Intro
This weekend was the first Weekend Ranked with Mortal Judgement out. With the new expansion brings new cards, new decks, and a new meta. The meta is filled with people trying to discover what the best deck is. There is a large variety of decks vying for top 10: Aggro Light, Anubian Death, Hidden Rush Deception, Combo Magic, Amazon and Midrange Nature (sorry War gets the short end this week).
I bought a bunch of packs, which you can see the highlights here @meltysquid/mortal-judgement-pack-pulls, but I didn’t pull all the cards to complete some of the top decks and the meta legendaries were pricey. So, I stuck with what I’m used to with Deception and netdeck a list from the top 10.
Decklist
I started out playing with jrok96’s deck. I lost 2 games, at first dropped to diamond, won 1, then changed decks.
I found Arms Dealer kind of clunky to me. It is most useful on a wide board and expends mana at the start of your turn to buff your board for the turn, but having the buff come next turn and use up mana felt hard to find the right opportunity to play it.
Pyramid Warden also got a lot worse in the meta. Two of the most popular decks Aggro Light and Hidden Rush Deception have easy answers to PW. Light has four transform effects, 2x Light’s Levy and 2x Thaeric Extortionist, to do away with PW, while Deception has strength steal/weaken creatures that turn PW into a dead weight. Even Anubian Deception doesn’t mind PW that much since Priestess of Takhat and Raving Necromancer trigger on all Anubian death’s and can take out PW with Vile Reaver or Curse of Greed.
I’m not sure about Stoneskin Poison. There aren’t many good targets in this aggro-heavy meta filled with small creatures, but without it you are stuck using your god power every turn to get around big frontlines if you run into them.
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I changed to this deck I copied from one of the top 10 21/25 decks. I subbed Kaya, which I don’t have for an Umber Arrow.
The strength weaken/steal creatures are busted. You get so much tempo from summoning a creature and weakening theirs. 0 strength renders most creatures useless, but you still have to be careful against decks with buffs. I expect them to get nerfed after this weekend.
Umber Arrow has a lot of targets in the meta and the weaken cards help it find more targets. It is especially good with Anubians around since you can steal their pingers to use for yourself and keep out of your opponent’s void.
The deck has 6 buff cards, Selfless Guildmate, Dark Knives, and Ludian Thespian, so the deck has lots of burst damage or use them to buff a creature to trade up.
The Hollow might be too slow in this meta and it is hard finding the time where it won’t die if you are playing second, but it still wins games by itself occasionally if you can get it to stick.
Lethargy Mage has an AOE weaken effect that comes up occasionally with the meta full of wide aggro decks.
Shadow of Lethenon is still busted in this meta especially with Ludian Thespian which can give a double buff. Light is very popular and doesn’t have many outs to Shadow. Eucos in Eclipse isn’t run in Aggro Light decks.
Dart Maniac is pretty good with a lot of small creatures around like the 1/1s from echo. It nombos slightly with your weaken creatures since the effect will hit the weakest creature which is sometimes your opponent’s 0 strength creatures that you aren’t worried about.
Frumentarii Instigator is even better now since your echo creature are guild too so can draw tons from the 1/1s. This is extra nasty in the mirror since it draws from ALL other guild creatures especially with Deception being popular now.
The deck does lack hard removal, like Stoneskin Poison or Hunting Trap, but the meta is filled with aggro/small creatures, so your mileage may vary. You can have a difficult time against large creatures.
Rapture Dance might be good to find room for. Decks go wide so Rapture will full clear usually, but 6 mana is a long time in this meta. It also isn’t useful against Anubians since they’ll trade their board in and summon them back later.
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Matchups
| God | Archetype | Score (Wins/Matches) |
|---|---|---|
| Death | ||
| Anubians | 1/2 | |
| BWD | 1/1 | |
| Zombies | 1/1 | |
| Deception | ||
| Hidden Rush | 1/1 | |
| Midrange | 1/1 | |
| Light | ||
| Aggro | 8/11 | |
| Control | 1/1 | |
| Magic | ||
| Combo | 1/1 | |
| Control | 1/1 | |
| Nature | ||
| Control | 1/2 | |
| Midrange | 2/2 | |
| War | ||
| Control | 0/1 | |
| Total | 19/25 |
| Win | Lost | |
|---|---|---|
| First | 10 | 0 |
| Second | 9 | 6 |
The meta is almost all aggro go wide deck. Control is dead, the meta is too fast, most games end by 7 mana now.
Weaken is strong, the plethora of aggro decks means lots of weak creatures that you can render useless with your weaken creatures.
Anubians are on the difficult side to play against. You can’t really deal with their board since they keep bring it back with their revive spells. So you are forced into a losing face race since they can outrace you with Priestess giving them face damage and Raving Necromancer healing them while they trade their Anubians into your board. Ragnarok deals with your creatures well too for cheap. You can’t win the long game against them with all their recursion, so you can only hope to draw well and rush them down.
The control variant is even harder to deal with since they can ramp to their power cards and have more removal in Neferu, Apocalypse Now, and Demogorgon to deal with your board.
