Table of Contents
Introduction
Welcome to Lorcana.gg's weekly meta report! Each week we analyze the state of the meta using data from the previous week of online and tournament play. Our tier list is updated with the latest data, while this meta report will go over what it all means, as well as highlighting some particularly strong and interesting decks in each archetype.
The tier list is separated into three tiers. Tier 1 has the strongest decks that boast a high win rate and often a high meta share (percentage of games played) as well. Tier 2 and Tier 3 decks are a notch below the top tier, with these decks usually having one or two weaknesses keeping them from dominating the meta. Lastly, we will highlight a Sleeper deck or two, which are decks with very low meta share but a high win rate. These decks are ones to watch out for, with further refinement, they could vault themselves into the top tiers of the meta.
Meta Overview
The meta this week saw a wider spread as the top three decks all lost a bit of meta share. Although part of this was due to the rise of a new sub-archetype of the classic Steelsongs deck. Now we are tracking the Steelsongs with Flute version separately and has overtaken the classic version in both win rate and meta share. It looks like Sleepy's Flute is here to stay.
As for the top deck in win rate this week, that honor goes to the Sapphire/Steel Item Control list, which just barely edges out Amber/Amethyst Aggro. The hyper aggro of Amber/Amethyst though just continues to be a top tier choice in the meta, having spent all of the expansion so far as either the best or second-best deck by win rate.
Amethyst/Ruby Bounce Control and Ruby/Sapphire Item Control sit as the two most popular decks on ladder and continue to show solid performance. If you are looking for powerful decks that have few if any weaknesses, these two are great choices. Meanwhile, the aggressive version of Amethyst/Ruby Bounce improved on its win rate from last week but continued to see a drop in meta share and so dropped off the tier list.
Elsewhere on the tier list, we saw Emerald/Steel Discard jump up a few tiers while last week's top deck by win rate, Emerald/Steel Midrange, took a tumble. This ink pairing seems like one that can work, but which build and which archetype is the best is still being formulated. While Amber/Emerald Discard has taken a tumble in both win rate and meta share and stands in danger of falling off the list altogether.
In the Sleeper tier, we see an old returning deck in the Amethyst/Steel Mill and new archetype that has gained popularity this week, Amber/Ruby Mufasa. Will the Mufasa deck be what finally gets the Amber/Ruby pairing to find a foothold in the meta? Only time will tell but initial returns are promising.
Without further ado, here is the full tier list:
Tier List
| Tier | Deck Name | Win Rate | Meta Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 |   Sapphire/Steel Item Control | 50.1% | 4.3% |
  Amber/Amethyst Aggro | 50.0% | 7.0% | |
 Emerald/Steel Discard ⬆️ | 50.0% | 4.6% | |
| Tier 2 |  Amethyst/Ruby Bounce Control | 49.8% | 10.5% |
| Amber/Steel Songs Flute Midrange 🆕 | 49.8% | 7.8% | |
| Ruby/Sapphire Item Control | 49.7% | 10.0% | |
| Tier 3 | Emerald/Steel Midrange | 49.5% | 4.0% |
| Amber/Steel Songs Midrange | 49.4% | 7.6% | |
| Amber/Emerald Discard Aggro ⬇️ | 49.3% | 3.2% | |
| Sleeper | Amber/Ruby Mufasa Roulette | 51.0% | 2.5% |
| Amethyst/Steel Mill | 53.0% | 0.8% |
Tier 1
Sapphire/Steel Item Control
The Sapphire/Steel Control deck continues to climb in both win rate and meta share, landing itself at the top of the charts this week. The Pawpsicle/Flaversham draw engine can power a lot of decks and this one is no exception. And having Cogsworth - Grandfather Clock to give your board Resist is a strong effect that plays especially well into the other Steel decks out there, of which there are many.
