JustAddBacon’s Skyweaver Meta Breakdown 2/15/2022
Howdy y’all! My name is Just Add Bacon, bringing y’all the latest edition of the SkyweaverLeagues Meta Report. Following the previous two patches we’ve seen a sharp rise in Heart based decks, led primarily by the dominance of Sitti and Horik. Flock + Montage has also continued to be a defining combo for Agility, largely shaping the aggro meta around its scary burst. And finally, nerfs to Wisdom in previous patches has not only left the meta in a more overall aggressive state, permitting decks like Horik Light Mane to take off, but has also left me in a far better mental state. 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 14. 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 😉
S Tier
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Having largely survived the previous two balance patches, S tier bears a striking resemblance to the A tier of the previous patch, and for good reason. The previous patches were largely targeted at toning down abuse cases involving some uninteractive combos: {{Grover}} had its wings clipped, Axel lost a good chunk of healing, and floodwater OTK is no longer (known) to be possible due to the change to {{Octavian}}. Combine that with a few other drops to powerful wisdom aoe ({{Touch the Sky}}) and Agility removal ({{Honk}}, {{Grim Reprisal}}) and the natural consequence is the rise of some combo and midrange decklists.
The first of these is the affectionately named Sitti Cheat, having survived and possibly grown stronger as a result of the previous changes towards it. While it no longer possesses the disgusting t3 {{Wartlock}} -> {{Puppet Master}} -> {{Pharonis}} (with lead) -> {{Puppet Master}} -> {{Hydrex}} (with lead), its combo potential is still strong. {{Puppet Master}} no longer grants lead, a change that was designed to make the combo more vulnerable to interception. However, this change opened up a new line: {{Puppet Master}} -> {{Enigma Golem}} -> {{Illusion}} / {{Dual Boot}} (0c). From there, if {{Illusion}} is drawn, there are other variations with different advantages. {{Illusion}} may be played on {{Puppet Master}} to better guarantee drawing {{Hydrex}} or {{Pharonis}}, or the spell may be played on {{Enigma Golem}} for a chance to draw {{Dual Boot}}. Personally, I find Illusion to be stronger on Golem since it thins more cards from the deck (consistency), draws a copy (value), and better sets up things such as {{Ancients Rise}} or {{Sick Burn}}. However, I have not been the one playing the deck, so this is merely my view playing many games against it.
The other especially prominent deck in this meta has been Light Mane Horik, which has so far proven rather difficult to adequately nerf. {{Xythe}}, {{Glorious Mane}}, {{Shade}}, and {{Chester}} have all been nerfed in the past two balance patches, and yet changes to the meta have only improved the deck by comparison. The Glorious Mane nerf is perhaps the most interesting to me, as it seems to have only harmed competing aggro decks, such as Heatwave, without actually harming the targeted deck. In any case, despite the nerfs, the core of the deck remains unchanged. The general form is to play sticky units that win board and just roll from there. Interestingly, the list has become almost homogenized for this meta. Forest Fire has seen inclusion into many builds, not just Light Mane (Axel Exhaust, Zooey) to deal with Sitti, as has more extensive use of dusting options. {{Chomp}} provides a nice offensive pivot for the deck, allowing it to begin to steamroll board control against popular death units like {{Eclipse}}. {{Kha’s Wrath}} is a powerful tool for dealing with opposing Zooey decks, and reaching it is rather easy given the game theory. Since Horik’s units trade favorably versus Zoey, she needs to expend resources (cards, time, health, tempo) to clear Horik’s board. Put differently, to be able to clear Horik’s board every turn and develop a winning board state is very hard. If Horik manages to snag control with something like {{Chief Justice}}, {{Light Knight}}, or {{Halcyon}}, he can then begin developing heavy-armor boards that Zoey has little answer for. Once this happens, the {{Kha’s Wrath}} or {{Pharonis}} curves are generally a given. In my view, this dynamic, combined with the rise of Sitti, also explains why, of the three previous A tier decks, Zoey has fallen the most. It’s still strong, as tools like {{Flock}} + {{Montage}} are just a lot of burn damage, but now it’s not as consistently over-tuned in its options as the other heroes.
