Players partnered with Teija in droves to challenge a Sigismar weakened by the Whispers from the Maze season patch in May, according to 39cards.com. But while an undaunted Afanas picked up the most first-place victories for the month, the Ordis hero held strong long enough to see himself crowned the winner for the season overall. A few new faces in the competitive ranks and a new incoming set show that he’ll likely not be holding onto that title much longer.

This monthly snapshot is an effort to give players a high-level view of the trends going on in competitive play across the season, developed from stats and decklists from 39cards.com. These are unofficial details based on results reported to 39cards.com, and may not accurately reflect official standings reported to Equinox. These statistics, which include mainly online and some in-person events, only represent competitive play and shouldn’t be taken to inform trends for other modes of play. While some stats are shared directly, others are intentionally vague. These notes are meant to provide context around competitive recaps as well as spark ideas for new approaches and deckbuilding.

This snapshot continues our coverage of the Trial by Frost season going back to prerelease events beginning Jan. 24 to the present. In April’s snapshot, all six factions finally picked up a first-place win in a single month, a feat that was repeated in May. This month’s analysis does include events held after the beginning of the WFM prerelease, with the last events including May 31. As a note, it excludes the AWOL x Equinox WFM Demo Deck Online Tournament held May 25.

Hero distribution

May hero distribution

1. Teija ↗ 1
2. Sigismar ↘ 1
3. Kojo ↗ 1
4. Afanas ↘ 1
5. Akesha ↗ 4
6. Atsadi ↗ 7
7. Fen ↘ 2
8. Basira ↘ 2

Teija may have only moved up by one place in the general standings, but that small change can be deceiving. Teija took off at top speed in May, leaving not just Sigismar behind by more than 100 decklists but is also well on her way to doubling Kojo’s presence altogether. Incredibly, Sigismar would have to team up with both Gulrang and Waru in order to even match Teija’s presence last month. Kojo appears to have snagged a little of Sigismar’s and Afanas’s influence, moving up into third place as those two both lag behind. Sigismar’s players dropped by about 7% while Afanas lost about 3%. A few heroes took big swings, with Akesha climbing up by four ranks and Atsadi absolutely leaping up by seven. Fen and Basira both stepped to the side to give them room, but held onto places in the Top 8. Notably, no hero in the Top 8 in April maintained their position in any way in May.

While Teija decisively took the lead away from Sigismar for May, it’s clear that competitive players are looking for a new angle on the meta as it settles. The entire Bravos faction is gaining ground. Across all three heroes, they made up about 23% of decklists. That’s nearly a quarter of all online competitive play tracked by 39cards.com. There’s a similar energy around the Yzmir heroes, even as one backslides slightly. Afanas and Akesha together take about 15% of the total, only one point behind Teija. With Lindiwe’s help, they overtake her. If you played in an online competitive event in the past month, yes, you ran into Sigismar about 10% of the time and Teija 16% of the time. But for about 42% of the time, you faced down a Bravos or Yzmir hero fighting to unseat the Ordis and Muna leaders. Even for as far ahead as Teija ran in May, no other factions pushed as hard altogether as those two. All of the Axiom heroes combined come in at a hair above 9%, almost exactly the same percentage as Kojo players alone.

Notably, Teija herself has no patience for her comrades, leaving both Rin and Arjun nearly unplayed in the past month. Rin picked up about 2% of decklists, but poor Arjun doesn’t even pull quite half of 1%, sharing last place with Waru. It seems as though Charles’s lament from the May 21 AMA is accurate: For some heroes (he was talking about Arjun and Lindiwe at the time), it can be challenging to build specific support cards, as the predominant hero in the faction can just as often simply make better use of it.

Season-to-date hero distribution

1. Sigismar =
2. Teija =
3. Afanas =
4. Fen ↗ 1
5. Kojo ↘1
6. Basira =
7. Akesha ↗ 2
8. Nevenka ↗ 2

Teija’s mad sprint for the month was not enough to change the majority of the TBF’s season standings. Sigismar will certainly be pointing to this scoreboard as the meta shifts heading into WFM, as he grabbed first place in February and did not give it back even after the WFM season patch. It came close, though. His lead over Teija in April was by more than 5%; by the end of May, it was just a shade more than 2% (though you could still fit more than four Arjun/Waru in that gap, for comparison). Afanas, taking about 1% less share overall by the end of the month, is remains comfortably in third. Fen and Kojo continue the dance they’ve been doing all season, swapping fourth and fifth with 0.02% between their total decklists for the season. Akesha and Nevenka both pushed up two spaces, shoving past Sierra and Lindiwe to take seventh and eighth.