The Deception mirror mostly hinges on a few power cards. Deception can’t out Shadow of Lethenon that easily outside of Shadowstep Backstabber, Rapture Dance or Dart Maniac if they run it, so Shadow can run them over easily. Both players have weaken cards, so you’ll both have a bunch of useless creatures around to watch out for Rapture Dance. Frumentarii Instigator draws from ALL other guild creatures so you can easily draw 4+ cards from it.
The deck is great against light with its hidden creatures and weaken creatures since the majority were of what I faced were light. I guess light is so popular is because it was the top deck before MJ, then people stuck with it, adding in new cards into their light deck they pulled or bought from MJ. The key in this matchup is using your strength weaken creatures at the right time and controlling the board. The strongest part of your deck here is putting your opponent’s creatures to 0 strength, which makes them useless. Be careful though since Light runs a lot of buffs, they can buff their creatures back up and you might lose board control.
Light only has Eucos in Eclipse as an AOE option to deal with wide boards and hidden creatures but that is almost never run in Aggro Light since it hurts their own creatures. Control Light can run it but Control Light is a niche deck that never sees ladder play in the current meta so you don’t have to think about it.
Combo Magic is a coin flip on who goes first and draws better to see who can get to their wincon first. Either you rush them down in time or they get everything together fast enough to kill you first.
Control Magic can be hard if they draw their remove early. They have a lot of AOE from Tracking Bolt, Shaped Blast, and Stormstress that will wipe your board. Museum Infusion is a new card that can be hard for you to deal with since it puts out multiple frontlines so you can’t hide and ignore them all. Lightning Talisman wrecks you hard, it can take out up to 6 creatures easily.
Nature is a real rough matchup. Most of your strengths are useless against them. They can hose your small creatures so hard with everything: Wildfire, Selena’s Mark, Faeflame Blade and Staff of Roots, Underbrush Boar and Barksworn Hunter. They have a bit of healing from Selena’s Mark which can put them out of lethal range and give them the extra turn to kill you. Hidden is useless against their random removal. You can win if things go well with the draw and going first so you can get initiative, but it’s an uphill climb.
War is ded, they got nothing on the power level of the rest of the busted cards from MJ, and they got a few nerfs to their busted core cards. My one match against Control War went bad. I went 2nd with not a hot draw so I couldn’t put a lot of pressure. It’s looking okay, but then they get Ravenous Chimera from Out of its Misery. I don’t have any outs to it and can’t race its healing, so it is lights out for me.
I didn’t play against any Aggro War but I think it shouldn’t be a difficult matchup. Depending on who goes first and how draws go you can outrace them, or you can try to control the board by using your strength weaken creatures and making good trades.
Gameplay Video
Here are some highlight matches from my weekend ranked.
- G1 Aggro Light
This match shows off the strength of Hidden Rush Deception vs Aggro Light. Light has the initiative going first, but my strength weaken creatures let me take the lead. From there I can make favorable trades or ignore their creatures and hit face. By the time they can play Prayer of the Desperate it was too late.
- G2 Aggro Light, 8:54
I go second again in this match against Light, but this time I couldn’t take initiative and they get off Radiant Dawn on a wide board, then it’s lights out for me. Playing Patient Pickpocket first and saving Blade Borrower for the 2nd turn might have been better looking back since I could weaken two creatures in one turn. This also shows that 0 strength creatures can still be a threat in decks that run buffs.
- G3 Combo Magic, 14:32
Clear Mind god power shows it is Combo Magic off the bat, so it’s going to be a race to who can win first. Going second isn’t ideal, but my opponent has a slow start and I start hitting face. Getting the Rune of Strength from the sanctum let me play around Shaped Blast by giving my Shadow of Lethenon frontline so my opponent couldn’t fully clear my board. I also getting lucky with my Shadow living the Aetherbug pings.
- G4 Anubian Death, 19:55
Anubians are a tough matchup. They have reach, healing, and gas to go for days. My opponent goes first, takes the lead, and I can’t catch up. Land of the Dead finishes me.
- G5 Midrange Nature, 32:53
Nature is the worst matchup since their removal deals with your hidden creatures and 1/1s well. My opponent gets pretty lucky, hitting all their random removal in the right spots. I get my opponent low but they clear my board with The Hunt. It’s turning around for my opponent as I’m stuck top decking. I steal a Charging Oryx from their hand, which goes face and put them close to lethal. My opponent runs out of answers to my hidden creature and I finish them. A very swingy game, both unlucky and lucky.
- G6 BWD, 50:03
Board Wipe Death used to be the menace of the meta but control has left the meta mostly, with Combo Magic being a stone-cold killer against control and aggro decks speeding up a ton to outrace combo. I rush them down with all my creatures, but Neferu comes down and wipes them, leaving only a Guild Enforcer left for me. I’m running low on creatures, so I hide my Guild Enforcer every turn so my opponent is forced to use a board wipe to remove it. My opponent is force to board wipe my hidden creatures every time or die. Eventually they run out of board, wipes in hand and I finish them.