S | Prometheus Ethereal Midrange

S| Prometheus Primordial Aggro

S | Quartzheart Frost Control

A+ | Sharn Wasteland/Boar Aggro

A+ |Mortis Grimm Midrange

A | Castiel Lost Messiah Tempo/Burn

 A| Rosaline Vampire Aggro

A- | Ethelhime Alehouse Tempo

A-| Ful'Tigra Fandorian Midrange

 B+| Michael Seraphim Control

B+ | Middiogin Majik Midrange

B| Merryman Majik Mask Attrition

 B | Sh'Lara Mystic Fire Ramp

B | Adramelech Black Magic Aggro/Burn

B | Quartzheart Blastforge Aggro

B | Onoskelis Fallen Control

B-| Angelica Freakshow Aggro

B- | Duxvox Doomsday Combo/Control

C+ | Jann-Marid Jinn Attrition

C+ | Angelica Rogue Tempo

C | Merrisod Dragons Ramp

C- | Gaia Unstoppable Control 

C-| Mal'ady Putrid Stax

rogue | Alero Good Soup Midrange 

Rogue | Marianas Ancient Relic AGgro

Rogue | Angelica Sapphire Storm

Rogue | Onoskelis Mount Bane Midrange

Fandorian Midrange hasn't quite hit the power threshold that I anticipated earlier in the year, with not a ton of tournament presence. That being said, the deck has proven a capability to perform well in tournaments, it'll just be a matter of when a pilot decides to try it out. The deck continues to be an interesting option, and a list with very few polarizing bad matchups.

Rogues are an interesting prospect, with the Masquerade engine pieces helping to emphasize the existing strong elements of the deck. I do think the archetype has some notable potential, and has had decent competitive showings, but could use a dedicated pilot to push it into a more consistently performing position.

Walls and Magi both have some solid tools to explore from Wintertide 25, but as of yet there hasn't been a resurgence in the "Soup" Midrange archetype, or in a build focused on one of those archetypes individually. I'm curious to see if one can pop up, but it's not a sub archetype I'm directly watching too intently for the time being.

Sharn remains a solid anchor of the metagame, with Wartorn Aggro continuing to be one of the fastest and most durable aggro lists on the market. Boars Aggro remains a bit of an uncertainty, without much attention diverted from Wartorn, but by all measures should still be an incredibly solid option for an player looking for another variant of the deck. The addition of Orcbane Odyssey should help to keep the deck capable of pushing through decks like Grimm Midrange or Ethereal's.

Doomsday Control seems currently underexplored. The deck has had some attention, and shown solid potential, but I think it's a list with the potential to rise up to a higher placement with the right pilot. Until that happens, it'll be more of a theoretical placement, but with a truly incredible amount of new engine support I'm excited about the potential for the archetype to grow.

There are some interesting potential archetypes to build out between Blood Majik and TarDaxian as well. While neither are fleshed out enough to warrant an exclusively dedicated deck, they do show strength as a sub package, or build around win-condition. Blood Majik has shown up as an appealing package to include in Sharn lists, with Blood Majik Chalice and Blood Majik Totem helping to offset higher Bloodbourne Cost cards against Sharn's 65 DCM.

The TarDaxian armament options are interesting too, and while the archetype may need more in-archetype tools to fully build out, the existing Armaments can threaten a lot of potential damage, and I'm curious if there might be a niche sidegrade to Sharn available making usage of them.

It's a good day to be a Castiel gamer, with data showing a consistently solid performance over a good sample size. With the addition of Leona and Charred Empyrean Scepter, the deck feels very capable of heavily leaning into the Lost Messiah offerings to support it's draw power. The list also feels incredibly flexible with Ascendant, Light, and Sanctify packages all feeling incredibly viable. The Light pieces offer a truly impressive amount of resource attrition through Guiding Northern Light, and Fragments Of Pure Light is a great way to clear off those annoying Blood Offering Tokens that keep appearing on the board. Ascendant Ranks is also a strong addition to lists leaning towards Chaos Divine, with the ability to threaten a death loop with Nakir being incredibly appealing against Undead decks specifically.

Castiel's matchups into the top of the meta are interesting to examine, as Prometheus is never a great matchup, with many pieces of Titan interaction lining up quite fortunately, but Lost Messiah Sentry, Crucidiel is huge to hate out both Grimm and Frost Control, as well as any other discard-oriented strategy.

