Briar, Warden of Thorns has arrived in the Tales of Aria Classic Constructed metagame and is truly a force of nature. After Chris Higashi and Arsenal Pass' Brendan Patrick's Top 4 finishes with the Elemental Runeblade in the Cincinnati ProQuest, the spellblade is out of the bag and popularity has picked up! Chris exhibited a lightning quick, generic-heavy aggressive build and Brendan demonstrated a more Earth-centric midrange deck.
A quick game’s a good game and that’s the plan with lightning Briar. This style of deck put two players in the Top 4 of the United Kingdom National Championship last weekend with lists featuring 50 plus red line cards! Ball Lightning, Plunder Run, Ravenous Rabble, Scar for a Scar, Nimblism, Lightning Press...you see the pattern here. Aggro Briar wants to attack as many times as possible each turn, defending infrequently to maintain 4 and 5 card hands to attack your opponent over and over, turn after turn. There is plenty of arcane damage leaking through too, thanks to cards like Arcanic Crackle and Arcanic Shockwave and the full 9 copies of Plunder Run to draw more cards and...go again. The delicate balance of attack actions and non-attack actions is key, as playing two non-attack actions brings up an Embodiment of Lightning token, granting your next attack action card go again, enabling those massive damage output turns, being the beatdown from your first attack.
On the other side is the Earth Briar deck which also picked up at Top 4 finish at the UK Nationals. This build features a lot more big attacks such as Command and Conquer, Stir the Wildwood and Autumns Touch, alongside a range of buffs, with card draw engines such as Tome of Harvests and Force of Nature rounding out the build. This version is prepared to be a bit more patient, willing to take time to set up cards such as Channel Mount Heroic into some huge follow up turns. While the build has been a little less popular in the last couple of weeks, it has still been putting up strong results as well.
Key to these decks continuing success will be how the meta game adapts. With so few yellow and blue cards, Lightning Briar builds can be susceptible to the kind of disruption that Ice based decks can bring. Earth Briar builds are a bit more resilient to this kind of pressure, but sometimes at the expense of the sheer consistency of turns and redundancy of cards that Lightning builds display. This upcoming weekend will be a fascinating exercise in seeing how the meta game adapts to the success of these new builds.
Bravo may have lost his top spot but he is still an absolute tier one pillar. George Rodger took the Welcome to Rathe Guardian to a finals finish at the recent UK Nationals event. Bravo, Showstopper still has many great matchups across the board playing his defensive strategy of keeping the life total high, attacking with Anothos often and setting up windows to crush the opponent with Crippling Crush, Spinal Crush and other colossal attack actions. Despite packing a plethora of 6 or greater attack value attack actions, the Prism matchup can be a rough one for the Showstopper. Being forced to attack auras with Spectra and facing down an armada of Spectral Shield tokens can be a huge problem for Bravo as he likes to attack usually with one large attack per turn. If Bravo doesn’t gain control and keep it early against trouble against aggro Briar, but this matchup is one that can be won.
Katsu, the Wanderer has been running hot since ProQuest Dallas. Chris Higashi (of aggro Briar ProQuest Cincy fame) took the Ninja to a Top 8 finish at ProQuest Dallas, Luke Hackbarth took Katsu to a Top 8 finish in Cincinnati and last weekend at the UK Nationals we saw Aaron Simon and Sean Knowelden put the Wanderer into the Top 8. Katsu decks usually fall into two camps; aggro, with Ancestral Empowerment, Snatch, Scar for a Scar, the Surging Strike combo line and a few red Leg Taps for good measure and other the archetype being a slow paced control deck- which still deals consistent damage thanks to plenty of Kodachi, Kodachi *one cost attack action* turns.
The deck often defends with two cards a turn then attacks back with three attacks from just two cards threatening Mask of Momentum card draw triggers. The control Katsu deck often runs a full 9 Flic Flak (with a truckload of “combo” cards) , Fate Foreseen, Sink Below and Unmovable, wanting to maintain as high a life total as possible while slowly grinding the opponent down. Both Katsu archetypes seem to be well positioned across the board, though players looking for mid-range aggro and control archetypes are faced with a range of options at this point in the season.
Although Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light didn’t make the Top 24 at the UK Nationals, let alone the Top 8, the Light Illusionist is still right at the top of the metagame. It is worth keeping in mind that UK Nationals also included draft format, possibly a contributor to her absence at the event. Prism took first place in the hands of Jack McHalffey at ProQuest Dallas and at ProQuest Cincy, Jason Anthony Watkins and Mathew Frye put two copies of the Light Illusionist into the Top 8. Prism has a good matchup against Bravo with threats coming from all angles from Spectra Auras, including the dreaded Arc Light Sentinel, to a beatdown from a who’s who of Heralds and any number of Spectral Shield tokens attacking (thanks to Luminaris) in between. Prism mainly plays the role of a control deck and is positioned well against the field. Aggro Briar may or may not also have had something to do with the sudden disappearance of Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light.
Viserai, Rune Blood and Push the Point’s Hamish Chisholm-Brown reminded the world that there’s a third Runeblade out there and he can keep up with the Shadow and the Elemental. Hamish’s Viserai deck could be described as an aggressive midrange deck. It deals plenty of both physical and arcane damage and makes use of new Tales of Aria additions like Spellbound Creepers and Rosetta Thorn. Sharing many similarities with aggro Briar, Viserai wants to have a careful balance of attack actions and non-attack actions, has a lot of go again enablers (in this case thanks to Mauvrion Skies) and even uses Rosetta Thorn, yet Viserai could have a close edge in that matchup. Viserai’s ability to constantly deal huge amounts of damage and attack frequently and make a tonne of Runechant tokens while being able to defend more often and economically than Briar makes this deck a great choice in the coming weeks. Expect popularity for the O.G. Runeblade to pick up.
The current landscape of Classic Constructed seems to be a volatile, aggressive one. The standard seems to be set something along the lines of “if you can’t hang with the aggressive Runeblades, stay home”. A good bar to be set on the meta. Once a deck with a linear gameplan gets a target on it, metagames often tend to shift and counter such menaces. With Frostbite tokens being quite a thorn in the Rosetta Thorn bearers sides, an increase in Lexi and Oldhim decks could be seen. Oldhim looks like he’s still searching for that big finisher as he tends to drag out games and Lexi, with some Top 8s in ProQuests Dallas and Cincinnati seems to be ready to take aim on the metagame. Dash is still a great choice in the metagame, with reasonably solid matchups across the board while possibly suffering from a bit of “other heroes do it better”. Boltyn and Chane have quietened down a bit over the last two weeks but could find a favourable spot in the environment if the right shifts occur. The rest of the pack falls behind a bit, perhaps not being able to apply enough pressure or keep up with the faster decks which take up a large share of the metagame.
The Flesh and Blood 2021 National Championship season and the accompanying ProQuests have just begun! It’s a fast, innovative metagame where new technology is developing each week and creativity is around every corner. This weekend’s many upcoming National Championships and Calling in Orlando, USA will no doubt unearth more new exciting developments and it is nothing short of intriguing seeing it all grow and bloom.