Just Another Meta Monday
Welcome back to Meta Monday! With a new season approaching tomorrow, we are always in a slight limbo mode with the meta game will probably shift a little with the release of two new cards this week. However, three different archetypes currently make up the majority of the field and will still make up the majority of the meta game during the initial start of the season before the new card settles the meta down.
Pillar One: Ares
The release of Ares allowed Skaar decks again to rise in prominence after sustaining a few nerfs along the way after the initial release of Surtur. While Ares isn't a flashy card he helps boost the power output of the deck and the players have noticed. Decks including Ares take up almost 15% of the meta game.
Ares 1
Ares 2
The decks are pretty straightforward: Forward play a lot of power onto the board and protect it with Armor and Cosmo. These decks are pretty greedy and don’t really worry about countering or interacting with the other player's deck at all. Instead, they rely on being able to go taller than most decks, which, for the most part, they can.
Pillar Two: Mill
While Mill has fallen off a little bit stat-wise it has not fallen off popularity-wise and is still almost 10% of the meta game. Mill is in an interesting spot because most of the decks in the format need certain pieces to work correctly meaning Mill can just win games immediately if they get the correct card. But, because the deck is for the lack of a better word annoying to play against it is countered more aggressively than other decks. This has caused its stats to be a lot lower than other decks because of counter cards and decks becoming more popular in the meta game since last week and a lot more players leaving for 1 cube instead of staying for more. Either way, it is still popular and still around so expect to see it a couple of times on your climb to Infinite after the season reset.
Mill 1
Mill 2
I like running the deck without Red Guardian and going with the version with Lady Deathstrike. Lady Deathstrike hits a lot more than people think and can win games outright.
Pillar Three: Arishem
It could be that Mill was running rampant that Arishem came back into the fold. It could also be that the Skaar Ares takes priority and wins big, and Arishem could deal with that the easiest because of the extra energy. Either way, Arishem is back in full swing at 10% of the meta game.
Arishem
There is not a perfect Arishem list but the majority of the lists look like this one with a good amount of high-impact tech-type cards thrown in and relying on the randomly generated cards to boost power and surprise for the overall game.
The Rest of the Field
The rest of the meta game is almost the same as before but is pretty wide open. The three decks above are not hindering anyone from playing anything so if you still like your Discard deck from last week you can continue to play with no problem.
Bullseye
Negative
Wiccan
Iron Hand
One deck that I didn’t mention last week but has had amazing stats although it is just underrepresented for the most part.
Little Guys and Gals
This deck can produce a ton of power and with Shadow King being played less and less as Skaar decks take over it is easy to run a deck that produces a lot of green power cards.
JF‘s choice for the week
Ares 2
Little Guys and Gals
Both of these decks produce a ton of power and are pretty straightforward to pilot. They also have good matchups with almost all of the other decks in the format making them good choices for climbing when the season resets tomorrow. I also really like Juggernaut at the moment as a great turn 6 play that can boost your cube equity immensely.
Meta Health
The meta is pretty wide open. We have three popular decks and the most effective strategy available isn’t one list that is gatekeeping other lists and archetypes from being played. Also, this is the third week in a row that I have made this comment about the meta game being wide open. That is a good change from a few months ago when each new week was welcoming in a meta tyrant that was keeping the format hostage. We have some very popular decks but nothing that is overly dominant and people feel like they have to switch to that strategy to compete. Climbing with almost anything is pretty viable. What do you think? What will you start your climb with this next season?