Diary of a Lunacian | Axie Infinity: Origins Meta Report - Season 6 Early Epic Era (24 Oct 2023)

The early meta for the Epic Era of Season 6 in Axie Infinity: Origins is what I would call "all over the place" with so many different archetypes flying around. It is also getting difficult to define archetypes because more teams are running multiple strategies (especially with Ramp and Sustain components). With the Era system and the current state of the meta, I believe Axie Origins has one of the fastest shifting meta out of any Digital Card games. This keeps the gameplay fresh but players will need to constantly chase the meta in order to perform, which of course lead to a constant market activity and a strong game economy.

tldr:

Meta "all over the place" with so many archetypes being tested in Early Epic Era
Top 3 so far: Fury Aggro, Leafy, Confused
Fun "new" archetypes to try: Perch, Cuckoo Buba, Feather Fan

Player Base Statistics

      Rank  # Players    Rankings
Challenger       2150      1-2150
    Dragon       5919   2151-8069
     Tiger      10397  8070-18466
      Bear       4554 18467-23020
      Wolf       3651 23021-26671
      Boar       4365 26672-31036
      Hare       4496 31037-35532
     Chick       8146 35533-43678
       Egg       7631 43679-51309

Victory Star vs Player Ranking for all Players

Victory Star vs Player Ranking for Players at Challenger

We now have 50k+ players who played Axie Origins in Season 6. Over 2000 players already made it to Challenger with close to 6000 players in Dragon. In order to get AXS rewards from the Leaderboard, which is limited to the Top 10000 players this season, it is safe to assume that one will need to be at least in Dragon at the end of the Epic Era in order to earn AXS leaderboard rewards.

Archetype Usage

Overall archetype usage

           # Matches Played in Days 4-6
2200+                                61
2100-2200                          1956
2000-2100                         13414
1900-2000                         38443
1800-1900                         98009
1700-1800                         98283

Archetype Usage for players with 1700+ Victory Stars in Days 4-6 of S6 Epic Era

At the time of writing, there are only 3 players above 2200 VStar and 50 players with VStar between 2100-2200. Note that there are only 61 matches played at 2200+ VStar from Days 4-6. Since it is early on during the season, the archetypes played at 2200+ during Days 4-6 could be top players testing various teams while dropping down the ranks. The top 3 players at the time of writing seem to be playing Fury Aggro, Leafy, and Confused exclusively.

There are all sorts of archetypes played by players with 2100+ VStar with the 3 mentioned above as well as AoE, Topaz, Triple Owl, Perch, Hot Butt, Feather Fan, Ramp Aggro, and more. Having said that, it is still early in the Era and it is likely that top players are trying different teams out at this point.

Poison and Anemone are clearly the losers in the Epic Era as their usage are concentrated more at the bottom and are setting squeezed out from the top.

With the diversity of the meta, it is increasingly difficult to define teams into particular archetypes, there are a significant number of teams that fails into the category of Others - either they are difficult to define or they are defined as an archetype that are not shown in the figure due to space constraint - such as Pure DMG Sturdy Fighter, Ramp Tiny Fan, Summon, Cuckoo Buba - which were relabeled as Others.

Archetype Win Rates and Matchups

Overall Archetype Win Rates

Note that only data with 10 or matches are shown, hence only 2 archetypes are shown at 2200+ VStar.

Leafy, Fury Aggro, Feather Fan, Confused, and Sustain are doing well at the top (above 2000 VStar) in terms of win rate. Perch and Sponge seem to have potential near the Top as well. Poison and Spikes are the ones on decline from the Rare Era.

Archetype Matchups

[See Additional Data for more]

Archetype Highlights

Here I will highlight some archetypes that were not seen in the Rare Era. Please check out the previous meta reports for archetypes from the Rare Era such as AoE, Leafy, Confused, Triple Owl, Sandal etc.

Fury Aggro

Fury Aggro currently sits at the Top spot at the time of writing. The game plan is simple, gain Rage with Confident, Zen, Shiba etc. with multiple Mask of Frenzy, get to Fury, deal massive damage with Imp, Ronin etc. The execution can be challenging as one needs to line up the timing of Fury with the available damage cards in hand.

Feather Fan

With the updated Feather mechanic in Season 6, Triple Feather Fan teams are becoming viable at the top of the Leaderboard with Feather Spear and Tri Feather to gain Feathers to charge up Feather Fan. It is often run with a Prehistoric Armor Reptile with Scaly Spear and Tri Spikes which also deal a lot of damage late game. Given the Feather synergy, Sacred Feather can often give 100+ HP on the front when it is knocked out for the first time.

Perch

Love OTK (one turn kill)? Perch is the archetype for you. A Round 3 OTK with a 6 (or even 7) Energy Perch with Furious Fox in Fury dealing 448 AoE damage (or even 570+ with 7 Energy) to wipe the opponent's team. Many Mask of Frenzy on 0-Energy Beast cards getting multiple Axies into Fury to get to 6 (or even 7 Energy) potentially in Round 3.

Currently there are many different Perch builds on the leaderboard. Depending on the build, there are certain weaknesses, e.g. Aggro, AoE Dispel with Black Sage, going first etc. Will the optimised versions of Perch teams dominate the meta at the end of the Epic Era? Will we see a meta with tech against Perch? We shall see.

Topaz

Topaz is back again having been missing out on the action in the Rare Era. The change in Energy Fragement requirement to get to Energy Burst helps Topaz in getting the 4 Energy faster, especially with Energy Shard. For those who are new to Axie Origins, the game plan of Topaz teams is to Banish many cards early game (Nimo tail and Innocent Lamb) to build up the Banish pile to power up Topaz damage as well as thinning out the deck. Fire off Babylonia and Topaz late game to deal massive damage to opponent.

Cuckoo Buba

Cuckoo Buba is a new archetype in Season 6 that saw some play in the Rare Era. It is still somewhat viable in the early Epic Era where we fins a Cuckoo Buba team at the Top 50. The main game plan is to play multiple Cuckoo on Buba to charge up Buba Brush, which does 85% Splash DMG in Fury mode, get Buba into Fury with Confident, Mask of Frenzy etc. and play Buba Brush for massive (300+) Splash DMG.

Sponge

Sponge is typically an archetype we can most often in the Mystic Era with the Heart of Ocean Rune. In the early Epic Era, we see a Sponge team getting near the Top 50. The game plan is to Ramp quickly with Nimo ears and tails + Energy Shard while gaining Bubble stacks with Bubble Paste, Bubble Maker, and Aquatic's Energy Drink S Charms. Play Sponge to convert those Bubbles into Bubble Bombs to deal AoE damage while attacking.

Conclusion

There is a lot of experimentation on many different archetypes in this Early Epic Era. There are close to 20 different archetypes at the Top 200. One unique feature of Axie Origins is that the meta is influenced by the limited availability of Axies, which we do not see in traditional Web2 games. Given how short each Era is, breeding often lags behind compared to the evolution of the meta. It would be interesting to see how vertical progression (e.g. Parts Upgrade) will further change the dynamic of meta evolution for each Era.

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