Meta shifts in the past year

I haven't been that active for the past year and haven't played since February. What can the more active people tell me about the meta shifts that transpired for the past few months? I assume ST and SL are still top dogs after the UD nerfs but I'm wondering about individual decks that came and went.

 

St/x still seems in

 

FF SP, FF ST, FF KF,FF SL, ST/X, UD/X. In no order but there are some of the successful decks all capable of top 10. There may be others but thats off the top of my head.

 

All I know is IS is trash

 

Splits are dominant , anything St/X and UD/X is getting played a lot

 

I've seen lots of cheesy splits

 

What about SL or FW?

 

not much FW, just some worms here and there and skellies before nerfs.
SL top class with dragons and skeezics, but sand also is not in a bad spot.
FF ST almost only in frost amp, split ST a lot with SP or FW or UD.
KF rangers very solid or KF illusions elven statue if you like cheese.
UD meta /FS adaptive meta very strong as always
IS meta/dwarves/pally solid but missing players.

 

You forget, Young Axey...IS is OP.

 

SL is still very strong. Haven't played nor seen any FW in literally months and months apart from Worms which are OP.

 

you forget 12drakula fw meta

 

What's with the diehard IS players around mid elo. I agree with Axe, IS is weak right now. Yet I get matched vs IS way more than any other faction.

 

Can only speak for my own motivations here, but I'm not running any FW deck other than worms when SL is as prevalent as it is, and could be packing Trigger or UPS. Either you play one of FW's other themes (which are mostly butts for various reasons right now) or you play mixed attrition (the best versions of which build around multiple relics) or you play worms (and, you know, stomp most decks). I would love to play more attrition, but damn getting eaten alive by one rune is some disincentive.

To the OP: Worms are still a top deck, despite the repeated nerfs to Bile Zombie. They got a lot easier to play after the most recent Necrosis change, as well.

 

IS has always been one of the most popular and most played factions in the game, most likely dates back to early days when the IS community was the biggest, best and most interactive. There was times when IS forums had double the amount of threads of any other faction. Dwarves being one of the most popular character types across multiple fantasy worlds probably helps too.

 

ive seen loads of ST in ff or splits. meta stuff, mostly running those stupid frostwings / glaive guys / frost stuff.

ff is barbs. they include both zedin and bastion the avenger to make life miserable for us.

ff fs meta. always strong, fs spells and other stuff just takes the piss. use the 2 champ stun on me with a firk mind shredder sitting there, i hate those. oh fishkissers everywhere.

ud & sp splits. i didnt take notes.

fw, ive seen all kinds here, even a lich/vampyre deck yesterday and it nearly beat me LOL.

 

Edit: not sure when I last played however there hasn't been any real nerfs so I assume I'm correct still .

FF meta only:

KF pure illusions came and went after their respective nerfs. Imo their strength came from the UD AND firk pinger nerfs. Some hybrid ranger build is top now I believe. Bane Shift like anaru and snake charmer is insane and their Bane Shift bonus is the only thing holding them back from being the top ST/x split faction after SP tbh.

Not sure what happened to worms but they were fairly popular at one point. Skeles still great despite what the noobs think. VK2020 ha had some success with a pure "meta" build but imo theme is the way to go.

FF SL gets weaker and weaker each patch (and rightly so after their nerfs). I wouldn't recommend FF over split tbh they are bottom 4 FF at this point imo.

FF FS always been 3-4 in any meta not sure why people are making it out like it's some super good BG it has and always will be "solid" enough. I personally dabble between collective and pure meta depending on what's popular and last I checked collective had more of the raw power necessary to get through the defence of most of these bgs today.

FF IS has never been good since structs/heal nerfs alongside ud nerfs. Pretty sure split structs are good enough.

ST been silly ever since BE deleted out of existence. Was nonsensical to run this hyper support build they run now if sheoul demon 1 rounds your aspect of infinity from across the font for free. Not even kento is safe because you had precision so yeah. Don't pretend like we are simply idiots for not "discovering" it sooner Sok it's simply a result of the meta shifts due solely to nerfs.

