With St. Louis in the rearview and Attack on Titan: Battle for Humanity rumbling on the horizon, I thought that now would be as good a time as any to break down the current metagame and see where we stand before the next big shakeup. Rather than go by character, to offer some fresh perspective I want to break things down in the context of symbols. In addition to talking about raw power level, I also will discuss which tools are most prominent in each symbol’s kit and which weaknesses each may be hoping to shore up in coming sets this year. Now, without further ado, let’s take a look at where we stand:
Overview
Given the relative diversity we saw at St. Louis, it is unsurprising that the current metagame is fairly well-balanced across symbols. By and large, every symbol has some amount of competitive relevance, but they are not all on equal footing. In the section I label ‘Most Competitive’, we see the symbols most present in the Top 16 and tournament overall. These symbols have powerful strategies that tend to be better than the other versions, and notably are difficult to exploit. In addition to a lack of clear weaknesses, these symbols offer more consistency than the others, giving the best players more room to express their skill and secure wins. In the next tier, the ‘Strong with Issues’ symbols have very clear strengths, but have a few holes in their gameplans that can lead to polarizing matchups. They still are the best in their niche, but have a more difficult time adapting to a variety of threats in a Swiss format tournament. Finally, symbols in the ‘Functional but Outclassed’ group are able to execute their gameplans, but ultimately are weaker versions of another symbol higher on the list. This does not mean that decks using them cannot succeed, just that, on average, another symbol with a similar strategy would produce better results. Now that we have this foundation, let’s get a bit more specific.
All
Living up to its name, All does it all, and through Rodan it has placed itself at the top of the format. Card draw? Selective flip? Big Damage? Deadlock? Strong tech cards? Yes to all of the above. Rodan is likely the best character in the format, and All is the symbol that best allows him to shine. Floating Around on My Babies and Sugar Rush Power-Up go from pedestrian cards to powerhouses in his deck, enabling consistent offense alongside his deck-stacking enhance. He also gives any attacking package massive stats, and to deal with his blistering speed opponents are forced into a catch-22. Do they try and extend early before Rodan develops, risking poor checks and playing the block zone lottery? Or do they build out to attempt to minimize the impact of speed pump, exposing themselves to 80% Power and All’s stellar Deadlock? This is not a question most decks or players can answer successfully, and for that reason All Rodan is cemented as a top cut mainstay for the remainder of Season 2. While Rodan can utilize the aforementioned tools alongside a package of mid punches to apply consistent pressure and take games long, his is not the only strategy with merit. Younger Toguro’s throw package, Ryukyu’s base kit, and Camie building around Spirit Gun Mega all represent viable strategies that fare well in the meta, and the flexibility of the symbol gives it plenty of options to adapt as new strategies discover and crop up. The only complaint about All is that it cannot play all of its cards at once, and it may need to lean on the sideboard or just not have the tools it needs in a decklist if it faces a rogue matchup.
Strengths
Deep card pool
Access to Rodan
Best aggressive deadlock
High player agency
Weaknesses
Requires multiple specific answers to react to metagame
Jack of all trades, master of none; other symbols have better attack and synergy packages
Chaos
Another serious contender, Chaos is the combo symbol of the format, leveraging excellent defensive tools to finish strong with cards like Armor of the Wolf, Walk the Dog, and of course Black Abyss. Chaos also has the best access to 0 difficulty foundations of any symbol, giving early builds flexibility and consistency. With Rapid Speed Slash, Strategic Meeting, and other momentum generation also running rampant, it is not difficult for these decks to achieve their win conditions earlier than ever. Amajiki is the master of this more classically Chaos strategy, with Mirio and Toga skewing more toward an aggressive version and Jester drawing the game out even longer with her high life total and Wound/Restore. Mimic and Godzilla exist in their own space, each using their own set of tools. Mimic leverages his signature Trigger and a heavy asset count to enable high damage throws, Twisting Azure Inferno, and Walk the Dog. He also elects to use Run Away and other forms of defense to mitigate damage, leaving blocking to the nerds on other symbols. Godzilla builds around City Rampage, Battle Arena, and big throws, and can execute his combo whenever his deck is cooperative. All in all, Chaos can be great, but is vulnerable to silver bullets in a way other symbols are not. Even still, with an Incredible Display and a firm grasp on the game state, the best players can find their way around answers that aren’t laid out perfectly.
