Metagame Minute: 2024 National Championships, Week 2

Welcome to Metagame Minute, where we tuck into the latest tournament results and discuss tasty trends, saucy highlights, and spicy decklists - all wrapped up in a bite-sized read!

Congratulations to everyone who managed to snag a win at their National Championship this week! Better start packing for Osaka!

In a monumental shift, Nuu has overtaken Zen in Week 2 as the deck to beat, leaving the Ninjas scrambling to keep up. While most Guardians have called it a day and are at home enjoying a quiet night in, rich boy Victor has wandered down from the Goldmane Estate to see what all the fuss is about. And was anyone keeping an eye on Kayo? Where’s he scarpered off to now?

The metagame is narrowing down quickly, with several heroes stuck to the old ways falling to the wayside. But it’s not necessarily a case of “Out with the old, in with the Nuu” - a strong gameplan can be all it takes to stay afloat. The message is clear - adapt now or be lost in the sauce. I mean… the mist.

Let’s take a look at this week’s breakout stars…

Nuu World Order

I think we all saw this deck coming from just over the horizon, it was just a matter of time before she grew comfortable in those stilettos. Although Zen has claimed more wins overall this season, Nuu is the queen of Week 2, and has cemented herself as the undeniable premium counter to aggro decks. Nuu finds cruel and unusual ways to punish her opponents turn after turn, whether that’s Siren’s Call on a dagger, or any mix of hand and arsenal disruption, or targeted hate such as Censor, The Weakest Link, and even Blanch - Nuu consistently has pesky disruption up her sleeve, and Zen will need to go back to the drawing board in order to win.

Nuu does have some shortcomings in the form of Wizards and Illusionists, which still have solid representation in top cuts across the board. A reliable way to counter these strategies is to take a page out of Uzuri’s codex, and go full ham and cheese. Cut the defense reactions and go for quick damage straight to the face with attacks like Looking for a Scrap and Hurl. You may even want to coerce your opponent to defend using more aggressive on-hits in your blue stealth pool, such as Sedate or Infect.

Rich Get Richer

Oh look, Victor’s arrived at the party. Great. Who invited him again? Historically, Guardians have crammed their decks with the full line-up of blue 6-powers against Illusionists, but with Prism having nasty ways of circumventing them, and Enigma focusing on ward, players have identified that critical opportunity to adapt. Keeping in the blues with 7+ power, the somewhat vanilla 6-powers (Buckling Blow, Chokeslam, Debilitate) are now being replaced with a higher density of clash cards and rewards for clashing, such as Wallop. You really want to squeeze as much value out of every card against the likes of Zen and Kayo, while also reducing the potency of the cards Nuu can use against you with her hero ability.

If everything goes Victor's way, he should be able to reliably draw a few free cards during a game against Zen, but you can’t rely on just defending and hoping they brick. You need to force cards from them so that your incremental value matters, and this is where cards like Crush the Weak stand out. Alongside The Weakest Link, Spinal Crush, and Command and Conquer, this attack is a premium Pummel target to keep Zen on his toes in the arena. We’ve also seen really interesting strategies in long games involving Visit Goldmane Estate, where the Victor player will attempt to build a huge pile of gold over the course of the game, pitch stacking their Estate next to a Macho Grande or The Golden Son, in order to send an attack with up to 13+ power and dominate or overpower on the following turn.

Blast from the Past

Dash is growing ever closer to that 1000-point threshold, and while she does have a counterpart available, the day she achieves Living Legend will be the day everything changes. Time and time again, Dash has found ways to keep up with the metagame at a reasonable pace. This week’s winning build has thrown most of the pistol gameplan in the bin, aiming for a hyper aggressive boost strategy to race the Zens of the world. Teklo Pounder really shines in fast games, as does the use of Hanabi Blaster, allowing Dash to divert her Teklo Core energy towards other attacks to match the opponent’s damage output. And hey, look, who can argue with a Maximum Velocity?

Dash has a number of interesting disruptive tools to complement her aggro strategy. These are mainly to mess with Zen, but they do also find niche uses in other matchups. Nine copies of T-Bone is the most notable inclusion, able to rip Zen’s wardrobe to shreds before he’s ready to pop off, while a well-timed Pulsewave Harpoon is devastating against any hero. Round things out with efficient attacks from Bright Lights such as Sprocket Rocket and you have yourself a plucky Mechanologist who’s ready to become ungovernable. Adapt, improvise, overcome.

Our heroes have found themselves forced into a narrow tunnel between aggro and disruption. The walls are closing in, so if you’ve been thinking up crazy ideas, now’s the time to bring something drastic to the table and catch your National Championship off guard. We’re a while off yet before we return to the elements of Earth and Lightning, so for now the element that reigns supreme… is the element of surprise.

Stay tuned for more trends, highlights, and decklists next week in Metagame Minute!