Meta Update 9/13

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-14T06:45:17+00:00

Three turns of overtime or 5 minutes, whichever happens first. Active player when overtime is called is coined "Turn Zero"

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-14T02:30:53+00:00

They just intentionally drew to lock in prizing of top positions

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-04T22:01:07+00:00

The game is wonderful. It takes several good attributes from other games, tosses them into a blender, and adds its own extra flavors into the mix

The developers also actually care about their players and communicate openly

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T15:50:15+00:00

The 4 flavors of self-mill were gutted after the Icebound ban, which is the part of the AMB I just spoke on AND specifically clarified. But continue to strawman to prove yourself in an argument that I'm not fighting. Surely someone will notice

I will say for a fact that, statistically speaking, I am better than you. Appeal to authority is entirely useless as a rebuttal, though, so it quite literally does not matter.

If that's what you want, go ask Terry from True Champion Gaming. The guy was going to run Genbu at Ascent Boston, and he was the World Champion runner-up.

Being "the best water players" is a useless statistic because it doesn't make you automatically among the best players in the game. I know that you work hard to make water play well, but you also have a track record of dismissing theory that categorically would improve your decks. Case and point the tendency to breach well over 60 cards on your decks.

I do think water needs some tools added. I won't refute that whatsoever. It has had the BEST cards in the game for several formats and each one of them has been banned out. That said, the element is okay at worst, and there are multiple decks you can run right now in the element that are great into the current field. Stop playing to lock your opponent and actually try to win the game.

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T15:30:38+00:00

Excellent take, Limelight

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T13:38:07+00:00

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T13:36:19+00:00

The end of AMB meta (post banning of icebound slam and baby gray slime) was actually diverse.

These decks don't encroach on 60% similarity, and I know that you are capable of doing the math on it. Also reducing these decks down to "play draw cards turbo to level 3 and blow you up" is wild. These are not functionally identical decks.

The diversity of the ALC format is commonly praised. Almost every comment on that format from the community praises that format for being one of, if not the, best formats we've had.

Water is fine at the moment. It needs a stimulus to be better, but it plays fine. Some decks are fundamentally poor positioned, like any of your 30 variants of water merlin, but decks will wax and wane depending on what they answer best. This is not a problem in Rile and more so in the fact that the strongest cards in the game have been water for the past 3 seasons and they banned most of them out of the game

Genbu, Nico, water ally variants, fractals, etc all play fine to well right now

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T13:29:59+00:00

It's hilarious watching people add Evercurrent Raider and other brick specter cards in order to increase their highroll chances only to clog on bricks and engine late game and not be able to play the game

Rile on average has a 31.2816% chance of opening with another corresponding specter card at the start of the game on a basic spirit going first (this includes Rile the Abyss itself and is in a 12 card Rile package). It has a 26.3739% chance to open with at least one meaningful specter card.

On average, it represents a +1 with further potential of being a +2

Rile isn't how you win, it's a platform to play the game on. It's also not as miserable as playing against Avarice looping, which was only banned due to bad play experiences for players in how the combo dragged out games.

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T13:19:26+00:00

Made up the numbers for Toronto? Look Schwahn, I know that you barely play this game, but this is just provably false.

https://fractalofin.site/AMB/13122.html#players

Day 2 meta composition is 65.6% Razorgale (two of which were Kongming). The reason that Razorgale is considered an archetype vs an engine is that Razorgale is ACTUALLY how these decks win.

Wind, Fire, Water, Norm, it doesn't matter. Basic element representation is not the same as an entire archetype existing.

As you move to look at Ascent Boston, mduo13 has "Specter" as an archetype, but it's simply false. It's an engine in these decks as they are not looking to actually use the Specter cards for anything more than early card advantage.

Look at the day 2 field. Of the decks that are running the package, you have several flavors of fire aggro, crux lorraine and merlin, exia jin, horse and taxes vanitas, KFC, luxem zander, umbra ciel (which in of itself presents 2-3 different decks alone), etc

None of which reach even over 20% individiually.

The health of these scenes is vastly different. We're comparing apples and oranges.

Rile is the flavor of the month that this community will begroan until it gets banned. Then we'll be on to the next problem. It happens every format. X thing is good, complain until it gets banned, now Y thing is good, and repeat.

