Early Look at the FAB World Championship Meta
November 2, 2023 by
Peter Buddensiek 
(Dromai, Ash Artist | Art by Kate Fox)
Welcome back! Today I’m doing an early look at the new meta for the World Championship. I wanted to take a quick look at five heroes that I think will have the most representation in the next format, with the notable exclusion of Lexi, Livewire, who recently achieved Living Legend status.
With such a powerful hero removed from the format, let’s find out what’s in store!
Dromai
Let’s start with what’s considered the new best deck, Dromai, Ash Artist. Dromai is a permanent-based deck that uses dragon allies to accrue value and create unlosable board states.
This beast of a deck just got one of the best cards printed for a hero since Codex of Frailty in Tome of Imperial Flame! Tome allows you to draw two cards if you’re royal and then pitch two red cards, which is amazing for ash generation and allows you to play a redline Dromai deck and still be able to play big dragons like Invoke Tomeltai.
But this new role of being the perceived best deck does come with a cost. Dromai has been a deck that was easily countered and struggled with aggro decks like Ninjas Fai, Rising Rebellion and Katsu, the Wanderer in the past. I’m excited to see where it ends up and if the counters are really counters.
Bravo
Next deck is a classic hero, Bravo, Showstopper. The last remaining legal Guardian going into Worlds is back again in the meta, being the premiere control deck in the field.
Using his amazing crush effects like Spinal Crush and Star Struck slows the opponent down and uses dominate to finish them off. This deck also has a perceived natural good matchup vs Dromai with the abundance of six-power cards in the deck. With diversity in the decklist, it’s able to play a more aggro tempo side, with cards like Zealous Belting and Enlightened Strike allowing it to go wide and tall on the same turn, as well as play the classic value defensive style vs the majority of the field. This classic style of gameplay has been popular for years and will definitely be popular at this event.
The only thing Bravo has to watch out for is Wizards like Iyslander, Stormbind throwing spells his way.
Iyslander
Iyslander, Stormbind is now the next closest deck to becoming Living Legend after Lexi achieved it. With only about 100 points left it could be her last major event!
This is a classic taxes deck, using Ice cards to slow your opponent down and big arcane effects to deal the damage. Most lists I expect to show up will be the more “Bullander” versions that had one of the best stretches of major event wins by the current world champion Michael Hamilton. Will he also finish Iyslander off with a second World Championship victory with the deck?
Iyslander’s biggest help is being able to slow the game down and use hyper efficient attacks like Wounded Bull to chip your opponent down to eventually kill them on their own turn. You know what they say, why only play on one turn if you can play on both?
Azalea
This has been one of the most controversial rises and falls of a hero this last year, and I still don’t know where people will end up at this event! When Outsiders came out the whole rage and Twitter timeline was about how strong Azalea, Ace in the Hole was, and with early strong performances in the Battle Hardened circuit, I was an early believer.
But she didn’t hold onto that performance. Slowly she became less played and eclipsed by her Ranger counterpart Lexi. With Lexi out of the picture, is this Azalea’s time to shine? With an abundance of on hit and pump effects in the deck, she can really affect and slow down her opponent with large dominated attacks. Red in the Ledger, her specialization, is still an amazing card and could be the key for her beating Dromai at the World Championship.
Although the deck has had consistency issues in the past, the abundance of opt effects help smooth out those draws and put her on the front foot. The last thing Azalea wants to do is start blocking.
OG Dash
Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire just got an entire set of Mechanologist cards added to her disposal! The already super flexible deck can pick between a whole bunch of attacks and versions of the deck now. She’ll be sharing the Mech light with her new friends, but seems to be at the front of everyone’s minds when thinking about the class.
Allowing her to switch from midrange, to a deck that can set up an abundance of items to overwhelm your opponent’s blocks late game, to even a pure boost aggro deck, there’s so much in store from the hero!
With so many different builds and three whole new ways to play Mechanologist, I hope to see people stick to the original while the other decks have clear weaknesses. Dash may have a lot of tools in her arsenal, but will her guns be good enough to shoot down a dragon?
In Conclusion
This format is going to be one for the history books. With the format being finalized only eleven days before the start of the World Championship, I can’t wait to see all the surprises people pull out! If anyone has opinions about these decks or decks I didn’t talk about, definitely hit the comment section down below. For now, have good testing and enjoy this new exciting format!
