JustAddBacon 
Howdy y’all, my name is Just Add Bacon, bringing y’all the latest meta report from Skyweaverleagues.com. This week we’ve seen a homogenization in the meta, as balance changes over the past two weeks have substantially culled a lot of the previously dominant strategies. As a consequence, we’ve also seen the number of generally viable decks (that we know of) decrease. On the bright side, essentially every strategy is well represented, from Fox Burn, Sitti Flood, and Titus Exhaust, covering the range of fast, slower, and slow enough to make me cry respectively. So, without further ado, let’s break it down.
Disclaimer: How to read the report
This report was constructed through two surveys. In the first survey, high-level Skyweaver players were asked for each hero to list whether or not they had an Aggro, Control, Midrange, Combo, or other deck that was relevant in the current constructed meta (Ladder, Conquest, and Competitive Tournament Play). The lowest half of the suggested decks were cut and the rest were added to a second survey. In this part, respondents were asked to name the tier(s) in which each deck could be reasonably placed. These tiers were given scores of 4 for S tier, 3 for A tier, 2 for B tier, and 1 for C tier. Additionally, a plus or minus (+/-) added to the tier increased or decreased the score by .3 (for example, an A+ tier would have a score of 3.3). The highest and lowest scores were dropped (to reduce variance) and scores were used to calculate a weighted average, which is the score listed next to each deck. The decks were then sorted into (nearly) equal groups to create the relative tiers for the previous meta.
Given that this report only addresses this meta, it’s important to note how the scores relate in relative and absolute terms. The difference between the scores of the two decks represents the rough gap in power between the decks. The absolute score of the deck represents its strength in a vacuum. For example, the majority of decks that ultimately made it in C tier have scores that would correlate more towards B tier. They are, however, in C tier due to their relative power with the other decks considered in this report. There is also a Confidence Interval next to each deck, although this data is anecdotal, not empirical. Roughly, it correlates to the spread in the data. The more “tight” the data, the higher the confidence interval. Conversely, the more varied the opinion on a deck’s strength, the lower the confidence interval.
However! All of this was done with a survey size of 13. The opinions used to create this report represent a very small number of players in a rapidly developing meta. So don’t be afraid to try things out that are “weak” or “off meta”! Who knows, you might discover something that makes it onto the next report
Side Note: There are less decks than normal as the meta has become slightly homogenized. Therefore, the tiers are smaller than on the average report.
S Tier
Aggressive Style
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Control Style
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Surprising nobody, S tier (short for Sitti apparently) has remained in the firm grasp of everyone’s favorite evil scientist, albeit with a radically different build from the previous report. Sitti Cheat has long been vanquished, but that seems to have only enabled a more courteous form of Sitti to emerge, Sitti Flood. Other nerfs to older meta-staples like {{Light Knight}} and {{Montage}} have also substantially pacified the metagame, shifting things towards a more control oriented perspective. This shift has also had some interesting spillover into the lower tiers, polarizing aggro into even faster paces to answer control.
Sitti Flood was, frankly, a hard deck for me to properly name and categorize. I am particular about names and try to choose them in a way that best describes the deck, or is in some other way memorable and recognizable. Sitti Flood revolves around a few key concepts I’ve tried to incorporate in the name. First, a very large number of cycling units are employed. {{Icaru}}, {{Crypto}}, {{Krystal}}, {{Angler}}, {{Bauble}}, {{Bubbles}}, {{Trident True}}, {{Chester}}, {{Eclipse}}… there’s a lot and that list is not even exhaustive. Secondly, frequent use of vapors is employed throughout the deck. This is on cards like {{Krystal}} and {{Trident True}}, but also a lot of water spells such as {{See Shore}}, {{Water Rune}}, and {{Life Stream}}. These two aspects alone place the deck into some type of swarm or “flood” category similar to something like Zooey. However, many builds opt for a more defensive game plan with cards like {{Krakus}} and {{Floodwater}}. Here, the idea is to weather the storm versus aggro (with tools such as {{Frigid Blizzard}} and {{Anchor Drop}}) and use {{Floodwater}} as a late reload versus the decks. In practice, this is made practical by the large number of cycling units and the passive healing of vapors, which keeps the deck consistent and the hand reliably full. {{Floodwater}} also gives builds an option for answering grinder style decks, such as Titus Removal Pile or Axel Exhaustion.
