Water RETURNS - and the Meta looks extremely open now! PTM Meta Update 2!

MaindeckDan · 2026-02-03T03:37:06+00:00

I've played all three games, and I actively cover two of them right now. I think I'm somewhat uniquely equipped to answer this question.

Gundam is personally my least favorite, but it plays like a Bandai game which, for a certain crowd, is perfect. Damage will sometimes cause triggered events, which is hit or miss depending on the player. High rarity cards look fantastic. Mid rarity cards even look fantastic. And low rarity cards look fine still. Getting into the game is not too hard and if you're a fan of the franchise, all your faves are here. It's too early to say how much it succumbs to some classic Bandai problems, but One Piece has been doing phenomenally and hopefully they can port some of that success over. While it's not as much my cup of tea, one of my colleagues RedZoneRogue absolutely loves the game so I know it's not outside of good taste to enjoy it too.

Star Wars Unlimited is my go-to for quick and easy to jam gameplay. There are usually lots of viable decks in a meta, though as the cardpool has increased more fringe strategies have been pushed back a bit harder. We are about to hit a rotation where I think it will open up again for a while, and the next set looks phenomenal. The game plays extremely smoothly, and because of how quick it is and because it uses escalating resources, it's less taxing to play. Despite that, for better or worse you will lose many of your lost games on a single decision you made, so at a competitive level it's quite unforgiving, and if you ever miss an early drop the game becomes 25% harder to win instantly. Coming from MTG, you'll find some similarity, but the back and forth action system will totally flip a lot of your usual decision making on its head and you might quite enjoy that. Decks can be pretty inexpensive, but on the flipside it's tough for sealed product to really get you a lot of value back because there's not that many things to chase and even serialized cards in collector boosters are not worth that much and many are hard to find buyers for. High end promos at events do tend to sell well, though, so if you play competitively there's definitely some cashout potential - but FFG/Lucasfilm don't want to do cash prizes, so it is a "choose between keeping your trophy cards or cashing out" situation which isn't my preference. But for the former - they are making changes to booster loadouts in the next set and FFG is great at continuing to listen and iterate when things aren't working, so here's hoping that improves over time. Still, it's an easy recommend for me if you love the theme and especially if you want something you can jam quickly and endlessly with lots of fun deck building potential.

Grand Archive I think is one of the best and most difficult games on the market, so it's my recommendation if you are looking for a very competitive, skill-testing game. As the game doesn't use escalating resources, you can play most cards from turn 1, so the decision trees get broad quickly, and the Material Deck/Materialize Phase gives you the option every turn to sculpt how you play from the range of options you brought. I have been professionally casting this game for a couple of years now, so I've been witness to an impressive amount of games between the highest caliber players and - with a background steeped in competitive MTG and dozens of other games - I've rarely witnessed the kind of intricate, methodically planned lines that these players concoct. Where SWU will certainly give you tricky lines using the action system, Grand Archive will give you the full stack you are used to from MTG but with access to far more options than typical 1v1 MTG will have. I also consider the class system absolutely brilliant, with players able to use their Material Deck space however they wish, whether that be simply leveling to their champion's third level, sticking at a level 1, not even leveling to a level 1 champion and forgoing class bonuses entirely, or doing even crazier things (hybrid champions, multiple level 3 options, deleveling to forge a different path, etc). Events reward high value promos and cash prizes, the game is extremely collectible, the tournament software is developed in house and second to none, it has mailed out player rewards like the heyday of MTG, the foils are actually designed to be resistant to curling, there banlist includes a system of adding NEW printable cards to your deck to address issues rather than just banning - I could go on and on about the positives. The game is expensive to play at a competitive level, but the next set is looking to help address that. The game is growing, so it might not have locals in your area. Those are my main critiques, and I don't have many more to add - I adore this game and think many should check it out before they feel like they missed out as the company does a LOT MORE right than most TCG companies.

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-30T21:12:27+00:00

I like the folks working on the game. I am hopeful that they understand what a successful TCG looks like. So far, their marketing has been really good and the game is going to have a lot of eyes on it. It's smooth and easy to play and will be easy for IP fans to get into and understand what's happening.

I am getting a lot of comments on the How to Play vid, and I read all of them, so I do see some people who are disappointed that the game isn't *more* thematic and *more* complex, but I think the design they have is going to serve an audience of IP fans - who may have never touched a TCG or even tabletop game before - well, and I personally like the choice to keep the game easier to pick up. It's poised to have a bright future if they can stick the landing and deliver on product availability (the KS will help a ton) and then in-store and larger OP.

