Welcome back to Meta Monday! With the recent OTA changes, the metagame feels more diverse and open than it has in previous weeks, offering many viable options. While some players may still not enjoy the current meta game, this one is among the best we’ve experienced recently. It feels much less restrictive, allowing for greater freedom in deck building and play.
Pillar One: Arishem
As a deck that has always been in the meta game the changes to Thanos have catapulted Arishem to one of the most popular decks during this last week. While Arishem is not boasting the best overall stats he is around 10% of the overall meta game and the most popular deck currently.
Thanos and Arishem
While this is the new version the older more typical version is still played and active in the meta game while putting up the same amount of stats.
Arishem
Either way, the meta game feels new which means Arishem can capitalize on a diverse set of matchups with its extra energy generation as well as its randomly generated cards.
Pillar Two: Discard and Malekith
While these are vastly different decks they both take up about 8% of the meta game. Discard is nothing new to the format but has been able to consistently put out stats over the last few weeks. While there are several options there are essentially two different versions running around at the moment.
Discard Malekith
Stock Discard
The first version uses some new tools like Malekith and the buffed Grandmaster to double up and guarantee some bigger Apoclpyse and Scorn. The second version is your typical Discard deck. I think the benefit of discard is it is relatively cheap compared to most decks with the stock version only having two series 5 cards in it and those could be replaced with something else if you are in a bind.
The Malekith decks are just the mid-range decks in the format that use Malekith as a way to get out some extra power or pull a useful tech card to make an impact at the end of the game. Malekith himself isn't a deck but more of a tool used in a bunch of different style decks so while these decks technically fit in a malekith category they are not all the same. Instead, the expectation is that around 8% of the meta game is some form of midrange deck that uses Malekith as a good value card.
Wiccan Malekith
Malekith Midrange
Pillar Three: Surtur
While sustaining a couple of nerfs in this latest OTA the pillar one deck from last week has dropped down a couple of pegs and is in a more reasonable spot. While the makeup of the deck hasn’t changed much since the OTA it has a slightly lower power output than pre-OTA. It has only been several days since the change and while that has decreased the deck's popularity it still is showing positive signs from both a cube and win rate standpoint.
Surtur
This is not the only option since there are a handful of other 10-power cards. But, this is the best-performing option at the moment.
Pillar Four: Toxic and Move
Again, this is another Pillar that includes two very different decks that occupy around the same popularity as one another. Toxic decks have been around for a while, however, the Anti-venom and Malekith combination of new tools as well as Valentina being in spotlights has created a small wave of popularity for these decks.
Toxic
While there are a lot of different options to go here most decks include the basic structure with Ajax as the top end, a collection of 4-cost value cards like Man-Thing and Anti-Venom, Luke Cage, and then a collection of some minor tech cards like Red Guardian or Rogue, US Agent, and some good value one drops like Zabu, Silver Sable, or Hydra Bob.
Move has been pretty stable for a while now and there are only two options to go with. You can either pick to just go move all in or be a semi-bounce deck with move as the power multiplier.
Move
Move Bounce
Viable Pillar
While I won’t spend a lot of time explaining these here is just a list of some other viable decks in this open meta game.
Agent Sera
Bounce
Scream
Meta Health
Overall, the meta game feels very healthy. While there are some minor annoyances due to Arishem's increased popularity, he isn't locking other decks out of the format or limiting the number of viable decks. The meta game appears much more open than the four pillars suggest. Any of these decks seem capable of competing against the others, and regardless of your position on the ladder or whether you're playing pre- or post-infinite, any of these options can help you climb. What do you think of the meta?