User:Rhicks22/sandbox

Vicious Syndicate
Vicious Syndicate is an Esports organization focused on Hearthstone data analysis. Founded in Fall of 2014, Vicious Syndicate began as a tournament organizer, piloting the "Tuesday Night Hype" (TNH), a weekly tournament series sanctioned by Blizzard Entertainment. In May, 2016, Vicious Syndicate released their first "Data Reaper Report:" a weekly report on the changes in Hearthstone's Standard ladder meta-game. This article has consistently been released to this day. The goal of these articles is meant to " increasing the community’s collective knowledge about Hearthstone." Page text. , www.vicioussyndicate.com/staff/

Data Reaper Report
The Data Reaper Report uses data collected by players who share their data with Vicious Syndicate using either "Track O Bot," or "HS Deck Tracker." These are secondary programs that track decklists, creating game recordings, and keep track of more specific statistics (mulligan win rates, drawn win rates, overall record, card changes, average game time etc). This data is then compiled in terms of overall win rates and usage and is released in a series of charts and tier lists divided by ranked categories within the competitive ladder. Class experts help fill out card changes within each playable class to update the most successful decklists which are then suggested on each report within the respective class sections.

Class Experts
Class Experts are volunteers picked by the Vicious Syndicate team to help scout and report on meta changes for each class on their respective format. Class Experts must be constant Legend (the highest ranked bracket) players who are able to analyze in-game content/changes and keep on top of the current metagame. These findings are taken into consideration by the rest of the team, and finally released in the report later that week.

VS Gold App
The VS Gold App is an application that requires paid access past the first two weeks of use. The app shows live changes to data received and is divided by tier list, matchup rates, usage and ranks. Players can use this app to read live changes to the ladder, and use the decks that are best suited to the current situation they are playing in. This data is not analyzed, however, and is therefore strictly based off of what players are sending in. As a result, data in the app is more accurate then data found in the Data Reaper Reports in terms of it being immediate, but the data given in each report is of a higher quality for the longstanding meta.

A Song of Fiery War Axe and Icebreaker
During the "Kobolds and Catacombs" meta, a Hearthstone expansion released on December 7th, 2017, two classes (Shaman and Warrior) were considered unplayable in a competitive setting. As a result, Vicious Syndicate started releasing short stories of these character's antics as a way to mend a meta that wasn't showing any interesting changes. The joke unexpectedly gained a lot of popularity within the Hearthstone Community and evolved into a returning series of short stories involving all the in-game classes as characters reflecting the current mood of the ladder meta. "A song of Fiery War Axe and Icebreaker" is the spin-off series that resulted in these community requests. The name of this series acts as an nod to its origins. Two cards: "Fiery War Axe, and Icebreaker, are weapon cards used by the Warrior and Shaman classes respectively in the game. Neither of which has had any competitive relevance within the past few season of Standard, therefore rendering them irrelevant cards competitively, like the classes were at the inception of the joke.