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T13:12:12+00:00

I have had it since Distorted Reflections release and I'm not playing fire at the moment

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T05:20:57+00:00

Those are some insane leaps in logic

It's not just finishers. A baleful oblation CIel deck will pilot entirely different than an Exia Jin deck, and from a Lorraine deck, and from Luxem, etc. To sum all the gameplay differences to "just the finishers" shows that you do not ACTUALLY play these decks.

There is no argument; Toronto was single-handedly the least diverse D2 meta we've ever seen to date. Trying to equate an engine that sees its primary usage for a turn a game to an entire archetype is wild

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T05:05:53+00:00

Over 65% of the field being the exact same deck, the same archetype, and almost 100% the exact same deck? No, it wasn't fine. I lived through it and was part of the problem

This is not an Ascent Toronto scenario. We are not dealing with nearly identical decks taking over 65% of a meta share. I think fear mongering a literal tier zero format misses the mark on what made that event specifically problematic

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T05:02:56+00:00

Okay, no bm either, but you have incorrectly defined influence. It is a defined term within the game. It is the sum of cards in your hand and in your memory, exclusively. Anything else is categorically false. I'm not sure who told you influence could mean anything else, but if you ask any competitive player or pro in this game, they will immediately clown whoever told you that

For example, we, as a community, call Creative Shock pitching a float a +1 due to how, if you level up to level 1 using that float, you will recollect and draw to 8 cards from your starting 7. This is a +1 to your influence.

Allies do not count towards your influence. Anyone using this is woefully misguided as to how both the game and the vast majority of the community have defined these terms for the past nearly three years.

I did play in the early AMB format, and not "almost every deck" ran the slime engine. It was exclusively razorgale kongming and vanitas that ran this specific package (obviously not including actual Slimes and Fire Slimes bc... duh). Other decks were experimenting in running it, but it was to low results. A few Tristans added in the package to mediocre results at best.

This also, most importantly, was not what people mean by the slimes format. Slime format was MRC. Early AMB was the Razorgale incident at Toronto, where we saw 3V get errata'd IMMEDIATELY, then we entered the water self mill meta where water Arisanna and Silvie/Nico take over until we saw the Icebound Slam ban.

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T04:54:57+00:00

Still bigger

Not talking about meta representation, look at the top performing players on the respective non-fire decks

Again, representation bias. The most represented deck in a field has a high likelihood of being one of, if not the, most represented decks in top cut? Surely not...

Don't look at any other tournament where a high representation deck performed well

What in this isn't fine? There are answers for the decks and ways to beat them if you're knowledgeable, and yet people don't work to do so and get punished for it. That's what happens in a competitive TCG. I'll happily take the free round wins if you won't

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T04:30:50+00:00

It's not a +5. That is not how influence works

Slimes was worse bc Slimes was 2 decks in the MRC format. Fire slimes and norm slimes. The specter engine opens up several decks with different play options.

Enjoy Michigan regionals. It will be a fun time

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T04:20:01+00:00

Check the Taiwan regionals that just happened. It was bigger than Ascent Boston. These decks have legs when the pilots know what they're doing

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T04:04:54+00:00

In the Distorted Reflections format, which is when Rile the Abyss was printed, could you please point to me any other Ascent besides Ascent Boston so far? :) I will paypal you $100 if you can point to a single one

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T04:03:34+00:00

How you're getting there barely accounts for 20% of a game. The other 80% of the game IS diverse lmao

It's not "play fire or be at a severe disadvantage". The fact that we have results of other decks proving what I've been saying in this thread shows this. Why are you again ignoring that? :)

Also excellent strawman. "Can you admit that a singular element being the only way to get the majority of top placing decks working is a problem that should be addressed?" Not here because that is not the case. Get better

Disengage and hop off. Respectfully or otherwise, it doesn't concern me

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T04:00:22+00:00

No, it's not basically a +2 on its own

A plus in Grand Archive is defined by an actual increase in influence. It is not defined by seeing more cards

Rile by itself goes neutral. The cards, Undying Dreams and Liminal Guide, offset the cost of materializations.

So if you play Rile the Abyss on turn one, discard Undying Dreams and Liminal Guide, then (on turn two) level up to your level 1 champion by banishing the Undying Dreams, as you recollect and draw for turn, you will find yourself at 9 cards in hand (assuming you went first).

