The relationship between popularity and win rate is an interesting one. A deck that’s massively popular, Daria Rune as the prime example, will undoubtedly be accounted for during deck building, resulting in a undeniable dip in strength compared to the rest of the field. This isn’t something that would be represented in a vacuum (a for example tournament setting), but is very relevant for ladder climbing.

A lot of faster decks take the top of the win rate in this current meta, with the ability of all to punish the incredibly slow yet popular D-Shift. Sword is extremely dominant in its, well, dominance, featuring the same popularity as Rune, but with a much, much higher win rate. Forest barely sees any play, though all of their archetypes but PTP sports decent success. Shadow is performing well in general, especially with the ability to masquerade as multiple archetypes at once. Aggro Blood struggles a bit in comparison to other Aggro decks, but its extremely low barrier to entry guarantees popularity. Haven struggles in all levels of play, with most slower builds suffering under the grip of the meta. Faster Dragon decks do very well, but Ramp Dragon…

Anti-meta can now come in, with match-ups and popularity all readily available. A deck will see success if it beats the top end of the popularity chart, the rest can be safely ignored as the match-ups will improve itself based on similarities. Here are the the most popular decks in the game: Daria Rune, D-Shift, Midrange Sword, Aggro Blood, Aggro Shadow, Ramp Dragon.

Isn’t that just a terrifying line-up?

Looking at it piece by piece, you can see why being anti-meta is so difficult. D-Shift & Ramp Dragon eats almost every control deck. Aggro Blood and Aggro Shadow eats combo decks. Midrange Sword and Daria Rune eats the rest.

And that’s about where this experiment ends.

Midrange Sword is the deck to use right now. It’s fast, consistent, and strong. Despite having an exorbitant amount of usage, its win rate and match-up spread is up there with the best of them. There are two popular builds out there, one running Maid Leader specifically to tutor out Albert, and its upward curve ends at Alwida’s Command. There’s another build which runs a higher curve Officer/Commander synergy with Pompous Princess and Fangblade Slayer. Both seems to tout decent success, and it’s mostly a matter of consistency vs. longevity.

SMOrc

Aggro Sword is still a very good deck in its own rights. The deck often has more synergy, a much lower curve, and multiple early game Storm minions. This means it punishes greedy decks that much harder, while not posing the vast positive win rate spread that its Midrange cousin has. Overall it’s still a very competitive deck, despite the lack of variations in builds.

Control Sword on the other hand is very much unlike the previous two in its approach, as demonstrated by its name. It features much heavier curves and an abundant of Ward minions such as Frontguard General and Aurelia, Regal Sabre. The archetype’s game plan is to simply lock down the board with its vast array of walls and generally high value minions before unleashing its win condition (that might or might not be Albert anyways). Prince of Darkness, Dark Angel Olivia, and Bahamut are amongst the popular win conditions the deck boasts.

Silverbolt Forest is the highest performing deck of the class at the moment. Note that the win rate data may be skewed due to the similarities between Silverbolt Forest and OTK Forest. The deck is practically omnipresent in every tournament line-up, and boasts similar success on ladder. Will of the Forest and Fairy Beast gives the archetype longevity against fast decks that isn’t named Aggro Blood, and boasts the traditional Rhinoceroach Storm combo along with Whitewolf Silverbolt 18 damage combo, capable of finishing any opponent.

Rickety rackety coming for that booty

OTK Forest still remains in an adjusted form compared to its pre-nerf counterpart. The shell is still very much there, although a few changes were needed to adjust to the lack of consistency which came with the change to Goblin Mage. Overall the deck has suffered compared to the meta before, and there hasn’t been much experimenting. Its lack of early game compensation makes it a lot more easily punished by the wave of faster decks.

Tempo Forest is another take on the Roach shell. While it still runs high burst damage potential, the deck sacrifice some supporting cards for a more consistent curve. Wind God and/or Elf Knight Cynthia make appearances here, giving the archetype a mid-game push turn from minions on board that’s otherwise unavailable.

PTP Forest still breathes, albeit barely. A mere shell of its former glory, this heavily grinder style approach to the game is being pushed out by both faster decks and slower decks with better win conditions. Its good match-ups are niche, except Ramp Dragon, and cannot carry it above the 50% mark.

Daria Rune continues to enjoy its lesser but positive performance on ladder, which is a fine feat considering the fact that it’s the literal most popular deck in the meta right now. Cheap and has the potential to beat any of its counters, Daria continues to prove her worth. The Piercing Rune nerf is definitely felt, however, as the archetype’s win rates dips it into tier 2. Much experimenting has been done to cope with the changes, with some even removing Piercing Rune altogether, with limited success. Fate’s Hand, Angelic Snipe, and Flame Destroyer shuffles in and out of lists at a whim.