One final deck I need to note here is {{Zam}}. In the original draft of this article I said I had no evidence to really speak to its power, having not faced it. However, after getting a few games with it, and watching a turn 7, 23 damage lethal with only {{Electron}}, I think I can safely say that this deck is just as busted as Antibens claims. The new tricks include {{Dr. Vile} for an unanswerable draw machine that triggers damage, {{Tragic Poet}} for free aoe and cost reduction, {{Whipvine}} to freeze aggro for a turn, and {{Whelm}}, so that {{Soul Forge}} using {{Zam}} can be done in concert with an {{Electron}} without facing any real consequence. As a rule I try to stay away from blatant balance suggestions in these, but {{Soul Forge}} has been a problem card for literally as long as I have played this game, needing to be changed on numerous occasions. At this point, having dealt with Zam builds invalidating aggro for so long, I think the card would be much safer if it copied from the top dead unit, rather than from hand. It would also help solve Sitti, but I digress.
A Tier
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Dropping down to A tier, we see a hodge-podge of past decks, new decks, and Iris Lion Combo, which somehow kept the exact same score from the previous report. Most decks in this tier have good matchups against one or two of the S tier decks and a worse matchup against the third. Some of these decks may also be slightly less popular due to match-length economics for conquest.
Coming out of the rework to {{Grover}}, XiaYu has finally found a Titus deck that utilizes both low-cost units and {{Etherwail}} efficiently. The goal of the deck is to find Grover either through raw-draws or {{Ether Mask}}. Ether Mask can be drawn reliably off of {{Eldritch Lore}}, so the odds of finding at least one route to Grover is ~56% in the opening hand. Once we’re there, a few combos come out.
Grover (usually with anima) dumps the 1c units from the deck into the grave. This sets up all the rainbow synergies ({{Sky Channel}}, {{World Tree}}, {{Sky Phoenix}}) and clears the path for {{Etherwail}} to hit only large units.
Earth Warden (usually triggering its anima to become a 2/8) draws {{Rosewater Charm}} to ramp, Ether Mask (on the off chance) to find Grover, or {{Gift of Aya}}to draw into Etherwail or some lower earth spell. If Warden draws Etherwail, we’ve probably lost the game so we’re not going to worry about that.
By drawing into and playing these large guard units (with statlines of 2/8, 3/5, and 8/9 respectively), Etherwail’s usual shortcomings are remedied, and the rest of the deck functions as a normal Etherwail list. Combined with the beefy units in previous turns, the tempo spike from pulling huge wisdom units like {{Libra}}, {{Amaruath}}, or {{Sky Phoenix}} with Etherwail can usually control board quite well. Additionally, the nerf to Wisdom removal has probably helped the deck more than expected. Options like {{Waterline}} and {{Touch the Sky}} have seen less play since the nerf, meaning the deck sees less of its natural counters. Altogether, it’s just a strong deck.
In other news, Axel Exhaust has fallen dramatically since the previous patch. {{Jakinstu}}’s rework has substantially limited the card’s ability to be recurred efficiently, meaning the deck generally has much less healing. Consequently, many more control, midrange, and aggro builds have risen. For instance, Iris Lion Combo and Fox Burn provide viable routes to lethal in this play space, with both banking on their ability to connect a potent {{Flock}} into {{Montage}}. Iris generally plays a more “out of hand” style of play, choosing to focus more on setting up the combo with ramp and cost reduction, and removal like {{Whisk Away}}, {{Maelstrom}}, and {{Burn to a Crisp}} enable the deck to efficiently shut down many popular units. On the other hand, Fox Burn has continued its generally low-unit strategy with lots of direct damage effects. Similar to Light Mane, it utilizes {{Chomp}} and {{Wrath}} to address higher tier decks, while also relying on a fire engine (as opposed to death effects) for value generation and draw. This gives the build a little more resilience versus other tech cards. However, both Iris and Fox have issues dealing with Sitti’s swarms, Horik’s armor, and Zooey’s burn. These are good builds, but need special care to deal with stronger opponents.
