GosuCup SEA is one of the biggest open tournaments for the Southeast Asian region. Hundreds of players sign up to play each Saturday and as a result these events become rich sources of data. Although the GosuCups do not force players to choose several decks and stick to them, competitors do go through a pick phase to choose three classes for each series and then play it out in a Conquest format.

More than 2,600 games played later, we’ve arrived at some interesting data.

Hunter, Mage and Warlock are the top three most played classes in the tournament, present in 34%, 33% and 33% of all games, respectively. It’s no shocker. Hunter is a class that’s easy to build and relatively easy to play so it appeals to novice players as well as experienced veterans. The class is as strong as ever even with Undertaker long nerfed.

Same goes for Mage and Warlock. Their aggressive archetypes do not cost lots of dust and appeal to a lot of new players. At the same time, their more complicated builds like Freeze Mage and Handlock variations are often championed by the best players in the region. All three classes are incredibly strong in general as well, so seeing them as the three most played is of no surprise.

What is surprising are the lower pick rates of Druid and Warrior. Druid has been a class that’s been labeled as bad for Conquest formats. Warrior, on the other hand, despite being one of the best classes right now, is fifth in popularity with 24%. There are two explanations for that. One is that players are not willing to take a risk, playing a highly complex OTK deck like the Patron Warrior and stick to more stable and tested line-ups. The other would be the fact that Patron Warrior only gained popularity in the last month, so the first quarter of the GosuCup 2015 season was more or less poor on Warriors.

Win-rates-wise, we see things turn around to paint a very familiar picture. Warrior is on top, followed by Druid and then Hunter. And once again, Mage is experiencing a major difference between its popularity and win-rates, something that we saw in the Kinguin PRO League as well. The class is easily counterable if you know what to expect and as a result it suffers.

Now, let’s compare the Southeast Asian meta to the western one. If we look at the European and NA metagames, both seem to value Warrior more highly than Southeast Asian. Of course, the recorded western tournaments are mostly televised ones where controlling what decks are played is possible and players are forced to stick with their choice for the entire tournament, so differences are bound to happen. But the difference in the warrior department is staggering – the class is fourth in popularity in Southeast Asia but it’s first in Europe and second in North America. SEA also seems to value Mage a lot, while that class is outside the top three for both Western regions.

Comparing the win-rates is a lot more interesting. The only class the three regions share in the top 3 is Hunter, otherwise they’re completely different. The two graphs below display three completely different preferences. In last month, SEA’s victories have been brought by Druids, Hunters and Warriors. In North America, the three best classes are Hunter, Rogue and Warlock, while in Europe it’s Mage, Paladin and Hunter. Those are seven different classes with high win-rates, clearly displaying the unique favoritism the three scenes display.

The discrepancy goes to big lengths when you look at Warrior. SEA players are just above the neutral rate, at 51%, but neither EU nor NA are in the positive with the class. In NA, the class is at the respectful fifth place with 50% but in Europe Warrior is actually the second worst class with 47% win-rate, tied with Shaman and two places below Priest.

Similar pattern repeats with the Mage class, Europe’s heaviest hitter at 55%. Only Jaina is not doing well at all outside the old continent and is SEA’s third worst at 47% and North America’s very worst with only 27%. Rogue is another interesting class that behaves in such a way. Valeera is NA’s second best class with 55%, is in the middle for SEA with 51% and is second worst in Europe with as low as 19%.

One doesn’t have to think long and hard before understanding these fluctuations. North America is wide known for its Rogue experts with players like Firebat and Hyped, while at the same time players such as Lifecoach, StanCifka, Savjz and ThijsNL have been championing different variations of Mage for a long time. With Europe also loving playing a slower meta, we even have Paladin at 55% and Priest at 50% win-rates.