Reposted from my Axie-specific blog (Diary of a Lunacian). Also in video formats on Youtube.
We are now at the middle of the Epic Era of Season 4 where Epic runes and charms are available from the marketplace. The Epic runes and charms enable a few archetypes to pop up to the Top of the leaderboard including Sturdy Fighter, Glorious Mane, and Triple Owl.
tldr:
- Meta Breaker: Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter
- Sturdy Fighter, Glorious Mane, and Triple Owl teams on the rise
- Topaz and Jinx still strong
- Sustain falling hard
Popular Archetypes
Topaz is still the dominant archetype amongst the top with Jinx and Glorious Mane being the next two popular archetypes. Sustain has gone down in popularity with extremely poor matchup against the new and currently the most powerful archetype - Sturdy Fighter (with Pure DMG). Despite the power level of Sturdy Fighter, it has yet to be picked up by many players.
Top archetypes at the Top of the Leaderboard
Top Runes and Charms
We see the rise of Heaven’s Echoes at the top of the Leaderboard, especially the Top 100. The combination of the 20% DMG buff (especially being able to trigger with Square Teeth with 0 Energy) and the 20 Shield per skill card played (Innocent Lamb, Nimo etc.) matches very well with the Topaz game plan. Last Wish and Leech are still at the Top throughout Top 1000. The two “archetype-enabling” runes - Glorious Mane and Sturdy Fighter - are concentrated at the Top 100 and Top 200, which is indicative of the power level of these two archetypes.
Top 20 Runes used by the Top players on the Leaderboard
Charm of Vitality II is the king of Charms across the Top 1000 given its versatility in being able to put on another card for only 2 PP. The other Vitality charms are also heavily used by Top players, suggesting that having high HP to survive for another turn is the bigger priority compared to boosting power (especially for Topaz teams where they often overkill with Topaz anyway). Scotch Tape is still one of the most popular charm despite the change in the Keep mechanic, suggesting that Energy Fragement is still a very important resource. It is interesting to see Trickster’s Card being so high up and this is likely due to Square Teeth being such a good card in Topaz (and in general).
Top 20 Charms used by the Top players on the Leaderboard
Top Archetypes Matchups
Overall Win Rates
Sturdy Fighter is the big winner in the middle of the Epic Era in terms of overall win rate, especially at the Top 100. Topaz, Jinx, Glorious Mane, Triple Owl, and Leafy are all doing okay with around 50% win rates. Sustain and Poison both took a big hit with way below 50% win rates. AoE continues to be pretty bad with Hot Butt still just clinging on.
Overall Win Rates of Top Archetypes
Matchups of Top Archetypes at the Top of the Leaderboard
Topaz
Topaz teams are getting increasingly optimised, with the top teams having triple Square Teeth, double Timber, double Bumpy, Garish Worm, Bablylonia, Calcium Armor Aqua at the front, and Heaven’s Echoes Dawn in the mid. It is increasing popular to have a Sturdy Fighter at the back as well to deal extra damage with all the Shields it gets from Timber and Bumpy.
Topaz is still extreme powerful and wins against most matchups. The big exception is against Sturdy Fighter where Topaz only has about 40% win rate (and even lower at Top 100). Jinx and Glorious Mane both can fight against Topaz for different reasons. Jinx can get rid of the Topaz cards whereas Glorios Mane takes advantage of taunt to protect the Glorious Mane Beast and potential out race Topaz in terms of damage.
Jinx
Jinx actually suffers from a lot of matchups including Glorious Mane, Triple Owl, Poison, Leafy, and Hot Butt but luckily for Jinx players, those are not (yet) popular on the ladder, so Jinx can continue to farm on Topaz. Another thing going for Jinx is that with the rise of Sturdy Fighter, there is another archetype that Jinx can farm on as Jinx has a pretty good matchup against Sturdy Fighter.
Glorious Mane
Glorious Mane finally makes it this season and there are actually two different variants - Triple Nut and Generic Strong Rage. I grouped these two variants together as their play styles are pretty similar, and both variants are well represented at the Top 100.
Glorious Mane does not have any very good or very bad matchups with the most extreme being against Leafy. Top Leafy teams tend to have Shrimp which can target the Glorious Mane Beast. Even with 4-turn taunt in the Glorious Mane team, Leafy teams can often finish off the Taunt Axie wish for RNG to let the Leafy hit KO the Glorious Mane Beast. Glorious Mane is a good pick for budget players as the Beast is often pretty afforable. Having said that, the more optimised teams will need two good support Axies to go with the Beast which can be more pricey.
Triple Owl
Miracle Leaf enables the Triple Owl archetype with bonus DMG from the Leaves that Leaf Cloak can provide. Usually the Miracle Leaf Plant also has Feather Fan for massive damage using the Feathers from Tri Feather and sometimes Feather Spear as well. Its play style is similar to Glorious Mane. Triple Owl takes more time to get going but it can do A LOT of damage late game.
Triple Owl has a very good matchup against Jinx and Hot Butt because of how much each Owl can do late game. It is also good against AoE because of the Leaves from Leaf Cloak. Poison is often too slow against Triple Owl as well. Having said that, Triple Owl’s weakness is that it takes a while to get going, and often loses the race to Topaz (and to some extent Glorious Mane and Sturdy Fighter).
Poison
It feels bad for Poison players as Topaz gets more optimised as well as other aggro teams like Glorious Mane, Triple Owl, and Sturdy Fighter on the rise. It still has a good matchup against Jinx which is the only thing that is going for Poison at the moment.
AoE
Not much to say, just tough matchups across the board maybe with the exception of Glorious Mane because AoE could finish off the Glorious Mane Beast without caring too much about the Taunt.
Sturdy Fighter
Sturdy Fighter is the archetype to look out for as we get closer to the end of the Epic Era. Here, when I say Sturdy Fighter, I mean the Pure Damage variant with Piranha, Beetle Spike, Pliers etc. It has a pretty good match up against Topaz as Pure Damage can bypass all the Shields that Topaz teams get from Timber and Bumpy. Given the popularity of Topaz, one would expect more players switching to playing Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter to farm on Topaz teams. Sturdy Fighter suffers from Jinx, but otherwise it is just good across the board.
Sustain
Sustain is having a tough time as all other archetypes getting more optimised. Unfortunate it is looking even worse as Sturdy Fighter teams outright beats Sustain.
Leafy
There are actually teams (e.g. Topaz, Triple Owl etc.) incorporating one copy of Leafy if they happen to gain Leaves anyway but here Leafy refers to more full on Leafy teams with at least 2 copies of Leafy and most often 3 copies. The top Leafy teams tend to have a Prehistoric Armor Reptile with Tri Spike and one copy of Shrimp to focus the Leafy onto one Axie often for the KO.
Leafy has relatively polarised matchups where it suffers quite a bit against Topaz but does very well against Jinx. As a Leafy player, I just hope to go against Jinx every game. Leafy is also good against Glorious Mane but suffers against Poison and Sustain. Leafy’s matchup against Sturdy Fighter is not great (around 45%) which can be worrying for Leafy players.
Hot Butt
There are not a lot of matches involving Hot Butt teams so I would not read too much into the data, but if you want to play something niche, it can definitely be piloted to Challenger.
Conclusion
Topaz is still the dominant archetype but there are certainly counters, especially with Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter. The meta is shaping up pretty well in the Epic Era which quite a number of archetypes being capable of getting to the Top 100. It is certainly a big improvement compared to the Rare Era. Let’s see if we will see Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter gets to the Top or will we see Topaz with Sturdy Fighter at the end of the Epic Era.
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