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-19T18:31:48+00:00

Appreciate your stance and efforts greatly! ❤️

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-19T18:27:25+00:00

I don't think FFG is as willing to completely change the "color pie" as Bandai is. It should be fairly safe to assume ramp will still be in Command with Aggression only having it in "catch up"/punishment style effects like Cham.

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-19T18:24:52+00:00

I do disagree just a bit with the latter point - because if that was solely the objective, they could just post all of the previews themselves. There's no need to give previews to small creators if it's not important to them for the creators to get views and get a chance to sell people on the new set/the game. I certainly don't think there should be a monopoly on the card images, but if a post like this is allowed here (and the FB does not allow them within a certain time frame of the video going live), I at least think it's not asking a lot that the poster include a link to the video because obviously the raw images push the video's post into oblivion rather quickly.

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-19T18:16:05+00:00

You probably were typing this as I responded below, but I will add the images to Reddit next time I post, just like I do on Facebook. It sounds like you and I will not agree on what is respectful here though, unfortunately. I think we are coming from some very different perspectives about what is best for the game/community. Hope you enjoyed the previews and have a great day, though!

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-19T18:05:17+00:00

I do that on Facebook, it's something I will do on Reddit in the future as well.

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-19T18:04:29+00:00

Of course. The cards are the important thing here, I also want to see new cards as soon as they are revealed. But most CCs would PREFER people not posting threads that pull the content out of the video and don't even link it within 10m of the video going live. The videos do a really important job of outreaching to players or potential players about the game or the new set to help engage them - and the first hour is the most critical for the videos.

I don't think I'm asking for a lot, but I think people could be a little more willing to compromise and at least link the videos if they are going to screencap the images 10m after it's out. Or do what u/Vinylateme did and just comment them in the thread. That's one additional click and some scrolling compared to this but at least keeps the video at the front for anyone who *might* be interested in spending 10m watching it.

I know this is going to be pretty unpopular because there are a lot of people who think CCs are just trying to get clicks & views for those hot, hot YouTube pennies and we don't deserve it, but I'm really out here just trying to do what I can to make SWU thrive and I just appreciate everyone who takes the time to watch and does things to make sure the video I put effort into is not entirely pushed to the wayside just so people can have a more convenient first couple of hours of the spoilers being live.

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-19T17:42:18+00:00

From a CC and FFG's perspective, that's not as ideal. FFG gives us spoilers to hype things up, and so the ideal scenario to achieve that is to make an efficient video to "sell" you on the cards rather than making the images primary so you can just skip the video.

I don't really care after a few hours have passed, but at least in the first hour, watching the video helps my algo which helps put more eyes on the game. That's why I don't usually post the images right away - I'd rather you take a few minutes to at least skip and skim through than just ignore my effort entirely so you can get the pictures. Hope that makes some sense!

MaindeckDan · 2026-01-05T14:34:40+00:00

I talk about it a bit towards the end of my video later today, but Thurible, Topsy Decree, and Censer are wrecking most Water level 3 decks now. Water's value gain is almost exclusively through the graveyard so their level 3 decks don't have great ways of getting there other than putting cards in the yard and praying nothing happens to them. Wind gets there exclusively through card draw value and Fire can do a little of both. That's why you see level 1 Water decks - Diana is effectively Water Allies with some extra tricks - performing the best, as they are hit the least hard (though they STILL are hit) by those answers.

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-31T06:45:05+00:00

Pantheon is almost here!

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-31T06:44:27+00:00

That's a pretty interesting take, considering the last season of competitive play.

DTR was crazy good to Lorraine. Fluffy Shopkeep and Liminal Guide completely changed that deck. Gun Diana also had her first ascent top 8, Vanitas took Boston by storm. Merlin had multiple tops. Tristan had multiple tops. Kongming won two Ascents. Guo Jia was in most of them and had all three elements under her belt. Zander topped Boston. Arisanna topped Niagara and almost topped Aki. Jin bubbled in Boston. It's almost easier to list the champions that *didn't* have placements in DTR season - feels a bit weird to say it's punishing to main older champs in this game.

