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Written By - Thomas NeilsonMay 8th, 2023
Hosted by Nerdz Cafe in Woodstock, the May 4th Battle For Glory is the final competitive event pre-Guardians Creed. Although the event only had 6 players at the end, it's a nice final look at the closing metagame of Empires On The Rise. With some consistent top place competitors, EOR Warlords, and returning archetypes, it's a great slice of the EOR meta.
Archetype Overview
The Reigning Champs of EOR
The Reigning Champs of EOR
Onoskelis, The Fallen Angel Priestess and Sharn, The Orcbane Bloodmaiden have been consistent high tier contenders, and have carried that strength through the meta of Empires On The Rise. Their appearance at tournaments is far from a surprise, and although they've taken various hits through SRL changes, they've stayed at the top of the tierlist.
With the looming release of Guardians Creed, and an SRL update just before, We'll see how these two queens of the metagame survive as the EOR Warlords find new crucial tools to challenge the top of the meta, and try once again to overthrow the previous champions.
A control deck leveraging the combination of powerful card advantage and interaction tools with a consistent discard engine to help setup these control tools, Fallen Control has a lot of power keeping it on it's metagame throne. Even in this tournament however, Onoskelis barely scraped into the top 4 cut for final rounds.
As Guardians Creed and an SRL list approach, it'll be interesting to see how Onoskelis fights through lists with an extra degree of archetypal support, and with more interactive tools to increase the parity of play vs draw.
In contrast to Onoskelis' plethora of interactive control tools, Sharn has been in the fast lane for a while, and she's proven herself as the strongest aggro deck currently available. With three wins going into the final stage, Sharn ended in third place with a close loss against Onoskelis.
As a deck with one of the most explosive potential turn one openers, Sharn may find herself fighting more of an uphill battle past the release of Guardians Creed, with an increased focus on interaction and turn one breakers.
Ever-Rising Empires
Ever-Rising Empires
Empires On The Rise doubled the number of available warlords, but these new challengers are still lacking the same number of archetypal support pieces compared to the Original 8. Despite this, they've contested the metagame with varying degrees of success. Whilst Adramelech, Castiel, and Ethelhime quickly threatened the placement of the top tiers and Mal'ady and Duxvox failed to contest with the existing powerhouses, Merrisod and Gaia have found themselves brawling through the middle tiers. Neither deck has seen the highest levels of attention in comparison to several other Warlords, but they've certainly established themselves as solid competitors.
Neither of these Warlords managed to make the top 4 cut, but the release of Guardians Creed may just provide the spike in power these new Warlords need to stand eye to eye with the best of the best.
Merrisod and Sh'Lara have both seen less play than their strength would demand. Whilst Sh'Lara remains the stronger of the two for the time being, Merrisod is an explosive deck able to utilize some of the strong overlapping Mythic Beast cards like Mystic Fire Dragon Clash, and Feathers In The Wind, whilst also having access to a powerful suite of Dragon archetype pieces.
Currently, Merrisod doesn't pack the same punch as Sh'Lara can with Mystic Fire Beast Power, but she has a variety of pieces to grind out card advantage and devastate the board, and Creed has the potential to give Merrisod the extra power needed to let her float like a Sprite, and punch like a Dragon.
Gaia has seen some experimentation since the release of EOR, with Reformation being possibly the most unique of the Revolution cards to release. Slowing Warrior attacks down by a turn lets Gaia attack the metagame in an entirely new direction, forcing other decks to adapt to a whole new gameplan.
One issue Gaia currently struggles with is having enough active power to contest in the mid-game, which pilots have shored up using the Tartarian Strix synergy pieces. If Creed brings Gaia more consistent action and pressure, it may be enough to push this force of nature to the top.
Reviving Archetypes
Reviving Archetypes
Grimm Mill Midrange and Blastforge Aggro might be as far apart in play rates as possible over the course of EOR. New tools such as Spores From The Suffering Cyprus let Mortis' Midrange gameplan evolve into much faster combo-centric styles of play, with Mal'ady versions of Grimm seeing rising popularity to leverage the combo potential of Mal'ady's Putrid Mausoleum. With SRL adjustment however, Mortis has been pushed back to grindier setup heavy Midrange styles of play. Blastforge however hasn't seen nearly any play for EOR's lifecycle, and I decided to give it a try to see how it's unique archetypal tools allow for some unique Dwarf pieces to see play, and for others to find new usages.
With a focus on interaction, it'll be interesting to see how these more combo focused archetypes hold up and transform, and to see if new tools allow these lists to develop in entirely new directions.
Blastforge Aggro has been largely untouched through Empires On The Rise, and I was curious to try out the deck with some of it's upgrades before the metagame saw drastic shakeups post Guardians Creed. I was rewarded with a second place finish, although I'm curious how much benefit the deck received from a best of one format allowing for a touch more variance in matches.
Losing a close best of three in the finals against Onoskelis, the deck is an incredibly interesting Aggro option in the current meta. What it lacks in the consistency of Sharn or Prometheus, it more than makes up with First Turn kill potential, leveraging Galterius for card advantage. It'll be interesting to see if Blastforge Aggro picks up more tools in Creed to make it a more consistent competitor.
As mentioned, Motis saw an incredibly amount of evolution over the course of EOR's lifecycle. Initially, lists remained close to the mill/midrange style more commonly seen before EOR. Spores From The Suffering Cyprus pushed the deck into a more aggressive direction that channeled Mortis' mill power into a more combo-centric gameplan. With Spores being Restricted to one copy post SRL, Mortis lists have had to move back to grindier styles of gameplay, using Mill tools to setup a powerful board state and prepare kill tools, rather than finding combo burn kills.
It'll be interesting to see how Mortis does post Creed with a plethora of interaction targeted at more combo-centric strategies, and new interactive tools available as well for the Undead Realm.
As Empires Continue To Rise...
As we head into a new set, it'll be exciting to see how the foundations built in Empires On The Rise begin to build into new archetypes, to inevitably upset the existing metagame. As metagame movements have waxed and waned, the final metagame of EOR is one with some evident top tier competitors, and an incredibly large variety of decks capable of shaking the scene, and fighting for the top.
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