The recent ETS Open featured a new change of rules – no sideboards. For the average Eternal player, this is good news! The ETS tournament metagame will be more likely to reflect what works well on ladder, and thus will give us way more juicy lists to try out.

The tournament field was larger than usual this time, with 64 participants. In all likelihood, this is probably due to the lack of sideboards as well, since strong ladder players with no tournament experience can simply play what has been doing well for them without feeling like they are missing out on crucial sideboarding skills.

As we can see, this was a fairly diverse metagame, and is actually a fair reflection of the types of decks people are bringing to ladder. Time-based Midrange decks ruled the roost in terms of numbers, with many players opting for the tried and true strategy of Turn 1 Initiate of the Sands, Turn 3 Aurelian Merchant, Turn 5 Worldbearer Behemoth. FJS Midrange was also fairly popular, and it is easy to understand why – the deck has been a popular choice for many top players, filled with both proactive and reactive tools that make the deck decent in every matchup.

The true surprise of the tournament, however, is the abnormally large number of Combo Miracle variants. For those who are not aware, these decks aim to stick a minion (usually Rilgon’s Disciple, Alessi, or Kosul Battlemage), play a bunch of cheap spells like Giant Growth or Gift of Battle to pump them, and hit face for lethal. While many players have been rocking such lists on ladder, it is surprising to see such a large number of them in the ETS.

Unfortunately, control decks seems to be taking the short end of the stick in this metagame, as the high number of Icarias and Aegis units make it difficult to build a deck that is sufficiently well-rounded to beat all the existing threats.

Let’s look at the top performing lists.

It seems that Praxis Midrange is the best of the Time-based Midrange variants, with 4 out of the 5 present performing 4-2 or better. Many top players and content-creators have been on the Praxis train for a while, since the Fire splash is essentially free. It would seem that having Torch and Purify as early and flexible interaction helps in this extremely diverse metagame. For those rocking Time decks, perhaps Praxis should be your choice moving forward.

What is more surprising, however, is the disproportionately large number of aggressive decks making the cut. What gives? It bears noting that true aggro decks did not do particularly well, as most of the top performers are aggressive midrange lists.

With regards to why they seem to be performing well, it is probably different reasons for different lists – with the large number of Time decks, Tavrod and Annihilates become a winning combination, making Argenport Midrange a solid archetype in this metagame. TJP Midrange variants have access to Equivocate and Vanquish, gaining them sufficient tempo to close out games. Aggro Combrei has access to Vanquisher’s Blade and the actual card Vanquish, generating large tempo swings as they can develop a threat while removing an opposing threat in the same turn.

Maybe there is some truth to aggressive midrange decks being good in this metagame. As the metagame is in flux at the moment, only time will tell.

Deck of the Tournament

The Deck of the Tournament has to go to Mouche’s TJP Alessi Miracle list.

Many community members on Reddit have already complained about the prevalence of this deck on ladder, and with good reason. This deck is capable of a huge damage output in a single turn, and can kill hapless opponents if they aren’t paying attention. Mouche’s version affords him additional staying power with 3 Crownwatch Press-Gangs at the 4-drop slot, allowing him to reload on Alessi in the event his early threats get removed.

It bears noting that this deck doesn’t play out exactly like a combo deck. Looking at the list above, it looks like a typical TJP Midrange list, just with smaller threats and more pump spells. The deck aims to play early threats from turns 1 to 3, and protect them with disruptive cards like Equivocate and Stand Together.

This is a difficult deck to pilot, as the evaluations on when to leave up power to play disruptive threats, or when to deploy specific pump spells can be difficult. This is backed by the tournament results – out of 10 total Miracle variants in the 64-player field, only 2 made it into the top 20. However, as Mouche demonstrates, if the deck is played well, it is a force.

I would also like to congratulate Pupicitus, who finished in 2nd place piloting a fairly stock-looking TJP Midrange list, featuring no additional cards from Set 4 – not even the new Crests! His performance demonstrates that any suboptimal list of a solid archetype, when piloted well, can still result in a strong tournament showing.

TJP Midrange might also be an interesting deck to update and continue tuning – with access to Vanquish, Equivocate, and cheap threats, the deck is capable of tempo-ing Time Midrange decks out of the game. Furthermore, Svetya and Hooru Pacifier creates problems for FJS Midrange lists which are fairly reliant on spells and weapons to maintain board control.

Personal Favourite Deck of the Week – Kennadins!

No matter how well the stock archetypes do, I have a soft spot for sweet brews. Nothing in this tournament captures the essence of a sweet brew more than BassoonBuffoon’s Skycrag Kennadins list.

What a list.

This deck relies on Combustion Cell to ramp up in power, as well as trigger Tribute for sweet cards like End Hostilities and Kenna, Shaman of the Scale. While I have to admit that I have ragged on Kenna before, she looks really sweet in this list coming down on Turn 5, killing a threat and picking up an Assembly line for more Combustion Cell shenanigans.

However, the true payoff card for all of this is End of Hostilities. Having two copies of your opponent’s best threat can’t possibly be bad. BassoonBuffoon used this to great effect against his hapless Round 1 Combrei opponent, leading to a fairly spectacular finish. When playing against another Highroll deck with sweet units like Charge Rod, BassoonBuffoon blessed us with incredible moments on stream, like this delightful highlight. The casters could barely contain their excitement.

While he did not make it to the Top 8, this Skycrag Kennadins list looks like an enormous amount of fun. For those who enjoy fun combo decks and have a lot of shiftstone to spare, I recommend you fiddle around with this list.

Market Card of the Week

Since there aren’t any sideboards in ETS moving forward, this segment has been aptly rejigged to look at the sweet Market tech our tournament players brought. This week’s prize goes to the functional Bury the Past, brought in Paradox’s Time Market in his Praxis Midrange list. Paradox used Bury the Past to great effect on stream, acting as an unconditional removal spell against opposing large threats, of which there are many in this current metagame.

And so, we have another metagame shake-up – the coming out party of Combo decks. Will the metagame evolve to handle this incoming Berserk onslaught? Only the coming weeks will give us the answer. Till next time, thanks for reading!