We are now in the Epic Era of Season 5 in Axie Infinity: Origins and the meta is more diverse than ever! This is certainly a great time to be playing Axie Origins with some many different archetypes being viable to compete at the Top of the Leaderboard.

Some may say that Epic Era is the most fun of the 3 Eras and this is partly because there are more Epic Runes compared to Rare and Mystic, which contributes to making the Epic Era more diverse. Let’s just jump into what we have in this Epic Era!

tldr:

• The most diverse meta in Axie Origins with 13 (sub-)archetypes at Top 100

• Topaz is good for climbing in this meta

• Meta Breakers: Hot Butt and Confused

Archetypes Distribution

There are so many (sub-)archetypes that it is becoming difficult to fit everything in one pie chart! I never thought I will need to do this but in the next report, I may have to merge some of the sub-archetypes to make the data more tidy!

While there are so many archetypes that have similar power levels to be able to get to the Top 100, we see Leafy, Topaz, and Sustain as the most popular archetypes at the Top 100. We also see Venoki and non-Venoki Poisons becoming well-represented, especially from Top 500. Do note that the popularity is more of a reflection of Axies availability than power level.

At the Top 100, we also see Jinx, Glorious Mane, Hot Butt, Leafy Tri Spikes, Confused, Sponge, Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter, and Tiny Fan! We also see Tri Spikes, Triple Owl, and Cuckoo Piranha making it to the Top 200 with Perch, Sandal and AoE in Top 500. Of course it is still early in the Epic Era and players are still trying things out and learning how to play different matchups, but seeing so many archetypes being viable is a good sign that the state of the game is moving in a positive direction in terms of player experience.

Archetypes Matchups and Win Rates

Archetypes Overall Win Rates

With so many archetypes, I will only focus on the ones the stand out. The new cursed teams in the forms of Hot Butt and Confused are performing particularly well in this meta as well as Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter and possibility Sponge and Tiny Fan teams too. These 5 archetypes are performing especially well in Top 100 but do note that the win rate depends a lot on where you are on the ladder as the matchups are different across the ladder.

Topaz is definitely worth mentioning with its 55% win rate, a lot can be attributed to Sturdy Fighter and Heaven’s Echoes (see Additional Data Dump). Leafy and Sustain are still doing okay. Poison (Venoki and non-Veonki) and Jinx are still hanging in there but not doing too well.

Momo really falls off after the nerf. There is 1 team of Cuckoo Piranha and 1 team of Tiny Fan, both seem to be doing well, though there is too limited data to conclude.

Given there are so many (sub-)archetypes, I will only focus on the main ones. Do note that many archetypes only have a few (or even just 1) teams and so the data is extremely limited.

Leafy

Leafy is still the team to beat given its popularity on the ladder. Many teams are taking advantage of that, main ones being Topaz, Sustain, Tri Spike version of Leafy, Confused, and Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter. Leafy is still good against Poison but otherwise it does not have too many good matchups despite the Epic upgrade with Miracle Leaf, Leaf Cloak etc.

Topaz

With Strudy Fighter and Heaven’s Echoes, Topaz is still so strong, especially in a meta full of Leafy. Topaz is also good against Poison, which is another popular archetype. Its only bad matchups are really just Jinx and Hot Butt, making it a very good archetype for climbing in this current meta.

Poison (Venoki and non-Venoki)

I feel that Poison actually has a pretty high power level but it just suffers from the chronic problem of the Axie Origins, which is that damage is coming in too fast from the aggro teams for any Midrange / Control kind of teams to survive and get its value (unless you can limit their card draw). Many Poison teams do have multiple ways to put opponents to Sleep but 0-cost cards are the counter to this. I wish they will change the Sleep mechanic such that you need to Spend at least 1 Energy to wake up, but for now Poison is not having a good time against Leafy and Topaz.

Sustain

Sustain is still around, mostly farming on Leafy teams. Otherwise it does not have too many other good matchups. It suffers from Poison and Cursed teams, but as long as Leafy is still popular, we will probably still queue into these >10-min matchups.

Hot Butt

Hot Butt is doing very well in this meta with good matchups against all the popular archetypes. Its worse matchups are Triple Owl and Sponge which are rarely seen on the ladder. It is still a relatively under-developed archetype with many different ways of building a Hot Butt team including components of Sleep, Discard, Summons, Rise and Ruin, Confused + Jinx etc. Axie availability is the limiting factor at this point and I will not be surprised if Breeders are working on breeding more Hot Butt Axies for the remaining of the season.

Confused

The draw disruption Confused Swirl Pigeon Post archetype is making a come back with Nimo tail for Ramp and Parasite and Garish Worm for Discard. It has an over 60% win rate against Leafy and is doing okay with Topaz and Poison as well as a very good matchup against Sustain. Its only bad matchup is Jinx which is not too popular at the moment. Again, the main limiting factor is Axie availability as there are not many good Confused Axies out there, which makes it hard for players to try the archetype out.

Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter

Pure Damage Sturdy Fighter is back and it is looking strong in this meta. However, its matchup is quite polarising, which makes it a very meta dependent archetype to play. It has a good matchup against Leafy, amazing against Sustain, does okay against Topaz and Venoki Poison, but it loses to non-Venoki Poison (usually with more Sleep tech), Curse teams (Jinx, Confused, Hot Butt), Triple Owl, and Glorious Mane teams.

Sponge

With the change of Sponge to costing 2 Energy instead of 3, it makes it easier to play and making it to the Top 100 despite not having access to Heart of Ocean at the moment. The buffed Energy Shard Rune certainly helps as Sponge teams ramp very quickly. Sponge takes advantage of non-aggro teams as it ramps on in Energy as well as Bubble Bombs. It does well against Poison, Sustain, and Hot Butt. The main problem for Sponge teams is Topaz, which has a lot of Shield and goes too fast for Sponge teams to handle. It has an even matchup against Leafy, such makes it viable in this meta, but if we see more players shift to Topaz, it will be tough for Sponge players.

Conclusion

This is arguably the most diverse meta we have even seen in Axie Origins as we pass the 1 year mark of the birth of Axie Origins from Season Alpha. Let’s hope we will continue to see the improvement of Origins and bring more players to enjoy the game!

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Additional Data Dump