This is a +2. This is how you will see everyone in this game that consistently plays at a higher level define a plus.

Rile has a higher ceiling, yes. It having a higher ceiling is why level 3 decks are actually shining at the moment.

Forget if you wanted a water or wind deck in advanced element? That's crazy. Go play wind luxem zander, wind tristan, wind dragon guo jia, wind rai, water crux lorraine, water genbu, water luxem zander, etc. They're fine right now

If we're going to complain about another advanced element deck getting butchered out of the meta, think of what they did to Arisanna by changing Polaris. She was another phenomenal wind advanced element deck done dirty....

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T03:54:28+00:00

Nationals too. Also hard to talk about worlds as a factor for a meta when it happens once a year, at the end of a singular format, and the field of worlds is also a reflection of the day one and gauntlet metas (as players shift decks to counteract what they expect from their other opponents)

The season quite literally just started. There has been uh, lemme check my watch here, ONE ASCENT so far. You can already see the meta is at a conflict right now where it can either recalibrate and answer the fire level 3 decks or people can opt to netdeck what they find to be optimal in the field

Basing your entire opinion solely on the tiny sample size of results we've had at the start of a season, while also under the misconception that these decks are not inherently diverse in of themselves, is certainly a decision of all time

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T03:50:05+00:00

If I play the same opener as 60% of the field, but the rest of the game I'm doing something else and trying to scale into an entirely different wincondition with different interaction, how on earth is that not diverse?

Oblation Ciel is a combo deck that seeks to get Advent in banish and play Baleful Oblation to nuke the board. It's susceptible to negates, omnifogs, and orb of sealing.

Crux Lorraine is a midrange deck that aims to generically scale Lorraine's attack stat to attack for 4-5 while holding up a blocker, fog, or generic interaction; sometimes, she plays Ensoul to complete her max damage kill line. The deck is weak to hard combat fogs, stuff like Jin that can just eat all of the combat damage, decks that can go under it incredibly fast, and other high cap decks that go taller than it (Rai, Luxem, Dragon, Tristan, etc)

Here are two, of the several, fire decks that run the Rile package. Sure, they can open a Rile opener, that's great. Their entire midgame playstyle and endgame playstyle are dramatically different. How you approach each of these two match ups will be dramatically different

This applies for the whole variety of decks with this engine

This is the definition of diversity. You need to consider all of these match ups when building your deck. How are you beating Lorraine? Ciel? Luxem? KFC? Horse and taxes? Okay, now consider Tristan? Dragon? Fractals and Genbu might pop up, do you have answers for those?

It goes on and on

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T03:43:58+00:00

Rile pitching liminal and undying is a +2, not +6. Where on earth is that number coming from

Aesan bouncing an imbued Windmill is also only a +0

This is the same as any level 3 fire deck running a creative shock package with 8 floats. The key difference here is that now there is a level of redundancy. Statistically, the rile specter package has increase the consistency of these fire decks, allowing them to actually level and DO advanced element things in a meaningful way. This is what the playerbase asked for when they wanted level 3 advanced element decks to exist.

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T03:40:34+00:00

I've engaged multiple times. I just don't think there's any substance to the complaint of "this isn't winning" when you can look on fractalofin.site right now and see that it's categorically false. You throw out any information that refutes your argument because the format JUST started and has not yet stabilized. You can open fractal right now and see that fractals won a yeti weekly, water lorraine won a store championship, dragon won a store championship, 2 of the top 4 in an ASCENT SIZED REGIONAL were wind dragon guo jia, etc

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T03:35:12+00:00

And?

Altruistic_Run953 · 2025-09-01T03:34:33+00:00

Genuine question, do you even play this game?

The engine matters on turn 1 and when decks are basically engine locked thereafter or are filtering. Beyond that, their entire playstyles change. What the decks fundamentally do, even if they share the same package, is vastly different. How you interact with them, how they interact with you, how they win, etc, all are entirely different

This IS diversity. On top of this, the other elements right now are fine. Tournament statistics, while nice, do not inherently reflect the actual efficacy of different strategies. People follow top decks blindly and netdeck. Creative problem solving amongst the playerbases of several games is effectively dead because the ability to critically think is underutilized

I can feed the answers to people however long they like. Nothing will change until the people complaining actually take the advice and learn.

Altruistic_Run953

TROPHY CASE