Rakano's Weapons are unmatched - Day 3 Masters - Meta Analysis and Card Choices

‚Rakano’s Weapons Are Unmatched‘ – A guide on how to play Rakano in Fall of Argenport with a short Meta overview.

https://youtu.be/z_j_2BjunvI - Video Showcase

Hi there,

my name is Philipp aka Eclipzerlol and I decided to write a short article on how to tackle the current ladder with a well-balanced Rakano deck, no matter if you just started playing or if you‘re a veteran – let me (re)kindle your love for Rakano.

I will mention some of the biggest archetypes and how to interact and deal with them.

Short disclaimer:

Im not trying to sell you my decklist but the archetype itself, mostly because I haven’t met many true Rakano Decks on my way to master this season, if they had red / green colours it was because of charge rod which I really dont see as a Rakano deck itself.
Take that!

In case you dont have all the cards being used in any list you can find online, try to find suitable replacements for them.

A strong finisher could be a different bomb than Icaria. If you just started playing Eternal consider using the free Scion legendaries you got by playing through the campaign.

If unanswered, Rolant and Kaleb can still wreck havoc to this day.

After watching my girlfriend get into Eternal i realized how I fell in love back then with the easy concept of buffing your own minions while being aggressive and proactive just like she did – immedatiately deciding that she wanted to play GREEN and RED, because those are her favorite colours and it has the ‚coolest theme‘.

This easy concept is still very strong to this day, especially easy to see after the recent tournament wins ‚Big Rakano‘ was able to get piloted by Tobboo.

Infact, I realized we nearly made the same choices for our deck but me dodging the new card Bulletshaper completely, sleeping on his potential value and cheating the curve by adding two extra mana by, in a perfect world, discarding Priviledge of Rank to draw two green sigils aswell. (Sick value!)

Since a Ladder and a Tournament are two completely different formats aswell as environments you have to tune your deck to your ‚local‘ ladder, making choices that fits your playstyle as well as the enemies and decks you face.

Well equipped to have a very strong curve with cards like Crownwatch Paladin or the new card Bulletshaper directly from the start to heavy bombs like Icaria, Rizahn or even Rolant and Kaleb in case you’re still a new player or just enjoy playing with these cards.

Icaria has been a strong win condition for a really long time, mostly being featured in very defensive armory type decks using weapons, spells like Vanquish and Harsh Rule and armour gain in order to withstand aggressive decks and special win condition decks.

Feel free to use any of Locopojo’s Basic Decks that he showcased on his Youtube channel.
This man’s work for this community is unbelievable, providing something for both newbies and oldies alike.

I tested all of his basic decks with my girlfriend as she just started playing this game and they all stood the test.
He even made new videos with newly updated lists in order to keep up with the newest sets.

Try to use his lists as a base for your own creations, those are the most fun to play with and could potentially make you feel proud after getting a really good winning streak or facing off against the ladder and doing well.

A short overview about the current meta in diamond+ in order of appearance.

- Alessi Combrei Aggro

This deck is well known by now, being called retarded or degenerate by most that encounter it.
In the latest Seek Power Podcast they ranted for a pretty decent time about how a single 1/1 can make such a difference and how spells matter with this deck.
Fast Spells like Stand Together or Safe Return as well as the new Weapon Sword of Unity make it hard to interact with this deck at all.
Sometimes ignoring and going for your own win condition is the best way to handle this deck.

Valkyrie Enforcer is a real winner in this matchup, the moment they fail to keep some mana free to interact with fast spells, you got a huge chance to win.
This mostly happens turn 3 or 4, considering most of their units are pretty cheap.

I have seen some players actively deciding to add more midrange to the deck and drop some early game, adding Sandstorm Titan and Carnosaurs into their deck, not just their Market.

The Market is mainly used for cheap buff spells like Xenan Initiation and their game changing weapon sword of unity.
You will learn to read their hands by seeing different pauses or none at all, telling you what they potentially switched out of their hand or added in.

