Axie Infinity: Origins Meta Report - Season 8 Late Rare Era (15 Apr 2024)

This Rare Era is certainly full of Bubbles. It can certainly feel bad to just lose to a rune, especially for causal players who are not at the very top. That said, Bubbles is not the strongest at the very top when faced against very optimised teams.

It is finally good to see Goo being viable, and we also see different forms of Sustain, with a triple Turnip team in the top 2 at the time of writing. Let's see which team which come out on top in this Rare Era.

tldr:

• Feather, Poison, Goo, Sustain (Turnip!?) at the top

• Giant Bubble still most popular at Dragon and lower ranks

• Player Base strunk by 12% compared to last Season

      Rank  # Players    Rankings
Challenger        723       1-723
    Dragon       3603    724-4326
     Tiger      10587  4327-14913
      Bear       5769 14914-20682
      Wolf       4612 20683-25294
      Boar       4497 25295-29791
      Hare       3321 29792-33112
     Chick       6014 33113-39126
       Egg       5555 39127-44681

The total number of players is about 12% lower compared to the same time last Season, despite more people will be getting end of season rewards this Season. Sure, the crypto market is not doing too well recently, but I wonder why there are fewer players in this Season compared to last Season. Could it be that many high profile top players drifted away from Origins to other games, which may have led to other casual players drifting away from Origins too?

At the very top, we see Feather, Poison, Goo, Sustain, and some Giant Bubble teams. At the time of writing, there are only 13 players at 2000+, meaning a small sample size. When we moved down to the top 100 or so (1900-2000 VStar), we see more Anemone, Giant Bubbles, Jinx, Leafy, Glorious Mane, Fury Aggro etc.

It is good to see that many archetypes are viable. There are also many teams as "Multiple archetypes" as most of them are Giant Bubble together with some other synergies such as Anemone, Sandal, Topaz etc.

At Dragon and below, we bound to see a lot more Giant Bubble teams, with some labelled as "Giant Bubble" while many are in "Multiple archetypes". It is unfortunate that it feels bad for lower level players to be facing so many Giant Bubble teams, but it is one of those things that is hard to come out from tournaments and testing as it is not necessarily the best performing strategy.

As we can see, Giant Bubble is not really the strongest archetype at the very top. Sustain (mostly a triple Turnip healing team), Feather, Goo, and Poison are performing better than Giant Bubble. It is good to see that optimised Leafy teams are doing well at 1900-2000 VStar. The rest of the archetypes are looking a bit difficult to climb further at this point.

The inclusion of Giant Bubble has shifted the meta in the Rare Era, which Spikes being particular bad against Giant Bubble despite having pretty good win rates most other archetypes except Goo and Glorious Mane, both of which are also new in this Rare Era.

With Spikes gone, Feather is enjoying its time at the top as Spikes was the biggest counter to Feather. As usual, Poison is pretty strong in the Rare Era. If not for Giant Bubble, which can effectively be a combo team that can OTK and sets a timer for slower teams, Poison would be having an even better time. The same can also be siad for other slower teams such as Goo, Mit Sleep, and Triple Owl. I can imagine OTK Perch will play the same role in the Epic and Mystic Era as Giant Bubble in the Rare Era in setting a timer before the OTK hits.

The top meta is looking quite healthy with different archetypes being able to climb to the top, but the lower ladder is not as fun as players are facing Giant Bubble way too often. It feels bad to lose just to a Rune even with their evolved Axies.

The coming Epic Era will be a more interesting one in my opinion given the number of new Runes coming in. It is also not as well tested in the pre-season as most players focus on the Mystic. Let's see if we will see any surprises in the upcoming Epic Era. Good luck with the rest of the Rare Era!

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           # Matches Played in Days 10-12
2000+                                 516
1900-2000                            6148
1800-1900                           33599
1700-1800                           49684
1600-1700                           61554