Right now meta seems to be in a state of confusion. People are trying out things on their own without the ability to netdeck lists tested by the best players. A few decks were published by a couple of youtubers but their authors either openly state that they are suboptimal or got it wrong (can't optimize a meta deck in a day). And lots of weird decks are going on right now. Here is some observations about the decks I played and encountered. It's all very subjective and debatable.
1. Wild Hunt. Seems broken. Its compactness, the ability to include it and still find room for the most successful MO strategies, seems overpowered. Many WH cards often provide overall value that is close to double of their provision cost. And due to weather control removal, there is no way to deny much of that value. It gets to 11 points/turn (6 from frost and 3 from 1p/turn engines and 2 from Beast). Weather is often criticized for low tempo but, hey, MO got plenty of 10+ plays. The only thing holding it back is lack of neutral tutorship which makes some of the MO plays inconsistent.
Imo should be nerfed a bit maybe. The 7pr veil engine is broken. It touches down outside 5p removal.
2. Symbiosis. Meme. At the moment playable as everyone tries to play devotion. But just you wait for Yrdens, Ignis, Triss: Lacerates, Regises, Lambert: Swordmasters to come back and make symbiosis auto-lose against any which neutral tech. This is imo the worst designed package in this expansion. Two reasons: 1) As opposed to Wild Hunt, it needs almost an entire deck of cards to support it, and though it does result in some very decent value when not answered, it leaves little room for control and utility. Nature cards, though given great value, fail to provide immediate protection against cheap answers and provide enough answers of their own. 2) It mixes up very tall plays (all the vitality and single target boost from Nature cards) and extremely short unprotected swarm engines (2p on touchdown and can do nothing about it, seriously?) which makes symbiosis susceptible to lots of different counterplays.
So: 1) It desperately needs new utility Nature cards. Can't live on Rebuke alone, and the 3 dmg 2 carryover one is cool but it doesn't help much. 2) The beefy dryad (3 tall, veil, symbiosis, 2 dmg) should either be changed to 4 provision + devotion or given some utility on the other row deploy. It's a useless as 5 for 5 as the engine aspect can be safely ignored (3 tall engines just aren't viable). 3) The echo card should be able to target multiple units. It's nothing but a beefed up Dryad's Carress/Tempering. 4) Order boosts like Miner are needed to give some protection for the Young Dryads. Or something like that.
3. Spies. Very strong as expected. But in truth it's same ol' NG bag o' tricks. Imo this package is a masterpiece. Exactly what NG fans appreciate and love. Exactly what NG haters hate. Hard to say what's op as it's very easy to form negative opinions of NG cards. Coup de Grace seems totally bonkers. But they say that about every second NG card.
EDIT: Spies are really great, and bring NG back to its rightful places as tier 1. Well replace things that suffered nerfs like poison spam.
4. Eternal Fire. Didn't play, didn't see. Looks bonkers.
EDIT: Did play, it's good.
5. SK warrior package. Seems meh to me. I see so many decks getting it wrong. Traditional Greatswords do better with ships/bears/pirates imo. But idk. That rupture dude is crazy, though. 7 tall with "destroy any unit if you got last say or the other guy has no purify on his last card which he never does." Bananas. But I prefer my good ol' Wild Boar, and I do need that Decree and the new Ragh in my SKGs.
EDIT: Wrong. New SK Gs is totally broken.
6. NR. I didn't keg any of that and didn't have enough scraps for that. Seemed strong when played against but similar to SK. Too much to give up.
EDIT: The greediest packages ever. I don't like it but many people will.
But like I said it's all speculation based on playing with and against under-optimized crazy decks. I would love to hear other opinions, though. Thx for reading
1. Wild Hunt. Seems broken. Its compactness, the ability to include it and still find room for the most successful MO strategies, seems overpowered. Many WH cards often provide overall value that is close to double of their provision cost. And due to weather control removal, there is no way to deny much of that value. It gets to 11 points/turn (6 from frost and 3 from 1p/turn engines and 2 from Beast). Weather is often criticized for low tempo but, hey, MO got plenty of 10+ plays. The only thing holding it back is lack of neutral tutorship which makes some of the MO plays inconsistent.
Imo should be nerfed a bit maybe. The 7pr veil engine is broken. It touches down outside 5p removal.
2. Symbiosis. Meme. At the moment playable as everyone tries to play devotion. But just you wait for Yrdens, Ignis, Triss: Lacerates, Regises, Lambert: Swordmasters to come back and make symbiosis auto-lose against any which neutral tech. This is imo the worst designed package in this expansion. Two reasons: 1) As opposed to Wild Hunt, it needs almost an entire deck of cards to support it, and though it does result in some very decent value when not answered, it leaves little room for control and utility. Nature cards, though given great value, fail to provide immediate protection against cheap answers and provide enough answers of their own. 2) It mixes up very tall plays (all the vitality and single target boost from Nature cards) and extremely short unprotected swarm engines (2p on touchdown and can do nothing about it, seriously?) which makes symbiosis susceptible to lots of different counterplays.
So: 1) It desperately needs new utility Nature cards. Can't live on Rebuke alone, and the 3 dmg 2 carryover one is cool but it doesn't help much. 2) The beefy dryad (3 tall, veil, symbiosis, 2 dmg) should either be changed to 4 provision + devotion or given some utility on the other row deploy. It's a useless as 5 for 5 as the engine aspect can be safely ignored (3 tall engines just aren't viable). 3) The echo card should be able to target multiple units. It's nothing but a beefed up Dryad's Carress/Tempering. 4) Order boosts like Miner are needed to give some protection for the Young Dryads. Or something like that.
3. Spies. Very strong as expected. But in truth it's same ol' NG bag o' tricks. Imo this package is a masterpiece. Exactly what NG fans appreciate and love. Exactly what NG haters hate. Hard to say what's op as it's very easy to form negative opinions of NG cards. Coup de Grace seems totally bonkers. But they say that about every second NG card.
EDIT: Spies are really great, and bring NG back to its rightful places as tier 1. Well replace things that suffered nerfs like poison spam.
4. Eternal Fire. Didn't play, didn't see. Looks bonkers.
EDIT: Did play, it's good.
5. SK warrior package. Seems meh to me. I see so many decks getting it wrong. Traditional Greatswords do better with ships/bears/pirates imo. But idk. That rupture dude is crazy, though. 7 tall with "destroy any unit if you got last say or the other guy has no purify on his last card which he never does." Bananas. But I prefer my good ol' Wild Boar, and I do need that Decree and the new Ragh in my SKGs.
EDIT: Wrong. New SK Gs is totally broken.
6. NR. I didn't keg any of that and didn't have enough scraps for that. Seemed strong when played against but similar to SK. Too much to give up.
EDIT: The greediest packages ever. I don't like it but many people will.
But like I said it's all speculation based on playing with and against under-optimized crazy decks. I would love to hear other opinions, though. Thx for reading
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