Mid-March Metagame - March 19

With an SRL update, multiple tournaments, and additional upcoming tournaments, how is the meta sitting now, and how might it change as we approach more BFG events and an upcoming set release?

S-Tier

Sharn and Onoskelis remain two of the powerful anchors of the metagame, as the current strongest aggro and control list respectively. Sh'Lara has however finally moved back up to S-Tier, as a midrange foil to Onoskelis at the top. This move is largely more representative of movement on the part of Sharn and Onoskelis rather than movement on the part of Sh'Lara. 

SRL updates have kept Sharn and Onoskelis in check, and ultimately pushed Sharn just ahead of Onoskelis on the tierlist, and brought both decks down to a level closer to Sh'Lara. 

We can importantly now see a form of Rock-Paper-Scissors metagame developing to some degree between these three lists. The constant and explosive card advantage generation of Sh'Lara lets her out-value Onoskelis, and drag out a victory in the late game, Onoskelis's explosive controlling starts can shut down Sharn's best chances at early aggressive kills, and Sharn's quick damage potential can take Sh'Lara out before she has the chance to pump out powerful late game plays. This healthy top tier trifecta gives competing decks plenty of room to combat.

A-Tier

Adramelech has proven to be more than an explosive flash in the pan, boasting some consistent top placements, and frequent appearance in tournaments despite SRL hits and a large number of hate pieces available. Whilst not consistent enough to challenge a position in S-Tier, Adramelech has solidly locked his position as a high A-Tier deck in competitive play.

Both Castiel and Michael remain strong lists, albeit ones with lower play rates and some notable weaknesses. The difficulty of the Dwarves matchup can make either deck feel rough, but against a metagame with a smaller number of Dwarf lists, either archetype can catch a tournament off guard and find consistently impressive competitive placements. Either Angel deck can reward skilled pilots maining the list, or anyone looking to keep one of these decks in their back-pocket for an advantageous local metagame.

Ethelhime hasn't had the same repertoire of top placements compared to the rest of S-Tier or A-Tier, but is easily one of the biggest sleeper decks in the format, with a kill potential to rival Sharn, and a board-wipe potential to rival Sh'Lara. The closest thing to a storm deck in the format, Ethelhime has had incredibly explosive showings at local campaign events. Ethelhime has also found success in rogue Frost Control style builds in tournament.

All four A-Tier decks have seen smaller play rates compared to S-Tier, apart from occasionally Adramelech, but all four generally have the tools to perform well against 2/3 of the S-Tier decks. Another notable part of the top 3 decks in A-Tier is that all three are somewhat linear combo/burn/storm strategies in comparison to the more flexibly powerful lists in Tier-S. This one factor is a big dividing factor between the A/S tier strategies, which gives them a more abusable weakness compared to other lists. These linear combo strategies do however have an advantage in having such strong win condition that can allow them to often sidestep or ignore certain parts of their opponents strategies.

B-Tier

Quartzheart saw a flash of attention at the previous Siege Series, and was able to turn the attention into some degree of success. Whilst the archetype hasn't seen as much play recently, it still remains an explosively powerful deck with plenty of versatile power.

Mortis saw a similar time in the sun to Quartzheart with the Wintertide Wonders release, but initially had more competitive staying power and attention. The recent SRL list update addressed problematic cards in the Undead toolkit, in Spores From The Suffering Cyprus and Welcome To The Grimm Graveyard, reducing the power of Mortis' current explosive builds. I expect for Mortis to easily have the ability to return to A-Tier with innovations involved in a return to a more traditional midrange style Mortis build, like was seen before the proliferation of Spores.

Alero has seen more attention with a successful fourth place finish at the Booster House Open, proving the board based staying power of the list. Whilst certain cards can be brutal for Alero to fight through, and slower grindier decks can push Alero right over, the deck has some of the strongest negates, hate pieces and value generation in the format.

Another sleeper list ripe with potential, Merrisod boasts a lot of the power of Sh'Lara, with explosive flexibility generated by the various eradication tutors, and difficult to disarm boards of Crystal Dragon Eggs. It's hard to give more credit to the list without more tournament results.

Marianas has seen a resurgence with a new archetype, utilizing the Majik synergy pieces to generate immense amounts of card advantage. This list trades some of the kill potential of traditional Relic Aggro style builds, whilst maintaining the key Ancient Relics needed to find lethal, but gains an increased power in the mid game with more control and value pieces. At the moment, this new archetype will still be wrapped under the Marianas Tempo category on the tierlist, but with more placements has the potential to break away as a notably separate archetype. Both lists have a load of kill potential however, with a unique access to powerful bounty hate pieces.

Prometheus seems to have largely been forgotten since the release of EOR. The deck hasn't seen anywhere close to the same level of competitive attention by top players that is saw prior to EOR, but stays a sleeper pick with the potential to have a breakout performance competitively.

