We're pleased to welcome Yichin Liu as a guest writer for the 2022 National Championships season! Yichin is a Level 2 FAB judge, one-third of the OK&Y podcast, and is known for his community involvement as MalZenith, writing articles and creating guides for new players. This is the final article in his four-part series analyzing the Classic Constructed metagame at the 2022 National Championships!
Hello everyone, and welcome to the final article digging into the data from the 2022 Nationals season. If you haven’t read my previous three articles, you can take a gander at them here:
This week saw the addition of just two final Nationals events in Germany and Singapore. There’s not too much new data to dig into this week, so I’ll be dedicating the majority of this article to analyzing the data in as many ways as possible to give readers a view of the metagame from every angle and some takeaways for what Worlds’ Classic Constructed metagame might look like. Let’s begin!
Overall Data
We have our final numbers for the season! Germany and Singapore’s results did not do too much to move the needle on the overall metagame spread aside from some small increases in Oldhim and Iyslander’s popularity, but it’s worth reiterating how we got here. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a few heroes rise and fall in popularity. While we initially began with our two Runeblades as the most popular heroes in Nationals events around the world, Oldhim’s performance stuck out and immediately turned heads. Many players predicted that Ice heroes - Oldhim in particular - would rise to prominence with Prism’s departure, and while that was true with Oldhim, it was less true with Iyslander. In Weeks 2 and 3, Oldhim’s share of the metagame grew, until what we see now, where players have come to a general consensus that Oldhim is the strongest force in the metagame currently - despite technically not being the most popular hero overall.
That’s not to say his grip on the metagame is all that strong, of course. Oldhim did have one of his best workhorses, Pulse of Isenloft, taken from him in the last Banned and Suspended announcement (in case you didn’t see it, you can view it here). While not likely to fall off significantly, it does help bring him more in line with the rest of the field. Even prior to the ban, however, Oldhim had won about a third of all Nationals events. Despite his presence, plenty of other heroes are finding a good amount of success. Across every chart, Briar has been one of the best performing heroes this metagame; while she lost a little bit of popularity compared to her share in week 1, she’s remained at the top of the pack and has plenty of results in Europe and Asia to cement her as the primary aggro deck in the metagame. Another aggressive hero that gained popularity since Week 1 is Fai, who recovered from the Stubby Hammerers ban to find a few alternative builds that performed well. Viserai, the third main aggressive deck in the format, trails behind the two in overall share, but his performance indicates that Viserai die-hards are still finding a lot of success with him when it comes to scoring victories.
Early on this season, I mentioned Iyslander as a potential hero to look out for. While many top players may agree that Iyslander is definitely one of the strongest heroes right now, her results don’t quite match that perception. Don’t get me wrong - Iyslander is a strong metagame force, and her increase in metagame share from general metagame to top 8 and winners cements her as a deck that is able to contend with the best of them. However, her numbers aren’t quite as dramatic as the other heroes, and the gap between perception, performance, and prevalence is likely explained by external factors, such as her complexity of play preventing players from picking her up.
The final big player I’d like to mention is Dromai, who has had a lot of popularity this season but mixed results at best. While she makes up a large portion of the metagame, she has largely failed to score a significant number of top 8s or wins for her pilots, and thus may not be the best choice for many players heading to Worlds. There are a few theories for her underperformance: it may be that players simply enjoy Dromai’s playstyle and flavor enough that any perceived weakness can be ignored; or it might be that Dromai’s playstyle is weaker against players who have adequately prepared for her in the top tables of each event. Whatever the case, absent any unique deck or perfect build being discovered prior to Worlds, I expect her metagame share to decrease.