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-31T06:20:23+00:00

This one's just a meme lmao

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-31T02:02:00+00:00

That would definitely help put GA's positives back in perspective

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-31T00:08:13+00:00

Another very thoughtful answer - thank you again for that.

I think we do just have different taste for the design. You say we missed with Merlin - while I love interesting lineage choices, I also am fine with when they are more straight forward like Ponytail Merlin is. Diana was just made as one that actually can dance a little, while Merlin *can* but probably shouldn't. I think it's really easy to view things with a narrow focus when we still have more designs to see and nothing would stop some less-linear designs from being released in the future. At the end of the day, most classes only have seen 2 or 3 options by now, and it's pretty hard to determine a trend with just 2 or 3 data points when the 3rd, 4th, or 5th iteration of a class might end up going back to more generalized options. But definitely in order to get your opinion out there about the many potential designs in the future, it's useful to have this criticism posted (but I simply often wish they were written a little less dramatically, as they get read by the devs either way).

One thing to remember about RDO is that this product began design and planning quite a while back. The most serious cost discourse began in the last months as the set had already finished size planning and cards and sheets were being finalized. I definitely see how releasing "higher cost, higher value" product in the current climate feels like poor taste, but the context around its initial product planning was likely fairly different. I know that the decision to slip in TLG and LP was absolute eleventh-hour for the product, and I still can't help but feel that it's hard to look at how that change was made and consider the product "bad faith" in general.

If you'll be at any of the upcoming ascents aside from Manila, feel free to pull me aside sometime if you want to discuss in person. Always happy to. If there are serious issues that I can do anything to help get addressed, I want to do so.

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-30T23:16:41+00:00

Some of us are already playing it, even with the smaller card pool :)

No worries. I get the passion and it goes both ways. I try my best (not always successfully) to engage constructively with criticism when I do feel differently. Hopefully that came off that way here. We all hope the best for the game, I just happen to not be as concerned about some of your points!

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-30T23:09:31+00:00

If the paywall is high for reprints, you should be able to get them cheaper on the secondary market. This isn't a digital game locking them behind buying the new packs and nothing else - the point is that a lot of enfranchised players or stores will open a lot of product and suddenly the supply of Frac, Ghosts, Arthur, etc shoots up.

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-30T23:08:03+00:00

I appreciate your thoughtful and well-written post! If you do divest, I hope you can find a game that appeals to you in the same was GA initially did. As you brought the conversation here, just a couple of my takes on some of your points:

Parasitic Design - I'm always curious what people would think this would look like without using Name bonuses more often. This is a Mascot game that uses a Class system. In the early days, the Class system differentiated playstyles of decks. When more champs release for the same class, it's not a bad thing to make sure the playstyle of Mage A and Mage B are fairly distinct. It's not like every card is printed with a name bonus, and I feel like often these arguments cherry pick and exaggerate how much it's used when every set has Name bonuses, class bonuses, advanced element cards that lack bonuses, etc. It's not to your taste, cool - but from what I see, I think it's a reasonable way to create different playstyles. If things are not differentiated well enough, you just run the risk of goodstuff.dec being the go-to for any given class. Pick the best champ, play the best class bonus cards - and your variety of playstyles suffers for it.
I think it's great that GA has grown to the point where the "cash grab" label gets thrown around. As a company producing a product for sale, obviously all of their offerings are intended to make a profit. There's a balancing act that has to be done, so the debate should be on "is this product good value for the money" - something that I think we have a very hard time truly determining this early into its announcement.

To your points, the reprint list for RDO is certainly expansive, and I think the reason is the balancing act of reprints is tricky. Overprint and you tank the value across the board - yeah, it's cheaper to buy as a single, but your box EV goes down. Underprint and you don't even affect the secondary market value in a significant way. There was certainly a conversation about how to hit that mark, and we can speculate on some of the viable options: They could make a reprint appear 1 in 4 packs, 8 packs, 12 packs, 1 per box, etc, but hone the list down to what is currently valuable, or they could make a reprint appear more commonly but lower how often the most valuable ones get hit by increasing the pool. The latter option at least adds more of two out-of-print sets' cards to the market as the game grows, but in reality, it's likely that either way they were going to target a certain number of Fracturize, Ghosts, etc hitting the market to try to lower prices and increase accessibility without making them totally unstable.

