We are seeing 6 different archetypes competing at the very top, with a few more being viable at Challenge. I take it as a sign of a relatively health meta even though the AXP system may not be the healthiest for competitive players. Sponge (Bubble Bombs) is still the most common among the top but less dominate as last week as players can finding ways to play against it. Spikes, Poison, Anemone, Sustain, and Confused are the other archetypes in the very top.
If you want to find something niche (and fun?) to play and can afford to get very specific Axies, Perch could be a good option as it is good against the most popular 3 archetypes - Sponge, Spikes, and Poison.
tldr:
6 archetypes at the very top
Sponge dominance decreases
Spikes, Poison, Anemone, Sustain, and Confused viable at the top
Perch is niche pick that can be good in certain VStar bracket
Player Base Statistics
Rank # Players Rankings
Challenger 798 1-798
Dragon 3759 799-4557
Tiger 12190 4558-16747
Bear 5651 16748-22398
Wolf 4749 22399-27147
Boar 5210 27148-32357
Hare 4605 32358-36962
Chick 8114 36963-45076
Egg 5669 45077-50745
The total number of players has reached 50000 with more than 16000 players reaching Tiger or above. There are now close to 800 players in Challenger and I would expect this number will go above 1000 at the end of the Rare Era.
One thing that is interesting to note is that the number of players in Boar, Wolf, and Bear actually decreased compared to last week, meaning more players progressed to Tiger but not many new players get up to those level from Egg, Chick, and Hare.
Archetype Usage
Overall archetype usage
# Matches Played in Days 10-12
2000+ 1482
1900-2000 7778
1800-1900 36313
For this meta report, I focus on the archetypes at Chellenger with close to 800 players at the time of writing. There is a good distribution of multiple archetypes across Challenger with 6 archetypes above 5% usage at 2000+ Victory Star, which is the top 30+ players. Sponge (Bubble Bombs) is still the most used with over a third of teams at 2000+ VStar. Spikes, Anemone, Poison, Sustain, and Confused can all be found at 2000+ with a few matches played with Sandal and Perch at 2000+ VStar. As we go down to below 2000 VStar, we start to see more Sandal and Perch, as well as Feather, Triple Owl, Jinx, and Hot Butt.
Archetype Win Rates and Matchups
Overall Archetype Win Rates
Sandal seems to have a very high win rate at 2000+ VStar but the sample size is very small as Sandal is not very popular at 2000+ VStar. In order to be at 2000+ VStar, it seems like having a win rate of above is the base line.
At 1900-2000, Perch seems to be donig well at 63% win rate to farm on slower and less optimal teams, though Perch teams require very specific Axies, which may not be as accessible as other archetypes.
Archetype Matchups
Triple Owl is a pretty strong archetype in terms of power level, especially with evolved Lucas support but it is not doing well in this meta because it has a very bad matchup against Sponge. Feather can also give Triple Owl some trouble as AoE damage is efficient against Triple Owl teams.
Spikes is in a good spot, doing very well against Feather because of the proccing of Spikes. However, Spikes can struggle against Perch, Confused, Hot Butt, and even Topaz.
Anemone has quite a well rounded matchup spread except against the Taunt juggling of Triple Owl.
Feather does well against most less common archetypes but it struggles against Spikes and Poison, which makes Feather a bit difficult to climb in this meta.
As usual, Sustain is not a bad choice as long as you don't face against Curse teams. Feather and Sandal can also be difficult for Sustain to deal with given how fast the damage can come but it does well against the Top 3 - Sponge, Spikes, and Poison.
Finally I should mention Perch, which can have a good matchup against the Top 3, but Feather and Anemone are too fast for Perch teams to get to their OTK combo.
Conclusion
The meta is looking pretty diverse near the end of the Rare Era as players learn how to play against different matchups. There are at least 6 archetypes that are viable to get to Top 30. Some old favourites such as Topaz and Leafy are still lagging behind in terms of power level, and it would be good to see them back at the level to compete with the rest maybe in the next season.
Good luck and have fun with the final push in the Rare Era. Let's look forward to the Epic Era and see how the Epic Runes and Charms will impact the meta.
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