Let’s move on to the less popular heroes. Dorinthea, Dash, Bravo, Rhinar, and Lexi all found a Nationals win each, and as such can be expected to take minor supporting roles in Worlds. All of them have a below average top 8 conversion rate as well; however, with the recent ban, it is likely that we’ll see them perform a little better, as many of them had a rough matchup into Oldhim. Finally, of the least played heroes, Kano deserves special mention: he is one of the few heroes with an above-average conversion rate! The sample size is small, so I wouldn’t read too much into it, but it does suggest that we might see another breakout Kano performance as we saw in Pro Tour New Jersey.
Regional Metagames
I’ve been harping on differences in regional metagames for the last few weeks, so let’s take a look at the final data. While not particularly useful overall, it does give us an idea about the biases and preferences of each region, and can help players predict what future metagames may look like for large events in their area.
In the modern trading card game age, global communities are more connected than before, but that doesn’t mean local preferences - or influences of extraneous factors like product availability and influential players - can’t shape each region differently. One of the biggest things you’ll notice with this is how different North America’s data is from the rest of the worlds’ data. Oldhim, Fai, and Dromai are far and away the most popular heroes of North America, while Briar hovers near the top for each of the other regions. By metagame prevalence, Bravo, Oldhim, and Fai make up the top three spots for each of the three areas, making these the likely decks-to-beat when prepping for major tournaments anywhere. The next most popular heroes are a little more varied, but Viserai, Dromai, Iyslander, Bravo, and Dash all enjoy enough popularity to make having a sideboard plan against them necessary in this metagame.
With Worlds coming up in San Jose, California, we can expect that many of the top players in Europe, Asia, and Oceania will show up and test their skills against the players of North America. Despite her clear power in Europe, Asia, and Oceania, Briar only managed a single top 8 (out of 16 possible top 8 slots) in North America, a result that is at par or slightly worse than expected from her metagame share. It could mean that North American players are used to playing against Briar and have more experience dealing with her; or, conversely, it could mean that non-North American players have figured out a gameplan for her to consistently beat the other top decks in the meta to shift the tide in her favor. We’ll likely see this coming to a head at Worlds, where several European and Asian champions who topped events on Briar will test their mettle against a field full of players who are well-versed in her supposed counters. Another hero that is a bit of a wildcard is Viserai; he enjoys wildly disparate popularity across each of the regions, so time will tell whether or not his worst matchups may ease up a bit to give him some more time in the sun come November.
Performance Within Top 8
Up until now, my primary focus has been what the field will look like. What will the top performers look like, and who is best poised to take the crown of World Champion for their pilot? One of the best measures we have other than Top 8 Conversion and Winner Conversion is performance within the top 8. In other words, how much does a hero appear in the quarterfinalists, semifinalists, and finalist positions? Let’s take a look at our charts for this.
| Hero | Top 8 (Total) | Wins | 2nd | 3rd-4th | 5th-8th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azalea, Ace in the Hole | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.5% |
| Bravo, Showstopper | 6.3% | 2.9% | 11.4% | 5.7% | 5.1% |
| Briar, Warden of Thorns | 18.8% | 20.0% | 11.4% | 21.4% | 16.2% |
| Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire | 7.4% | 2.9% | 8.6% | 7.1% | 7.4% |
| Dorinthea Ironsong | 3.9% | 2.9% | 5.7% | 2.9% | 3.7% |
| Dromai, Ash Artist | 0.0% | 2.9% | 8.6% | 4.3% | 9.6% |
| Fai, Rising Rebellion | 11.7% | 5.7% | 8.6% | 7.1% | 14.7% |
| Iyslander, Stormbind | 10.9% | 11.4% | 5.7% | 10.0% | 11.0% |
| Kano, Dracai of Aether | 1.2% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.4% | 1.5% |
| Katsu, the Wanderer | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| Levia, Shadowborn Abomination | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.4% | 0.7% |
| Lexi, Livewire | 3.1% | 2.9% | 0.0% | 1.4% | 4.4% |
|
Oldhim, Grandfather of Eternity |
23.0% | 31.4% | 25.7% | 24.3% | 16.2% |
| Rhinar, Reckless Rampage | 2.3% | 2.9% | 2.9% | 2.9% | 1.5% |
| Ser Boltyn, Breaker of Dawn | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.7% |
| Viserai, Rune Blood | 9.4% | 14.3% | 11.4% | 10.0% | 5.9% |
Each column in the chart shows how often a hero appeared in their respective position in the Top 8. To figure out a hero’s performance within the top 8, we must pay attention to two factors: first, the overall metagame share they took up, in the first column. Second, the rate at which they appeared in each of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd-4th, and 5th-8th columns compared to the first column.
