LKP's Axie Log #35: Thoughts on the Balancing Patch || What team is hit the hardest?

Hello there axie pips!

How are you doing today? Like most of you I'm still in the process of familiarizing and adapting to the changes brought by the recent update this new season. The card balancing patch is the most important element of this patch. Also, there is a revision in the formula for computing crit and the same goes for the skill. The previous meta was undeniably inclined to high health - high speed axies. This is why dusk, plant, aquas and reptiles kinda dominated mid-upper brackets most of the time. It's still very early for us to conclude what would happen this season but there are lots of experimentation currently on going to find the meta-'est' teams out there.

_{The New CODEX}
For a quick run down, the double anemone got some slight nerf there. The -5 in shield is still good for this pair of cards and I believe they would still remain competitive even in the upper tier. Although it's not as good as it was used to be it is not a waste even if you build a double anemone team right now. Some bread and butter cards for double aquas are also nerfed like the risky fish, goldfish and shoal star. The -10 in risky fish' shield is quite a big deal especially for backline aquas. If I'm buying a team for AAP right now I'd go for something like lam or crimson water other than risky fish. In general if you have an aqua team and 3 out of your 4 cards get nerfed then that would be quite a shock.

A month ago we wrote about the most annoying Mouth Cards in the game and guess what, all of our top three picks did get a nerf. The biggest one would be double talk which was now down to 75% of it's original offensive power. This would make it more challenging for double talk teams to melt bulky opponents like plants and reptiles. Cute bunny got -20 in attack but get some compensation there for a +5 in shield. It's still a significant nerf though because this card is usually played in chain so for a standard meta build you'd see 2-3 axies with cute bunny, so that's basically -40 to -60 points in offensive capabilities. Chomp a -5 nerf which is meh for some but if you're a terminator user it's understandable that you'd also have this considerable amount of un-satisfaction given that both thorny caterpillar and mystic rush also have some small nerfs of their own.

_{These guys are definitively not this cheap a few days ago}
So we got nerfs for teams like your common AAP's, department of health (anemone's), terminators and double talk teams but do you know who really was hit the hardest in this patch? Well, we have our own opinions but for me it's the Jumping Poison teams with Garish Worms as their back cards. Although a considerable amount of attack and shielding was added (+10 for both if I'm not mistaken) I think it's not worth it for having the capability to apply 2 poison stacks instead of just one. The shield might be effective in the mid to later rounds but it's quite useless in the early game. Also both backdoor cards like toothless bite and smartshot do not deal much damage and we should also take not that they cost energy to play. Players had very cheap option to play a backdoor card + 2 grass snakes for just 1 energy. Although it didn't do much damage the applied 4 poison stacks was very worth it. But does this option still viable now that we only have a single charge of poison? Jumping poison teams are not without choices but they need to make the best and most efficient combo every time they went for the backdoor. Plays would likely require chain garish for the stacks to still pile up and be effective in the late game.

I think they are still strong, although not as much as they used to be. It's just quite regretful for those people who paid alot to get an uber premium team and then be hit hard by the update. Well, Zyori's advice weeks ago was quite on point. 'Do not chase the meta,was it?

And that's all for our log today.

I'm still finding my way out there just won 17/20 yesterday but now it's now at a measly 9/20. Our team got some really nice buff let's see how it goes these coming days. I think I'll just write it down o a separate log for convenience's sake. Anyways, I do hope all the best for you guys this season. Let's grind like there's no tomorrow! Enjoy the game.

See you soon everybody.

Ciao~