Hello Everyone ❤

The Skinny

The addition of even more spell removals for Magic, along with the nerf to Nature Flourish, appeared to be the green light for Control Magic archetypes to dominate over the weekend. However, it was Onslaught War that ended up being the most popular archetype by far, since it can be tuned to uniquely counter aggro and control with essentially the same core deck list. The meta as it is directly favors Deception, although it was underplayed over the weekend.

Death, Light, and Nature are all fairly playable, and for the first time since Ranked Constructed, there doesn't appear to be a completely underpowered God.

More importantly, though, we're beginning to see even more archetypal variety within each God, which allows us to move away from blanket statements like "X God counters Y God" and instead describe the meta as certain decks countering certain decks, regardless of God — signs of a healthy metagame.

Overview

The new spells, especially board clears, allow players to explore more slow, control-oriented styles of play. The indirect fallout from this generally means that Midrange becomes stronger, due to its role as a natural counter against Control. The new spells can also be utilized by Midrange to survive better against Aggro.

Aggro's identity appeared to have changed the most. Personally, it seems as if the addition of new board clears and nerfing Flourish was a step too much. While Nature Flourish Aggro was oppressive last week, with some the highest usage numbers we've seen so far in these Ranked Constructed events, it primarily thrived due to the lack of board clears available to all Gods besides Magic.

Aggro now needs to either play fast enough to threaten lethal before the board clears become playable, or play sticky enough to where board clears lose absolute value. The latter is achieved by playing warded creatures, like Dryder Sailweaver, or persisting on board through death via afterlifes like Viking Bloodguard or with the Death God Power, Undying Wish. There are also a couple other options that I'll explore in the deep-dives for each God below.

The last thing I'll say about Aggro is that it would probably be in a much better spot if it weren't for the Magic God Power, Blastwave. I expand more on this in the section on the Light God.

Where the new cards tend to have the most impact is on the lower ranks. It's essentially no longer a safe strategy to carelessly play creatures and develop wide boards, as people now have access to more efficient ways to clear them. More thought and care needs to be taken to consider how you develop your board and how you plan to win. At the higher levels, this has so far translated into playing reactive decks that favor card value over tempo.

Onslaught War, an archetype that blossomed last weekend as a response to Nature Flourish Aggro, was the clear winner this week, likely influenced by Yorku's ascent to the top of the rankings for the 2nd week in a row. With a few adaptations, it's also able to counter the predominant Control Magic playstyle, while also taking on the Control role against Aggro decks.

Overall this is patch has generated a relatively healthy meta and I think it will only be a matter of time until even more viable deck options are discovered.

Death

Death is essentially in the same place as it was prior. It has three clear play styles right now: Reanimate Aggro (decklist), Undying Wish Zoo/Aggro (decklist), and Control (decklist).

Reanimate Aggro is a more unique form of Aggro that's able to compensate for the increased board clears by having a way to recycle card value, which is usually lost when your board gets wiped clean. Reanimate Aggro is probably the strongest Aggro variant played in the meta currently.

In terms of viability, Death isn't significantly represented at the highest levels of play, but that may just have to do with the overwhelming presence of Onslaught War this week. While it's far from being an unwinnable matchup against Onslaught War, the more aggressive Death decks typically need a bit of breathing room to be able to develop into their win condition board states, but Onslaught War is built to answer board threats as they appear.

Where Aggro Death variants can really shine is in a meta that more aggressively counters Onslaught War (see Deception). Overall, Death is probably in a fine spot right now, although Death Control could probably benefit from having access to a few cards that are currently un-lived in the game.

Deception

Deception has natural counters to Onslaught War and Control Magic, making it one of the most viable Gods in the game in this meta. The plethora of Hidden creatures like Shade Walker doesn't offer the War player any killable targets, largely nullifying the strength of Onslaught. Since Onslaught War is generally positioned as a reactive deck, it suffers against Deception, which has many different ways of generating card advantage, such as with Cutthroat Insight, Vault Vagabond, and the newly-buffed Double Dealer.

Many Onslaught War decks are also lacking frontlines, allowing Deception players who use the Cheat God Power to continuously keep a damage-dealer like Shade Walker or card-value-generator like Vault Vagabond Hidden for multiple turns.

Onslaught War, at its core, typically intends to be the control player, as opposed to the aggressor, in its matchups. As a result, the advantages Deception has against Onslaught War can also be applied to other popular control decks in the meta, such as top-heavy Control Magic decks, making Deception the best counter-play against the two most popular Gods this weekend.

Despite the benefits, Deception was still underutilized in the competitive landscape this event. I'm wildly guessing two reasons: 1. It's generally harder to pilot Deception decks, 2. Many Onslaught War players probably felt like they had an advantage in the mirror match anyway. Or maybe no one just thought of the counter.

Where Deception tends to fall short is against Aggro/Zoo decks, like the old Nature Flourish. Taking Nature's place, however, are different Zoo variants such as Reanimate Death, that can usually try and pressure Deception well enough to the point where Cutthroat Insight offers no value and weak-tempo turns like playing Vault Vagabond on turn 3 are punished significantly.

Deception appears best run slowly as a Midrange or Control variant (decklist, decklist), with current decklists tuned around countering War specifically. Cards that were originally considered staples, like Lightfoot Informant and Uncanny Rogue, are starting to see less play. Lightfoot generally doesn't offer enough value against War and Hunting Trap appears to be a more reliable single-target removal than comboing the more expensive Uncanny Rogue. Deception's new board clear, Rapture Dance, is probably one of the best in the game for its role as well.

Deception's role in the meta is the most fascinating to me. It exists to keep a check on Control decks, but when the meta gets dominated by Aggro, Deception tends to disappear. Perhaps the newly-buffed Sleep cards and Rapture Dance will change that slightly, but I like its role as a meta enforcer for the time being.

At the end of my post i hope this post is very informative and helpful for everyone and newcomers and lover of God's unchained game.
Now my post is end and now we well meet you at my next post.
Thank you so much for your attention and love for me.

Hopefully Regards to,
Jerry Springer