Greetings readers. Welcome to the latest state of the meta, featuring level 16 for the first time ever. There’s a lot to get into so strap in and enjoy.

Data Disclaimers

• The data has been captured from all level 16 games
  • Note this does mean that data from before and after the recent ranger and fighter challenges is included – more later
  • These changes were small enough that they shouldn’t have a substantive effect on win rates
• All mirrors have been removed from win rates (ie all human wizard vs human wizard games)
• All beta win rates reflect games where one player was playing a beta class
• Ranked online games (RT and async) and pvp challenge games are included in the data set

Meta Snapshot

Public

Beta

Public

Cleric

Smallfolk: 48.84%

Half demon: 37.98%

Human: 30.65%

Cleric is struggling at level 16, but that’s nothing new. Smallfolk has made its way to the meta mashup for the first time and is coming in ahead of half demon cleric. Overall, clerics matchup spreads are much of the same. An unwinnable matchup against wizard (<20%), an unlosable matchup against fighter (>80%), an unfavoured matchup against thief (~40%), and a favoured matchup against ranger(~60%). While its matchup spread is pretty balanced, thief and wizard have a much greater play rate than fighter and ranger, and as a result, we see its win rate plumet.

Fighter

Dwarf: 64.54%

Ogre: 60.79%

Half Demon: 57.42%

Human: 34.18%

Fighter is the biggest winner of level 16. At level 16, every class has the ability to forgo hp upgrades to get a second ability and fighter is both the best user of this feature, and the best class to take advantage of others trying to do the same. In terms of matchups dwarf and ogre exhibit are similar with the notable exception that ogre wins against dwarf in the mirror, and dwarf has better changes against elf and half demon wizards. Beyond that, they have an unwinnable matchup against cleric, a neutral matchup against ranger, a highly favoured matchups against smallfolk wizard and a favourable matchup against thieves.

Half demon on the other hand has a slightly different approach to its matchup spreads. It sacrifices win rate against wizard to marginally improve the cleric matchup such that there is a chance to win.

Ranger

Human: 36.44%

Elf: 34.19%

Ranger is really struggling right now. It looks like it might be slightly favoured against fighter, but it loses to the rest. It loses slightly to cleric (~40%), loses more to thief (~30%), and really badly to wizard (<20%). Ranger’s largest headache is that it does not synergise with ancestry as well as any other class and so just doesn’t keep up. On the other hand, it does have the best human win rate which seems to suggest that ancestry is the cause of the ranger’s woes, something that was not covered by the arena balancing the game has been designed around over the last few months.

Thief

Elf: 54.18%

Smallfolk: 45.52%

Half Demon: 47.31%

Human: 31.39%

Thief continues to be in a decent spot in the meta. This is the debut of both elf and half demon thief on a written meta mashup and both seem to be competing well with the smallfolk thief. To outline the strengths of all these ancestries, smallfolk can get absurd smooth heists thanks to burgle, half demon has the inbuilt sac that thief so desperately wants and doesn’t have to drop knife belt to get it, and elf sacrifices those turn 1 smooth heists for some ongoing cycle to really utilise shadow mask to the fullest.

In terms of matchup spreads, thief is strongly favoured against cleric and ranger (>70%), strongly unfavoured against wizard (<30%) and has a varying matchup against fighter depending on ancestry. Overall, half demon does the best against fighter, then smallfolk, then elf. Elf has the highest win rate because in this snapshot it had the best overall in thief mirrors and had a marginally higher win rate against wizard which makes up most of the ladder.

Wizard

Half Demon: 66.95%

Smallfolk: 62.76%

Elf: 58.30%

Human: 26.09%

Wizard is once again at the top of the format. Ever since ancestries were released to beta, we knew that this would happen and its kind of absurd how good it is. The entire meta is currently shaped around it, and every classes win rate is almost singlehandedly determined by how good against wizard it is.

Half demon is at the top of everything, with no bad matchups against anything except dwarf fighter. It has neutral matchups against SF wizard, HD fighter, and Ogre fighter, is favoured against Elf Wizard, and is strongly favoured against everything else. SF wizard differs from HD because it hard loses to aggro, but is slightly better against non-wizards. Elf wizard on the other hand has the best matchup against cleric, is the best wizard against aggro, but has worse matchups against thief and loses to half demon wizards.

Wizard is clearly too strong and nerfs are warranted. Level 16+ testing in arena was done without ancestry, and this is what has pushed wizard over the edge. Map is the obvious power outlier and I believe I safe nerf to map is to remove the inbuilt draw a card and replace it with 1 gold. This puts it in a spot similar to where it was prior to the reserve system and should slow down wizards that go for map builds which should be late game focused given how many benefits that card provides.

