As I stated earlier in my first edition of jungle boys' thoughts, I tried to hover around midnight shadow or Auric Gold to farm packs. But alas, it is hard to do without de-ranking on purpose; thus, I started in Solar gold this weekend. Due to this reason, after the weekend ranked and me try harding going 17/25, I ended up two games away from mythic in Ethernal Diamond. I thought, why not just win two games to say, "hey, I reached Mythic". This edition of my thoughts is not necessarily about my journey to Mythic, but trying to give my view of reaching mythic (even though I wasn't tying).
Source: Tengyart on Unsplash
The Meta
I would include this in the "The Bad" section, although I thought I would give a quick snippet of a rundown about what I faced in weekend ranked and expand on that.
Magic
As the second-highest win rate God after Nature at 52.8%, this is what I face the most, the combo magic decks. You play a card, he annihilates it, but as a nature player, you can overwhelm the spells by going full aggro, and he won't have enough spells to clear the board. Guess what happens then, you wreck face (Hold your removal spells for the annoying frontline units that they love playing to stall out the game).
War
Oh boy, this is a doosy if you're running an Aggro or big beast variant of nature. It comes down to who gets going first and always; I mean, always take Selena's Mark against aggro. They have way too many protected in their decks that your god power is how you win out those battles. This may be my bias, but nature can overwhelm war decks if you never let them control the board (Be a MAD MAN and throw the kitchen sink at them). Choke them out, never let them breathe.
Nature
I will not give insider info because I love my fellow nature brothers. We lads also have the best win rate at 53%, low-key broken, and I'm not complaining. However, the main variation of nature is big beasts, and they rarely run late-game decks. To mitigate the late game fall off try adding opalized roots into your deck, as it can be a game-changer, and I run it to assure card draw in the later stages. That's it for nature; you guys figure out how to counter it XD.
Light
They are all about board control, very similar to war players. If they don't get board control, come mid-game. They are free, and for us nature players, they are ALWAYS free. Be aggressive, be smart about using removals, and always do what it takes to keep board control (Trading matters against them, so take your time to figure it out). Selena's Mark is your friend. Give them an inch, and I am sorry to say it's game over; they will lock you up and kill you swiftly.
Death
They have two variations, infinite Zombie (that's what I call it) or Demogorgon decks (Board wipe death would fall into this category, at least for me). Oh, they are both annoying as hell, and the Demogorgon decks need finesse to beat (I learned it the hard way after getting wrecked by one). For Zombie, you play hard and fast, never giving board control; for Demo decks, you have to play it slow and be deliberate ( We nature players love going balls to the wall, but in this matchup, we need to be patient).
Deception
It is a rare breed as I only met a couple of Deception players, and both of them played the "Steal your girl" deck, which is that they steal a card in your hand to play against you (abridged version). It is RNG so remember this, my fellow nature brethren, "they merely adopted the RNG; we nature players were born in it and molded by it." Play reactionary, be aggressive with a tad bit of caution.
Win rate of the Gods
- Nature - 52.8%
- Magic - 52.7%
- Deception - 51.2%
- Death - 50
- War - 48.5
- Light - 47.9%
All the above numbers are as of writing this post.
Source: Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash
The Good
As a free-to-play player and only running one legendary in my deck, which is Managamr, yes, sue me, he's a good doggo, and I will run him in every deck I play. Winning on the weekend with this deck against a platitude of "let me play legendary after legendary card" decks felt good, which showed me that it might not be pay to win as the vast majority purports. In my opinion, this is definitely a healthy sign in terms of gameplay and balance, which means if you're skilled enough and don't have the 1 ETH deck, you can still sweat out a win. That said, yes, you would get butt blasted sometimes, and that is ok; chalk it up to top deck plays (or too many Genesis cards to handle).
Source: Sabina on Unsplash
The Bad
When I hit my peaks on either League of Legends, Temafight Tactics, or Legends of Ruenterra I was out of my seat, fist-pumping thin air. When I hit mythic in Gods Unchained it didn't feel like I achieved something. Don't get me wrong, I am not being arrogant, although mythic didn't feel like an achievement but a crutch. I have a better chance to farm packs through lower ranks, plus I don't have to kill my brain cells every game try harding (What incentives are there to try hard in this game during the week?). Another factor that bothers me is the sanctum, a unique mechanic that God's unchained Devs developed. It is a snowball mechanism in every sense and, in my opinion, rewards aggressive decks with blessed cards. It makes the game fast-paced, but I feel most aggro decks can abuse this mechanism to snowball, where midrange and control decks become irrelevant.
Conclusion
These are thoughts of a boy in a jungle, so take it with a grain of salt. The meta is stale, and I am glad we will be shaking it up with the core set refresh. I would like to see some balance changes regarding the sanctum with this refresh, as I believe it needs more refinement. I hope the ranked weekend went well for all of you.
Twitter - https://twitter.com/TheJungleBoy4
Another well written piece. The meta in this game sits the same for six months or more. I sometimes think it is due to the GU team not making changes to cards as quickly as they should. Armor for example. Clearly it is broken and even with the nerf to guild enforcer that card does really well. The last time they drug their feet was with enduring shield. As anyone who played during that time before they fixed it how fun it was to only be able to play war if you wanted to win your weekend ranked games. And in War mirror matches it came down to who got enduring shield out first. They have needed to have different game formats now for a long time. If they did that it could very well keep things fresh for people.
I also think we as a player base just hover to whatever is OP and never limit test to figure out what works and what doesn't (Reason is, only ranked weekend matters). I love the Sanctum mechanic, but the GU Devs need to address it as it heavily favors aggro decks, in my opinion.
You are certainly correct about the sanctum. People do not want to play another other then what is OP due to packs being worth money if you sell the cards. When money gets involved people will always go the safe route. They know if they play the OP meta they should do well enough to earn those higher prizes.
I agree with you on some things and have comments on others:
IMO reaching Mythic isn't something that you jump for joy for because you know there are de-rankers during the week, plus Weekend Ranked becomes harder. Also, since Mythic ELO resets every week, there's really no point in grinding past Mythic after the weekend. Definitely would want to see the GU team putting some effort to address this long-standing issue.
Actually, I do think the meta is decent as of now since most factions' meta decks hover around the 50-55% WR range at the top levels (other than BWD at ~60% which is just P2W, but I don't really hate it). Just need a new faction and the core set refresh to spice things up a bit; one expansion a year is really gonna bore many people.
I achieved mythic on the weekend, as I play my 60 games for the week during the weekend event. Yes, the GU team does have to take accountability for competitive integrity, as it is just an underwhelming experience to reach the pinnacle of the game. I hope the Core set refresh shakes up the meta; thank you, Kephy XD.
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Great intro I like the Good and Bad sections :-D