The last few patches have brought many balance changes, a new hero and some interesting reworks. We’ve checked how the meta is doing with all the new tweaks in Storm League.

Disclaimer: all data comes from Heroes Profile. Statistics are from current patch Storm League across all regions. We didn’t set any hero level requirement or map limitations. Percentages might have changed since this article was written.

We The People (Bronze-Platinum)

Even if we think we’re good, most of us are ranked between bronze and platinum. Here, Rexxar is the king. In fact, he has been for a while now, always among the highest win rates. Once people understand the hero (after hero level 10), the win rate skyrockets over 55%. However, the half-orc has never been the most popular hero.

The second highest average win rate belongs to the newcomer, Mei. We could say she’s a hero with a great snowball potential, but that would only be a cheap pun. The truth is she is strong but not unfair. With her crowd control kit, Mei has a great potential to choose her battles by slowing and repositioning the enemies or just freezing herself until her teammates join the fight.





Mei isn’t just powerful, she’s one of the most contested picks. However, the reworked heroes are really close to her success. Both Tassadar and Cassia have a popularity over 50% and a ban rate over 35%. The Diablo 2 Amazon has a frightening 53% win rate whereas Tassadar’s win rate is close to “perfect balance” at 50%. Tracer—whose rework was launched alongside Cassia’s—has a much lower popularity (under 12%), though her win rate is not bad at all.

Even if the novelty of reworked and new heroes tends to raise their pick and ban ratios, the king of this popularity contest is far from new: Kael'thas. The Sunstrider is banned in half the games played. We’ll never know if people ban him because he’s too powerful (the 48% win rate doesn’t point to it though) or because they just don’t want to have a suicidal pyromaniac teammate losing his Convection charges again and again.

The Chosen Ones (Diamond-Grandmaster)

If Rexxar was the power pick for the mere mortals, that’s not the case for the best among us. The beastmaster is still strong at a 57% win rate, but there are even stronger options. The necromancer Xul sits on top with a 58.73% win rate through more than 3000 games. We’ve seen the potential this Diablo hero has at competitive games, where he enables many different compositions, so it’s no surprise.

The next powerhouse is…well, the next powerhouse are The Lost Vikings. The changes to experience globes and their rework made the omnipresence of TLV even more useful, and now they’re close to Xul at a 57% win rate.





When we look at the popularity data we realize a painful truth. The cake was a lie. If Cassia, Mei, and Tassadar were strong-ish in low elo, they’re ubiquitous above Diamond. They’re literally in every single game. The three of them have a 100% popularity. It looks like they’re a menace hard to deal with once people learn how to play them.

Despite this shared popularity, their stories aren’t exactly the same. Cassia is spearheading the trio with a 56% win rate and almost a 90% ban rate. Mei’s powerful CC is fearsome, with only slightly smaller win and ban ratios. Tassadar is the most balanced of this trio because even if the Protoss has a huge damage output, that’s something that can be challenged by other high-damage or hypercarry heroes. That’s why his ban rate is “only” at 70%.

Numbers Don't Win Games
(But May Help)

Now we know the numbers, but remember that numbers alone mean nothing. A powerful hero can help you win games, but you need to understand how to build them, when to pick them, what makes them strong, and what makes them weak. Mei, Cassia and Tassadar are working fine, but they’re not out of control. Even if Tracer isn’t as powerful as them, she’s playable, so we can say the last release and reworks have been successful.

The short lists we’ve presented hide many details about the meta. For example, no healers are feature in them. To have a more complete view of the meta, we can check the popularity per role in diamond and beyond (because in low elo everything can work to a certain point). The tank pool is small, with Mei, ETC, Garrosh, and Johanna appearing in most of the games (all of them above 68% pick-ban ratio). Usually the alternative when they are banned is Diablo (39%), almost 20 points above all the remaining heroes.

The healers have a larger pool, but Ana stands out as a key pick with a popularity of 66%. When she is already contested, the priority picks are Rehgar, Deckard, Brightwing, and Lúcio. When we look at bruisers—using the Blizzard role system—there are two prominent picks: Imperius and Xul (both over 50% popularity). When they’re not available, Sonya, Deathwing, Rexxar, and Artanis are probably the best choices.

As we’ve said before, Cassia and Tassadar have a 100% popularity, but both can be banned at a time. That’s why Li-Ming (50%), Kael’thas (43%), or Greymane (38%) are also picked in many games...they also bring in tons of damage like the reworked heroes!