Hello and welcome back to the Illumination Podcast, the Disney Lorcanah Podcast.
My name is Max and I am here solo with you this particular week.
Sam is not available for recording.
That will not deter me from getting you all your episode of Illumination.
Thank you all of the support. Appreciate you listening to this episode.
And we are talking about the Azure 8c metagame.
Last episode we talked over the Emerald Amethyst aggro tempo.
Tempo is probably more correct.
Deck.
This week we are talking about the meta from a little bit of a higher level.
And there are a couple key points that I really wanted to bring up in this episode talking
over the meta.
So first and foremost, the metagame.
We've done a metagame episode.
We have done evolution of a metagame episode.
We have done a couple talks on this.
So please do go back and listen to those episodes if you have a chance.
And you haven't already.
If you have, thank you so much.
We are in a Rock, Paper, Scissors meta.
That means that there is no particular best deck, right?
We are not in a tier zero meta, which would mean that there is one deck that is just better
than the rest.
We saw a tier zero meta more back towards the days of like Rise of the Floodborne when
Red Purple was just dominating everything.
Or a little bit later you could argue that the Bucky decks started out as a very strong
tier zero deck.
And I wouldn't disagree with you there either.
That is not the case for the Azure 8C meta right now.
We are in a very Rock, Paper, Scissors meta.
What does that mean?
Very simply put, you have aggressive decks, control decks, and mid-range decks.
Right now, the aggro decks are beating the control decks, right?
You are going to bring a fast deck.
A control deck is going to struggle to control the game quick enough to stop an aggressive
deck.
Control decks are going to beat down on the mid-range decks, and the mid-range decks are
going to beat the aggro decks.
The mid-range decks are the decks that are able to get fast starts and also have elements
to grow a little bit in size and pressure to be able to play a little bit of a longer
game.
So these you tend to see picking on the smaller creatures, outclassing them very quickly by
way of better static characters and removal.
And then they are able to play a longer game with better characters.
Control beats them because they have more time to set up and they have the ability to
handle all of the better static characters with mass removal, unconditional removal,
better synergies, things that control can set up in the late game.
So what do those decks look like right now?
Give me examples, you say.
You didn't say that, but maybe you are.
I don't know.
If you are, great.
I sound really smart.
If not, it just sounds like a guy rambling.
Either way.
So these are the aggro decks that you may be familiar with.
Kind of the elephant in the room on this one is going to be your Amber Amethyst Hyper
Aggro deck.
Of course, you are going to have versions we are seeing now of Amber Steel that are
much more aggressive, dock style decks that are using these low end characters to quest
aggressively, be able to refill their hands while playing just enough of the steel removal
to be able to offset the opponent if they are on a similar game plan.
And then you get into stuff like the Emerald Amethyst tempo style decks, which fall more
under an aggressive style than a mid-range, I would say personally.
And that is kind of the classic aggro decks we are seeing other ones come through.
Amber Sapphire Heroes, things like that, are making waves.
There is no shortage of them.
The mid-range decks are going to go a little bit bigger.
They are going to go a little bit more interactive.
So you are going to have things like Purple Steel, Amber Steel Song.
You are going to see your Emerald Steel decks fall into this category.
They play a much longer game, right?
They are not looking to close the game out super quickly.
They do have the ability to either lock a board and a game out.
Emerald Steel, I am looking at you.
Or they have an ability to start with very quick style hands.
Amber Steel Song very much falls in this direction, right?
You can go Daisy Duck into Mr. Smee into Lawrence into Pluto and close out a game without ever
actually needing to use a song in some circumstances.
And Purple Steel, kind of the new kid on the block, so to speak.
You saw Purple Steel starting to gain popularity last set with Pete, Games Referee, being involved.
And this is another deck that will commit permanence to the board and then use Pete
to lock it out and not allow the opponent to play another action while they use their
good, static Purple characters to just take them across the finish line.
Now on the control side of things, obviously we know some of these characters, right?
These are your Sapphire Ruby, your Sapphire Steel, your Amethyst Ruby decks.
All of these are your controlling decks.
They're decks that are very well suited at playing a long game and they only get better
as the game goes on, right?
If you think about it like a line graph in your head, if you start with aggro being at
the very high peak and then a line going down to the right, so it's just a downward slope,
control decks do the opposite, right?
Where they start at the bottom and then as they move right, they go straight up.
So it looks like a big X, right?
If you compare an aggro deck to a control deck, it's a big X.
At what point in the game, they're doing better.
The controlling decks are obviously destroying everything, drawing cards, playing key critical
threats that can win the game one to two turns in the late game, but they're struggling to
hold the game down in the early game where the aggressive decks come out of the gates
hot but they often fizzle out and are looking to close out with the last few lore they need
to end the game towards the very end.
So that usually how that goes.
Mid-range kind of plays as opposed to going like an extreme curve.
They slowly nicely slope upwards where they get a little better and then flat line out
from there where their threats only get so good.
We're talking about Tinkerbell Giant Fairy.
The cards like that, Robin Hood, Champion of Sherwood, we've seen a lot of these cards
in this style of deck.
So those are kind of what the meta looks like.
