Hello everyone!
In this article I am going to talk about the early impact that Fall of Argenport has had on the Eternal metagame and will review the results of the first community tournament after the set was released, which was a best of three format called the Market Master hosted by RNG Eternal. I will then conclude by giving my thoughts on the deck lists that were brought to the tournament.
Metagame Analysis
Fall of Argenport has had a major impact on the Eternal competitive scene and players have already started brewing new ideas as well as updating old lists with new cards. With a bunch of new mechanics and powerful cards, we have started to see a reemergence of archetypes coming back into the fray.
Note that for analysing the representation of archetypes, all decks were taken into account. Looking from the results of the Market Master, we can see that midrange decks were the most popular and made up the majority of the field at around 55%. This was not only Time midrange decks but also included a variety of others such as Stonescar midrange and Rakano midrange. Control decks were comprised of Chalice, Removal Pile, Icaria Blue and Grenadins which were decently represented in the tournament at just over 30%, whilst aggressive decks almost didn't exist in this tournament paling in comparison at just under 15% of the tournament.
Win Rate Analysis
Here I will go through the win rates for each archetype and give my thoughts about them. It is important to note that I have considered the win rates for decks with at least two copies of each in the tournament. Granted the sample sizes are small, due to the turnout not being the largest, but these results are still relevant and give us an early indication of what to expect in future tournaments to come.
Firstly, aggressive decks performed really badly in all of the variants, with the best performing decks not achieving more than one win in the Swiss portion of the tournament. This could be due to the inclusion of Merchants and Markets allowing for midrange and control decks to fetch their specific anti-aggro cards with increased consistency. Control decks performed slightly better than their aggressive counterparts, averaging a win rate of between 45-50%, with the best performing deck being Chalice with a 4-2 record in the Swiss. It is interesting that Chalice has made a comeback to the competitive scene and I believe this is because of the merchants having a positive effect on decks that rely on a key card to get rolling, giving them that added consistency.
The midrange decks included Mono Time, Elysian and Praxis and these were the ones that performed really well, with all of them having more than 64% win rate. The rise in Mono Time decks could be attributed to some new tools they received in Fall of Argenport, namely Teacher of Humility and Thundering Kerasaur, which are quite heavy on the influence costs. I personally do not understand why anyone would want to play Mono Time when Praxis and Elysian are strictly better and there is no reason to not play a second colour. The interesting aspect can be seen in Combrei's performance being worse than Mono Time at 46% win rate. I think the reason is simple in that the people who played the Combrei deck, built it not like Mono Time splashing good Justice cards but as an smaller midrange deck. This is why they did not perform so well in my opinion. However, it does not mean this is the wrong way to build Combrei but perhaps it was not the best way for this particular tournament.
Other noteworthy decks included Big Rakano, which was just above average at 52% win rate whilst Stonescar midrange performed slightly better at 55%. I think this deck was bad but the power of Statuary Maiden in a meta filled with Time midrange was enough to make the deck perform well.
Decklists
Here I will go through the decklists that I liked the most from each archetype and how to improve them. Again, I will be focusing on deck lists with at least two copies in the tournament.
Elysian midrange by Styxo, Praxis by LilBeef should all play at least three Praxis Displacers main in my opinion. The Combrei list by SooNo could play them as well but they are not necessary, as they have other options for regaining tempo in the form of Vanquish and Vaquisher's Blade. For all Time midrange decks, I wouldn't play Xenan Obelisk in the main and would play the fourth Predatory Carnosaur before the first Thundering Kerasaur. There is no need for Obelisk as your creatures are already bigger than any other decks, whilst Displacer is key because it is one of the few ways of interaction Time has in particular against weapon-based aggressive strategies. It is also is great against expensive units, making opponents lose a lot of tempo by replaying their units the following turn. Carnosaur is just a better card in my opinion as he not only gives you value when you kill a unit but also protects you from a tempo loss. This is because even when your opponents play a removal spell on it that costs 2 or 3, you already recover some tempo by killing a unit. Thundering Kerasaur will give you value when they play a removal but you will fall behind a lot and probably lose the game on the spot against aggressive decks if they have an answer for it. The floor on Carnosaur is just bigger and that is more important than the potential upside that Thundering Kerasaur has.
Mono Time: Don't play it, play a second colour as it is almost free.
Big Rakano by Rewind: Play the Itxtun merchant as it importantly gives you access to crucial silver bullets such as Flamestoker and Bore whilst still fetching Icaria. All Icaria-based decks should play this merchant in my opinion.
Chalice by Bradykin: Play a Crest in the Market not a Seat and build a better power base. This one is really bad as there are not enough Time sources and too many Primal sources. Even though I disagree with many of the particular numbers and card choices in this list, I think they are reasonable and depend a lot on the particular meta you want to beat. Overall solid but change the power base.
Removal Pile by Camat0: Of course I think it is perfect as I made it (Editor's note: jajaja). The problem is that I don't think this is the deck you want to play in this particular meta and if you still do, you probably want to play more Maidens. My recommendation would be to play FJS Midrange instead.
Stonescar Midrange: Don't play it, any other ss deck is better
Stonescar Slingers by Krizalio: Solid list I like it.
That wraps up this overview of our first look of the Eternal metagame post Fall of Argenport. Overall, it is very clear that Time Midrange is good and very well represented so next week you better have a plan for it! This means that Maiden is one of the best cards right now and you should not play any decks that lose to Teacher. Until next time!
