Top Decks Overview
A constant top placer, Ethelhime has finally found a first place finish at a major tournament thanks to some new tools added in Masquerade Of The Macabre.
While much of the maindeck power of the deck remains the same, a few new pieces have helped to round out some of the deck's defensive power. Alehouse Drink - Gin and Alehouse Drink - Vodka offer both new reveal effects for engine utility, aswell as defensive tools for more interaction.
Grunhilda, The Alehouse Valkyrie is another exciting tool, with Fierce to help contest the board against Warrior based Aggro and Midrange list, and Valhalla offering another effect for Reveal triggers, alongside the ability to recur Warriors from discard. With the power of several Warriors in the list, the ability to reuse them is a huge ability to access in the list.
The success of Tempo/Aggro lists in this tournament will continue, and Ethelhime looks to be one of the core decks able to exploit the loss of Welcome To Alburdunn, 1 copy of Mists From The Fata Morgana, and an increasing metagame reliance on Ecrutek, The Wandering Warlock.
Black Magic is another enticing deck in the metagame, but I expect that will take a hit as more decks prepare for effect damage from both Adramelech and Castiel.
A few new cards have popped up in these lists, with the new Black Magic Tome - Envy, and Black Magic Tome - Lust. Very similarly to the Fortified Drinks for Ethelhime, the new Tomes offer more consistent power for the eradication engine, as well as some new defensive power. Black Magic Tome - Envy in particular gives some very notable defensive power, especially with specific tools like Black Magic Barrier and Shroud Of Black Magic for effect and battle damage prevention.
A few other tech options can also be seen in the lists, with the Fractured Warriors in our 2nd place list, and Hell Freezes Over in 5th place.
Freakshow continues to find success, with variants of the deck helmed by both Angelica and Marianas. The list continues to support a powerful draw engine fueled by the Freakshow Warrior package and Plunder Party.
As mentioned, as defensive tools skew further towards reliance on Ecrutek, the deck's ability to easily dig towards Sunrise, Consumed By Courage gives a ton of ability to push in near-guaranteed kills once the engine is online.
From my personal experience with the deck, I found that with a little more interaction and less engine pieces I was still able to have the engine online relatively consistently, but I'd be curious about going down 1-2 interactive pieces again to have a little more velocity with some copies of Peace Of Mind.
Overall, this list continues to show a solid performance among the aggressive options, and it'll be interesting to continue to explore how it performs compared to other similar aggro lists like Blastforge Aggro.
Also notable that in the wake of Welcome To Alburdunn being fully suspendend, this will likely be the only home for Viviana, The Festival Royalty for the foreseeable future with the main draw to Viv sideboard packages entirely dissolved.
Rogues have seen a bit more love in this tournament, with two pilots making top 8, and one making top 4. With new engine tools bolstered from Masquerade Of The Macabre, it's shaping out to be a notable tempo list in the current metagame.
Compared to Fandorians you lose out on more proactive board presence and power, but in return Angelica makes use of a variety of technical interactive pieces. In a metagame where difficult to interact with aggressive decks threaten a ton of power, the ability for cards like Alvar's Rogue Connection and Deadly Rogue Assault to threaten to wipe out boards of Warriors from the discard pile is appealing. Additionally, the wicked quick kill potential of Rogue Dynamite Dice is particularly interesting in an aggressive with less defensive tools.
With the extra consistency afforded by the new Secret Passages, the deck looks to be a significantly more relevant option in the metagame, as possibly the fastest pure-hero Archetype, and the one with the most unique routes of interaction.
Finally, Rosaline has also managed to find some competitive footing coming out of her inaugural set release. In the same vein as Mortis and Mal'ady, Rosaline has the ability to create notably sticky boards of Warriors, relevant in a metagame where Warrior based Aggro decks may excel.
Crimson Coven and Crimson Coffin both offer strong board protection abilities, which can permit the deck to be more resilient against Warrior removal in both control lists and aggressive ones. If this proves true, Rosaline should likely follow suite with other aggro decks. Compared to other lists however, Vampires doesn't appear to have tools specifically kitted to dealing with Ecrutek, making it a significantly easier deck to stall out then other aggro lists.
It's still early to figure out how Rosaline will fit into a still fluctuating metagame, but there's certainly a lot of promise for Vampires competitively, and I'm excited to see how the list will continue to evolve and shape out.