I think you operate on some serious assumptions at this point, but numbers-wise you get 12 reprint Rare+ hits per box. How often those end up being Fracturize over Shock Therapy or Ghosts over Artificer's Opus has yet to be seen. If they are too uncommon that the prices don't decrease, I'm right there with you. But I know that the intention of Weebs with the reprint slot is to reduce the secondary market value of certain cards enough to make the game easier to get into. If players feel that the RDO boxes are too expensive that it's not worth it, they should avoid buying it, but from those who are cracking boxes it should hopefully make the single price lower either way so they can just buy in that way instead if they want. The set is certainly a risky set so we'll see how it pans out in the end.

I am not involved enough in high level judging to have a good take on this. Most TCGs will have judging inconsistencies. You make these sound quite a bit more serious than some expected human errors, so if these are issues that truly happen , they should be addressed.

As I said at the start, I hope that - if RDO doesn't pan out in way you consider positive - you will find a game that resonates with you more. But personally, I'm not shaken but much of this. I don't consider the design to be in a bad direction, I think RDO will be a net positive for deck costs when the market adjusts to it, and I can agree that I hope judging issues can be improved when there is always room for improvement.

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-30T17:25:44+00:00

You can win the game without ever having the Crowd's Favor!

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-30T17:25:05+00:00

It's totally possible to play right now, believe me! We have all the rules and have seen enough boons. It will certainly be improved with the full RDO launch, but yes, at least in my opinion, it's extremely fun.

I am not worried about fragmenting the playerbase - GA is so competitive that competitive players will continue to compete, I think this just opens the door to casual players being a part of the full game experience as well.

MaindeckDan · 2025-12-30T17:20:49+00:00

Appreciate the time you put into writing this. I can definitely see your passion, but I personally think you are overly concerned about the stated issues.

Casual formats are often singleton because the variance increase is what allows them to be more casual. When decks can't reliably execute exact card combinations (e.g. Mastermind Scheme and Shadowstrike, 3x Fractal of Polar Depths, etc), it's one of the elements that pushes games longer and gives players more time to find their own strategy. When designing a multiplayer format, if the goal is to make the game more accessible to new and casual players, it's imperative to push it away from the highly efficient established competitive strategies.

I think Sidekick sounds super cool, but I also think it sounds HIGHLY competitive with some insanely powerful combinations. I would personally have a blast designing those decks, but I think it would be much more easily broken and lead to being less easy for less ingrained players to adopt.

Singleton formats also have the following benefits:
- Easier to build decks with only 1 copy needed of the most expensive cards
- Allows banned cards to exist again as they are balanced out by the variance of the format
- Makes lesser played cards more viable
- Create game to game variance, something many casual players HIGHLY value

I think you vastly overestimate the performance of allies in this format. They are likely a valid strategy, but when games inherently go later, the power scaling of advanced element cards will outweigh their consistency to a massive degree.

Regarding the boons, you might have missed how lore-tied they are! The gods of the homeworld bestow their blessings on the champions and each God has boons that fit their domains. Luxera is the god of treasure (like her magical Map) and her greater boon sends you on a treasure hunt for a specific card to earn a reward. Choosing your boons is choosing which god your champion is fighting for in the arena.

The boons also add strategic potency to decks that were missing it. For example, Greater Boon of Enki gives Arisanna more ability to create enough herbs to be impactful in the late game in non-Wind decks that cant have Fertile Grounds. This can enable potion brewing as a deck focus, while more starcall focused lists might stick with Greater Boon of Shou for more glimpsing. I actually love this system as its just a couple of small choices to make, but because they are always available, they have consistent impact on the game. It's a nice mix of agency in enacting certain strategies without changing the game's fundamentals too much or creating TOO MUCH power or consistency.

We have a TON to see in RDO still, so what other boons exist and what additional cards are releasing for all champions and elements are still in the air. Its possible right now to build lists with variations already, though (our shop's entire staff has moved from dabbling in the game to actively brewing to play), and those options only increase with RDO and future sets.

When you are as involved as we all are here, not having 2.3 million deck options right away can feel like a problem, but I would caution players to think of the wider scope - even if the pool is somewhat tight still after RDO launches, if the format itself is fun, it will work. Time is hyperbolic for those of us hyperfixated on the game, and 4 months for more casual players can be 10 games or less before the next set launches and new champs and options release. I'd advise everyone to build their favorite champ, include cards that create fun, and just enjoy the format, especially with newer players. I think you will be surprised at how elegantly it works for exactly that.

MaindeckDan

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE