On this wonderful eve of May 4th, I’m sure many of you are getting in your last testing reps and have hopefully hammered in your 50+10 for this weekends tournaments! With no tournament this weekend for me, I thought it would be a fun exercise to talk through what I would expect the meta to look like this weekend.

In TCG Metas, there are typically three large groups in the meta. Those who play what won the most recent tournaments, those who play a deck aiming to beat what won the most recent tournament, and those who look 2 steps ahead looking to beat the 2nd category.

The Hotness

Vader Vigilance, piloted by Gui Cohen, won the Orlando 5k two weeks ago and has since been since all over the place. Control was already in a fairly strong spot in the meta poised to take on the Boba Fett decks that are the largest portion of the field. The real change to introduce the control dominance was leaning harder into the Childsen effect. With 33 main deck blue cards, Childsen can fairly reliably get to 5/5 or 6/6 status and give Vader a fighting chance into aggro. Combined with the hotness of running Vigilance in every blue deck, the control decks now have a fighting chance into aggro and are no longer completely dead in the water.

The interesting take will be how many people look to take some of the strong parts of this Vader deck and mold it into something else. In our gameplay this week, Tyler took a stab at a Palpatine Blue deck running a lot of the same package that Vader Blue did, while adding some of the powerful green cards (Overwhelming Barrage, Superlaser Tech, Darth Vader, and Relentless for the control mirrors). It’ll be interesting to see how the control tiers of decks continue to evolve, and it’s already quite impressive how we’re still seeing new ideas pop up each week in the meta with only 252 cards.

While running Childsen and Vigilance has helped control lean in better to the aggro matchup, it is still unfavorable which leads us to the next category.

The Hotness Counter

Aggro Aggro Aggro. The consistent answer to control thus far has been aggro, and there’s definitely not a reason to think that has changed. While cards like Childsen and Vigilance have made the matchup closer, most well piloted aggro decks will still be favored into the heavy control/lockout decks currently being ran.

If you want to go the hard counter route, Sabine Double Red seems to be the popular choice. Cards like aggression can one shot Childsen clearing the way for you to burn right through them. Leia Red and Sabine Yellow are also decent options to do similar things. Leia can tempo out the damage, while supplementing the late game with U-Wings after a Superlaser Blast to close it out.

You’re likely also worried about the other people in this category though, so the still popular Sabine Green likely gives you the best play into both. You can sideboard cards like Power Failure, Wolffe, and more to deal with the Control decks relying on healing and Childsen, and cards like Zeb, Rebel assault, and Bright Hopes to help out in the aggro mirrors.

If I were going to a tournament this weekend, this is likely the category I’d want to be living in.

The Counter to the Counter

This is currently in the toughest spot to predict. While FFG has done a fantastic job making a circular Rock, Paper, Scissors meta, we are left with a perplexing decision when we lean into playing this category. Currently I’d define this as the midrange Boba land (Green and yellow), also occupied by Chirrut Red and potentially Han Green. These decks can get absolutely dunked on by the control decks featured in the hotness category, so is this really the right call?

You also have the options of playing the “softer” control decks like Krennic and Iden green that can be tuned to play well into aggro. They typically will get dunked on as well by the bigger control decks though, but you may prefer this route over playing Boba mirrors.

At the end of the day, that’s going to be determined by your read on the meta. If you expect something like 30% control decks, 40% aggro, and 30% other stuff, you’re going to have to hedge your bets somewhere. We also live in a world where Boba Green is going to be the most popular deck played week in and week out for a majority of the set 1 meta most likely. Are you prepared to play that mirror? Is there any kind of leverage we can find to make the control deck matchups less of a one sided dunkfest? These are the questions you will need to answer in this category currently.

Predictions

Like I said above, judging by the large amount of Vader Blue and other control decks that have been popping up in the last week or so, I’d be likely to run Sabine into a tournament this weekend. You definitely will need to have a gameplan for Sabine/Leia aggro decks, Boba/Chirrut, and big Blue control decks if you want to be successful this weekend.

Good luck to those blessed to attend a May 4th tournament, and May the Force be with you!

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Thanks for joining me for some morning musings! Are you heading to a tournament this week? How prepared do you feel for the meta?