B Tier
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Gently sliding down into B tier (.04 difference), we pick up the remnants of other past metas, or (more accurately) all the decks I really like. With the fall of Axel, Horik Roil has lost a lot of its meta niche, and the prevalence of fast burn (with the nerf to Glorious Mane) has largely pushed board-based Fox decks to the sideline. Mira Metal, despite its low play rate, has achieved respectable results, and has not been as severely hit by the Glorious Mane nerf as Fire Fox.
For those who do not know, Horik Roil is generally my preferred deck. It’s the deck that has gotten me through several tournaments with minimal assistance, and its fundamentals are just solid. While Light Mane works by having beefy, hard-to-remove units, Horik Roil mixes the approaches of Light Mane and Zooey, trading a bit of power for a more reliable draw engine (with cards like {{Unfallow}}, {{Crystal Cache}}, {{Ether Mask}}) and a more continuous stream of units. The draw power can be, at times, so potent that many good Horik Roil builds actually necessitate some -1 plays like {{Raise Arms}} or {{Bad Dreams}} to avoid overdrawing. Powerful death effects ({{Opal Golem}}, {{Brimstone}} and {{Dracomantium}}) pad out its gameplan while setting up its titular win-con. Grave Roil itself provides a very long-range strategy to the deck through effects like {{Skeeter}}, {{Flame Phoenix}}, {{Polar Bear}}, {{Temple Watch}}), while other units like {{Titanic}} {{Pharonis}} and {{Undragon}} push the opponent onto the backfoot as time goes on.
The mid-game is presently the chief issue for Horik Roil, as it gets caught in a dilemma against the rest of the meta. The presence of Sitti’s Vypers and Light Mane’s 3 power (or higher) units means the normal package of {{Chill}} + {{Funeral Moon}} (usually prefered for its flexibility and synergy with other options) can’t be run. {{Forest Fire}} is a necessity for the Sitti matchup, so {{Foul Stench}} or {{Firesight}} can fit in well, (Which also find {{Burninate}} or {{Kha’s Wrath}} respectively) but all of these open up new holes for other decks. {{Foul Stench}} and {{Kha’s Wrath}} are both quite weak versus Light Mane, while {{Burninate}} and {{Firesight}} are ill-advised for Zooey. The conclusion I’ve come to with my builds is running Forest Fire, Foul Stench, {{Chain Storm}}, Burninate, and Kha’s Wrath, but this comes at the expense of severely hurting odds against combo like Zam or {{Flock}} + {{Montage}}. I’m confident with optimization the deck could be pushed to A tier, but no further at this time. On the bright side, it can certainly go even with any single deck in the meta.
Mira Metal is another deck I have higher hopes for, mostly for its historical relevance and viable dusting options. To say we are in a death effect meta would be an understatement, and with the nerf to Chester there is no longer a single death unit in the game that doesn’t get hard-countered by a well timed {{Encapsulate}}. As a Strength hero, Mira has access to the oft-mentioned Chomp and Wrath, but she is able to use the more efficient dust and silence options from the Intellect prism. {{Encapsulate}} is the obvious choice for eradicating Sitti’s Hydrex, but Deactivate and Shrink Ray are also potent options that fit well within the deck. Brimstone can enable a {{Tempest Brew}} package, Unstoppable Chop penetrates barrier, and {{Germinate}} can immediately remove problems like {{Enigma Golem}} or {{Pharonis}}. Aside from the answers, Mira is doing relatively similar things to Light Mane with her armor units, she just has a slightly more aggressive top end with Gemini. Were this deck not so technical to use, I imagine it would be more highly placed, but the stats used to generate placement are derived from a wide variety of player’s views, not exclusively my own.