Beta Meta

Alchemist

Win Rate: 59.43%

Alchemist is the strongest class in the game right now when you ignore the influence of ancestry. It currently only has one losing matchups in HD wizard (45%). In terms of neutral matchups, alchemist has them against SF and Elf wizard, barbarian, and bard. It is favoured against everything else. Additionally, while not captured in the stats, the standard alchemist build also loses to the swarm style builds of necromancer that focus on making large boards, and it beats the necromancer builds that try to play the market.

Barbarian

Win Rate: 59.68%

Barbarian is performing well on ladder, however has a much healthier matchup spread than alchemist in that it actually has weaknesses. The main factor driving barbarians win rate is a positive or neutral matchups against wizards across the board with a 50% matchup against HD, a 100% against SF (13 games) and an 83% against Elf (12 games). In addition, barbarian is favoured against druid, thief, bard, and ranger. On the flip side, barbarian has terrible matchups against fighter, cleric, and monk. The monk matchup is particularly dire with a 10% chance to win. Overall barbarian is a good class on ladder, however it has quite volatile matchups that make climbing somewhat frustrating with it.

Bard

Win Rate: 48.68%

Bard is the biggest winner in terms of win rate of the beta classes going to level 16. Bard is inherently a class that needs early economy and healing, so both upgrades work exceptionally well for the bard’s kit. Bard for the most part has a balanced matchup spread, with neutral matchups to alchemist, monk, and fighter. Bard is favoured against druid and thief and is strongly favoured against cleric and ranger. Unfortunately, bard does suffer with a bad matchup against wizard (~30%), and a truly unwinnable matchup against necromancer (~10%).

Druid

Win Rate: 35.05%

Druid is currently at the bottom of the barrel of the beta classes. What’s worse is that it currently does not have any favourable or neutral matchups, with the exception of a neutral matchup against necromancer, but it is the least played class so sample size may be hiding this. On the bright side, except for wizard, none of the matchups are truly terrible. Speaking of, from 19 games, druid has yet to beat half demon wizard at level 16. Druid desperately needs some balance changes in its favour to be competitive.

Monk

Win Rate: 58.84%

Monk is doing very well right now, however has a disconcerting matchup spread. Monk is currently being kept in check by alchemist (30%) and wizards (40%). It has a neutral matchup to bard and is varying degrees of favoured against the rest of the classes. Druid and thief are the lesser of the favoured (~70%), however it does have multiple matchups in what we would describe as unlosable in a way that is unhealthy. Ranger and necromancer are about 80% favoured for monk, however barbarian is a 90% matchup, and fighter is a 100% matchup. No other class has a stranglehold on as many classes as the monk so something probably needs to change.

Necromancer

Win Rate: 50.75%

Necromancer is the ultimate coin flip and has by far the unhealthiest matchup spread in the game. It has a neutral matchup against druid, and according to the stats it has a neutral matchup against alchemist. In practice, when played and built correctly, necromancer is highly favoured against alchemist. In terms of matchups, it is unfavoured against barbarian, and highly unfavoured against wizard, monk, and fighter. On the flip side, it is highly favoured against ranger, thief, cleric, and bard. No other class has the polarity of necromancer, and something probably needs to change for it to be in a healthy place, even if its win rate is healthy.

Base Classes

HD Wizard: 66.52%

SF Wizard: 54.72%

Human Thief: 28%

The three above have enough games against beta classes that they show up in our beta snapshot. HD wizard beats every beta class, SF wizard beats everything except barbarian, and human thief loses to everything except druid.

Overall Balance

To round everything up, wizard needs a nerf across the board. In an ancestry world, it is way too powerful and something needs to change.

On the flip side, the beta classes are performing significantly better than the original classes across the board, and the upcoming and unknown release of ancestry to these will certainly break them. In the short term balancing around human beta classes should be done, and monk, alchemist, and barbarian all need a nerf. In addition, druid needs a buff. For monk and alchemist, I’d address the amount of healing the class has access to. Monk for example should probably not heal 16 on its draw 2 ability, and alchemist I’d suggest fireworks to get a minor touch (eg, make imperial heal 2, and the other three do 1 damage). This should help give alchemist losing matchups to fighter and barbarian, and should mean that monk does not automatically beat fighter and barbarian. Barbarian on the other hand probably needs a minor damage reduction as its win rate is a bit too high. I’d look at either crushed coin or serrated handaxe to go down by 1 when berserk. Druid on the other hand probably needs an incentive to have rabbits stunned. At the moment, if someone runs rabbit and spirit bear form, there is no reason to kill the rabbits until after the spirit bear has been used. While I wouldn’t revert the rabbit nerf from last year, I would look at giving rabbits a healing or combat ability when they are both in play.