Hello everyone!
Today I would like to talk about the first month of Fall of Argenport and my thoughts about it. The new set dropped four weeks ago and had a big impact on the meta. Since I've been playing this game for two years by now, I will talk about what I think the changes FoA brought, my journey so far and my perspective of the current meta.
The first impact
The first week of the Fall of Argenport was heavily influenced by Teacher of Humility and Alhed, Mount Breaker. Mono Time was an obvious deck that got a lot of new good cards. It basically built itself too; you take the highest statted card at each point of the curve, add some power accelerating dorks and you got yourself a deck that will totally crush inefficient builds. This is exactly why Mono Time seemed so good, but, I don't expect it or any other big time deck but praxis to stay in the meta. Having a good curve and little interaction works well when your opponent is trying something new and hasn't spent too much time refining it. However, once those decks start to get better I don't expect big time midrange to stay since none of its core weaknesses (getting blown out by tempo efficient removal) got addressed with the new set.
Which brings me to my own experimentation in the first week. I wrote about the first decks I built here. As I had stated in that article, I immediately started with Combrei Aggro and was quite successful with it. Whenever we got new cards, my first brews were to try and see how low I can push the curve without losing the longer games. The reasoning behind this is that you get fewer chances to have unplayable hands if you are mostly playing 1 to 3 drops and I feel confident in my ability to win more games than I lose as long as I actually get to play. You can see that in my week one lists, they mostly consist of two and three drops with some cards like the merchants and Spellcraft weapons. Those offer early plays and help generate more value later on. Another reason to play decks like Combrei Aggro is that you get some really good tempo options like Vanquisher's Blade against big time midrange units.
Further refinement
So with the season being reset, the grind back to Masters started again and after last season, I didn't feel like playing Combrei anymore. I already had a deck in mind I wanted to revisit, Stonescar Aggro. I am a huge fan of decks that set out to do one thing and do that one thing very efficiently and Stonescar Aggrois looking to kill the opponent as quickly as possible. It got a couple of new cards and I talked about them extensively in my Deck Tech. I want to state once again that I think Stonescar Aggro is criminally underplayed and still well positioned in the meta, it just takes some skill to pilot.
Once I reached masters, I spent my time brewing Miracle Blitz, which I already talked about here too. This is one of the decks that pushes a low power curve whilst lowering the influence requirements becoming more efficient in that way. Other people discovered TJP with Gift of Battle being good independently and it became a fair share of the current meta. It has a lot of good matchups, some even ones and so far no glaring weaknesses. I expect the meta to evolve around this deck and am confident that there will be something that answers this and is well positioned in the meta. On a different note, my initial assessment of big time midrange proved to be correct and I have pretty much stopped seeing it except for the occasional Praxis Midrange deck.
FJS Icariais another deck that really became popular thanks to the addition of the market, new filtering and Icaria-yelling Valkyrie Rizahn. The list is very proactive and looks to bridge the early game to start dropping high-value threats that can singlehandedly win the match. It is a bit soft to the Aegis-heavy Blitz decks but I think with some adaption it might prove to be a staying force in the meta.
Charge Rod got popular too. This deck is still on its rather RNG dependant gameplan to chain a couple of charge units from a Divining Rod. Thanks to Bulletshaper and Answer the Call it gets to do its thing more consistently. I like the deck itself and the place it's currently in. It occasionally gets to do powerful things but will lose to more proactive decks more often than not. I hope a deck that is in its core so reliant on randomness never gets really competitive unless the meta gets so control heavy that you can get away with doing nothing for the first six turns.
General thoughts
I have to say, I have deeply enjoyed the Fall of Argenport so far. I can only speak from a constructive point of view, as I don't really enjoy limited in any game, but it feels fairly different from the meta we had prior. While TJP is still one of the best decks, the Blitz version plays fairly differently and offers a lot more room for counterplay and misplays. Midrange decks, such as those we saw in the Empty Throne meta, aren't dominating anymore and aggressive decks got some new tools as well. Control decks really benefitted from the new Crests and received new cards like Cull the Deck and Rindra's Choice. So if any devs happen to see this, you did a great job! I am looking forward to new decks that will evolve and am looking to refine some control decks, now that the meta settled a bit. The game itself feels a lot different now, in a positive way. Everything is very refined and we get so many options for every slot in each deck that I think we will see a lot of refinement in the future. I like that blocking got more important again and that a plethora of combat tricks are now seeing play as they tend to be really skill testing. I am a bit saddened by the fact that tribute seems to be mostly enabled by Combustion Cell and less reliably in Xenan. It might be that it just needs more experimentation, but I'm not confident about that. However, Spellcraft and Berserk both turned out to be great and a lot of fun to play, so I am very happy in that regard.