FF SP is in the same case as FS though less popular likely due to not many SP TBH I around this past year.

FF UD hasn't existed since it's nerfs tbh.

Anyways splits are just mindless versions of FF so just play ST/SP and you're good to go.

TBH I don't at all have a problem with current frost amp ST (sure it's leagues above the rest but it's fairly skill intensive). Any ST split just makes me want to rip my balls off.

 

Leaving aside the accuracy of your particular analysis, I think that this is bad epistemology. Speaking specifically about Pox, people often assume that meta-games are stagnant and solidified, and that they only change as a result of patches. Now, although I would agree that the low player count makes meta-game shifts less likely, I do think that assuming nothing has changed because there has been no intervening patch disregards the nature of a meta-game, that is, that it is an evolving game outside of the strict confines of the game-proper's numbers. Player decision deck building determines meta-game layout. Because, first, players respond to the deck choices of other players, and second, players tune their decks even in isolation, I think noone should ever assume meta-game stability.

That does not mean that I necessarily disagree with any of your assessments, or even with assessing a meta-game after a prolonged absence from the game, but I do disagree with how you have chosen to frame your assessments. It replicates faulty reasoning about the nature of competitive environments.

 

Today I learn: there are more weirdos with midget fetishes in Pox than furries, dinophiles and twilight fans combined.

 

@kalasle

It's more of a:

Thought 1 - I haven't played in a long time

Thought 2 - I want you to believe me

Thought 3 - Why should you believe. Reason give above.

Obviously there's a problem with the first statement as there is with the last. However imo with the state of pox the last statement (I.e. My reasoning) carries far more weight than the first which is why I used it for arguments sake.

Anyways for pox it's less of a "meta discovery" and more of a veteran resurgence tbh. Imo FS/IS/SL have been figured out this entire time because there are players such as me/Finn/Taylor etc trying all themes from FS and likewise the zealots from the other factions playing theirs. UD is up there but none of the original UD players even bother anymore.


FW/KF/ST/SP get far more frequent meta shifts due to players such as tiny/vk/sonmbra/herm etc. building BGs for their respective factions (or rather "play styles" in whichever faction) which no one else has done before or to far fewer effect.

I've never thought of it like this however it's documented in my above thoughts on the meta dynamics. FS/IS/SL are relatively "stable" while the others see "meaningful" change.

Edit: by stable I mean that with each patch they simply need to swap around the 2-3 buff/nerfed/teched cards so it's hard to notice changed to their meta over say 5 patches. No doubt my original collective list is far different to the current (e.g. Dropped 2x pinger due to nerfs and greedy options such as Noraweave and soul sphere due to the current meta in favour of things like dread eye symbiote an anti ST meta pick etc.)

For example (Once upon a time when we actually played vs each other and were active) mine, finns and taylors FS meta BGs would differ by about 5-10 cards depending on the players style (I know that when Taylor played he liked gekaal and I've always thought she was garbage). This obviously altered over time depending on the meta and the nerfs/buffs. Our (especially finns) activity is why FS psy amp was so quickly spotted as t1 post sabotage change.

Compare this to say tinys version of KF meta. He jumped in with a 10+ Rune different deck. It was wildly different to versions of KF meta before it and "redefined" the KF meta. There were no players shaping the current mould and understanding what was actually good. He sort of jumped in half way through a patch cycle and created a new BG from what I saw.

Note how FS meta was defined straight after a patch and KFs some way through. FS' progress is more like a "reaction" to change compared to KFs shaping by key players such as tiny and gemma etc. when they actually feel like playing the game.


Basically imo good players actually bothering to play the game is more influential on the meta than "evolution" over time in games with high player count (for example day 1 control Mage (meme tier) vs 2 month control Mage (god tier) for HS ungoro expansion.

 

Those are mostly the same thing. Pox has maybe one player, two tops, competent players playing a theme at any given time, and that means little intra-theme discussion, and less of a chance to encounter someone playing a different theme well. But the meta-game evolution I was talking about is just a product of competent people playing the game, and Pox hasn't had many of those for years.