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The LoE Bonus (Bug?), Arena Class Statistics & more... @heartharena

In the past weeks some people have requested class statistics for the new expansion like we did for TGT. Since it has now been 1 ½ week ago that wing 4 was released, I took the time to summarize some analysis on the first big pool of statistics (about ½ million runs drafted with HearthArena ).

Here are the results:

 

The LoE Bonus

At blizzcon Blizzard announced that there would also be an offering bonus for the new LoE cards. As of wing 4, this has indeed happened and it’s not a tiny bonus at all!

We are looking at +50% odds increase on LoE cards. This means that the offering odds of an LoE class common like Dark Pedler are 3 times higher than a Chillwind Yeti (x2 class bonus x 1.5 LoE Bonus).

There is however something strange going on. After hours I could not find any mistakes in my code or analysis and I’m left with what I believe is a bug or somehow intended offerings odds for LoE neutral rares and epics.

It seems that LoE neutral rares have exactly the opposite of a bonus (/1.5 instead of x1.5). The LoE neutral epics seem to have about a +250% bonus? There has been no difference in any of the individual days since wing 4.

The result of this is that Ancient Shade, Eerie Statue, Summoning Stone and Wobbling Runts are barely seen during the draft, and Djinni of Zephyrs and Naga Sea Witch are seen a ridiculous amount.

If a Blizzard employee reads this they might need to check their if/switch statements because Wobbling Runts are cool and Naga Sea Witch is not :).

 

Class Statistics

The overall balance between classes in TGT was actually very bad. Rogues and Paladins were clearly the best classes in the TGT Era whereas both the Warrior and the Priest were at the far bottom. Warriors being the absolute worst:

Class	Average wins compared to class average During TGT
Rogue	+0.79 wins
Paladin	+0.74 wins
Mage	+0.31 wins
Druid	+0.10 wins
Shaman	+0.00
Warlock	-0.16 wins
Hunter	-0.33 wins
Priest	-0.62 wins
Warrior	-0.84 wins

Both the Warrior and the Priest needed some big buffs in order to compete with the other classes. Warrior got two very good commons: Fierce Monkey and Obsidian Destroyer. The latter showing incredible win rates for both infinite and non-infinite players. Priests got two above average common cards: Museum Curator and Entomb.

It might not be a surprise, but because of the huge LoE bonus, and the great new Warrior commons (that replace the bad Warrior commons of TGT, offering bonus wise), Warrior has taken over the Priest and is no longer considered to be the worst class as far as statistics go.

However, it might be a surprise to see that Warrior is after 1 ½ week not even 8th. on the list:

Class	Average wins compared to class average LoE Wing 4+
Rogue	+0.70 wins
Paladin	+0.63 wins
Mage	+0.21 wins
Warlock	+0.13 wins
Druid	-0.08 wins
Shaman	-0.13 wins
Warrior	-0.36 wins
Hunter	-0.54 wins
Priest	-0.56 wins

When we compare the two tables we can find the big winners and losers but what’s also important is that the mean difference has gone down which results in an overall more balanced Arena, which will eventually lead to more variance!

Class	Difference TGT vs LoE Wing 4+
Warrior	+0.49 wins
Warlock	+0.29 wins
Priest	+0.06 wins
Rogue	-0.09 wins
Mage	-0.11 wins
Paladin	-0.11 wins
Shaman	-0.13 wins
Druid	-0.18 wins
Hunter	-0.21 wins

As the table shows, the increase for Warriors is by far the biggest. The Hunter got some bad cards in LoE which results in the biggest drop. Druid has the problem of the TGT bonus being removed. Without the TGT Bonus we are no longer seeing cards like Darnassus Aspirant, Savage Combatant, Living Roots and Druid of the Saber as often.

Warlock has also gained a lot, which brings us to the next subject.

 

Most impactful cards

LoE is a relatively small expansion but it has changed both Constructed and Arena by a lot. For arena the following three cards show the highest win rates of the new cards:

Dark Peddler:

A couple days after wing #1 Dark Pedler already showed ridiculous win rates. I promised fast tier list updates when cards seem to be stronger than initially expected. Rather than waiting for a card’s exact value, cards move closer to their expected tier list in steps, while more statistics and experiences are gathered. Dark Pedler was patched near immediately to a 75 because that was a score I knew I did not have to decrease again.

However, Dark Pedler continued to show insane results. As of now, there are 3 Warlock cards which are miles above the other Warlock cards in terms of pure win rates: Imp Gang Boss, Imp-losion and yes, Dark Pedler. Even though Warlock got 2 very bad cards in LoE, the LoE Bonus and Dark Pedler help make Warlock the second biggest winner of LoE so far.

Obsidian Destroyer:

Fiery War Axe, Death’s Bite and Arathi Weaponsmith are Warrior’s premium cards. Obsidian Destroyer is now the fourth best performing Warrior card among all skill levels. With the LoE bonus buffing the amount of times we see Obsidian Destroyer and Fierce Monkey, Warrior has finally become a class again ;).

Keeper of Uldaman:

Keeper of Uldaman is seen as a hard card to master. However, it’s funny to see that worse players do relatively equal/better than infinite players which means among all skill levels, Keeper of Uldaman is showing great results. It performs slightly above Shielded Minibot, becoming the second highest win rate common card in Paladin.

 

HearthArena Tierlist

The HearthArena tierlist has now been updated to reflect the first analysis on LoE card statistics. Overall the initial tier values that were given turned out to be really close to how the cards actually perform. For those who don’t know, the initial values for LoE were made by analyzing many videos, reddit posts, forums and by talking with multiple arena experts.

However, because of recent events I have chosen to reveal with who we are/will be working, in early 2016. The most important thing is that HearthArena will work with a team of individual arena experts rather than a single individual or duo. By doing this I hope we gather more opinions about cards and maybe even run multiple tier lists.

 

What's next...

Despite the break, 2015 has been a great year for HearthArena and Hearthstone Arena in general. The feedback on the overwolf app has been great and throughout the year we've seen many happy people making their "first 12-win" post.

Aside from becoming a father, 2016 will be a year in where I will continue to work full-time on HearthArena. Plans are to further improve the algorithm, mainly in regards to deck archetypes, and to create and apply new methods of data analysis.

Early 2016 we will do a huge tier list update that is expected to move a lot of cards as there are quite some problems that came to light about how and which card statistics were used in the past to update the tierlist. But maybe most exciting is that HearthArena will start to offer more than its drafting tool and tier list, the goal is to become that Hearthstone Arena hub for all your Arena needs :).

I hereby want to wish Hearthstone reddit a merry Christmas, a happy new year and want to take this opportunity to thank all those that supported me and HearthArena in general during the good and bad periods of 2015!

Thanks,

-HearthArena

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