Michael doesn't have quite as much new pieces to explore, but the Sanctify engine supported by Alexandria, Purifier Of The Heavens, is a great addition that offers a ton of power and utility to the archetype. While the sanctify pieces can fit with either Warlord, Michael can take much better advantage, especially being able to use Fractured Archon significantly easier without being too worried about shutting down your own Cool Downs.

Michael has also had a bit more tournament attention then Castiel so far, making it's placement a bit more confident, and I think it may continue to be the more popular Angel archetype, and potentially might end up being more powerful too based on how it can tackle the top decks in S Tier and A Tier.

Demons hold a solid placement for both Onoskelis and Adramelech, showing up with a decent amount of frequency at both the weekly and tournament level.

Onoskelis appears middle of the pack compared to other control decks currently, maintaining a lot more success than Mal'ady and Gaia, but falling behind the success of Frost and Michael. That being said, I do think it's an incredibly varied archetype, with the strong Fallen Core playing well into a variety of sub-archetypes. The Wicked sub-package introduced in Wintertide plays well into the existing force-draw support in Ruby Amulet and Paradise Found, while the Mount Bane tools offer some incredibly powerful options like Mount Bane Magma Chamber. Regardless of build, Onoskelis' unique control tools continue to be a solid prospect, with the ability to greatly reward a dedicated pilot.

Black Magic also continues to show consistently powerful performance, with the ability to quickly threaten wins, especially into unprepared opponents. With Prometheus as a top deck in the meta, players should be preparing anti-eradication tools already, but in decks already reliant on eradication synergies, effect damage prevention is especially valuable in the sideboard. Regardless, Adramelech continues to be powerful enough to be able to fight through some hate pieces, and can especially prey on players unprepared to face it.

Two Undead decks currently are particularly exciting competitive prospects, with both Mortis Grimm Midrange and Rosaline Vampire Aggro showing pretty great results, over a relatively large sample of games.

I expected Vampires to be a solid aggro list, but I've been impressed by just how solidly it's found it's stride along some of the other major aggro lists in the metagame. The deck has the ability to threaten kills at a very respectable pace, albeit slightly easier to disrupt then other aggressive lists like Sharn and Alehouse. The Blood Offering Tokens have specifically been a great way to interrupt a ton of decks in the meta. Especially when some of the best ways to clear boards can be attached to Warriors, Rosaline offers a really interesting way to attack many of the strongest strategies in the format, alongside threatening a powerful gameplan of it's own. With more tournament attention, I could easily see Rosaline being able to climb even higher.

Grimm has also had a bit of a resurgence, with more tools for the deck to access then ever. The addition of Amethyst Talisman helps to make the Prometheus matchup much more even, if still very dependent on hate pieces. Grimm Ghosts and the new Meg offer some interesting new tech pieces, and the deck overall just has a ton of relevant play into many decks in the meta. To a degree, I do think some of it's success is less founded in meta changes, and more in a resurgence in interest, but the deck appears to be a core pillar of the metagame regardless, and decks will need to prepare adequately.

Mal'ady exists in a legal sense, but the list unfortunately seems to have been more feast and famine when it comes to it's dependence on Horrix. That being said, I don't trust Mal'ady to have truly fallen off, and I think there's a lot of untapped potential when it comes to the classic Mausoleum death loops. Welcome To Toy-Box Town also seems drastically slept on as a card the archetype can take very strong advantage of.

Prometheus is one of the biggest winners in the current metagame, with both Primordial Aggro and Ethereal Midrange offering very interesting options for the Warlord. Primordials have been continuously a solid list with strong showing in the current meta, while Ethereals are one of the biggest new standouts on the scene. It'll be interesting to see if/how the metagame will adapt, and how that will affect the position of the deck, but it's an incredibly enticing option at the moment.

While Primordials have generally leaned into Midrange, Ethereals have been able to harness the strong midrange tools better, pushing Primordial's most optimal looking version back towards aggro. While there is some amount of overlap between the decks, the core of each deck pushes in notably different directions, giving Prometheus players a smorgasbord of great options currently. Ethereal's will need more testing to see how they fold out in the meta, but I'm optimistic for their current performance.

Gaia has certainly fallen a bit from her previous spot on the podium, although there's potential for the deck to see an uptick if board based aggressive decks start to rise. Until that happens on the whole, Gaia may be a bit more of a meta call, or a pilot's vote of self confidence.