Strengths
The tallest of tall attacks
Amazing stall tools in Broken Psyche, Kraken, Run Away, etc.
The best 0 difficulty foundations and early stages
Powerful characters that require specific answers
Weaknesses
Vulnerable to resets and damage mitigation
Less ways to access key cards
Unimpressive in late game situations against control, weak Deadlock in best builds
Death
With the Super Toguro Bros. leading the charge, Death is one of the premier symbols in games that are very short and games that are very long. Twisting Azure Inferno is one pillar of the aggressive package for Wolfwood, while Mina utilizes flipping attacks to string out indefinitely. In the late game, Vile Seizing, Luna Tijeras, and True 100% Unleashed can blast through stalemates with damage pump to back them up. Combined Firepower also is quite the Universus card, and an endless stream of mid blocks in conjunction with Unbreakable can frankly be disgusting. In the midgame, though, Death struggles until it reaches its large board, coming up short on resources to string through partially established defenses; ergo, the best decks attempt to play around this weakness. Travis Tangeman’s inventive Elder Toguro decklist accomplished this by running a very skewed count of foundations, building through the early game until his stage was fully established then repeating haymaker Twisting Azure Infernos and True 100% Unleasheds. Cristos Panos on Younger Toguro instead has leveraged a slower gameplan over the year’s tournaments, using the character’s response to build out incrementally and pressure opponents to Deadlock. In essence, the symbol does have a pronounced weakness, but through deckbuilding it can be made hard to exploit in practice.
Strengths
Damage on face for characters, good early potential
Very difficult stages to break late
Strong card draw on both foundations and attacks
Weaknesses
Awkward midgame
Weak defense early
Many strategies rely on multi-card synergies that are not always reliable (Showdown + Genkai’s Training, etc.)
Evil
Evil, my beloved, is not just the premier late game symbol, but it is the king, dominating all others when it comes to securing a board and locking opponents out. The combination of Combined Firepower, Incubating, and the package of Polite and Well Spoken,Galactic Monster and Incompatible Quirks is very difficult to break, and perhaps even more frustrating. King Ghidorah stands alone among the Evil characters, and while the other 3 shown have some niches, Ghidorah’s built-in protection against tall attacks, unconditional access to Hiei’s kit, and consistency enabled by his Enhance ability make him one of the strongest threats around. 80% Power can put an abrupt end to games of chicken played around Deadlock, and Vile Seizing as always can reliably close the door. Fighting for Control has done wonders helping Evil stabilize early, but it still can flounder against early pressure that checks well. While Evil outshines Death’s control strategies in that department, the aggressive potential also is not quite there, making the symbol a bit more one dimensional.
Strengths
Complete late game control
Characters and symbol overall provide consistent access to key cards
Ghidorah in particular gives amazing stat manipulation
Weaknesses
Low lethality early
Relatively weak 0 difficulty foundations
Defense can flounder early, but Ghidorah can mitigate this
Earth
Earth, like All, has access to so many tools. Card draw, however, is the name of the game here, and between Flustered, Chivalrous Competitor, and Fearsome Transformations, the symbol has access to 12 excellent 1 difficulty card draws, and there are still more that are merely weaker. Earth also has very good speed and damage resets, good Deadlock, and access to a great attack package with Charges. What doesn’t this symbol have? While it does seem to have every tool in the box, the amazing power and versatility does come with a drawback. Most of Earth’s best foundations do flip, meaning that characters often need to make the most of their power spike to win the game. Cards like Referee Juri also cannot be looped as other symbols allow, meaning that Earth needs to be a bit honest in committing to their kill turn and letting defensive tools go. Byakko’s stacking is the exception to this rule though, and he can ensure access to the check or card he needs in a way that stands out. Pony also can solve this problem, and, as Kevin Broberg showed us in Collinsville, drawing all the cards is a pretty good way to see what you need.
