It's the weekend - you know the drill. Play games, get rewards. It's true that the best decks only come out to play on the weekends. With over 60,000 active players in the last week, competition is only getting fiercer. Imagine my surprise when I saw myself being the top weekend ranked player.
Of course, this was but a snapshot in time. As I rushed to finish my 25 games, I had gotten quite lucky with the matchmaking and managed to obtain a rather remarkable result of 19 wins. I was quickly swept off the leaderboards and when I woke up the next day, my username was no longer on the first page of rankings. Still, it was pretty satisfying to see that I was the top Weekend Ranked player for just a moment in time.
With the clickbait out of the way, let's dive into some details about the deck and matchmaking.
Deck Overview
You could say I'm a bit of a one-trick pony. I've been playing Aggro War since I started taking the Weekend Ranked games seriously, as you can see in my previous two posts. (here and here) This time was no different other than a few changes to the overall deck.
Deck Link: GUDecks
Taking a leaf out of @iceflare 's deck, I decided to put in more creatures with Protected, like Oddi and Raid Reveller. I found that their stickiness helped to mitigate some annoying removal spells.
I also included Avalanche Strike as a tech card. It didn't fit the overall Zoo theme of the deck, but its usefulness in getting rid of a few pesky backline units (cough Cursed Obelisks cough) got it a 1x in this deck.
Overall, the theme of the deck hasn't changed. Put sticky minions down, gain reasonable board control in the first few turns, and finish the game fast by turns 5-7 if possible.
Matchmaking Breakdown
| Opponent Deck | Score (Wins / Total Games) |
|---|---|
| Nature | 4 / 5 |
| War | 5 / 7 |
| Magic | 4 / 6 |
| Death | 3 / 4 |
| Deception | 0 / 0 |
| Light | 3 / 3 |
| Total | 19 / 25 |
Compared to the previous week, there were a lot fewer Nature decks. It's great that there are more varied decks this time around but the lack of Deception decks seems to suggest that it's pretty weak in the current meta.
I initially thought that I would have more trouble dealing with Zoo Light decks as I struggled against them during the week. I'd wager that I got lucky this time around since my opponents seemed to not have drawn their key units like Asterius.
I was also lucky not to face too many Zombie Death decks. Zombie Death decks can quickly put a stop to this deck's constant onslaught with a Necroscepter and Cursed Obelisks.
Overall, I thought the matchups were pretty fun although I definitely got lucky in some of the matches.
Why Zoo / Aggro?
When I decided to build a competitive deck for Gods Unchained, I knew from the start that I wanted to build a Zoo / Aggressive deck. Have you looked at the most expensive cards in Gods Unchained?
Most of these cards belong to control decks. They are high-cost, high-power units/spells that grant a lot of value to their owner. It's usually hard to compete with control decks that have multiples of these cards due to the value that these expensive cards bring. Aggressive decks don't have to face these cards since the game usually ends before these cards can be played. In my opinion, playing aggro decks level the playing field.
Of course, if too many players start playing aggro decks, counter decks will rise and aggro decks will fall. That's just the nature of the metagame.
Concluding Thoughts
I'm pretty stoked to be getting my first Divine Order legendary pack after the packs are distributed! When I read the Weekend Ranked rewards article initially, I tried to figure out if it was worth de-ranking to Ethereal Diamond to have a shot at an easier DO Legendary pack. I ended up not de-ranking as I found the de-ranking process way too boring and time-consuming. It turns out that I could still hold my own in the Mythic ranks 😄
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
Resources:
- GUDecks: For tracking deck stats
- My Card List Creator: For generating the individual card images