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Written By - Thomas NeilsonMay 31, 2025
In the second ever LRAW Snapshot War Of Attrition online tournament, we've got another great batch of top decks and top player's taking home prizing. Here's the breakdown of what decks showed up, and found success in this tournament test of endurance!
Top 8 Archetype Overview
First Place & Third Place - Prometheus Primordial Midrange
First Place & Third Place - Prometheus Primordial Midrange
AJ Christiaens & Matt Waller
AJ Christiaens & Matt Waller
Placing first and third is a list which has seen a recent uptick alongside powerful additions from the latest two expansions. GCD offered Prometheus the additions of Land Of Dreams and Topaz Amulet as powerful stax pieces to shut down discard focused strategies, giving the archetype more midrange power. Following in the more recent ELP, Prometheus has gotten a bunch of strong potential inclusions. Bolden, The Great Arion Smith is a strong revival piece for the archetype, and Primordial Reckoning is a Titan dismantle, which can be retrieved by Phoebe, while also being able to revive her.
Additionally, The First Battlefield Of Arion, Perses, The Unbound Cataclysm, and Primordial Genesis all offer strong utility to the archetype in terms of removal, and damage with Prometheus now having ways to push past Welcome To Alburdunn, or even Mists From The Fata Morgana.
With such strong additions to an existing underrated archetype I'm unsurprised to see Prometheus seeing a big uptick in attention and performance, and it's certainly an archetype that I'm excited to track in the upcoming Metagame. Another factor which will be discussed later in Prometheus's strength, is in the popularity of Mortis also rising from ELP. While they both occupy a similar midrange position, Prometheus holds the benefit of being able to absolutely crush archetypes like Mortis which rely on the discard pile, with a plethora of effects to be able to eradicate important cards.
Second Place - Angelica Rogue Tempo
Second Place - Angelica Rogue Tempo
Jasper Kasunic
Jasper Kasunic
A deck that I've been personally cheering on for two WOA's now, Jasper was able to pilot the Rogue Tempo archetype to a strong second place finish, with a tight list with plenty of interruptive power, and the ability to blitz in a kill out of nowhere.
While the archetype hasn't received anything in ELP, it's a list with a lot of potential to do some impressive lines in unexpected ways thanks to the kill potential of Rogue Dynamite Dice. While the archetype is still missing many pieces, Jasper's list has very effectively boiled down the package of the Rogue Warriors, and supporting pieces of The Rule Of The Rogue and Redemption into an incredibly concise engine backed up by the strong generic Hero control tools.
Supporting this engine and control tools are a strong toolbox capacity for the deck with Marovin's Ancient Text and Forgotten Fandorian Keep letting you access any Hero Unified or Fortified, giving the deck plenty of consistency and flexibility in setting up, and shifting it's gameplan on a dime.
As it stands, Rogues is definitely an archetype which will test it's pilot, and rely on their ability to utilize the toolbox nature of the deck to the fullest. While it isn't a list I'd recommend for a newer player looking to learn the game, it's certainly a joy of a deck to pilot, with plenty of incredibly fun deckbuilding and gameplay options.
Fourth Place & Top Eight - CAstiel Lost Messiah Tempo
Fourth Place & Top Eight - CAstiel Lost Messiah Tempo
Jordan Steenge & Cieran Diebolt
Jordan Steenge & Cieran Diebolt
My personal pet deck, I was certainly happy to see Castiel representation in this War Of Attrition tournament, and even happier to see the deck's performance in the top 8. With ELP, Castiel has received a nice new set of tools, offering the deck an even greater degree of possibility in deck construction, which can be seen reflected in the two deck lists for this tournament.
While both decks have moved to the Astral Gates Of The Ascendants, one is tapping into Protos, Chaos Divine Automaton, and the pieces of Lance and Sanctuary, while the other leans only into The Grand Ascendant Foundry.
Both decks are also making usage of Mastema, The Divine Prosecutor in combination with Angelic Blitz Strike. Mastema is a great beater with the ability to punch in plenty of damage, and being able to tutor Mastema into play with Angelic Blitz Strike is great for consistency, and the utility of Gust is suprisingly impressive in Angels from my personal testing.
With so many new options available for Castiel, it'll be exciting to see how the deck evolves to the ELP metagame, with plenty of ways to build and tune the archetype. That being said, from my finding and tournament Data, Prometheus is a difficult matchup for Castiel. If the Eternal Spirit is here to stay in the meta, the followers of the Lost Messiah may be fighting more of an uphill battle.
Quartzheart Blastforge Aggr0 - Lukas Richardson
Quartzheart Blastforge Aggr0 - Lukas Richardson
Another deck that's been fun to track the progress of, the first WOA tournament is one of the spots where Lukas initially found success with Blastforge Aggro, and seeing the archetype evolve to where it is now has been incredibly satisfying to see.
Certain parts of the deck have come and gone, with the most interesting part of Lukas' latest iteration has been the transformative sideboard plan. With the bounty staples of Majik Void Hollow, Mists From The Fata Morgana, and The Twilight Gardens stuck in the sideboard, the initial build of the deck contains only 8 Fortified cards, all of which can be retrieved if milled by Into The Blastforge, and most of which are Blastforge for tutoring with Blastforge Xtreme. With the sideboard then, much of it focuses on a transformative sideboard allowing the deck to shift into a more tempo/midrange build assisted by Twilight Princess, Hyacinth, and the incredibly spicy inclusion of Ancient Relic - Eyes Of Ephideon.
Additionally, some sweet inclusions such as Plateau Of The Prevailing Winds and Elemental Frozen Avalanche as strong disruption tools to help break up opposing player's fortified back-lines. In combination with the 8 negate effects in the deck, this build has plenty of options for breaking through opposing boards to push in a quick kill while your opponent's on the back-foot.
Mortis Grim Midrange - Jacob Feldt
Mortis Grim Midrange - Jacob Feldt
As mentioned, Mortis is another archetype that's seen a surge in popularity following the release of ELP, especially for a Warlord which has historically been popular. With three pilots on the deck, Mortis has kept up the interest, even if struggling to turn popularity into high place finishes at the same rate seen at the ELP release Siege Series tournament.
A part of that will be on matchups, and the rise of Prometheus is certainly not a benefit to the Grimm archetype. In addition, Castiel proved to be a more difficult matchup for the list, understandably given the deck's weakness to eradication effects.
That being said, while bad matchups will continue to be a plague for Mortis, the deck still has a lot of raw power, and these matchups have certainly been tightened by crucial additions from ELP, allowing Mortis more breaking power to get through troublesome stax pieces, and I expect the deck to continue to be a consistently strong competitor in the ELP metagame.
Ethelhime Alehouse Storm - Patrick Watt
Ethelhime Alehouse Storm - Patrick Watt
The only deck with less maindeck Fortified cards than Lukas, the other Dwarf Aggro deck in Ethelhime Alehouse Storm also wasn't able to crack top 4, but notably did have the strongest winrate across it's total matchups, including a flawless group stage performance.
While the deck does have various tools to hate it out, it continues to be an incredibly strong, fast, and consistent archetype which can punch through more disruption than you may expect. While challenging to pilot, Ethelhime continues to be strong option for players looking for an aggro list which plays a little more into a storm focus.
Matchup Matrix
With 9 distinct archetypes represented across 14 players, how did the various decks perform, and how did they match up?
Do note that the numbers here are based on a small sample size, and therefore can have a lot of fluctuation. Regardless, I find it fun to look at numbers. :)
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