With all of these things considered, it must also be noted that Sitti Flood has a very wide range of builds. Some decks run cards like {{Chain Storm}} + {{Full Bloom}} to swing for lethal. Others run cards like {{Pharonis}} to supplement their top end. A good number also run Sapphire to synergize with Bubbles, which can potentially snowball into an unanswerable unit. I’ve even seen viable builds that pair {{Wall of Dead}} with {{Orion}}, and abandon {{Floodwater}} entirely. So, as a quick side note, the name Sitti Flood refers to any Sitti deck with a high reliance on cycling units and water synergies. It does not need to run specific staples like {{Floodwater}}, as there are simply too many ways to build this type of deck.
As for how the deck actually fares, it is quite good. The wide range of options for the deck allow it to check multiple threats in the meta, and its passive healing and draw makes it quite difficult for lower tier decks to deal with. Grinder builds like Titus and Axel can perform well against it, but only at the cost of going rather deep into their late game, which can substantially hinder their performance versus aggro. Pinpointing the actually problematic cards in the deck is difficult, however, as many of the cards that are effective here are either not problematic in other situations or are only good due to synergies within the deck. Some have pointed to {{Floodwater}} as the issue, noticing its capacity to massively reload and refill the hero’s deck, but I think that nerfing it wouldn’t solve much; we would only have a more control-oriented meta to check the remainder of the good Sitti builds. Additionally, I’m also a fan of those greedy build arounds; I, for one, love hoarding cards.
One other deck I need to make mention of is Titus Removal Pile. Titus Removal Pile has slowly been climbing up the tiers over many of the past patches, and it is now finally at the top. The reason for this is how it plays against the meta. Titus Removal Pile is primarily a Wisdom deck. It has strong defensive tools like {{Thanite}}, {{Whisk Away}}, {{Mr Whiskers}}, {{Fire Noble}}, and {{Doomsday}}. What it gains from being in the Strength prism is access to a couple of tools that are incredible versus the meta in spots Wisdom normally struggles. Access to a main-deck {{Kha’s Wrath}} gives Wisdom yet another powerful aoe which it can curve out with that also has utility value versus Axel and Sitti. Sunder is a strong single-target removal spell that covers a gap in Wisdom removal, which normally has difficulties with cards like {{Pharonis}} or {{Khan}}. {{Chomp}} does similar things to the previous two cards, and access to {{Dracomantium}} and {{Titanic}} help round out the deck’s top end. Finally, it would be remiss of me to not mention {{Prismata}}, which provides a sweeping +5 draw spell to the deck (Prismata conjures 7 cards, but practically only a net gain of 5.)
Personally, I think that Axel Exhaust is the better build for this type of strategy, I just don’t believe that Strength’s good removal options are enough to compensate for the raw draw, value, and healing that Heart brings to the combination. But I can certainly see why Titus is prefered. Against Fox it’s faster, and against Sitti {{Prismata}} it has plenty of value to win.
A Tier
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In A tier, we have a collection of usual faces, with every archetype and almost every prism represented. Fox Burn sets the pace with its explosive openings, and Iris Lion Combo is a meta-check that punishes slower controls decks. My personal favorite Axel Exhaust lives in this tier, although I highly dispute that outcome. And Titus Grover is here too, seemingly caught up in an unrelated nerf to a previous Wisdom staple.
Fox Burn is honestly not that far from S tier, and I think that’s rather impressive given the tools it works with. I make the distinction of calling this Fox Burn as opposed to Fox Aggro or Fire Fox because I think the most important element of this deck is its direct damage effects. Charging units like {{Hot Dog}} and {{Speedster}} provide immediate damage in the early game, and the deck’s plethora of banner ({{Sidekick}}, {{Cube Jr}}, {{Treasure Chest}}, {{Mothermander}}) adds up to a good deal of face damage over a decently short game. The banner options can also be used for board control, although such an application isn’t as important for this deck as it is for a traditional aggro deck. For more explosive damage, the deck has access to {{Chomp}}, {{Catch!}} and {{Kha’s Wrath}}, along with some other flexible options like {{Oni Smith}} and {{Vlad}}.
The immediate issue for a deck like this is overcoming a deck like Sitti Flood or Titus Removal Pile. Vast amounts of draw power and passive healing can undermine the ability of Fox to find lethal. Fox solves this in a few ways. First, while he doesn’t have many draw cards, they are all tempo efficient. {{Firesight}} and {{Treasure Chest}} are cheap enough to be played in the early game, and {{Psyche}} is a huge punish against control decks. Secondly, offensively oriented answers like {{Chomp}}, {{Sunder}}, and {{Mighty Steed}} help the deck snowball tempo once it’s on board. The Fox player merely needs to direct a little more than 32 points of damage to the enemy face to win the game, and about half of that can easily come from card effects. As long as Fox can find the other half with early units, he wins.