We’ll take our proverbial star of the show as an example. Oldhim made up 23.05% of all heroes in the top 8, placing him as the most prevalent hero there. However, he made up 31.43% of all winners, 25.71% of all 2nd place finishes, and 24.29% of all 3rd and 4th place finishes - meaning that he performed better than average within the top 8 to achieve a high winning conversion rate. If Oldhim appeared in the Top 8, it was more likely than not that he won at least one game within the Top 8. In other words, not only was he a strong contender against the majority of the field, he was an even better contender among the more narrow band of heroes that made top 8.
We can use this method of analysis to extrapolate some useful data about other heroes who had a high number of top 8 appearances. Looking at our Uprising heroes: Fai was a fairly popular hero this season, but when it comes to wins and finalist placings, he performed significantly lower than average. While a decent chunk of Fai players did make it to top 8, many of them did not win a single match in it, with the majority of Fai players sitting at 5th-8th. Dromai, our other Draconic hero, had similar performances; she made up 7.25% of all top 8 appearances, but with a winrate a third of that. She appears slightly more often in 2nd place and in 5th-8th, indicating that while she does have some ability to win in specific matchups, she struggles into others that make up the later elimination rounds, especially in finals. Iyslander seems to have the opposite problem; when she gets into the finals, she’s more likely winning than not, and performs reasonably against the rest of the field.
Briar and Viserai, our two Runeblades, both have high conversion rates into wins, with Viserai in particular performing well above average at a conversion rate higher than Oldhim’s. Both Viserai and Briar have higher prevalence in finals and semifinals; despite their frosty outlook, it seems that neither of them have particular difficulty in finding wins when they make it into top 8. Like Iyslander, Briar also underperforms in the 2nd place slot and overperforms in the 1st place slot; Viserai, on the other hand, overperforms in both.
From all of these individual inferences, we can assemble the following hypotheses for future Top 8's:
- If an Oldhim, Viserai, or Briar is against a hero not among those three, they are likely favored in the matchup. Individual preferences aside, all three heroes have all shown that they are more than capable of taking their pilots past quarterfinals. While Oldhim’s throne at the top has gotten a bit shakier due to Pulse of Isenloft’s ban, I don’t expect him to fall too much in standings given his performance compared to other heroes at present.
- If Iyslander or Briar are against a different hero in finals, they are favored to win; statistics show that, if the choice is between first or second place, Briar and Iyslander are more likely to occupy first place.
- Fai, Dromai, and Dash are strong enough against the wider field to make it into top 8, but struggle against one or more of the top decks. Absent any true underdogs from left field, they will be the de facto underdogs in top 8. Personal experience and data outside of top 8 leads me to believe that Fai is most likely to be successful of these three heroes.
Closing Notes
Even though the metagame has narrowed, it’s far from set in stone. As always, data isn’t destiny, and your own analysis of this data should come tempered with your own experiences when playing Flesh and Blood. The community at large has had a wide variety of opinions throughout these last few weeks, and many of them may not match exactly what is presented here. I hope these articles have been of some interest to you these last four weeks, and look forward to seeing how players navigate the final hours of Uprising competitive season at Worlds in November! See you there!
Yichin Liu is a competitive Flesh and Blood player and author of content relating to gameplay and strategy. The opinions expressed in the above article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Legend Story Studios.