C-Tier

Everyone's (least) favourite stax deck, Gaia found top 8 placement at the Booster House Siege Series, but hasn't seen the same degree of performance since, although it has seen some popularity at local campaign events. The deck does have the ability to lock many decks out of the game, and to force many others into incredibly difficult to navigate board states, but many lists are easily able to break through her board locks with patience and card advantage if the Gaia player cannot put a win condition online sooner, rather than later.

Another list missing a top placing competitive portfolio, Angelica is a veil flip kill combo deck with both exploitable weaknesses, and unique techs and difficult to fight against play lines. The deck is able to take advantage of various strong control/tech pieces available to the Hero archetype, whilst also threatening a more consistent and aggressive kill than Alero currently can. The overall deck can suffer with a heavily telegraphed veil kill and holes in it's control tool gameplan.

Similarly to Angelica, Duxvox also lacks in competitive placements, and the deck doesn't make it particularly easy to find placements. The deck is blessed with a notable amount of unique synergy/tech pieces, and synergistic value tools, but the deck is currently lacking in both quantity and power of archetypal synergy pieces needed to push the deck any higher competitively. Potential is the name of the game with Duxvox at the moment, and the deck has the possibility for tons of synergy and power once archetypal gaps in the deck are filled.

Possibly the most unfortunate denizen of C-Tier, Mal'ady saw a light at the end of the tunnel with the February Battle For Glory, with the Mausoleum Combo version of the deck finding a third place finish. SRL list updates to change problematic undead play lines have however knocked the deck away from Mal'ady's best chance to escape from C-Tier for the time being.

D-Tier

There isn't too much movement happening in D-Tier. While the Mausoleum combo style Mal'ady deck was hit hard by the Spores Restriction, the putrid style archetype was devastated for Mortis' sins. 

Blastforge and Burnforge have only seen brief experimentation at the moment and neither deck is currently expected as a metagame competitor. The archetypes would likely need new cards printed to find any metagame success, unless a skilled pilot/brewer is able to breath new life into the lists.

The Power of Alburdunn

One notable metagame flash-in-the-pan was seen in the February 18th Nerdz Cafe BFG, where Viviana, The Festival Royalty appeared in impressive fashion, with two Sharn decks utilizing the package making top 4. The release of Alburdunn's Mayoral Announcement was supposed to bolster this powerful archetype which had fallen out of favor post EOR, but the combination of Alburdunn's Trader District to shuffle mist effects back into deck, coupled with the ability of both Mayoral Announcement and Viviana herself led to a package that could slot into a variety of decks with the potential to grind out games to incredible degrees. 

Whilst the package only appeared in successful fashion in 2 Sharn lists and 1 Sh'Lara lists, it was immediately shut down in the following SRL list update to avoid disastrously stally late game outcomes.

Whilst Viviana's dominance was short lived, it speaks to the power of the Alburdunn engine, which will likely remain a powerful sideboard option for decks that can afford it. It also hints at how much remains unexplored in the metagame with the potential to turn an entire tournament upside down.

SRL LisT Update

The latest update to the SRL list has shifted around the placements of some of the top decks. Sharn and Onoskelis both saw pieces hit, with Sharn loosing the second copy of Outer Rim Exclusion Zone, and Onoskelis losing some key control pieces with Volac's Document Of The Damned being fully suspended, and Advance Of The Fallen Armies and Paymon's Ceremony Of The Fallen being Restricted to a single copy each. These changes have knocked down the power of both decks, to place them closer to the level of Sh'Lara, but both decks are still likely to remain core pillars of the competitive structure.

Undead took the biggest hit from the SRL changes. Mal'ady was hit heavily, loosing the most consistent backup plan alongside the now stock Mausoleum Combo win condition. Mortis has also taken a hit in losing the tools needed for the more aggressive combo/burn potential, but I ultimately expect that the midrange versions of Mortis, which were more popular at the start of the EOR meta, will remain a strong competitive option, trading quick kills, for grindy power, with Slow But Grimm Decay still offering a path to an early kill.

Ultimately, the current metagame looks incredibly healthy. A competitive TCG is always going to have a top tier, and the rock-paper-scissors style metagame we have provides a large amount of variety, with plenty of opportunity for rogue and lower tier lists to take advantages of openings in shifts in the metagame. Whilst Sharn and Onoskelis have continued to float at the top, the rest of the metagame has found plenty of variety competitively, with a number of decks that can give the top 3 a run for their money. This heavily rewards skilled and observant pilots able to navigate the trends and waves of the metagame.

I'm incredibly excited to see the changes to come with the upcoming release of Guardians Creed, but I'm just as excited to explore the ebbs and flows of the late EOR metagame, especially through multiple upcoming Battle for Glory events.

Tierlist Overview