One final note for this tier is the fall of Fire Fox decks, which can be briefly explained in relation to the rest of the meta. Against Sitti, the deck is just a lot worse than Zooey, and whether you are Heatwave, Smelt, or pure Firefox you are never going to be as consistent in answering her turn 3 combo as she is in playing it. The only winning scenarios involve decks with heavy amounts of disruption, which compromises all other relevant matchups. Light Mane is a wall the deck can’t get through, as even with {{Snap Trap}} Agility just struggles against armor. Zooey is a faster build, and her Flock Montage punishes Fox for trying to play for board. Board control is wholly irrelevant when you die to burn damage on 8.
C Tier
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And finally, in C tier, we have an assortment of wisdom decks that really defy my expectations for how low they’ve placed. Still, the fact that they are on the report while neither Mai (the only dual-prism hero to not be represented) nor any monoprism hero made it on bears mentioning. Banjo Grover took the harshest dive from the previous report, while NakaMask also fell noticeably. Interestingly enough Titus Removal Pile actually increased its score, although that may be due to refinements made to the scoring process.
The fall of {{Grover}} really shows the importance of consistency to competitive builds. Previously, Gover was capable of discarding every one mana unit from your deck, as opposed to the current version of just one of each element. At its peak, this difference is between 8 and 17 cards for Banjo, although most of the previous Grover builds ran around 15 one mana units. The strength of this old design was the reliability with which the rest of its curve would follow. Turn 4 {{World tree}} was rather predictable, and a {{Soul Forge}} into {{Sky Phoenix}} was a nasty follow-up that aggro rarely answered well. The big kicker of the deck was the turn 9 {{Desire}} into {{Mimic}} combo, producing two units with both guard and barrier. One of these would be a 8/10, and the other was a 16/20. On the merit of this absurd statline, I would prefer Desire be made a play effect, but it appears that may not be necessary. With the loss of its immense consistency, the deck seems to be too volatile. However, this may just be due to a lack of play given the prevalence of Sitti, which is a rather poor matchup for a deck with little if any removal or speed.
What is far more interesting to me in this tier is the potency of Titus Removal Pile, a deck in similar form to Horik Roil. Based on the merit of players like Unjust standing by the deck, as well as my own personal ideas about it, I’m inclined to say it will prove stronger in the future than it appears now. For starters, Titus has access to a lot of the potent strength disruption I’ve been talking about the entire report. He has access to two copies of Burn to a Crisp, two copies of Kha’s Wrath, and a lot of other death effect disruption. Whisk Away and Eradicate are cheap options that hit aggro hard, which is what every control deck wants. On the top end, it has access to {{Prismata}} and {{Ponderous}} to start the OOD train. Interestingly, the change to {{Octavian}} may incidentally be helpful to its gameplan, as it’s a large guard unit that draws and applies secret cost reduction. Its draw targets cards like {{Sunder}}, {{Waterline}}, and {{Lotus’s Reflection}}, while cards like {{Polar Bear}} or {{Cryogen’s Ire}} could also be reasonably included. That is mostly conjecture though, whether or not it works remains to be seen. In any case, the deck has ways to disrupt the strategies of everything above it quite well, and it may just be a matter of tuning.
So did I get everything right? Well, I’ve yet to be proven wrong on any opinion whatsoever, so statistically speaking it is impossible that I am incorrect. But, if you find the desire to express disagreement with me, feel free to leave it in the comments below or message me on Discord! I am happy to help, 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 a cunningly careful control player of the Skyweaver community, working on projects between SkyStreamers, Skyweaver Leagues, and his own personal team, Fox Fang. He is also very active in the competitive scene, regularly holding the Grandweaver constructed rank on at least one account and several tournament wins. His favorite decks are Horik Control and Fox Aggro. “Basically, anything I can put a dragon or fox into. Or both.”
Just Add Bacon#7811
Fox Fang Official Discord Server https://discord.gg/ZgRFGjCD