The list we are highlighting this week is a more aggressive Resist Zoo list from phonetic. "Zoo" is a term borrowed from Magic: The Gathering which, in its early days say a popular aggressive deck archetype that ran a host of different animal cards such as apes, cats, and bears, hence, zoo. In this list, we see a similar aggressive play style with a bunch of cheap but efficient characters like Noi - Orphaned Thief and Caterpillar - Calm and Collected. And then on top of that a bunch of ways to buff and protect them, with The Prince - Never Gives Up, Aurora - Dreaming Guardian, Beast - Selfless Protector, and, of course, Cogsworth - Grandfather Clock.
Amber/Amethyst Aggro
As we already mentioned, the Amber/Amethyst Aggro deck has been remarkably consistent throughout the Rise of the Floodborn meta. It has never fallen out of the top tier. Its meta share rises this week and, despite what on paper is a bad matchup against all the Steel decks in the meta, it continues to maintain a strong win rate.
Here is a list that was piloted by Bjornfot to a top 8 spot in a 70-player online tournament over the weekend. The inclusion of Blue Fairy - Rewarding Good Deeds is an interesting one, giving the deck access to some more card draw, while also being an Evasive threat. Of course, you want some Floodborn characters to proc the draw and so the deck runs The Queen - Commanding Presence, in addition to the old stalwart Stitch - Rock Star. The Queen not only works as a Floodborn for Blue Fairy but allows us to sing Friends on the Other Side on turn 2. Coupled with Cinderella - Ballroom Sensation, this gives us two ways to enable that strong play.
Emerald/Steel Discard
Emerald/Steel Discard was a big riser this week, coming up from the bottom of the list to land in tier 1. I think we can attribute part of this rise to a blending of deck archetypes between the discard and midrange builds. The discard deck has taken more tools from the midrange build and has gotten less aggressive as a result.
You can see that hybrid build in this Emerald/Steel list from Manny Orellana who bagged a top 8 in a 1.5k tournament in Florida. The deck adds the strong discard package, centered around Prince John - Greediest of All natch, to a more midrange, verging on control, build. With this list you beat your opponent by draining them of resources, both on board and in hand.
Tier 2
Amethyst/Ruby Bounce Control
The Amethyst/Ruby Bounce Control deck is the most popular deck on ladder for the second week in a row. And it continues to be an absolute tournament monster, adding even more top 8s to its name over this past week. By now, the deck is well-refined and variations to the core list are rare. You know that cards like Be Prepared, Maleficent - Monstrous Dragon, Madam Mim - Fox, and Friends On The Other Side will be auto-includes. Only sort of decisions you will have to make when deck building is what sort of early game characters you want to include and whether you want to run Elsa - Spirit of Winter or not.
Our highlighted list this week is one that took home top prize in a 200 player tournament in France last week. From Thomas Nonnez, the deck runs all the usual suspects but interestingly chooses to run a pair of 1/3 1-cost characters in Olaf - Friendly Snowman and Minnie Mouse - Always Classy. Presumably, this is to help deal with many of the 1 Willpower characters that aggro likes to run.
Amber/Steel Songs Flute Midrange
As noted in the overview, the traditional Amber/Steel Steelsongs deck has split into two variations: with Sleepy's Flute and without Sleepy's Flute. Last week we highlighted the build that popularized the Flute variant, after having won the PAX Unplugged tournament. And since then the deck has taken off like wildfire and currently is more popular than the traditional non-Flute build. The Flute gives a much needed win condition against slow control decks that they often cannot interact with at all.
This list by Teng Ma won a 50-player tournament at Dark Sphere in the UK over the weekend. It is great example of the standard Flute list right now, utilizing 4 Flutes and the whole host of Amber and Steel songs.
Ruby/Sapphire Item Control
Ruby/Sapphire Control deck rounds out tier 2 this week and while its win rate has remained steady, we see its meta share dropping a bit. It does feel like the deck just lacks a way to close out games as effectively as Amethyst/Ruby, with The Sorcerer's Spellbook, and now Amber/Steel, with Sleepy's Flute. You are reliant on sticking a Tamatoa - So Shiny! onto the board, which can be tough when there is so much hard removal in the meta.