Strengths
Unmatched card draw
High attack synergy
Game warping character cards
Best access to resets
Weaknesses
Many powerful effects are difficult to repeat
Outside of draw cannot keep up with other strong symbols in their specialties
Ironically vulnerable to stage disruption through flip effects
Order
In spite of how tournament finishes actually went in Collinsville, I think that Bionic Menace is the most powerful representative of Order’s midrange style. Combining hefty attacks with card selection and stage control is a consistent strategy, and Order continues to reward game planning and good play even without wide support from the Godzilla Challenger Series. On top of this plan, Order has a plethora of cancel abilities and resets, giving it great defense to reach its above average Deadlock. While the symbol lacks 80% Power or a way to force Deadlock, it can punish opponents for not building to it with repeated attacks courtesy of card draw and Incompatible Quirks. Order does need to lean on its characters to provide the damage, but they are more than up to task, and both Bionic Menace and Endeavor have the means to close out games early. Hawks, however, can go long, and Ryan Levine used a mid-punch package reminiscent of All Rodan’s to lock up a Top 4 finish, packing incredible Deadlock like Focused Punch and Hero Killer to make quick work of large stages. Do be careful though; Order is susceptible to its own antics, so take care not to have your own key pieces flipped and destroyed.
Strengths
Best stage control
Reliable card selection engines
Strong at all stages of game
Great cancels and tech
Weaknesses
Vulnerable in turn to stage control
High reliance on sculpting and natural draw
Limited means to cheat progressive difficulty
Good
Good has so many tools, but somehow it just isn’t making the competitive splash that one would expect. With no top cuts at either Season 2 regional, clearly something isn’t working. Top of the line damage reduction and attacks like Tasty Riff and Lightning Rod seem like a winning combination though, don’t they? If forced to guess, I would say that Good lacks the ability to output consistent damage, and is a casualty of the metagame that Chaos has helped define. While Good is actually a great counter to Chaos, the rest of the field can shut down Good with the same damage mitigation that hits its biggest target. As it stands now, Recovery Girl is the face of the symbol, but she may not even be at her best on Good. Characters like Genkai are a step in the right direction, but the damage comes at a hefty price in terms of card advantage. More discard support could help her and cards like Raiding the Villain Hideout provide more damage, and just one or two of these printings could push Good up to the next level.
Strengths
Best in class damage mitigation and resets
Reasonable synergy package with Charges
Above rate card selection
Weaknesses
Discard is core to symbol but undersupported
Too vulnerable to damage mitigation rampant in meta
Lower impact characters across the board
Life
Although Tam Cardwell was able to carry Jester into Top 16, the Life symbol has had a difficult time competing in the upper echelons of the metagame. It is the best in its niche, sporting attacks and foundations that overall have better numbers than the others. Syndicate Target, #10 Pro Hero, Dance Routine, and of course Black Abyss are just a few of the symbol’s standout cards that win by playing honest attack-and-block Universus more efficiently than any other. Therein lies the issue though; because of the presences of Chaos and Rodan, honest Universus is not a winning recipe into the field, and Life struggles to adapt beyond this. Looping Storm of Arrows with Jester is somewhat viable, but is difficult to make work consistently into the well-oiled machines currently dominating Standard. If you are going the aggressive route, Toga is promising, but when Chaos can play Black Abyss and Walk the Dog alongside it, why run Life instead? Life does admittedly have excellent control tools in Instant Shining Flash, Incredible Display, and Keiko’s Aid, but with only Idun Box, Eri, and Evade and Copy as resets, Life is often just unable to deal with metagame threats. A foundation along the lines of The New #1 could completely reinvigorate the symbol, and it truly is a card or two away from leaping up to compete with the top symbols.
Strengths
Most efficient cards
Excellent cancels and control tools
High impact characters with great keyword synergies (Weapon, Spell, Ally, etc.)
