Well it finally happened; Commoner is officially going to be a competitive format… for one event at least.  LSS announced a few weeks ago that the Battle Hardened at the Calling: Portland will be featuring the best format in FAB. So of course, hot on the heels of this announcement, I want to take a crack at predicting the meta, and what deck YOU should be playing depending on what you’re specifically looking for.

I’ve already gone over the current established meta of Commoner in a previous article, and while its been some time since that came out, much remains the same. Ira is still as consistent and menacing as ever, Dash is still extremely viable if only dropping a few points down the tier list, and Chane has risen up from his already very high tier into one of the best heroes in the format. I won’t be going over every single deck again, but rather running down the various expected decks in a metagame share, and outlining some quick pros and cons as to why you should or shouldn’t play a specific hero. As the wise man Sanford Kelly once said, “just pick a top-tier” (warning: explicit language), so without further ado, let’s begin.

Ira, Crimson Haze

North American players LOVE Ira, and if the results of Commoner Gold Foil events at SCGCONs were ever anything to go by, this won’t change anytime soon. It isn’t hard to see why the deck is appealing – playing as close as possible to a true mid-range deck in FAB and being able to maintain both consistent damage numbers while having enough coverage in defensive options makes her well-equipped to handle most of the meta and particularly adept at stomping out most of the rogue decks one could see in the event.

I wouldn’t be surprised and have currently predicted that at least 35-40% of the metagame share will be taken up by Ira due to the lack of information in the Commoner space. One of Ira’s biggest strengths is also her ability to have a meaningful inventory sideboard, usually reserved for something like two copies of red Oasis Respite for extra coverage against Chane and Iyslander, as well as some functional alternate armor for more aggressive matchups in the form of Breaking Scales. If I had to give one tip for playing against Ira, it’s to never push your luck if you can afford not to. In an even gamestate, it’s rarely worth it for you to take damage that can be blocked in the efforts to try and swing back harder simply because Ira can block so efficiently that the odds of you actually leaking relevant damage through is going to be challenging. However, it can be argued that Ira’s consistency is her weakness. Like how most midrange decks function, she tends to be even or slightly favored against all the other meta decks, but has no real crushing advantage against any of them, meaning a lot of the games come down to navigating the mid-to-late game better than your opponent.

Pros:

• Extremely consistent on offense and defense
• No truly bad matchup

Cons:

• No truly outstanding good matchups in the meta

Chane

The new hotness in Commoner, Rosetta has supercharged Chane into top-tier status with Hit the High Notes and Deadwood Dirge. I don’t think Chane will be as prevalent in numbers as Ira, but fully expect him to be the second most played deck at the event. Going off some of the more popular content creator lists of Chane, notably the list featured on Dice Commando, it’s about as maximized for consistency as possible, with redundant copies of the buffing actions in Minnowism, and allowing some room for flexibility in a few areas (the yellow spread comes to mind immediately).

Unlike the even-keel and steadiness of Ira, Chane offers an all-gas no-brakes approach to Commoner, and is also another deck that can do particularly well in stomping out some of the fringe and less commonly used heroes. Chane’s strength and weakness both lie in his Soul Shackles. Failure to hit relevant cards off the first few banishes can basically decide the outcome of the entire game on the spot, and it’s sometimes frustrating to lose to something as random as the top of your deck. On the flipside, hitting some Seeds and cheap attacks makes it seem like you’re playing with a six- to eight-card hand at times, and makes Chane excellent at draining cards out of the opponent’s hand by sheer number of threats presented in a turn. Bad decision making in facing the mixed damage the deck outputs is also a huge strength of the deck, though that will be less relevant the deeper the run in a tournament.

Pros:

• Very explosive
• High mixed damage hero

Cons:

• Can lose to banishing poorly off your own Soul Shackles
• Bad pitch stacking and resource management punished harder than other decks

Oldhim

The two previously mentioned heroes share similarities in that they both generate tricky breakpoints in extending combat chains or going extremely tall on a single attack. This is where my current favorite deck fits in. Oldhim can defend against just about anything while still having some gas left in the tank to swing the hammer back.