The deck might need some innovation to keep up with the rest of the meta. This list from Flokki looks to do that by including a small resist and ward package of Noi - Orphaned Thief and Cogsworth - Grandfather Clock. This dodges the hard removal of most other decks and makes Steel's damage-based removal less effective.
Tier 3
Emerald/Steel Midrange
As the Emerald/Steel Discard list has incorporated more of the midrange tools, the Emerald/Steel Midrange build without discard has fallen off in both meta share and win rate. It's likely the discard version of the deck is just better and we will see it become the dominant Emerald/Steel build.
This list from Impact TCG opts for an aggressive early game with cards like Enchantress - Unexpected Judge and Flynn Rider - Charming Rogue with The Prince - Never Gives Up to protect them. With a strong start, a Beast - Relentless combo turn can easily finish our opponent off.
Amber/Steel Songs Midrange
The classic Amber/Steel Songs deck finds itself in tier 3 this week, and with the popularity of the Flute version climbing higher and higher, it will likely continue to fall, especially in meta share. The core of both decks is the same though, of course, so this build is still quite strong. So I wouldn't count it out just yet.
This list by Yangfan Wang took top 8 at the large Dark Sphere tournament in the UK and does not include Flute. It instead runs the traditional Steelsong item, Lantern.
Amber/Emerald Discard Aggro
Another deck that has fallen off from its heights in the early meta game is the Amber/Emerald Discard deck. This deck has seen falling meta share each week and is on the verge of falling off the list completely. One of the deck's major problems is it suffers from a poor win rate against Amethyst/Ruby Bounce Control, which is of course the most popular deck on ladder. With bad matchups on ladder and no recent top 8s to its name, this archetype is in danger of becoming extinct.
Might we be able to revive it by including some more of what Amber is good at: singing? We already want to sing Sudden Chill, so what about add the good Amber songs and singers into the deck as well? To improve the deck, we cut all but the best discard stuff and include more of Amber's best cards. And if we are packing the deck full of songs, Sleepy's Flute seems like a natural inclusion. If it is good enough for Amber/Steel, it should be good enough here!
Sleeper
Amber/Ruby Mufasa Roulette
A trendy, new deck archetype has arisen over the past week for Amber/Ruby. This deck looks to take advantage of a card that has not seen much play in Rise of the Floodborn yet: Mufasa - Betrayed Leader. This card has a lot of variance in how good it can be but with some clever deck-building you can try to force more winning hits than losing hits with him. There's a reason they call this the "roulette" deck!
This list from nibz tries to cheat out Mufasa a turn early with Doc - Leader of the Seven Dwarfs and then hopes to hit something big like Mickey Mouse - Brave Little Tailor or Maleficent - Monstrous Dragon when Mufasa is banished. 60% of the time, it works every time!
Amethyst/Steel Mill
The Amethyst/Steel Mill deck once again finds itself sneaking onto the tier list in the Sleeper spot. After highlighting it as a Sleeper deck in week 1, last week its win rate was very low. But this week it has spiked back up again. It is definitely a deck that needs a very specific meta to perform, but when conditions are right, it can be a real meta-breaker.
As we covered the first time this deck made it on the tier list, a "mill" deck looks to win by "milling" our opponents deck, forcing them to draw all their cards. In this list, from Youtuber Zefa, the primary tools at our disposal for this are A Whole New World and Yzma - Scary Beyond All Reason. We also use Magic Broom - Bucket Brigade to shuffle cards back into our deck to ensure we don't deck out before our opponent.
After last week, it looked like the top three decks would rule the meta with outsized play rates but this week things have evened out. Hopefully we continue to see a wider spread of decks being played and having success. It is good to see that innovation is still occurring both with existing lists like in Steelsongs and with completely new lists like Mufasa Roulette.
Almost a month in and the meta game is healthy and thriving. That's the sign of a good game!
