A very diverse metagame has emerged today from a pretty tough format. Many pro players that I’ve talked to have told me that this was one of the toughest formats to test for because they couldn’t find a deck that covered enough of the expected decks. Gabe Walls noted, “This format is great. There is no clearly dominant deck, and a lot of the decks are a lot of fun to play!”

Even so, there were two decks that clearly defined the metagame—the Checkmate / Villains United Fate Artifact deck and Good Guys, the powerhouse power-up deck. Both put up overwhelming numbers as a percentage of the field but are by no means dominating the top tables. Here’s what people played:

Checkmate / Villains United (mostly Fate Artifact) – 93

Good Guys (without Fate Artifacts) – 56

Good Guys (with Fate Artifacts) – 45

Secret Society (mostly Fate Artifacts) – 31

Rock of Eternity (mostly JSA / Checkmate) – 22

Shadowpact (partially Fate Artifacts) – 18

Villains United Chomin Burn – 14

Injustice Gang World War III – 11

Checkmate – 9

Donkey Club: Secret Six / Shadowpact – 6

Checkmate / Secret Society – 5

Justice for All (JLA / JSA) -5

Checkmate / JSA (non Rock decks) – 4

Infestation – 3

Others – 36

As you can see, there are a plethora of different teams and decks in the field, and I get the feeling that many players got a little scared about playing some of the more obscure decks and consequently defaulted either to Good Guys or Checkmate / Villains Fate. Many of the FTN players decided to play their own Good Guys deck; they are known for taking a popular deck and tweaking it to within an inch of perfection. In any case, all the major teams in both Justice League of America and Infinite Crisis have been represented in significant numbers—a sign of a format with excellent diversity. Don’t let the numbers fool you, though; the less played decks are extremely competitive against the big boys.