One of the biggest detractors of the deck, however, is its fatigue-centric win condition in an open tournament setting. While some players can play at the required pace needed to get the desired result, I’d recommend against registering Oldhim if the round timer is your natural enemy and you’re less well-versed in the various decision making trees and heuristics to aid in piloting everyone’s favorite Guardian. One of my favorite aspects to picking Oldhim is his favored position against Iyslander by being able to reasonably take arcane barrier five and pay for it consistently, and I predict Iyslander to be a popular pick intended to target the meta.

Pros:

• Good defensive coverage against the top meta decks
• Great matchup into Iyslander

Cons:

• The Ira matchup is even at best, and gets progressively worse when they stop blocking your hammer
• Fatigue-centric game plan can lead to going to time in rounds more often if not well-practiced

Iyslander

The last hero we’ll focus on, Iyslander, is interesting as I think her and Oldhim fluctuate in and out of the last spot in top tier depending on the other decks at the time. With Rosetta downshifting Fyendal's Fighting Spirit, she now has a clearer game plan against Oldhim taking arcane barrier five against her in the form of Scar for a Scar into Wounded Bull/Fyendal's Fighting, and then putting a blue in arsenal while forcing either two cards to stop the big attacks, either in the form of pitching for a big reaction or blocking from hand. Oldhim can never do anything with two cards in hand going into their own turn in the face of a stashed arsenal without risking eating a sudden burst of damage.

Again, Iyslander also preys on the inability to properly pay for high amounts of arcane barrier from the other decks, and also blocks well enough on defense with some room for sideboarding due to a lower equipment count in the inventory. I think Iyslander is a great pick if you’re comfortable in pitch stacking to your second rotation where you can set up a turn of big physical attacks into a Snapback turn against Oldhim, which is your worst matchup by far.

Pros:

• Fyendal’s Fighting Spirit allows for a better alternative game plan against Oldhim
• Arcane damage not something that is easily blocked out by the other top decks in format
• Greatly rewards you for pitch stacking to your second rotation

Cons:

• The Oldhim matchup is still quite rough even with the added tools
• Can get caught out by rogue decks more often (Dromai immediately comes to mind as one)

Best of the Rest

While I think Iyslander and Oldhim will be the third and fourth most played decks, there are some other viable options for Portland. And if you really, really want to forge out into the wilderness and play something besides the meta, here are a few options.

Dash is a notable omission here as I simply don’t think a deck as one-dimensional as her can succeed against these other decks that can block so efficiently to minimize damage and wait out the Hyper Driver. However, I think she’s a great contender and probably the second best proactive deck after Chane (Ira is fantastic, but excels at being able to play both proactive and reactively rather than excelling at one area), and I think she’s a viable option to make Top 8 with. On a similar note, Enigma is quite a strong option, as she has a fantastic Oldhim matchup but struggles against Ira, leaving her to be a choice for players looking to skew their matchups in a specific way. Briar is also similar to Chane in being strong in presenting mixed damage, but benefits far greater from the new Lightning cards in the Aurora First Strike deck paired with the usual Runeblade toys that can extend across the combat chain and block efficiently on the next rotation with an Embodiment of Earth and is the last deck I would recommend without much hesitations and caveats.

Conclusion

Hopefully by the end of this article, you’ve at least found a hero to explore for the Battle Hardened. I’m very keen to see the results from Portland, and really hope that it’s successful enough for LSS to consider running more events with Commoner as the format, and see the variety and fun gameplay it has. I’ll catch you in the next one.

Daniel Yam

Daniel is a competitive psychopath who has relegated himself into playing the most casual format of Commoner. Starting Magic at the onset of Shards block, he jumped into Flesh and Blood when the Ira demo decks were being given out to Australian stores and is a proud holder of a 4-digit GEM ID. In his spare time, he enjoys trying to convince his friends to play increasingly worse cards, going to museums, and playing Guild Wars.