Weaknesses
Minimal resets and scam defense
Low access to cards outside of character effects
Unimpressive stage control
Void
The community darling going into the tournament, Void did not quite meet expectations. As absurd as that sounds, given that the symbol had a top 2 finish and 3 top 8 appearances, it showed a few weaknesses at top level that could suggest declining performance were the format to continue. To start, Void is great at hitting the board hard and locking down the early game, shutting down aggression with cancels, damage mitigation, stage control, asset hate…. Really, it does it all here. Void also can take the aggressive side of things, with Ice Sword Execution and Bakugo’s Fury and hand destruction suite doing excellent work at forcing through early damage. The issues begin, however, in the late game. Void does not have a reliable plan to break through defense that does not go to Deadlock, and decks with access to Incompatible Quirks can just lock Void out of the game. Even Ben Lambright’s Ghidorah, which I think was the best positioned deck on symbol, still needed to trust the heart of the cards to secure his win against me in Game 2 of our semifinal match, and this issue will only be exacerbated as more decks look to go after Void’s inability to juggle the ability to close late with its signature lights out defense. Of the symbols in this group, this is the one that is the closest to the top, and it might just take deckbuilding innovation rather than new cards for Void to make the leap. Give the symbol selective flip though, and its ascent is all but guaranteed.
Strengths
Fantastic defense and damage reduction
Reactive answers to most meta gamplans
Powerful Deadlock
Weaknesses
Cannot break stages that set to defend without building to Deadlock
Lack of selective flip and efficient targeted destruction
Below average card selection outside of character cards
Water
“Water you talking about? This symbol’s great!” Well, I’m not saying it isn’t. There is a reason why the best Water decks in the meta cost about as much as my mortgage payment, and it isn’t that players are delusional. Tasty Riff, Battle Aura Release, and Falling Skies all justify their price tags, making for one of the most efficient aggressive packages possible. Water is here though, because this package does not have the staying power of its Death, Earth, and Order counterparts. When it comes to Deadlock, Water is possibly the worst symbol in all of Universus, and History’s Greatest Monster is not enough to solve this symbol’s issue in the short term. Water is truly great at almost everything else though, and this minor knock on it barely but distinctly separates it from the strongest symbols. If Water were able to have better Deadlock, or access to punishing effects like True 100% Unleashed, it could join the other aggro symbols and enjoy top results beyond acting as a meta call against an aggressive field.
Strengths
Hyper-efficient attacks and damage reduction
Incredible defensive potential with Breaker and card pool clog
Solid disruption
Weaknesses
No Deadlock presence
Minor vulnerability to damage reduction
Air and Fire
Sadly, our last 2 symbols need to share the spotlight, since their representation has been lackluster relative to the rest. Justin Burch’s Air Rodan has been the best representative of these symbols, but even it can’t deal with the fact that Air and Fire share the same weaknesses as Good and Water together. A lack of damage and Deadlock presence does not a good combination make, and while Air can try and crutch on Web of Blades, a well-timed Nott’s Flask or a single Relentless Challenger can slash the damage of potential of the symbol. Fire is a bit better on the damage front due to Endeavor, it’s representative, but outside of Stun it comes up short of Earth and Order when it comes to stage control, inviting disruptive options to ruin its day. These two symbols need a lot more help than I can fit in this article, but it looks like Battle for Humanity is more than delivering, so expect this stint in the basement to be short lived.
Strengths
Superlative stringing and progressive cheat
Good synergy packages
Strong actions
Weaknesses
Struggles with damage
Poor stage control
Insufficient Deadlock to stay in long games
Conclusion
Thanks for reading along, and I hope this discussion gets you thinking about what comes next with Attack on Titan. Before I wrap up, I did want to reiterate that Universus is a well-balanced game, and the symbols that are lacking, like Air and Fire, are not unviable, just a bit weaker than the rest. If you like them and play well, you probably will still enjoy some level of competitive success, so don’t get discouraged and drop them; if you are a believer, prove me wrong! Let me know if I missed anything or if you think I’m way off base, and see you next time!
-DankestDad
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