Unseen Commando also gets alot of work done, especially with stabilizing your health in order for you to keep pushing agressively through the air with your fliers.

Whirling Duo does well with Unseen Commando, often closing games on the point if they dont face instant punishment.
Vanquisher’s Sword can be worth it instead of an actual Vanquish just to add more damage and through the lifesteal of the above mentioned units.

Sheriff Marleycan create Chump Blockers for their buffed Students and Alessis; she can also silence Sandstorm Titans or Students with her tribute being available more often than I’d like to admit by being aggressive from the start signaling that you’re ready to take bad trades in order to push damage.

- Praxis Token

This deck aims at overwhelming you in the midgame with the sheer amount of force and units they spew out of their hand, seemingly out of nowhere.

Xenan Obelisk adds alot of toughness and damage to those small units.
There are many different lists, some adding a heavy midrange curve with strong time units like Sandstorm Titan as well as Predatory Carnosaur.

Be aware of a sudden blow out by your opponent using Rally to add alot more damage to the table than you probably expected.
A rule of thumb is to always plan on getting blown out and be ready for it.

Harsh Rule at Turn 5 or 6, adding consistency by putting one copy into your market, most likely destroys their gameplan, especially wrecking their Initiates of Sand and their Auralian Merchant and making them lose Power.

Pure Lifesteal is king in this matchup, sustaining against their power while also being in the air, dodging their units most of the time.

Prime removal target is Sandstorm Titan, mostly to keep you going and lifesteal. Be aware of a sudden Sandstorm Scarf, blocking your fliers.
This has happened twice and felt disgusting.

Sheriff Marley can again act as a chump block generator while you push through the air.
Sometimes it might be wise to not go for a bigger unit but rather invest the three mana and bait a decent harsh rule from your side while offering token for their token.

This has been a very nice workaround for me, especially because my opponent didnt use their carnosaur to annihilate my Icaria the moment i drop her.

Be smart, know your options and consider them carefully, you will develop a habit of being extremly greedy if you wanna pilot a Rakano Deck to the full potential, often falling behind intentionally just in order to rise up and cut them down again.

Putting in any form of relic hate is not worth it, especially since there is nothing we could really put into our market that is predominantly green.

Use your silence effects to cut their power down by using it on their initiates or merchants, this will give you some breathing room before they hit the important 8 Mana mark.

Torch is mostly used to get rid of Teacher of Humility because she otherwise makes your already costly units nigh unplayable.

If this ever happens consider thinning your deck as you go and use every chance to draw power even making use of the market to get more power instead of Icaria or Rizhan or get them super early when you can afford it to chump block their teacher.

In my experience Icaria on 7 is extremly consistent and I can probably count the games I didnt get her into play on 7, so make sure you are ready to supply her with extra mana. TEACHER IS DEADLY.

- Feln Control

Feln is back, apparently, greeting you with the obvious card choices it had for centuries.

Alot of direct removal, a fair share of AoE as well as card draw and extremly strong units, some with life steal.
We all know this bad boy and we all hate it when it draws the nuts for the player.

Luckily enough, our deck packs enough punch to get through it, especially because their Black-Sky Harbinger only has 4 Attack allowing our Icaria to trade with it while still being alive.

The general gameplan is to get rid of Champion of Cunning, especially when the +2 Attack Bonus, granted through shadow, is active.

Dont be afraid to play into Hailstorm – you can recover quite well as long as you present Threat after Threat.
This has to be decided individually judging by your hand.

This matchup is decent for us as long as we respect the two units that could potentially be our end, the life stealing part of BSH and the buffing part of Champion of Cunning.

Rather than only talking about choices you make, I’ll try to make you aware about their cards instead.

Checking the newest list by Zenaton shows two In Cold Blood, a card we have to dodge as good as we can.

Try to preserve your Aegis on your Units as good as you can, sometimes not offering a Threat instead or trying to create Decoys making them waste their card on the Decoy instead.