Axel Exhaust is the other deck in this tier I want to focus on, if only because it makes a good whipping horse. Despite repeated nerfs, the core of the deck remains very similar to those of past builds. Cards like {{Prismata}}, {{Ponderous}}, and {{Arcadium Mask}} can provide a win condition in their own right simply by exhausting the opponent of cards. To get to that position, we run a lot of healing ({{Jakintsu}}, {{Avatar of Light}}, {{Bard Rock}}), very efficient removal ({{Whisk Away}}, {{Burn to a Crisp}}, {{Chain Storm}}), and some helpful utility cards ({{Thanite}}, {{Unfollow}}, {{Take Root}}). If you are like me, and want to be just a little fair, you may also run some top end like {{Pharonis}} and {{Kha Meht}}.
In my opinion, a good Axel Exhaust build supplants what a good Horik build used to do; it can answer any deck in the meta. Axel has a ton of dusting for Sitti, healing and efficient removal for Fox, and better out of deck draws than Titus. Heart also brings with it a wider range of healing options than Strength does, which gives the deck generally more staying power. However, it would be incorrect to say that the deck is flawless. Draw engines built on death effects like {{Chester}} and {{Eclipse}} will always be vulnerable to disruption, and building the deck to answer one threat necessarily weakens it against another. Fox is super happy to {{Chomp}} directly through {{Eclipse}}, Sitti’s {{Floodwater}} can prove overwhelming, and Titus may easily just dust all of Axel’s options. Still, I think the deck is extremely good.
One final note is the fall of Titus Grover. This is likely due to the nerf of {{Gift of Aya}}, which is notably absent from the meta since the nerf. I think the drop of the list is likely over exaggerated, although it may also be that Gift was a lynchpin in its consistency. Time will tell.
B Tier
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B tier has been parsed into only two decks, although it picks up rather smoothly in C tier. The demarcation of these tiers is a bit weird, although that is mostly due to the large gap in power between the S and A tier decks and the B and C tier decks.
The big story of this tier is the fall of Horik Light, a midrange style of deck that rose and fell over the last few patches. The principle design of the deck is a Heart-focused midrange with Strength cards providing a bit of beef behind the value. Classic Heart units like {{Crypto}}, {{Icaru}}, {{Chester}}, and {{Eclipse}} keep the deck running, and units like {{Flashbang}}, {{Halcyon}}, {{Sidekick}}, and {{Light Knight}} take control of the board in the early game. Disruptive tech options like {{Mind Control}}, {{Chomp}}, and {{Wrath}} give the deck a fighting chance against things like Sitti, and top end threats like {{Khan}}, {{Bard Rock}}, and {{Pharonis}} are its final push. Nerfs to {{Light Knight}} and {{Bard Rock}} have weakened the deck, however, and it is now at a point where it falls into what I am calling The Midrange Trap.
OOD mechanics provide an interesting dynamic for archetypes in Skyweaver, as I believe it inherently changes how decks operate. At present, and as a general rule, I think Midrange style decks are stuck in a game design trap where they are generally losing on all fronts, all other things (like card quality) being equal. Because OOD (out of deck) draws are in the game, midrange decks can necessarily lose to OOD burn damage. Secondarily, strong removal options for every game state exist in almost every prism. For a midrange deck, which doesn’t run much burn, the win condition is relying on units to deal damage. If midrange is exhausted of its units, it loses. Now consider the following:
Fox Burn is much faster than Horik Light. Even if they don’t secure lethal quickly, Horik Light has very little healing and only a few big threats. It simply must answer {{Khan}}, {{Bard Rock}} and {{Pharonis}} to win, and this is only if it doesn’t already win on its faster burn. This is a losing matchup for Horik Light, as the burn deck tends to win over both shorter and longer games.
Sitti Flood has not only better draw, but also access to hard removal options like {{Encapsulate}} and massive refills like {{Floodwater}}. For Horik to win, it must be an effective beatdown, but even Fox Burn can often not be fast enough to answer Sitti. This is a losing matchup for Horik.
Titus Removal Pile is literally designed around removal, and exhausting its opponent’s units is not an issue for it. The addition of Strength grants access to cards like {{Sunder}} and {{Titanic}}, so the idea of Horik controlling the board against it just doesn’t work. It’s a losing matchup.
One final deck I should mention is Iris Burn, although only briefly. I haven’t seen this deck in action once, despite the many games of conquest I’ve played. And normally I go through and try to play games with all the decks in the report, but frankly I didn’t see the point. XiaYu is a great player and deck-builder, but I don’t see the comparative advantage of this deck when compared to Strength builds. Strength has a surprising number of burn tools like Brimstone (Burn to a Crisp), Chomp, and Mothermander, and the exclusion of those seems iffy. You also trade Psyche’s massive reload that comes with a unit for a similarly positioned spell, Turn the Tide, except it may also be useful to the opposing player. Psyche, on the other hand, can draw far more cards from the deck, helping the burn player find the final pieces they need for lethal much more reliably.
