It's actually a good thing I waited until the end of this week to do Metagame Madness as I got the St. Peters results last night.  In a shocking development the top 2 places were swept by the juggernaut that is Watsonbury.  For those of you keeping score at home, they have now finished 1-2 in five Regionals since Worlds.  The five victories by Watson have eliminated the early gap of World Champion Guilliame Matignon in the Player of the Year race.  But that's not why we're here is it.  Let's take a look at the results from this week's Regionals.

First, it's worth noting that out of 7 Regionals across the country, I only managed to get results for 4.  If anyone knows the results from Alpharetta, Edmonton, or Birmingham, please pass those along.  Now on to the results.

Let's look at the numbers for individual heroes first this week.

Ozzati-11
Omedus-10
Mazar-9
Gorebelly-8
Telrander-8
Rotun-7
Taheo-6
Pagatha-6
Ona-5
Halavar-4
Nathadan-4
Bloody Mary-4

All tied at 3

Graccus
Phadalus
Zenith
Litori
Warrax
Morganis
Morova
Daspien
Ta'Zo

All tied at 2

Kassandra
Kalinna
Blaize
Mojo Mender Ja'nah

All tied at 1

Ruby Gemsparkle
Exaura
Indalamar
Hekto
Dizdemona
Aleyah
Yanna
Grennan
Thatia
Kana Nassis
Victoria
Dralor
Harrigan
Raesa
Urrth
Elendril

The first thing of note is that Ozzati has taken a 1 point lead in the race to be the top deck, but it remains very close.  To further ilustrate the balance in the game right now, there are nearly 130 decks represented and the current top performer only has 11.  It's really hard to break a metagame like this into tiers.  You could say that Ozzati and Pagatha are clearly in different tiers right now, but what about Ozzati and Rotun?  Rotun is clearly closer to Pagatha than it is to Ozzati, but it might be close enough to say it's the bottom of Tier 1 while Pagatha is the top of Tier 2.  I think instead of trying to attach specific labels such as Tier 1 or Tier 2 to decks, it's better to just say nothing is head and shoulders better than the rest.  No deck or decks has separated itself as THE deck to beat.  At this point, it wouldn't be shocking to play a tournament without even seeing an Ozzati deck.  So, in that vein, I'm not going to label things.  I'm just going to say you have plenty of options available right now.

This week I've decided to add a new feature here and look at this week's top performers.  This in conjunction with the overall numbers will give us a better idea as to what direction the metagame is moving in.  So here are all the heroes that placed at least 2 people into a top 8 this weekend.

Taheo-5
Ozzati-3
Gorebelly-3
Omedus-2
Mazar-2
Bloody Mary-2
Ta'Zo-2

As you can see, Taheo was the big winner this week, and I think that can be attributed to Jeremy Blair's article earlier this week about the deck that won a Spectral Tiger in Germany.  With no Darkmoon Faire or higher level events to help define the metagame, many players have followed Jeremy's advice and taken to the Gift of the Wild based Druid deck.  Since there are no decklists to look at from major events, this is really the only deck "backed" by a recognized player, so a lot of people are running with it.  When you look at this week and think back to DF: Philly and the Ozzati experiment, it shows you the power of the internet in terms of influencing the metagame.  Keep an eye on which decks certain writers talk about because you could see a major rise in the popularity of a deck after a popular writer writes about it. 

The amount of rush in this week's top performers is somewhat surprising.  Last week, it looked like the control decks were starting to make some headway, but this week, it's almost all rush at the top and Horde rush to be more specific.  Taheo, Gorebelly, Omedus, and Ta'Zo are all different takes on Horde rush.  Ozzati is the Alliance rush offering at the moment.  The only control decks seem to be Mazar and at least one of the Bloody Mary decks.  I didn't get actual decklists for both BM decks, but I know one of them was a control deck.  Other than that, it looks like rush is public enemy No. 1 right now.

Let's move on and take a look at the class breakdown. 

First are overall totals.

Mage-25
Warrior-22
Warlock-20
Druid-18
Priest-15
Rogue-11
Paladin-10
Hunter-10
Shaman-5

Mage has moved into the top spot thanks in large part to Dragon's Breath.  The card is really good in aggro matchups because of the potential to just blow the opponent out with it.  Gorebelly has helped push the Warrior forward thanks to its explosive capabilities while the Warlock has slipped from the top spot all the way back to third.  Druids made a strong push with the Gift of the Wild decks while Priests are still going with just Shadowfiend-based rush decks.  Rogues are suffering in large part due to Bringer of Death, and the bottom three classes just don't have what it takes right now.

Let's take a quick look at this week's class results.

Mage-8
Druid-7
Warrior-5
Priest-3
Warlock-2
Rogue-2
Hunter-0
Paladin-0
Shaman-0

This is the first statistic since probably U.S. Nationals and the end of Phadalus's reign that has shown any hint of imbalance.  The first thing to notice is that three classes got shut out this week.  If I would have told you a year ago that there would be a week without a Hunter or Shaman in a top 8, you would have laughed.  There was a pretty large disparity this week between the top 3 classes and everyone else.  The top 2 classes this week landed more top 8's than all 7 other classes combined.  Keep in mind, this is only one week, so we'll have to keep an eye on future results to see if this is a fad or a trend. 

There is only one Regional scheduled for this weekend, so Metagame Madness will probably be taking a break next week, but I'll continue to compile what numbers are available as we start the stretch run to Darkmoon Faire: Orlando.

Tags: World Of Warcraft