Hello dear Leviathan Commander players in a special article on how the meta was formed in the third quarter of this year. In terms of the reports you report, the past holiday period started quite slowly and calmly, only to gain momentum at the very end. If you've noticed, we received a considerable amount of reports from Brazil recently, which delayed the release of the article. We had to supplement our database with new information.
In this article I will discuss commanders by dividing them into three categories: with the highest number of wins, the most frequently in the top4 and the most used. Finally, I will show the most used cards of each type in the form of top20. All the data presented below have been prepared on the basis of the reports received from you. By the way, 45 of them were received (which gives us 15 reports per month), which contain 518 commanders / decks.
Most winning commanders in Q3
We'll start with the category of commanders who made the most wins in the past season.
As you can see in the attached pie chart, the strongest three and the most frequently winning first place were Winota and Raffine, scoring the podium 4 times each. Right behind them are the well-known partners Esior/Jeska with 3 wins on their account. Commanders from 5th to 8th place won the podium 2 times. All the rest are commanders with one tournament won on their account.
Why does top3 have such results? Without taking into account the skills of the players, the abilities of the above-mentioned commanders are their undeniable advantage. At the same time, the way the deck is built around the commander affects its power level.
Winota owes her strength to the ability to put attacking creatures (human) from the top of the deck onto the table for each non-human designated to attack. Thanks to this skill, proper deck structure and proper human creatures at the top of the deck, she can finish the game in the 5-6 turn limit. With a very strong hand and Winota's acceleration for turn 3, the game may end even on turn 4. This is rather rare due to the amount of acceleration available in these colors.
Raffine, Scheming Seer, has only been released this season. He immediately won a substantial amount of 1st place. Definitely its strong point is the connive mechanic, which allows you to filter a large number of cards during the game and modify the p/t of the selected creature with +1/+1 counters. Additionally, access to blue (counterspells), black (tutor, discard, kills) and white (exile, creatures) can generate good pace and can change from control to aggro from turn to turn. Like Winota, he can finish games within 6 turns with the right hand.
Esior/Jeska is probably the most powerful partner combination available in Leviathan. They can finish the game in 4 turns dealing 21 commander damage. This is possible thanks to Jeska's first ability, which increases the damage dealt to the player by 3 times during the attack phase. In combination with spells that increase the power of the attack, we get a large amount of damage in a fairly short time with the help of a small number of cards. However, the deck also owes its high position to Jeska's second ability, who quite often does mass removal dealing damage to 3 different targets. This holds back most aggressive decks. Additionally, playing it several times from CZ generates a large amount of damage to the player, which is another option to win the game. Let's not forget that Esior himself, apart from flying, protects himself and Jeska by increasing the cost of removal targeting them by 3. Combined with counterspells, it creates a very difficult protection to break.
The most common commanders in the top4
The chart showing the most common top4 commanders shows us a completely different top. The first place is occupied by Esior/Jeska, being 12 times in the top4 out of 45 tournaments. Winota, on the other hand, only 8 times, which gives her the 4th place, together with Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes. They appeared in the Leviathan meta in Q3 by storming and scoring good results in a fairly short amount of time. Place 2 and 3 are taken by Queen Marchesa along with Niv-Mizzet Reborn being 10 times in the top4. This shows that they are frequent visitors to the top tournaments but still lack something to win them more often. The other Commanders were in the top4 less than 4 times.
The most used commanders in Q3
The last chart shows which commander players often reach for. Again, our boros friend Winota took the first place, for whom players reached 28 times. Its popularity is probably due to the speed and high amount of damage it can deal in one turn. It can be assembled with little financial effort without losing too much of the winrate. On the other hand, Esior/Jeska fell to 5th place in this category with 15 uses. Here, in turn, the average number of uses is related to the cost of the deck, the required level of piloting skills, the partners hand size rule. The deck, however, rewards the player with a good chance of winning after mastering it. As you can see in the charts, Queen Marchesa is also a fairly popular choice that allows you to enter the top 4 frequently in tournaments. Our queen owes her popularity to the Monarch mechanics. It is thanks to it that she can fight other commanders very efficiently. Right behind it there is ninja commander Yuriko (17) and Minsc and Boo (16). What, however, gained popularity for the next two? Well, huge pace of taking life points from the opponent and a large amount of drawing cards. Yuriko also avoids commander tax thanks to her ninjutsu ability. This causes huge problems for a large number of commanders. The ability to manipulate the top of the deck with "Brainstorm" like cards allows you to put a card with the highest cost on top so that the Yuriko trigger drain as much hp as possible.
Minsc and Boo's "partners" are a new force to be reckoned with. They won the hearts of players by being a plainwalker and, in my opinion, the best RG commander. All their abilities (creating a Boo token, putting three +1/+1 counters and fling, which additionally can gives us cards when we shoot a hamster) allow us to play matches at a high level. In addition, it is also easy to pilot and similar to Winota, it can be assembled with a small financial budget.
Interesting fact about the partners
Before we go to the popularity ranking of cards, I would like to present you the statistics of the most popular partner commander, which of course is Jeska, Thrice Reborn. Here's what the data looks like.
When we add up all the combinations of Jeska, Thrice Reborn and other commander partners, her stats are quite high. Starting with the number of podiums won - 7 times (where Winota and Raffine have 4 wins each), the frequency of appearing in the top4 - 20 times (which is equal to the amount of Queen Marchesa with Niv-Mizzet Reborn together) and her popularity of 27 uses gives her practically the same popularity as a commander, as Winota (28). Summing up all the achievements of different Jeska variants greatly increases her stats compared to other commanders. This gives a lot to think about.
The most used cards in decks in the Q3 season
Summary
Finally, I would like to inform you that on the basis of the above data, as a committee, we will be closely monitoring commanders such as Winota, Minsc and Boo, Jeska, Queen Marchesa and Yuriko. Although we have not taken any action on them so far, we had them on the radar. Before the bans of the two dominant control commanders (Shorikai and Niv-Mizzet Parun), the statistics of the currently popular commanders were eclipsed. Let me know if you find these types of articles interesting and would like to see more of them in the future.