Prevalence And Performance

15/17 Warlords were seen at the tournament, with Sh'lara and Quartzheart being the only two missing. The lack of these two decks is more likely due to chance, rather than being representative of anything other than the open nature of the current meta. Ultimately, no deck had more than three copies, and the top 8 was entirely unique, and represented six of the nine realms.

It's unsurprising to see Sharn boars and Onoskelis control take placement in the top 4, as two of the strongest three decks in the format. Both versions of Angels also boast strong positions in the current meta. 

Other interesting results can be found in 5-8 with Gaia, Duxvox, and Malady all making it to top 8. These three decks are all lacking some of the power of the higher tiered lists, but the decks pilots were rewarded for skilled play, even fighting through hate pieces aimed at more powerful/prevalent decks.

The release of Empires ultimately hasn't yet unseated the top dogs of the meta, but new decks like Castiel, Gaia, Duxvox, and Malady did successfully find placement in the ranks of the top 8. As well, Merrisod and Adramelech both saw multiple pilots show up, although neither deck found final stage placement. 

Notably, the meta currently remains drastically varied. 15 different warlords appeared, and duplicate warlords saw variations in deck builds. Part of this variety can be attributed to the nature of the tournament, with many newer players competing for their first times, although it does speak to how open the Meta currently is. Regardless of what deck you choose to play, it can be tuned and played to a degree of success in the current field.

With this varied meta, it can be difficult to focus down, as there aren't any lists with both a high level of prevalence and performance. There are however a few features to note and focus on when approaching the meta game and upcoming competitive events.

Onoskelis and Sharn are consistently two of the strongest decks in the meta game, and both decks have seen their fair share of appearances in both tournament placements and restricted list adjustments. Players looking to compete in tournament play should respect the strengths of both of these decks, and adjust their game plans and sideboards to account for them.

Sharn is a difficult deck to beat as the deck boasts an incredibly fast game plan that can threaten a consistent kill before you can flip your veil. Additionally, although cards like Provoke New Thoughts, Close The Gateway, and Spirits Of The Brackus Pond can all act as speed-bumps for the deck, no one card acts as a one stop hate card for the deck which can carry the weight of the match up, and often only affect a few certain cards. Here, mist effects are your best friends with the titular Mists From The Fata Morgana of course being your best bet. 

Welcome to Alburdunn and Ecrutek, The Wandering Warlock can also stop a kill, but are more dependent on board state as the Rampage ability of boars counts as effect damage, and if you have a full board of warriors, you'll still be taking Rampage damage. On the other end, the new release of Alburdunn's Mayoral Announcement is a relevant piece that fills in the effect damage gap that Welcome To Alburdunn misses. Similarly, if your board is empty then Announcement won't do much to help you, but with a board of blockers or an accompanying Welcome you can shut the deck down for the turn you need to make your own push on board.

Onoskelis flips styles from Sharn, as a control deck with an incredible degree of card generation and selection. Luckily, Onoskelis has a vulnerability to Provoke New Thoughts, which can shut down her ability to churn through cards for a turn to find control tools. Peace of Mind and other anti-discard effects are also relevant tools to dodge her hand hate, although it's risky to rely on these pieces as they don't actively stop Onoskelis from accruing card advantage. Harvest Moon can also act as a universal card advantage engine that can accrue additional value if stripped from hand, but relies on a deck that can take advantage of it.

In lieu of specific hate cards or in addition to, unified negate effects such as Seal Their Fate and Dismantle can help push through disruption, and powerful engine cards like Treasury Of The Fallen Priestess. This is especially important as Onoskelis' unrivaled degree of card selection allows her to see important sideboard cards far more frequently than other decks in the game, so if your deck is vulnerable to a specific hate card you should be more prepared to fight against it.

Although Sh'lara wasn't seen in the tournament, she remains one of the strongest Warlords in the game, with an immense amount of flexibility, removal, and kill potential. Her multitude of destruction effects can falter in the face of Holy Counters, hard to remove threats, or recursion loops such as Prysm + Esmeralda in Mortis, or Quake, The Unstoppable Terra Stone in Gaia. As well, although she has received more recursion pieces in Mystic Fire Dragon Clash and Ancient Ashborn Sanctuary, Sh'lara remains reliant on her board pieces of Mystic Fire Arena, Mystic Fire Awakening, and Phoenix Flames Conflagration. If you can keep those key cards off of the board the deck can struggle in the mid game.

A-Tier Competition

Past the strong S-tier lists in the meta, you should be prepared for the other powerful A-tier decks in the meta. Both versions of Angels have a wide array of control tools to hate out and lock out the game, and decks reliant on destruction effects should have a strategy for beating a Quaphsiel, Helios & Luna, or Empyrean Empire stacked up with counters. Send to discard, eradicate, shuffle, and bounce effects can all provide outs to holy counter stacked permanents if you can find afford them in the main deck or sideboard. 

Ignite The Night is a recent hate piece that can completely punch through a stacked Angels board, including counters and defusing perish effects of Crucidel, Quaphsiel, and Cerebral. The heavy bloodbourne and discard cost can be difficult to afford, but decks that can run the card should consider it as a valuable effect against angels, as well as decks like Mortis.

Speaking of Mortis, the deck has been knocked down severely by the recent restrictions, with it's strongest control tools being heavily stripped back in Labyrinth and Prysm. But the list is still relevant and powerful. Similarly to angels you should have some plan to out the Prysm + Esmerelda loop, although this matters significantly less for decks focusing on effect damage.

Dragons are similar to Sh'lara in being a flexible and overwhelming midrange threat, with slightly more consistency through the decks various eradication tutors. The deck is however heavily reliant on Eradication synergies, which opens up weaknesses to various hate pieces.

Decks that focus on eradication effects should be adjusting to the prevalence of hate pieces, and it may be worth including more unified negate effects such as Dismantle to combat the multitude of hate pieces available. Catacombs as a hate card was found so valuable that even decks like Prometheus ran the card, willingly slowing their own game plan to hate out their opponents eradication effects.