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Written By - Thomas NeilsonDecember 13th, 2023
Hosted by Nerdz Cafe in Woodstock, the November 25th Siege Series saw 26 players competing for the 3k prize pool and 8 Rally The Realms invitation. With SRL updates and the Wintertide Wonders release, the meta looks markedly different from the October 14th siege series, a little over a month earlier.
Top 8 Placements
ARchetype Overview
Prevalence And Performance
Prevalence And Performance
With eleven different warlords appearing in the tournament, the meta is slightly less diverse than what we saw in Kingston on October 14th. This is likely a result of popularity and interest in the new Wintertide Wonders cards, rather than truly emblematic of a full metagame shift. Regardless, Quartzheart and Mortis do appear to be maintaining some level of their popularity in campaign play, and players should be prepared to play against either deck.
Following his absence in Kingston, five players brought Quartzheart to Nerdz Cafe in the form of Frost Tempo, Frost Control, and Burnforge Aggro. With two of the five Quartzheart players making top 8, players should be prepared to fight against Dwarves, although the high turnout is likely to be a product of the recent release of Beckon The Mistral Winds, rather than representative of a full meta upset. One copy of Ethelhime was also seen in the tournament, although Beckon The Mistral Winds is a difficult card to add to Alehouse Tempo, which is heavily reliant on Alehouse synergies.
Mortis also saw a resurgence in the tournament, likely driven by Invitation To The Masquerade, similarly to Quartzheart. With 5 pilots, the deck performed as expected, with some lists leaning heavily into the explosive combo potential of Undead. Spores has climbed into staple territory for Undead as a powerful burn threat that provides the potential for first turn kills, although FTKs remain an outlier. Invitation To The Masquerade does however provide another opportunity for incredibly explosive starts from Mortis. Malady also received her invitation with one pilot, but didn't match the popularity of Mortis.
Undead lists can be reliant on their first turn and have some of the most explosive openers in the game. Cards like Forbidden Fjords and Close The Gateway are powerful against both varieties of undead, whilst Spirits Of The Brackus Pond can be quite strong if well timed against Mortis, and various Eradicate hate pieces can be effective against true Putrid Mal'ady builds, although those remain rare with a lack of support.
Onoskelis once again placed at the top of the tournament, despite the recent SRL list knocking Fallen Fervor back down to one copy, and Fallen Inferno being completely banned. The deck remains a consistent powerhouse that can produce powerful controlling boardstates easily. With fast starts, the deck can create a deadly backline that churns out card advantage, and stretches your removal across a variety of hate pieces, advantage engines, and repeatable negates.
Adramelech pushed to second place, following it's popular but unsuccessful performance at the October 14th Siege Series. Even with the existing hate pieces for the deck, Adramelech can find explosive starts, and can fight through hate pieces and control tools to find a kill, especially in the hands of a skilled pilot.
Sharn unsurprisingly makes the top 3 spot in the tournament, with three pilots on the deck across the whole tournament. With the release of Shackle The Summoner, the deck may be knocked down a peg with a powerful and universal hate piece being available to stymie aggressive boars-based strategies.
A Wintertide Metagame
As mentioned above, the injection of Invitation To The Masquerade, and Beckon The Mistral Winds brought plenty of popularity to Dwarves and Undead, with those two legions making up 11/26 of the tournament decks. This popularity seems to be continuing in a smaller degree in campaign events, although ultimately neither of the new Exalted cards push their respective decks too much higher in the metagame. Beckon is a powerful but Bloodbourne heavy control tool for Quartzheart Frost decks, although it ultimately doesn't change the major gameplan of the deck or enable a specific powerful tool.
Invitation To The Masquerade certainly can provide an expensive but explosive start for undead decks, but nothing that the decks weren't already capable of doing. Undead lists may shift towards more explosive combo style builds, but powerful midrange lists packed with interaction are likely to remain the more consistently powerful build. Combo style lists revolving around spores do have the potential for powerful starts and even first turn kills, but these lists can struggle to fight through interaction if unable to combo quickly enough.
Whilst the popularity of Dwarves and Undead is undoubtedly a product of the Wintertide Wonders box, the archetypes will likely maintain some degree of their popularity, even if not showing up as a combined 2/5 of the metagame.
Top tiers, and Top performers
Top tiers, and Top performers
Onoskelis and Sharn remain some of the strongest decks in the meta, and players should continue to sideboard in preparation of these decks. Whilst Sh'lara has been absent from recent tournaments, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Mythic Fire list find success in a future tournament, even if the deck is neutered by Shackle The Summoner.
Black Magic isn't quite at the same power level as Onoskelis and Sharn, but with a skilled pilot it can be a powerful deck that can be difficult to stop if you can't find dedicated hate pieces or negates, and it has proved a reasonably popular list. Ultimately you should prepare to play against Black Magic in the first rounds of the tournament, and should be prepared for the possibility of fighting the deck in the top 8.
The S and A tier warlords that didn't show up to the tournament still remain powerful, with a lack of numbers correlating more with small sample size and player interest. These warlords are likely to be seen in future tournaments in lieu of another product release that sparks extensive interest in a specific archetype.
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