Hello, this is Lovepon who is Lovepon. I have decided to make a tier list since Deadz0n’s one isn’t super accurate. Here is Deadz0n's list as a reference.
Tier 1
Pearlmaw Sac: No change, the only debate along the community is exactly how broken it is. The deck single handly makes Pain aggro, Ash Aggro, and most Bird Doctors decks extinct. But what is the counter?
It can struggle against the Dragon package, Plasma Sentinel and Plasma Dragon can kill sac outlets easily and control the board, for the Sac player, drawing Glorious Vault will be the key for winning. Lazaro Psychic can out scale Pearlmaw Sac by disabling PM Sac from playing their key finishers using the psychic package such as Midnight Manipulator and Unsated Processionary.
Mind Control decks should on paper, have tools that deal with this deck well such as Absolute Storm and Flooding Room, but the player base is trying too hard to build Gelic decks to build an actually good Mind deck. TomSoniQ’s UltralodonG deck package could instantly overload Pearlmaw Sac since Pearlmaw Sac can’t pressure for the win too well.
Honorable mention is Sevas’s Heldim Sac, I think it would lose to Pearlmaw Sac but be able to provide more face pressure that should beat Lazaro Psychic.
Tier 2
Heldim Pain -> Tier 3 -> Tier 2. The deck mostly relies on Salivating Sniper to deal a massive amount of evasive damage with 4 different enablers: Burst of Inspiration, Two-Fanged Snake, Crimson Crook, and Reckless Razer.
With Red Court Courier and the trend of nerfing removals, Sniper would be able to out-trade the majority of deal 2 removals. If Sniper gets removed, then it will allow the other 1 drop in the deck to proc Heldim passive and snowball from there.
The two copies of Trete, Forge Fighter can be clutch in some matchups where the opponent can remove Salivating Sniper easily but can’t really deal with a highly stat’d creature.
Other cards in the deck are just generic Heldim packages that can enable early game plays and situational removals.
Matchup-wise, it seems to out heal and go under Lizabo before their reward token, especially with 3x Traffic Guards. It out tempo Dhat. It is a toss-up between Ash Aggro and this one. Heldim Pain does struggle against board wipes and Plant used to be able to out heal Heldim, but with the recent Plant nerf to Von Basil, Plant is dead because Heldim exactly tries to win at turn 6, and Von Basil’s AoE buff used to be able to be the key to stopping it.
Hawkins Lizabo: No change. A solid deck that is expected to handily defeat any Rogue tier decks out there. None of the Lizabo cards are particularly good but thanks to Second Sunrise’s reward, it is free value that helps with edging out other aggro decks, midrange decks, and control decks, because no other tribes get rewards like this. The standout card is Unguian Javelineer, which synergizes with Grave Uprising and Sethek.
Ash Aggro: No change. The keycard of the deck is Yaela, one of the strongest “must remove or lose” cards. The other win-con would be taking advantage of Attune to out tempo the opponent with Sands of Mir'aj or Archmage Anasi. If the opponent has the right removals, Ash Aggro should struggle, if the opponent lacks them then Ash goes out of control. PM Sac, Sevas Generic Heldim should be able to handle Ash’s threats.
Thicc Dhat: No change. Feels like one of the less polarizing decks, it is harder to judge its power level and strength due to that.
Mist Fist Buluc-> Tier N/A -> Tier 2. A very straightforward… Midrange deck with 20 one drops. The goal is to dump out the one mana units, achieve the quest of Mist Fist Poster, ideally by turn 4, and then have these units get pumped up by the Poster and win by turn 6/7 with +4 ATK on every unit that is impossible to trade with.
While Buluc gains EXP from attacking with units, you almost never attack with the units ever until the quest is completed. Reward token helps with giving 1 extra proc to the Poster quest and there is near zero synergies with Dhat, which is why this is a Buluc deck.
The deck, however, struggles against board wipe. The need to finish the quest early means there is very little room for adding removals to the deck, which means decks with crazy bombs and evasions can slide under this one (Ash Aggro goodies, Sniper)... The scaling of the double mist fist poster reward is impossible to be dealt with.
It was an archetype that was overshadowed by PM Chimps, but with the current popularity of Flambeau Spill and Traffic Guard, the Buluc version can navigate against the meta game better with their 2 HP units and Big Blue top end.
Tier 3
Hawkin Plants: No change. Von Basil being one turn late is huge. Personally liked the +1|+0 and nerfing Sprout from 0|2 to 0|1, but making it 6 mana is fair too. Von Basil was disruptable and now it has an even lower floor than before. The Harvest Reaper nerf is big as well. The scaling of the deck is still there, but the nerfs give room for Heldim and Ash aggro to outpace their healing.
Lazaro Fish: Tier N/A -> Tier 3. Fish is the best Lazaro tribe and it is not even close. Dragon, Whelp of Tides, Roughin Ruffian, and River Prince are the three cards with insane power level attached to them that says “remove me or lose the game” on it. Whelp of Tides can help with building big boards, Roughin with stealing win cons and interactions, while River Prince’s evasion is too much to handle. Deep Blues can also do some heavy beatdowns.
Like any other Bird Doctor deck, it lacks good interactions against the opponent’s threats and that is what makes them lose the game often.
Lazaro Psychic: Tier N/A -> Tier 3. A deck filled with odd-looking people with an odd place in the metagame. It will struggle against simple, basic aggro decks, but their package can be very good against certain control decks such as PM Sac and PM Chimp, by locking them out from playing their win conditions.
Baldwin Angel: Tier N/A -> Tier 3. Angel seems to be the best tribe that can make good use of the Baldwin passive to create a massive flier that finishes out the game or pumping up Lierec. Since bird doctors don’t run many interactions, One-Winged Gorilla is a key card in the deck for preventing action-based removals and pumping up damage, it should also counter some self-sac cards that target units such as mini Crimson Caravan and Glorious Vault but sucks against Dhat removals.
Tier ???
I don’t know the power level of these decks because I haven’t played with/against them much, but it seems to have a very high ceiling and game-breaking potential. Thanks TomSoniQ.
Marie Ethera: Tier Rogue -> Tier ???. The decklist link on the tier list doesn’t actually work T_T. From the few times I played against it, the ceiling of the deck is really high, but the lack of early interaction makes the deck vulnerable to losing against aggro, and the Marie LVL 3 trigger is interruptable after the Mopus nerf. I win against it fairly consistently but it is still scary.
PM Ultralodon Combo: Tier ??? -> By the look of the list, any deck that can’t win by turn 6-7 auto loses to this deck, some decks should be able to slide under it but it looks really scary.
Tier Undead
Can undead please be off tier 2 now… It has some good stuff I admit, Deadbeat has insane synergy with Hawkin token, two mana deal 5, and get a 1|2 body with useful entomb is busted. Fleshterror Artisan is still a good card even after the nerf, provides immense pressure, and synergizes with Deadbeat. And… I ran out of compliments for Undead decks. Deadz0n, please. (Also Humans is a worse tribe than both Psychic and Fish, someone please try prove me wrong)
Final Words
There are still some decks I couldn’t cover such as Pearlmaw Dragon and Heldim Generic Aggro. The rule of thumb is that bird doctors tend to be tier 3 who can beat tier 2 decks from time to time, while any variation of Heldim and PM decks should be tier 2.
Ooze decks can do busted things with value but they suck at dealing face damage to win the game, making them vulnerable against evasion damage from aggro decks and late-game win cons.
Gelic tokens need +1|+0 to be more threatening. Needs more experimentation with normal Vriktik control, but I think they can beat PM Sac.