And again, just to recap that one, the aggressive decks are going to take advantage of the control
decks beating them before they can assert control.
The control decks are going to beat down on the mid-range decks and the mid-range decks
beat up on the aggro decks.
So what the heck should you play then in this Azure Raid Steel meta?
And I think if anybody is telling you to play a particular deck, they're being a little
bit hyperbolic right now.
I do not think there's anything close to a good recommendation.
And I think in this style of meta, the what should I play question is much more personal.
So I would say, what do you like to play?
What do you feel you are the best at playing?
What style feels the most natural and well suited for you?
And I would say to start there.
I think from there, you need to break it down.
You need to go, okay, what deck?
All right, let's ask a better question.
In what category that I just went through, would you want to play a deck in?
What do you feel like you're the best at?
Are you a good aggro pilot?
You're good at starting off and knowing how you can preserve just enough in the game to
be able to finish out a longer game or be able to kind of claw back as all of your characters
are banished.
Do you get them with the last couple gathering knowledge and wisdom?
Are you more of a mid range player?
Do you like the flexibility of being able to win quickly with certain hands, but also
use the cards to be able to grind out a much longer game plan?
Or are you a control player where you want to play a lot of value cards in the early
part of the game as well as pinpoint style removal for fast characters and then assert
a very, very powerful end game plan for those very late turns that just allow you to feel
unbeatable?
So, whatever one of those categories sounds the most attractive to you, is the deck you
should be looking to play?
Then from there, breaking it down to which one of the sub categories, which one of the
sub decks do you like to play?
Let's break down control for an easy example.
Do you want to play a Sapphire ramp style strategy or do you prefer to play something
that looks more like the Ruby Amethyst decks where you're using the Madame Mim bounce package
in concert with the Merlins as well now as the Genie to be able to generate a lot of
card advantage over a game?
Which do you prefer to play?
Would you prefer to ramp heavily on your ink or would you prefer to gain a lot of cards
in your hand but keep an even keel of ink ability?
Depending on what your style is, I personally would lean more towards a Ruby Amethyst control
deck because I am not a good Sapphire pilot.
So if you ever see me across the table from you and I start playing Sapphire cards, I
think you're advantaged because I don't know what the heck I'm doing with those cards.
Other people feel differently.
Other people in our testing group, very gifted pilots with Sapphire ramp style strategies
while I'm not.
And that's okay.
There's no right answer right now.
I'd be just as happy to sit down across the table from them playing either another controlling
deck or an aggressive deck.
I'd rather not be playing a mid-range deck but I do know how to play a mid-range deck
against a control deck to try to maximize my win rate.
It's all about picking the style you like first and foremost.
You need to make sure you test the deck thoroughly.
The very first thing you need to know is what are the micro sequencing pieces of the deck
that you need to understand the best?
What order do you need to play things in?
How do you arrange a turn really strongly?
There are some really cool things you can do in some of these decks that don't seem
obvious.
A call out here would be in something like Amber Steel's song, being able to put damage
on your own character with a little Stormrage on to then be able to play a Rapunzel and
draw two cards so that you can gain card advantage in the matches where you need that to win.
Those are non-standard plays that a lot of pilots who have only played the deck a couple
times or even a few dozen times won't truly understand.
And maybe they understand that it's a thing you can do but they don't understand when
you need to.
So those are certain things.
The whole new world decks on themselves are some of the most skill testing in the game
in my opinion.
The play design in this game is very elegant and there's no benefit so strong to playing
a whole new world that it feels unbalanced.
It's crazy that they've managed to balance such a powerful effect which is normally something
that you can make asymmetrical very easily even though you're both drawing seven cards.
Me being able to draw seven cards, you losing four and then drawing a new seven is very
detrimental because you didn't use as many resources as I did which means I am ahead
in the game most likely.
But they've made a lot of headway to not make that card feel as oppressive as it has in
other games i.e. Magic the Gathering which is why I referred to it as a wheel because
it's named after the card Wheel of Fortune where both players discard their hands and
draw seven cards.
So that card is very unbalanced in Magic the Gathering.
Typically if somebody has it in their deck they're doing something extremely unfair where
Lurkana we haven't seen that yet which I think is amazing in terms of the game design.
So shout out to the game designers for that because holy cow that is an absolute task
and I know early on that was one of the cards that was most commonly pointed out as one
of the most unfair in the game because you could eke out an advantage certainly in something
like an Amber Steelsong or a Sapphire Steel but it was hard to really leverage the advantage
as hard as you can in a game like Magic the Gathering.
But you got to practice you have to know how you have to know when you're using your wheels
you have to know when your wheels are useless and they need to be fishbone quilled away.
Those things you only learn in time in testing against multiple different decks.
So just be aware the practice is everything so one of the big reasons I wanted to talk
about this subject even though it like butts up adjacent to some of the previous episodes
we've had is a Azure 8 is still a very unknown meta so there's a lot of deck choices and
I want to say this if there's nothing else this is the thesis statement for the episode
that I wrote down.
Experience is worth more than finding the best deck or the best deck of the week.
There's so much more value right now.
