Metagame Madness 6/28

It's time to take our weekly look at Regionals results from across the country to see how the metagame is shaping up. With no big events and less than two months until U.S. Nationals, the next few weeks will really shape the metagame heading into that event.

Without further ado, this week's results.

First up as usual, the factions:

Alliance-132/+23
Horde-120/+17

These numbers lie just a little bit. Despite the fact that the Alliance looks like the better faction, that is a result of the ridiculous number of Phadalus decks (more on this in a moment). For any basketball fans out there, the faction battle here is similar to the NBA Finals this year. The Horde are the Spurs working as a team with a few stars complemented by several key role players all doing their part for the good of the team. The Alliance is the Cavaliers, only even in the game because of one absolute superstar with a couple other people making slightly measurable contributions.

Now the classes.

Shaman-70/+20
Hunter-45/+5
Warlock-44/+6
Warrior-29/+1
Druid-24/+3
Paladin-18/+2
Priest-9/+1
Rogue-7/+1
Mage-6/+1

It's possible to split the classes up here into three groups, top three, middle three, and bottom three, but I think I'm going to say there are four groups here because Shamans are just too far out in front to be in the same group as anyone else. So for now, I'm going to say that Group 1 is Shamans, Group 2 is Hunter and Warlock, Group 3 is Warrior, Druid, and Paladin, and Group 4 is Priest, Rogue, and Mage. One of the sad (for lack of a better word) situations arising from the popularity of Phadalus is that the deck that seems to be most equipped to deal with Shaman rush is Horde Shaman control. Grennan decks are becoming very popular again, which means the top table at a lot of tournaments are just crawling with Shamans. Gary actually joked the other day that he wanted to make a Shaman in the MMO to see if they are as good on the computer as they are in the cards.

Phadalus-52/+15
Telrander-21/+2
Dizdemona-19/+2
Pagatha-18/+2
Sen'Zir-16/+2
Grennan-16/+5
Azarak-16/+3
Gorebelly-15/+1
Elendril-12/+0
Bulkas-11/+0
Nimaasus-8/+2
Zenith-6/+2
Aleyah-5/+0
Kayleitha-5/+0
Omedus-5/+0

I have decided not to write out the full list of heroes with less than 5 top 8's. I will, however, point out that Varanis and Morova got on the board this week which leaves only these heroes without a top 8:Boris Brightbeard, Nathressa Darkstrider, and Moonshadow. You'll notice they're all Alliance which further shows that the Horde is better overall but can't keep up with Phadalus to win the battle of the factions.

The first thing you should notice is how wide the gap between Phadalus and everyone else has become. The deck was already the most popular in the format before Brad Watson became a Dream Machine Champion with it. Phadalus took home a mind-boggling 15 top 8's this week. I think it is worth raising the question, does something need to be done about Phadalus? While I'm not going to go into that debate today, think about what you like to see from a Constructed format and whether you think Phadalus decks are starting to warp the game.

After the masterful performance of the blue man group this week only two other heroes posted more than two top 8's, Grennan and Azarak. Grennan is quickly climbing back through the ranks as it has some of the best tools to fight off its Alliance Shaman counterpart. Grennan control first rose to popularity as a foil to Elendril rush. Now, player's are calling on the uber-cow again to combat a new Alliance rush deck. We will see over the next few weeks whether Grennan still has it in him to fight off this deck or whether Phadalus will prove too tough to tame.

The other deck that outperformed everyone but the Shamans this week was Azarak. While I still didn't see decklists for these, I'm going to assume that they are the control deck and not the ally curve deck. Azarak like Grennan has a lot of tools to fight rush decks. Lightning Reflexes is amazing and the combination of a Ranged weapon with Wraith Scythe can be overwhelming to a deck full of small allies. It has the added benefit over a somewhat similar deck in Bulkas of being able to just end the game in one big turn with Rapid Fire. This makes it significantly better against the Pagatha control decks that look to recur a Zygore with Spirit Healer until you're out of weapons, but the Rapid Fire will sometimes give Azarak a chance to win before Zygore takes out everything.

Beyond that, there wasn't much to talk about. Gorebelly and Bulkas were conspicuously absent this week with Gorebelly only getting one and Bulkas not a single top 8. There weren't any real shockers further on down the list. As of right now, it looks like your metagame is going to be a heavy diet of Shamans, mostly Phadalus with Grennan becoming increasingly popular, with several other decks looking to make some noise. Those decks include: Telrander (who has possibly found his happy medium as an explosive if inconsistent Tier 2 deck), Dizdemona aggro, Pagatha control, Sen'Zir mid-range, Azarak control, Gorebelly rush/combo, Bulkas control (although this deck is dying a slow death), and perhaps some Nimaasus rush.

That's it for today. Good luck at Regionals and don't forget to send in your results.