Boom boom boom

D-Shift is still the polarising force that it’s used to be. Despite eating all control decks for breakfast, the deck’s abysmal success on ladder is attributed entirely to its weakness against faster deck which plagues the ladder. The decks it loses to don’t need to be particularly fast either, as Midrange Sword and Tempo Forest still trounces all over it.

Earth Rite carries on its fringe success. Never having established itself as a meta front runner at any point of RoB, the deck suffers from shaky match-ups and general inconsistencies, which has been plaguing it from the very beginning.

Daria D-Shift is a niche archetype that has been floating around for a month or two. It features good numbers and spread, but its lack of sample size and representation on the ladder keeps me from truly being able to promote it as a true next step for the class. It aims to fix up the lop-sided D-Shift match-ups while not beating control as hard. It’s hard to tell still due to the low number of games.

Ramp Dragon is possibly the most overrepresented deck on ladder. A true meme for the ages, the painful inconsistencies that plagues the archetype continues to do so post-nerf. Its match-up spread is truly miserable, featuring D-Shift level of lop-sided encounters every time Rowen trudges his old hermit legs up on the ladder. Many builds are being experimented with still, with the Satan version offering up better numbers than the rest.

No bully

Aggro Dragon is a force in itself, however. Gone are the Zyrnitras and Phoenix Roost and in are the Fortes and Seabrand Dragons. Big mid game Storm minions and the pre-evo Angel of the Word and Siegfried combination comes together to outlast most other fast match-ups, securing a respectable win rate against the field.

Storm Ramp Dragon is said to be Ramp Dragon without all the memes. Eyfa and Leviathan makes their mark, supported by the Ramp core of Aiela and Dragon Oracle to make up insane mid-game damage swings, capable of unprecedented burst in a more reliable shell.

Aggro Shadow is the natural progression of Cerberus. While its spread against the field isn’t particularly outstanding, the fact that it beats its direct competitor Aggro Blood more often than not is enough to secures a decent placing. Shadow Reaper is the crutch that holds everything together, allowing the class to play a to a style of slower but much more resilient aggression.

I swear there are hands under there

Nepthys Shadow is a legitimate archetype, capable of bullying out all other control decks not named Haven. Its poor performance against some faster decks are undesirable, but stalling with Death’s Breath, Foul Tempest, and Khawy gives it enough of a chance to stand in a respectable ladder spot. Most player has settled into the 2/3/7/8 curve.

Midrange Shadow is quite a bit less popular, and sees a lot of experimentation. It’s essentially Nepthys with all of the Last Words synergy plus Cerberus, cards that are unusable in the aforementioned archetype. The results aren’t exactly pretty, with numerable match-ups suffering in exchange for a better time against non-Daria rune.

Aggro Blood is the most popular archetype by far. It’s cheap, consistent, and is one of the few who has good win rate against Silverbolt Forest. The deck runs many experimentations with Vengeance lists and more traditional lower curve list. There’s a lot of it on ladder, on none is quite the exact same as the other. Killer Devil, Dark General, Mini SOul Devil and even Vampire Lykos goes in and out of lists, featuring here unmatched diversity. It’s also the only Aggro deck which runs any sort of significant direct non-Storm damage, the closest one being Aggro Shadow’s Cerberus.

There are people who find this attractive

Control Blood is a favourite to many, but it performs about as well as a deck without barely any card draw would. The deck lives or dies by Dire Bond, and you won’t draw it on turn 3 all the time. It enjoys the pleasure of absolutely trashing Daria Rune and Aggro Blood, along with good performance against other Aggro decks. This would be well and good, if not for the prevalence of D-Shift, a staggering 20% match-up. Crumbling against almost any sort of later game deck, Control Blood remains a pipe dream for the most part.

Seraph Haven is the class’ most popular list. Featuring some very one-sided games, the deck barely keeps its head above the water due to its glaring weakness to Sword. It also don’t often put enough pressure to beat other combo decks made to punish it, such as D-Shift or Silverbolt. The deck has largely stagnated, and so has its performance.

That’s a nice duel you have there

Storm Haven is a legitimate force. As people mulligan fast cards to punish Seraph, Mainyu and Reno catches them by surprise. The deck features a host of Storm minions, as well as the infamous Winged Sentinel Garuda for a combination of Storm and direct damage, very strong against the spread.

Guardian Sun mostly relies on stacking heals and Wards for the late game Satan turns. Unfortunately for the deck, it usually falters before this incredibly slow win condition can form. While Cudgel and Ancient Lion Spirit can help stem a lot of the bleeding, decks with heavier curve than Aggro should easily be able to overtake the board and overwhelm this deck, Themis’ Decree aside.

Elana Haven is a deck that’s truly past its prime. The tempo loss from the array of amulets it runs is usually too much to be able to stop more powerful win conditions of slower decks, not to mention the general inconsistencies. It’s like Control Blood, only loses to more Aggro decks.