C Tier
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Finally, C tier shows us the last of what is playable in the meta before falling into obscurity. Despite my predictions, Banjo NakaMask has not risen on the strength of its {{Desire}} + {{Mercurial Mimic}} combo, and Zooey has fallen far more drastically than one would expect. Mira Metal also resides here, although I believe it falls into the same Midrange Trap as Horik Light.
Zooey is the primary deck I want to focus on, because the way that it has fallen is rather fascinating. Zooey has survived numerous nerfs in the past, but only recently has it fallen so far out of favor. Zooey is a swarm focused deck, similar to Sitti (both play a lot of heart units that cycle), that has an aggressive gameplan. Zooey players want to flood the board with a lot of bodies to produce damage, and these bodies have the unique trait of being relatively safe to aoe: they generally cycle and can win on tempo rather easily. Options like {{Wall of Dead}} can provide strong board control and burn, and {{Blood Hunter}} can be useful for circumnavigating guards for lethal. However, despite the nerfs, the deck continued to be viable due to the combo of {{Flock}} + {{Montage}}. To summarize it briefly, Flock Montage was a ~12 damage combo that could scale. The reason Zooey profited from this combo so much was that it was a lot of burn in a very small number of cards. Compared to Fox’s Strength, Heart doesn’t have as many good burn options, though it does have some like Wall of Dead. So having a combo that fulfilled most of the need for burn was quite advantageous for Zooey. Having such a combo was not as useful for a hero like Fox because it shifted the meta away from one of his niches: a wide variety of burn sources.
However, with the nerf of {{Montage}} to 4 mana, and other cards like {{Psyche}} gaining relevance, Zooey doesn’t make as much sense in the meta anymore. Her burn damage is not as expansive as Fox’s, who has access to cards like {{Chomp}}, {{Kha’s Wrath}}, {{Brimstone}}, and {{Sunder}}. In a metagame where control (relative to Zooey) decks run a lot of passive healing and cycling, burn becomes more valuable for aggressive decks, as burn quickly becomes one of the only reliable ways to secure lethal. And while Zooey’s cycling units may likely be better than Fox’s, Fox doesn’t care: The number of cards he needs to draw to win is far fewer than Zooey’s as he’s not looking to assemble any particular combo. Even if he did, options like Psyche and Firesight provide enough value for his needs. The end result is that Zooey doesn’t fulfill the aggressive niche as effectively as other decks, like Fox Burn, and she doesn’t pick up any niche advantages either. I expect Zooey to return as the metagame shifts, perhaps from Agi buffs or a trend towards midrange, but for now she’s been displaced.
One final deck I’ll mention here is Banjo NakaMask, if only for the mixture of hope and trepidation I feel for it. The general premise of the deck is to rapidly empty itself with {{Nakamoto}}, then draw {{Iron Mask}} with {{Cobalt}}. With an empty deck, {{Desire}} is an 8/10 and {{Mercurial Mimic}} is a 16/20. Certain decks (mostly Agility decks) have a really hard time answering this, and have an even harder time winning the game before it comes out on turn 9 against permanent armor + banner. But, it appears that there are enough answers floating around in the meta that the deck is held in check. Cards like {{Encapsulate}} and {{Mortal Blow}} invalidate the deck generally, and the loss in value from holding two units until turn nine shouldn’t be underestimated. Nevertheless, it seems that for now we are safe.
So, did I get everything right? If you’ve known me long enough, you should already know that even if I did I would never admit it. But, if you want to try and make me, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below or message me on Discord! I am always happy to help new and experienced players, and willing to answer any (relevant) question to the best of my abilities. Special thanks to all the wonderful Fox Fang members who helped with the compilation of this report, as well as the team at Skyweaver Leagues who helped with editing. Special thanks are also owed to the amazing team at Horizon, who really do spoil us when it comes to their frequent balance patches. This game wouldn’t exist without them and all their hard work, and for that I think we’re all pretty grateful. Until next month, see y’all in Sky.
Just Add Bacon is an astonishingly arrogant Axel player of the Skyweaver community, working on projects such as Skyweaver Leagues, and his own personal team, Fox Fang. He is also very active in the competitive scene, holding several pre-launch tournament wins and a +60% winrate in constructed conquest. His favorite decks are Horik Control and Fire Fox Aggro. “Basically, anything I can put a dragon or fox into. Or both.”
