Now that we are in the Epic Era, we see quite a bit change in terms of archetypes at the top with the availability of Epic Runes and Charms, in particular Mask of Frenzy. Perch and Fury Aggro are dominant at the top of the leaderboard in the early Epic Era, both rely on Mask of Frenzy for Rage and Fury.
In the Rare Era, we saw Parts Evolution made quite an impact on Poison and Spikes teams. This Epic Era, Perch is for sure the showcase of the power of Parts Evolution with evolved Perch scaling a lot more than typical evolved Parts.
As a casual player, I am liking the diversity at lower Challenger with so many different archetypes being able to make it to Challenger, many of which are not captured in my analysis, e.g. Goo with Bubbles.
tldr:
Perch and Fury Aggro dominating the very top
Anemone and Jinx can compete at the very top
Very diverse meta at mid to lower Challenger
Player Base Statistics
Rank # Players Rankings
Challenger 2640 1-2640
Dragon 6695 2641-9335
Tiger 12162 9336-21497
Bear 5244 21498-26741
Wolf 3718 26742-30459
Boar 4464 30460-34923
Hare 5239 34924-40162
Chick 9634 40163-49796
Egg 8043 49797-57839
Another 7000 players joined Axie Origins in the past week or so, though about 4000 of those new players are below 200 Victory Star. I would not be surprised that some new players have been trying out Origins given the recent movements in RON token price.
The number of players getting to Dragon or above has doubled compared to last week, now with more than 2600 players at Challenger. This is a natural progression as all players move up over the whole season. Interestingly, there are a similar number of players in Tiger this week compared to last week, meaning players from below are also making progress up to Tiger.
Archetype Usage
Overall archetype usage
# Matches Played in Days 4-6
2300+ 22
2200-2300 1488
2100-2200 6152
2000-2100 18684
1900-2000 48634
1800-1900 115301
Only 22 matches were played at 2300+ VStar and they are mostly Fury Aggro and Perch. Perch is the dominate archetype at the top above 2200 VStar, which is amongst the Top 20 players. We also see Fury Aggro, Anemone, Jinx, Sponge, and Sustain amongst the Top 20.
For 2100-2200 VStar, which is around top 100 on the leaderboard, we start to see some Sandal, Confused, Pure DMG Sturdy Fighter, and a hint of Feather. The usage of Perch and Fury Aggro goes down percentage-wise as we go down the rating, suggesting that these archetypes are very successful but not very accessible, mostly likely due to the limitation in the availability of Axies with specific Cards.
Poison can only be found below 2100 VStar, which is a bit sad as this Rare Era was the first time Poison topped the leaderboard, and now it is already on its way down. Similarly for Spikes, which was also quite dominant in the Rare Era.
It seems like top players may shift their teams between Eras as the performances of different archetypes can vary a lot across Eras.
Archetype Win Rates and Matchups
Overall Archetype Win Rates
Perch, Fury Aggro, Jinx, and Anemone all have over 50% win rate across Challenger. It is still very early in the Era and things are yet to be settled, but it looks like these 4 archetypes are on the rise at the moment. Poison and Triple Owl are on their way down.
Sponge and Sustain are also up there at the very top. Pure DMG Strudy Fighter, Confused, and Hot Butt have potential to rise up, whereas Sandal seems to have settled.
Archetype Matchups
Perch is the team the beat at the moment with pretty much all positive matchup, perhaps with the exception of Fury Aggro if Fury Aggro is fast enough to burst through 2 Axies before the big Perch comes.
Fury Aggro has a lot of good matchups but it can struggle against other Aggro teams such as Sandal, Feather, and Anemone, which makes Fury Aggro more difficult to climb as the lower ladder has more of those Aggro teams.
Various archetypes are taking advantage of Sponge teams as Sponge has pretty bad matchups against Jinx, Sustain, Fury Aggro, Perch, Confused, and Pure DMG Sturdy Fighter.
If you want a team with an even matchup across the board, Anemone would be a good pick as its worse matchup is against Perch (and Clover) with 43% in Challenger.
Archetype Highlights
Perch
Triple Beast with triple evolved Perch (the +3 DMG on Perch scales a lot with high Energy), triple Puppy and Confident for 0-Energy Rage with Mask of Frenzy, and triple Nimo tail for Ramp and deck thinning. Double Nimo ear + one Innocent Lamb (with Pre-order Tag) seems to be the ideal set up. The deck can be more consistent than other decks as it can pull the Nimo tails out of the deck early game. As for Runes, Last Wish for extra HP and AoE damage, Furious Fox and Way of Beast just to get some free Rage stacks.
Game plan is to Ramp to 4, gain enough Rage stacks to get to Fury for the extra Energy and fire off 5-6 Energy Perch for massive damage. Perch teams can be so fast that many teams are simply to slow, especially for teams without Shield to block the damage to at least buy an extra turn.
Fury Aggro
Even more Mask of Frenzy and more Rage with triple Zen, Puppy, and Confident for gaining Rage. Shiba for damage and more Rage. Triple Imp and Ronin for massive damage when getting to Fury. Shrimp can be a tech against single carry teams or just be to choose target to play around Shield can help in certain situations.
Mech and Bug can be a good future proof choice in the Mystic Era with Last Stand and Collect & Protect in mind. Beast is of course good with Endless Anger in Mystic.
Conclusion
For many players, Epic Era can be the most fun era because of the choice of Runes and Charms. There are a lot of combinations to choose from compared to Rare while still relatively accessible compared to Mystic. In the Mystic Era, the limited Mystic Runes and Charms are more powerful than the Epic ones most of the time, which effectively limits the choice.
Rage seems to be the theme of this Epic Era so far with 2 archetypes taking advantage of the ease of getting to Fury with Mask of Frenzy. I was surprised to not see as much Perch last season but with the +3 on Perch with the Parts Evolution probably made a difference. Let's see if Rage will continue to dominate or if players will manage to adapt by teching a lot of Black Sage and Oranda.
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