Just Another Meta Monday
Welcome back to Meta Monday! First, what did everyone do this past week? I took a week off to write about some decks in an effort to reach infinite rank, and now I return to find the meta like this? If you’re not sure what I mean, it’s possible you haven’t played much on the ladder, or perhaps you’ve missed out on the latest deck that’s dominating the competition. Either way, let’s get started!
Pillar One: Control
I'm not exactly sure why these decks are labeled as "control." From various sources, I've seen this term used to describe this specific type of deck. I believe it's primarily because these decks include tech cards combined with specific cards like Juggernaut, Mobius M. Mobius, and Gorgon, which control or limit the plays that the opponent can make in a game.
However, to me, the deck doesn't feel like a reactive strategy focused on limiting the opponent to ultimately win with a big win condition in the final turn. Instead, it focuses on playing proactive value cards that give me an early advantage with cards like Gorgon, Mobius, and Sam Wilson, which also restrict the amount of energy cheat and the number of cards my opponent can play. In a game with a lot of energy cheating and extra card generation through Agamotto or Iron Patriot, this approach seems like a worthwhile strategy.
Control
This deck includes several hate cards that effectively disrupt your opponent's strategy. While you might think that Gorgon and Mobius are not the best choices to play on turns 2 and 3, they actually serve a more significant purpose than you might realize. Their impact isn't as obvious as cards like Shang-Chi, which has a clear and immediate effect. As a result, players often overlook them as viable options. However, if you've ever faced these two cards alongside Sandman, you understand the level of frustration they can cause throughout the game.
If you don’t have some of the cards listed, possible substitutes include Nebula, Copycat, Juggernaut, Gladiator, and Zabu.
Pillar Two: Agamotto
It's quite typical for a deck featuring the season pass card to be at the top of the meta. Agamotto is a new and exciting addition because of the Skill cards he brings. Unlike regular cards in the game, Skill cards are unique and innovative. They are also extremely powerful. Although they don’t contribute any power to your side of the board due to the banish keyword, certain skills can win lanes on their own or grant players a significant energy advantage in later turns. Regardless, many successful decks are utilizing him, so here are some.
Agamotto 1
Agamotto 2
Agamotto 3
The first two decks lean more towards control, reflecting similar ideas as the deck from the first pillar. In contrast, the Werewolf by Night (WWBN) deck focuses more on energy-cheating and cost-reduction combos, centering around a powerful WWBN card. One interesting aspect of the Skills that Agamotto provides, combined with the WWBN deck, is that it allows WWBN to jump to locations that already have three cards. This is possible because the skills do not occupy any board space; they are banished after resolving.
Pillar Three: Arishem
Arishem is still around and still doing the same thing it has always done. If you are an Arishem player then you've been viable for many months now as well as having the benefit of gaining new tools with Eson and Agamotto.
Arishem
Now, here is the cool part. Let's say you are low CL or mid to low CL and you don't really buy the season passes. Arishem is one of the best decks you can be running.
Mid CL Arishem
Lowish CL Arishem
Obviously, you have to be playing for a little bit to have some of these cards. But, technically Arishem is great with a lot of combinations so even if you are still missing some you probably can find a substitute regardless of your CL.
Pillar Four: Thanos, Bullseye, Negative
Thanos is the newest addition to this list, with Bullseye Discard, and Negative being common inclusions in the meta game. It's been a while since we've seen the Mad Titan in action. While Thanos didn't receive a massively significant buff in the OTA, he was already seeing some play following the release of Agamotto, and with the recent buff, more players have started testing him out. He is not as dominant as he once was, but he has been performing well.
Thanos Control
The majority of Thanos decks look a lot like this. They take ideas from the control-type deck while trying to win with bigger threats like Mockingbird, Alioth, and Thanos himself now that he is 12 power.
However, If you didn't want to or don't have all the newest latest cards. Thanos Zoo-type decks are also doing pretty good as well. Mainly because the rest of the format is focused on controlling the amount of energy and cards per turn so playing zoo-type decks that don't necessarily care about that stuff is nice.
Thanos Zoo
Either way, there is a lot more room to tinker with Thanos, but as of right now, these are the two main ways that he appears in the meta game.
I've talked about Negative and Bullseye Discard in previous weeks and these are not a new occurrence so these are just the current best builds for those two archetypes.
Negative
Bullseye
JFsnap deck of the week
One of the better decks to be running in this meta game is the scream deck. Scream largely doesnt care about the cards like Gorgon or Mobius and rarely gets a card into Shang range. Plus, it is massively disruptive to any strategy.
Scream
If you have at least a little bit of experience running this deck I would try it out again as a good counter to what's going on in the meta game.
Meta Health
Ah, the meta game. Let’s revisit my initial statement about what players have done to the meta. While I didn't explicitly say this, the first pillar of the meta game, along with the Agamotto decks, accounts for nearly 30% of what players are using. The higher you climb the ladder after reaching infinite, the greater that percentage becomes. Add to this the presence of decks that randomly generate cards or utilize Loki as a backup plan—especially after his latest buff—and you create a situation that can feel quite frustrating when playing the game.
Although the meta has shifted somewhat following Hela's nerf and the rise in popularity of decks like Thanos, it still isn’t healthy. The options available are heavily concentrated into just a few strategies. Does this stifle deck creativity? Not exactly, because there are a lot of options still doing perfectly fine but it's not as diverse and more concentrated than it has been in a long time. What do you think of the most recent changes and how they have changed the meta game?