I'm picking a deck you are good at playing and well versed at playing and understand
the sequencing of very well because not only do you play the deck at an optimal way you're
making it the most efficient and best possible choices with the deck you are also focusing
on your game plan through the lens of what the opponent is doing.
That makes you much more dangerous than stumbling and trying as hard as you can to operate the
deck adeptly and ignoring the opponent because there are going to be times you need to abandon
the most obvious line where it's going to be hey most of the time shooting their character
with a let the storm rage on is going to be the right choice.
There's going to be one time in 50 where shooting your own character with let the storm rage
on is correct but there are going to be those times and knowing when to pick up on that
is going to win you a game you might not otherwise have won.
So that's why I say experience here is so much more important.
Are there going to be bad matchups?
Yes of course it's a rock paper scissors meta.
Your deck is not going to just steamroll everybody or else everybody will be playing the deck
that steamrolls everybody and figuring out the cards you need to change to steamroll
that deck.
That's a tier zero meta not what we are in right now.
So experience and knowing a deck even if you feel like that deck is not as good as some
of the other deck choices perhaps that experience and that ability you have to play that deck
so well and not think so much about what you're doing but what your opponent's doing will
give you wins that other players of that deck might not be able to get or other players
who are chasing the best deck might not be able to get.
So I can't emphasize that point enough.
Your skill will give you a higher win percentage in this kind of a meta than just trying to
find whatever deck did well at the last big tournament and playing it.
Somebody seeing right now that Ambersteelsong is doing really well might want to play Ambersteelsong.
It is one of the most skill intensive decks in the game as is the Sapphiresteel decks.
The whole new world decks are some of the most skill taxing decks in Lorcan.
Knowing how to play them well is an art and it is not easy.
It takes a lot and a lot a lot of time the true 10,000 hours right of practice to get
there.
That is important.
Having the skill to play that deck is awesome.
Just picking it up and trying to win because you saw that people have been winning with
it lately.
You're going to look at that deck and it's going to bewilder you.
Sam, myself and our friend HyperHippo from the podcast Previous Cliff are on a three
person team coming up at the Pax Unplugged Lorcan events that they're being held by
past time games and we have to represent the six ink colors across the team.
I am playing Ambersteel because after we arranged everything together felt like that was probably
the best combination and layout and I have the most experience playing that color combination
so I am the one playing it.
Could we have had any of us played?
Of course I could have played a deck I wanted to play more and left somebody else playing
the Ambersteel deck but why would I do that when I think that that deck is really well
situated.
The deck choices we made are really strong and I think that Sam and Cliff are better
at those decks than I am so we're taking the decks going what did we evaluate the best
breakdown of the colors to be.
It would be these three decks and then we decided who was going to play each deck based
on their prior experiences.
There's no way I'd be able to play that Ruby Sapphire deck very adeptly.
As I pointed out I'm miserable a lot of the times with the Sapphire decks because I don't
enjoy the play patterns so I haven't play tested them a lot.
I have in the past but not enough to where I'd consider taking it to a tournament but
I have played Ambersteel in many different iterations many different times so I understand
it and even getting back into it now with little additions to Ambersteel which got probably
some of the very fewest cards in Azure 8c right now like Pluto basically being like
one of the only cards that you got in some cases I'm still here maybe perhaps if you're
into the Simba stuff you got the Shift Simba now but there's not many options and no one's
quite sure what the right configuration really looks like for the deck but I'm learning the
little play patterns I'm learning the power and like the sequencing to optimize my Plutos
things like that I'm learning my role in each matchup I'm learning the optimal keep on the
draw versus the optimal keep on the play.
All those little baby things are super duper important so I can't point out enough experience
is king in this kind of a meta.
Play the deck you like even if you think that deck is not as good as another deck you could
be playing if you have hundreds of games under your belt with it you're probably honestly
going to do better in a tournament setting than you would playing the deck that quote
finished a little better the past couple of weeks saying all of that of course everybody's
eyes are going to be very acutely affixed on the continentals in EU that's really going
to be our first big layout of the metagame right we're getting this at the holidays before
store champs this is going to define the top eight decks here even the day two decks the
top big decks are really going to be what people start playing and play testing to beat
even if they stick with their decks that they're experienced with these are the things they're
going to have somebody a buddy sit across the table from them and try to play against
it's going to really define what the metagame starting to shape up to be so if anybody's
got any cool tech it's going to come up at one of the biggest stages in lorikana history
the biggest to this point in lorikana history for sure so I think that that's really really
important to make sure you're watching that but don't lean too hard look at the other
things that are happening around those top eight decks around those day two decks what
else is in that meta the European meta and the North American metas look distinctly different
at any given time so it is definitely worth keeping an eye on it but don't fully invest
see what other decks are out there look at all of the day two decks look at the data
carefully as you evaluate the metagame and I recommend you you evaluate the metagame
take some time and look at it and try to figure out how things look and how things are going
to shape up if you want to get a leg up if you want to make a couple alterations or you
want to try a brand new deck completely there's no wrong answer but just know as of right
now as of time of recording here and as we approach the EU continentals there's no right
choice which means that your experience is everything and in order to win a game of lorikana
that way you have to keep questing