on. The Denathrius build seems to be the slightly better variant, and it’s a very well rounded deck that beats a lot of decks seeing play at high levels (Naga/Bless Priest, Miracle Rogue), but Relic DH is arguably its worst matchup. The Jailer build is slightly worse than the Denathrius build, but it’s still very functional. Meati hit #1 Legend with a completely different build, and there’s a lot of experimentation going on, so what’s featured for Paladin next week might drastically change. Pure Paladin, not so much.

Hunter – Beast Hunter is still a very good deck, it’s only slightly worse than Implock. Tier 1 deck at every rank bracket outside of Legend, and the deck still has a positive winrate at Legend. The nerfs worked yet the deck is still viable, everyone’s happy.

Shaman – Theotar got significantly worse in Shaman. However, Control Shaman is still very dependent on disruption to win games, so it still makes the cut in the deck. It also helps that Shaman has Schooling and other nonsynergy cards to give to your opponent from a Theotar.

Warrior – Enrage Warrior is good but doesn’t see play. ZachO references the reddit post someone made about Enrage Warrior being a lot more expensive to craft than Aggro Druid without being better than Aggro Druid, which is a valid point. The deck has a lot of niche Legendaries you have to craft that don’t see play outside of Enrage Warrior itself, and why would you craft a deck like this when an expansion is right around the corner? ZachO does point out that at Legend players are usually not limited by dust and the playrate still doesn’t change at Legend.

Other miscellaneous talking points –

• During the Warlock section, ZachO notes that Implock being the new “best” deck over Beast Hunter has caused a huge shift in Renathal’s performance. Against Hunter, Renathal did help you survive and potentially win games against the deck. Against Warlock, Renathal does nothing to help you survive against curses. Renathal decks are much worse now post patch largely due to this meta shift.

• Finley is slowly becoming a flex tape type of card that you can instaslot into multiple archetypes. The card helps offset bad draws, which helps out Renathal decks in particular. You do need to be playing a deck that has good card draw options in order for Finley to be effective though. “Plot Twist is good for 1 mana Hat.” Finley should be played in more decks than Theotar, and because of that the card looks underplayed right now.

• At the end, ZachO says there’s two primary things that give him a positive outlook on the format: the nerf to Theotar being significant, and Renathal becoming weaker after the nerfs. Right now if you’re playing a Renathal deck, you’re paying a price. If the current set can punish Renathal, it bodes well for a new set of cards doing more of that.