The meta seems to be slowly settling and we have a few front runners in the Epic Era of Season 6 for Axie Infinity: Origins. Fury Aggro is the front runner with all 3 top players at 2300+ VStar playing it. Confused, Anemone, Sandal, Perch, (and maybe Leafy) are not far behind. It seems that the meta at the Top 50 or so is very different from the rest of the Leaderboard. The big question is, should Axie Origins focus more on perfecting the balancing at the Top, or should it shift to more new content to keep the game fresh for everyone?
tldr:
Fury Aggro at the Top of the meta
Anemone and Perch have the potential to fight to the Top
Confused and Sandal (and maybe Leafy) following closely after with other archetypes falling behind
Player Base Statistics
Rank # Players Rankings
Challenger 3287 1-3287
Dragon 6880 3288-10167
Tiger 9338 10168-19505
Bear 4632 19506-24137
Wolf 3762 24138-27899
Boar 4397 27900-32296
Hare 5217 32297-37513
Chick 9609 37514-47122
Egg 9276 47123-56398
Comparing this week's total player base to last week's, we see that there are roughly 5000 players who (re-)joined Axie Origins this week. More than 1000 players managed to get to Challenger in the past week, making it over 3000 players at Challenger.
While it is still too early to spectualate about the total number of players for the whole Season 6 given that we are only at the Epic Era, it seems likely that we will reach a similar number as last Season (or maybe slightly more?) in terms of total player base. I do not have the data for new player acquisition and player retention, but I suspect the number of new players and the number of players leaving the game seem to be quite balance at this point, which could mean that many players come and go for 1 or 2 Seasons.
I understand the Sky Mavis' current strategy is to expand the Axie Universe in terms of the number of games available, and less on player retention for its core games. As an Origins player, I personally hope that they will ship more new updates and fresh content on Axie Origins to keep the game fresh for existing players (who have been playing the same archetypes for many multiple Seasons now). Yes, there has been minor changes over the Seasons but those changes do not give players new experiences except for players with very high skill levels who can appreciate the small changes. For most players (who are casual players), unless there are significant changes, there will not be much new experiences in terms of gameplay, which makes player retention challenging, especially because it is a web3 game where you can simply sell your assets and move on to a new game without feeling mcuh sunk cost.
Archetype Usage
Overall archetype usage
# Matches Played in Days 10-12
2300+ 7
2200-2300 1548
2100-2200 9905
2000-2100 28383
1900-2000 63627
1800-1900 122454
The top of the Leaderboard is dominated by Fury Aggro in the late Epic Era of Season 6 in Axie Origins. At the time of writing, 3 players made in to 2300+ VStar, all 3 playing Fury Aggro.
2200-2300 VStar is around Top 40 while 2100-2200 VStar is around Top 40-160, and we already see a pretty big difference in the meta. At 2200-2300, the meta is dominated by Fury Aggro (>60% of matches) with some Confused, Anemone, Sandal, Leafy, and Perch. At 2100-2200, the meta is a lot more diverse with many more archetypes being viable at that level with some AoE, Topaz, Sustain, and Triple Owl as well. Only at low Challenger do we see Poison, suggesting that it is still possible to get to Challenger with Poison but its power level is too level to compete with the other archetypes at Challenger.
It is interesting to see how the meta at Top 50 or Top 100 is very different from the rest of the player base. The meta looks pretty fun and diverse for everyone except the Top 100 or so. While having a single archetype dominating the top meta is not great from a competitive esports point of view, it does look like the majority of the player base are facing a diverse meta. It is a fine balance to strike between perfecting the balancing of the meta versus making new content to keep the player base engaged, but I feel like the pendulum has swung too far to the balancing side and the majority of the player base are not getting much new content for Axie Origins at the moment.
Archetype Win Rates and Matchups
Overall Archetype Win Rates
Fury Aggro, Anemone, and Perch are the 3 top archetypes in terms of win rate at the top of the Leaderboard. It seems difficult for the rest of the archetypes to get to the Top but it is possible to at least get to Challenger for the archetypes listed in the Win Rate table.
Archetype Matchups
As expected with the change in the Energy Burst mechanic, we have a very fast meta and it is the question of which archetype is faster. Confused is the only top archetype that plays relatively slowly. This is what the game developer wanted to achieve with the Energy Burst change.
At the top of the leaderboard, Confused and Perch only lose to the top 3 Aggro - Fury Aggro, Anemone, and Sandal. Perch sets a minimum pace of how fast the meta needs to go. If an archetype is not fast enough to beat Perch, it probably cannot make it to the Top.
Nimo (ears and tails) is finally showing its power in the Epic Era. Except for Fury Aggro (which gain +1 Energy when Fury anyway), most top archetypes have to run Nimo tail (Anenome, Perch, Sandal, Confused) which gets the Energy acceleration as well as deck thinning. It is problematic that the only viable tail is Nimo for so many top archetypes as most Axies without Nimo tail become useless in terms of climbing the Leaderboard. Some archetypes also run Nimo ears (including Perch and Sandal), which suggests that the Nimo package could be too strong in the Epic Era.
While the meta remain diverse at the lower end of the Leaderboard with players playing suboptimal bulids (such as non-Nimo versions of certain archetypes), it can be frustrating to see that your non-Nimo tail Axie becomes considerably weaker. Of course chasing the meta happens every season, and this is what drives the Axie economy. For the majority of the players, it would probably be more fun to invest in playing new content (e.g. new Cards and/or Runes and Charms) than spending just to play a more optimised version of the same archetypes every season. Let's hope we will see some new content soon for Axie Origins.
Conclusion
We see a clear separate between the very top of the Leaderboard (Top 50 or Top 100-ish) and the rest. At the top, a few archetypes (particularly Fury Aggro and also some Anemone, Perch, Sandal, and maybe Leafy) dominates the meta. Other than that, many archetypes can be found. The big question is should Axie Origins continue to perfect the balance, or should it shift to some new content. At this point, many casual players are playing the same archetypes for multiple seasons. Without any new content, it would be diffcult for players to continue to stick around and go through the same grind every season. We will see when the next major update for Origins will come, until then, let us enjoy playing slightly different versions of the same archetypes for the next how ever many seasons.
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