Mythical Beasts feel to be in a decent position, although a few lists may fall as more meta-calls. For one, the Legion has been fairly absent from tournament top placements for a bit, although I'm inclined to chalk this up more significantly to interest in the archetypes rather than a lack of competitive viability.

Sh'Lara does seem like a solid prospect at the moment, with the ability to blow up many of the more board dependent lists like Fandorians, and to grind out decks like Onoskelis, but the heavy Control lists like Gaia and Mal'ady being pulled back is a hit against the Rampy Myth Beast strategies able to prey on them. As it stands, Sh'Lara seems to be a solid prospect, but I think parts of it's potential will ride on it's matchup into Prometheus and Frost Control.

Jinns are an interesting competitive option, offering a similar capability to Sh'Lara and Merrisod to go over the top of many other slower archetypes, with the added bonus of forms of interaction that can bypass effects like Holy Counters. The deck too has some of the best attrition capabilities in the game, with Allure Of The Jinn being phenomenal at controlling DCMs, both driving up your opponent's while keeping your own out of the range of many forms of reach.

Merrisod is affected by this even more drastically, being more susceptible to early aggression, and heavily hoping to prey on slow grindy lists. With the metagame continuing to be a bit more proactive, Merrisod remains powerful, but more dependent on matchups. Compared to other Ramp and Attrition decks like Sh'Lara, Jinns, and Majik Masks, I do think that Merrisod may unfortunately be fourth place.

I don't want to necessarily brag, but the performance of Frost Control has surpassed even my optimism for the archetype, and the deck has looked incredibly powerful, to the point where I'm willing to mark it as my vote for the strongest control deck currently available. The ability to out attrition other lists, alongside multiple strong hand-trap removal options gives the deck a ton of ability to interact with almost any deck in the meta. The one hit against this deck is a lack of tournament attention, but I'm willing to bet that just one dedicated pilot could push the deck into an impressive tournament placement.

Alehouse continues to be good, there's not a ton to note about the deck in terms of changes, but with the ability to push blisteringly quick kills and break through a lot of traditional defensive tools, it's still a deck you'll need to prepare for. Stifle Progress is my personal pick for hate pieces, with the ability to blank multiple turns, and synergize with discard/mill effects. Blastforge should be a solid option still with it's new Exalteds from MOM and WW25, but we'll need it to get a bit of attention to tell for sure.

While Frost has exceeded my expectations, Arcane hasn't been quite as promising as I had hoped. The ability to cheat out expensive Unified cards like Ephideon's Destiny Dust using Reading The Arcane Runes is sweet, and Majik Mask - Arcane Fortune is a particularly solid win-conditions, I haven't managed to crack the code on a version of the list that currently feels competitive to the degree of other Dwarf options yet.

Bounty decks have three main interesting options in the current meta, with the Majik Void Combo builds, Freakshow Aggro, and the new Merryman Majik Mask Attrition. Notably, there is a wider variety of archetypal strategies available for Bounty lists then ever before.

Freakshow Aggro has really solid prospects, fitting in a similar space to Blastforge Aggro as a fully all-in aggro list. Thanks to the Warlord choice the deck has access to some notably strong hand hate, as well as being able to make uniquely powerful usage of Fortified cards like Steadfast Courage and Gone But Never Forgotten thank to it's Keyword doubling. I'm curious to see if the archetype will develop a unique strength compared to other aggro lists, but it's a strong option for aggro fans in the current meta.

Merryman Majik Mask Attrition has notably surprised me, with a super powerful ability to control resources. The deck seems notably powerful when it comes to pressuring slower decks, or other resource dependent archetypes like Castiel and Dragons. The main hit to the archetype is that it's opening consistency can be quite a bit slower at times, making it highly susceptible to aggressive lists. As such, the position may shift drastically based on if the deck can better position itself into faster strategies, or if it can be too easily exploited by aggressive decks.

Majik Void Combo remains an interesting list in the metagame, as a force draw strategy powering up Majik Void Staff. I'm very curious to watch this list as it has notable highroll potential and can make usage of the powerful Fractured Rosaline as a consistency engine, but it's dependence on a few specific cards and necessity to draw opposing player's extra cards should make it increasingly susceptible to a wide variety of hand interaction, including Knockout Cards and Swift Warriors like Sunrise, Consumed By Courage.

Apart from the main Bounty lists, I do think there are some incredibly interesting Bounty packages to continue exploring, such as Brackus, and the Twilight engine.