Cards I want to talk about
Alessi, Combrei Archmage: I think this might be one of the cards with the biggest impact on the metagame. Alessi is an extremely powerful card and enables a tempo playstyle with lots of spells like in Miracle Blitz or a grindy style such as in Alessi Moment together with Crownwatch Press-gang. It alone is a reason to play some kind of Combrei deck, be it two factions or three factions to get more spells. If I had any card that I would have a close eye on regarding future balance changes it would be this one. That doesn't mean it needs to be changed, I just think this is one of the most powerful new cards that shapes the meta.
Gift of Battle: I have already seen complaints about this card arising as it is the prominent centerpiece of Miracle Blitz. However, I think it's also one of the least important cards in the deck at the same time. It enables big burst turns, but the true strength of the deck lies in its resilient threats that you can adapt to fit most situations. If the deck needs a nerf or not remains to be seen, but I think now that some people have learned to pilot it we first have to wait for people to learn how to play against it. I'm leaning to the deck being fine since you can play around the threats, but if it ever turns out to be too dominant I would be looking to change some of its very resilient threats.
Kosul Battlemage: I think this is one of my favorite cards in the new set. It is undeniably good, but not too strong and I just wanted to point out the fact that the high amount of quality three drops finally pushed Unseen Commando out of some decks. No longer do you see the very visible Unseen everywhere and Justice decks finally have a real choice to make regarding their three drop slot selection.
Sword of Unity: I am still convinced this is one of the best cards of the new set. It helps Combrei aggro against other aggressive decks and control decks. It often allows you to race other decks and is just an overall really powerful card that rewards you for playing Combrei. I love the flexibility the Spellcraft offers and correctly deciding when to use which mode often decides games.
Teacher of Humility: Undeniably powerful this card has already created a lot of controversy in the community. From a mostly competitive perspective, Teacher is fine. The best decks that are currently seeing play are fast, have a lot of early game options and aren't that hurt if they get hit by Disciplinary Weights. It is mostly a 3/3 for 2TT, that helps Time decks cover their weak early game and rewards you for being heavily in Time. I like all of that. Now to the parts I'm not really a fan of. While I like the idea of forcing control decks to interact early instead of blindly drawing cards, I dislike that Teacher's Infiltrate ability hurts more janky ideas really hard. From a competitive point of view, I don't think the card needs to be changed, but for the sake of the jank players, I wouldn't mind the cost increase of Disciplinary Weights to be a bit toned down.
Alhed, Mount Breaker: I think this is the most overrated card from the new set. It does make your large men even larger, but at some point, the stats stop mattering. It covers none of the weaknesses big time midrange had before set 4 arrived and just adds another five drop sitting there waiting to get blown out by tempo efficient removal such as Annihilate and Equivocate.
End of Hostilities: When I first saw this card, I really underestimated it. Having it actually played now, thanks to Isomorphic's Dragoncrunch deck (which is a ton of fun and you should check it out), I have to say it generates a ton of value. You can use it in conjunction with Kenna or to summon two of your opponents biggest units and as long as big time midrange is still somewhat popular that can't be too bad.
Final Words
I would like to say that I really enjoyed the first month of the Fall of Argenport and I think we have just seen the tip of the iceberg. Lots of new possibilities haven't really been touched yet and I wouldn't be surprised to see a totally different meta one month from now. I am looking forward to testing all the other ideas that are floating around in my mind and you can be sure that I am going to show some of them to you here. I would be interested in your experience and thoughts about FoA's first month and as always, the best place you can contact me at is Discord. I hope to see you all again next week and make sure you all brew enough!
