A Word From , TPC Manager
Hello all, in light of the recent balance update, we're going to be posting a TPC reaction to the Balance Changes and how the current Tier List is affected
Tier 1
TPC Comments
With the huge consistency and power-level discrepencies between Salamangreat and any other deck in the meta, this change was warranted. Now, the deck's best strength (Soulburning Link ) has been hit as you can no longer full combo with a hand of four techs (as you now need to also discard a Salamangreat card to gain your two generated Salamangreat cards, which makes sense). There are two wasys this will change how Salamangreat decks will be built.
Tech Ratios will need to change. In order to fulfil the Skil activation condition, you will need to run less techs in order to see more Salamangreat cards in your opening hand.
Deck Size will change. Players used to run 30-card decks to fit as many tech cards, they will most likely need to adjust this to accomodate the stricter activation condition.
Also, with the Skill change being irreplicable, Salamangreat will functionally dissapear from most tournament metagames (until the change is implemented in-game). That being said, assuming the listed deckbuilding changes are made, the deck should be fine, and might continue to do well in the format (we still have to wait for the next BOX to make its impact, though)
Soulburning Link now does the exact same thing as before, at the cost of 1 additional card (that has to be a Salamangreat). This will likely mean that you will need to play less tech cards in order to open at least two engine in your opening hand (1 to discard 1 to extend with). Additionally, running a second Loading... will probably be very imporatant since you can't really afford to open it anymore with the Skill requiring more card advantage. Loading... might noe require too many resources to be worth playing, and the deck might switch to more impactful techs like Loading... , Loading... or maybe Loading... (to have a solid Turn 1 off of a single tech). Since the Skill change cannot be manually applied before its implementation, it will be banned in most tournaments. This means that we won't really be able to see the nerfed deck in action for now, but I expect the deck to still be really good (at least in the current meta, there might also get a new BOX by the time the changes are implemented).
Tier 2
With the best deck in the format receiving changes that are unable to be manually applied by players, we're stuck in a "fake format" until the Skill changes are implemented in-game. As such the Tier List will be in a more volatile state, where new content, the changes to Salamangreat, and the current Tier 2 / Tier 3 decks will all have strictly theoretcial perceptions of strength.
As such, we will not be updating the Tier List until the changes are in effect.