Pro Quest Season 4 Meta Analysis: Week 2

Well folks, the curator of cold is within striking distance of Living Legend, and as the last bastion of Ice in Flesh and Blood, Iyslander's potential departure harkens a fresh new world upon us all.

One more week of Pro Quest remains, and while Iyslander is less likely to rack up enough points through those events alone, we can't forget Calling: Melbourne this weekend and the clean 100 points it offers. By next week the metagame for World Championship: Barcelona will be locked in, and players will start grinding games like their life depends on it! Those of you deep in the tank prepping for Worlds - don't forget your Draft reps, they're just as important.

Now, onto the race - Lexi and Dromai are neck and neck for first place, astoundingly having earned exactly the same number of points on the leaderboard so far during Bright Lights season. They are tailed by Azalea, bolstered by her Calling win, followed by the reliable Bravo, the effortlessly cool Iyslander, the well-travelled Katsu, the recently upgraded Dash, the deadly duo of Uzuri and Dorinthea, and a lonely Fai just vibing at the back of the pack.

While Iyslander's fate is still unknown, Dromai, Azalea, and Katsu are poised to become very strong contenders after Lexi's retirement party. Let's take a look at who might put up a decent fight against these three in the coming weeks.

Baggin' the Dragon

While control decks may struggle against the scaly squad, there are a plethora of heroes well equipped to hit Dromai right in her royal face, while simultaneously dispatching a pesky dragon on the side.

Fai is about to take sibling rivalry to another level, able to efficiently clear dragons with cheap attacks like Phoenix Flame, Double Strike, and an on-demand Crouching Tiger from the newly released Pouncing Paws. At the same time he can also string together wide combat chains and demand her royal highness to block with hand after hand until someone (most likely of the Imperial Illusionist persuasion) dies.

It's not just the garage sale of new items that's got Dash all juiced up - a variety of interesting 6-power cards have been graciously added to the Mechanologist toolkit. With high octane turns involving Maximum Velocity now easier than ever thanks to the incredible Twin Drive, Dash can happily burst a dragon attack into smoke with a popper, then unleash a barrage of steam-fuelled fury with a "Return to Sender" note attached.

Everyone's favourite jungle rumbler is primed to make a brutal comeback if Dromai attempts a dictatorship. Dromai really likes to be able to block when it suits her, and nobody delivers true fear with the power of intimidate like Rhinar. Don't act surprised when you hear those bellows and beating chests.

Axing the Ace

She's a different flavour of Ranger to Lexi, but Azlaea still packs a deadly punch. As long as she finds a single arrow each turn, she can keep loading you up with a plague-infested cocktails. But her lack of weapon damage output leaves her vulnerable to fatigue, and her heavy reliance on the arsenal can prove to be a pretty major thorn in her Pits. Warmonger's Diplomacy can also stop her dead in her tracks, so make sure your hero is well equipped to engage in military negotiations.

While Uzuri's tactics are notable for putting Lexis six feet under, they still put a lot of work into anyone sporting a bow and arrows. Frailty tokens are less effective into Azalea, unless they've committed to building around Bolt'n Shot, but the arsenal wiping tools like Leave No Witnesses and Isolate into Command and Conquer go a long way.

Bravo just does what he does best, taking big threats down with a good old fashioned Chokeslam. The Showstopper can rely on his trusty armour fridge to shelter him from the on-hits that actually matter, then swing a huge Spinal Crush, Crippling Crush, or Disable, to ruin Azalea's carefully laid out plans. You don't even need to dominate these big boys - most of the time, simply forcing Azalea to throw her hand away every turn will get the job done.

This is a slightly hot take - but I don't think we've seen what Teklovossen is truly capable of. Azalea is great at punishing aggressive decks that don't like blocking and struggle when forced to do so. But Teklovossen can just defend heavily and bide his time, stacking up absolute towers of Evos that can completely blank even the tallest arrow. Once the pieces are assembled, Teklovossen can ride the sheer power of his Evo Upgrades to the finish line.

Kicking the Kodachis

The several breakpoints that Katsu politely asks you to cover every turn can be a huge pain, but some decks are happy to just lay back and toss cards at him until he gets tired or messes up mid-combo. Finding ways to keep Katsu on the backfoot and survive those cracked Bonds of Ancestry turns is crucial, but there are a lot of contenders lurking just beneath the surface who could take the grandmaster for a round or two.

We've seen a very valiant effort from Dorinthea so far, and historically she's been pretty adept at slicing and dicing through Katsu's hopes and dreams. Flic Flak can only get you so far, and with several of Katsu's cards only defending for 2, Dorinthea just needs to see any combination of power cards to completely overwhelm him. Like fighting a true knight in shining armour, Katsu can often find it incredibly difficult to bypass the Warrior equipment suite on a critical swing turn.

I've sometimes heard Riptide being labelled as the new Azalea. Riptide will likely have a rough time in a Dromai heavy meta, but we can't ignore how well placed he is to deal with an army of Katsus. Counters to attack reactions, Frailty tokens for daggers and breakpoints, cheap arrows with relevant on-hits, and blowout cards like Tar Pit Trap gives Riptide a serious amount of oomph to snag the Ninjas and reel them in.

Another promising young spark is Dash I/O. Kastu often has to weigh up if it's worth keeping a whole hand to attack with, the likelihood that everything will get blocked, and if there are any sneaky defense reactions tucked away that could throw things out of tune. What better way to mess with this than the flexibility of Dissolving Shield and galvanize, letting you easily cover those breakpoints while working towards late game machinations, be that a Scrap Harvester loop, Penetration Script power turn, or simply fatiguing with Fuel Injector!

One more week to go! Who are you rooting for this season? Do you want Iyslander to pack her bags? Which heroes do you think stand the best chance in a world without Ice?

Stay tuned for more meta discussion next week!