If they draw really well you have to create alternate win conditions by using Little Icaria to buff your Big Icaria and Rizhan as much as you can before going all out.

This is especially true when considering the card Cirso’s Cleaver, which is being run as a 1x copy in the market.
The Killer effect with the added health bonus can ruin your day.

A well placed Vara’s Choice can wreck your hand – here comes the decoy strategy back into play, making them think that you have drawn your Icaria through the Market or through Rise to the Challenge.

This is especially easy to fake by doing it around Turn 6 or 7. Use any other unit that would make sense to have instead and see if the way is clear to get your real guns out.

This could potentially be small Icaria or even a Valkyrie Enforcer for a silence on BSH or CoCunning
.
I had some matches against Zenaton in which he just didnt draw the right answers to my ‚questions‘ so keep asking those questions by playing your units the right way, pressuring them to waste the good stuff for your bad stuff.

This works really well. Also, keep track of their handsize and watch it get smaller and smaller by answering your decoys until there is nothing left for them to handle your Icaria and getting big warcries off.

This works particularly well because we have a lot of interaction with our deck and the market.

This is probably one of the harder matchups because people already have a lot of experience with the Feln Control Archetype itself. Cards like Vara’s Choice can really ruin your day, especially if you make it easy for them to read your hand.
In short: DECOYS are your best friend! DECOY! 

- Charge Rod
Their name of the game is RNG and boy do they ask for RNGESUS to step in and take the wheel.
You do have some sort of getting ahead but dont fret if they just get insanely lucky with their Answer the Call into Icaria into Charge Rod or anything like this.

It felt like this matchup was pure luck on my side just as it was for them.
Doing smart choices and being proactive is very good, try to push damage as early as you can.

The real game for them starts at around Turn 6, so see if you can get your units prepared through Small Icaria or Silencers you keep around just to get rid of the card text so their charge rod wont pull anything at all.

This works especially well against Diogo Malaga as he is often played early to fight against our aggression.
There is real advice other than the one I have already given; Silence is king, as well as early aggression.
Be aware that anything could happen the moment they hit 6.

Dont get too frustrated, I’ve met some Charge Rod players and it was mostly a coin flip, sometimes it also felt like any choice I made was not consequential for them at all but that’s okay.

Don’t take it too serious, they highrolled their way to the win.
It often helped me to make a short pause, get some stretches in order to keep a cool head to not outright tilt from the face of the earth.
Can you tell that I got frustrated with this deck? :p

Those decks are what I consider to be ‚Meta‘ right now – there were other fringe appearences by Mask of Torment Decks or the occasional Xenan Lifesteal as well as Xenan Killers but those were not consistent enough to either stop my deck or often enough to make them worth it to discuss here.

Be aware that this can change from Divison to Divison – the higher on the ladder you get the better the enemy players and their decks as well as their ability to pilot said deck gets better.

If you realize that you have a really bad matchup against XYZ Deck stop to play for a bit and consider the choices you have to improve your matchup against this deck.

Try using my notes on which cards are King in which matchup and let yourself get guided by them.
Don’t be afraid of your opponent having the perfect answer to your question, try to keep a cool head and dont force anything.

The biggest part about Eternal for me is having fun and trying to push a cool Idea while having a decent winrate at it.
If you meet alot of bad matchups consider taking a break or switching your deck for a bit.

Players come and go in specific frequencies – sometimes it feels everyone is playing Feln Control only to never encounter the deck again in the following hours.

Keeping your cool and having fun is the most important part about this climb.
Enjoy your way and remember that the way itself can be the goal.

Even if you lose you will learn something about the deck you played and your opponents deck making you better suited to fight them the next time.
You can only anticipate so much.
If someone hits your blind spots that you never thought of try to add him ingame and tell him that he got you hard; that you admire this idea.

Keep this community friendly and respectful. We can be the difference.

I will update this ‚rakano meta report‘ after playtesting different Ideas and with less legendaries together with my girlfriend on her account. Potentially I would like to be able to offer the whole picture.