Looking back at the full TBF season, only five heroes altogether claimed more than 9% of decklists. Competitive players had some strong ideas about which heroes had the best chance to lead them to the top for the season. Notably, one hero from each faction (except Axiom, who, as an entire faction, lands a full percentage point behind Kojo and Fen) leads the highest counts in the top five. Past that mark, there’s a sharp drop to just above 5% starting at sixth place. The season’s clear losers are Arjun and Waru, neither of which managed to even get a single percent of that overall share.

Top cards

These card rankings are determined by total number of instances of a card across all top-eight decks for a faction, as opposed to the percentage of top-eight decks that include a particular card.

Axiom

Common

1. Frozen Delivery =
2. Foundry Mechanic =
3. Amelia Earhart =

Rare

1. Brassbug Hive ↗ 5
2. The Ouroborous, Lyra Bastion =
3. The Nilam, Withered Tree ↗ 7

At the end of the season, Axiom’s top two commons maintain their position, where they’ve stayed since February. Amelia Earhart continues to hold her place in third, possibly celebrating her reunion with Haven, Bravos Bastion after it was released from suspension in the TBF mid-season patch.

Axiom’s rares continue to shuffle as the engineers continue to try to find a foothold among the higher ranks. Once again, the Brassbug Hive lumbers up five ranks to take the top spot away from Inari. The Ouroboros, Lyra Bastion holds its space as the most effective resupplier in the faction. The Nilam, Withered Tree shreds up through the ranks to find third. Taken together, the three make up some of the most powerful tools in a Sierra archetype that has seen recent glimpses of success, with one taking a victory in May.

Bravos

Common

1. Haven Seiringar ↗ 1
2. Fire Rabbit ↘ 1
3. Haven Bouncer ↗ 1

Rare

1. Tiny Jinn =
2. Haven, Bravos Bastion =
3. Mighty Jinn =

Bravos players have had a strong sense of what the faction needs since the start of the TBF season: card draw. Haven Seiringar, who only dipped out of first in April, once again takes the top spot away from Fire Rabbit, likely leaving it a hot cross bun. Haven Bouncer and Chiron switch places, leaning harder into the faction’s signature mode of player interaction in sabotage.

Its rares, however, remain set. None of these three cards left the top three spots at all throughout the entire season. Even as Bravos heroes build their fires in distribution, it remains very clear to players where its top advantages lie: Build mana reserves quickly, as low to the ground as possible. Resupply and stack boosts.

Lyra

Common

1. Hathor =
2. Anansi ↗ 3
3. Martengale ↘ 1

Rare

1. Ouroboros Inkcaster =
2. Magical Training =
3. Aloe Vera =

Hathor maintains her lead among the Lyra commons, where she’s stayed for the entire season. Beyond her, things have shifted a bit. Anansi once again bounced up to second place from fifth, repeating an act he pulled in March. As cards with passive support abilities and Lyra Contortionist come into play, he’s only going to be more dangerous in expeditions. Martengale, meanwhile, moves back down to third, guiding Twinkle, Twinkle back out of the top three.

Lyra’s rares have stayed exactly the same in the exact same positions since the beginning of the season. There’s a lot to say for each of their versatility, but the major theme is loud and clear: mana-efficient, ongoing card advantage.

Muna

Common

1. Muna Caregiver ↗ 2
2. Muna Druid ↗ 2
3. Floral Tent ↘ 2

Rare

1. Aloe Vera =
2. Ogun =
3. Spindle Harvesters =

The staggering swarm of Teijas that pushed forward in May likely had some impact on the Muna Caregiver and Muna Druid both moving up two places, as the ongoing anchor support that links nicely with Floral Tent gives her even more options for continuous growth. Floral Tent itself moved from its first place spot for the first time this season but might see more attention again soon as players figure out ways for it to interact with Scout-focused characters.

Once again, Aloe Vera, Ogun and Spindle Harvesters remain in exactly the same position they’ve kept since March. Any Muna player knows the importance of ongoing resupply and continuous boosts fed to anchored characters. Specifically, Teija would be looking for characters who are going to be able to anchor themselves while feeding cards to compost.

Ordis

Common

1. Teamwork Training =
2. Monolith Legate =
3. The Frog Prince ↗ 2

Rare

1. Ordis Attorney ↗ 1
2. Ordis Trooper ↗ 2
3. Foundry Mechanic =

Teamwork Training, potentially among the strongest removal options in the game, has held its place as Ordis’s top common card since February. Monolith Legate provides additional removal pressure, as she maintains her place from March. The Frog Prince relegated the Ordis Spy elsewhere to take third place, a position he hasn’t had at any point this season.

Ordis Attorney might be sweating a bit as she remains on the current watchlist after the WFM season patch, but she refuses to show it as she climbs decisively into first place past the now-suspended Baba Yaga. With one of the cheap card draw tools benched, players seem to be reconfiguring around building greater numbers of low-cost cards as Ordis Trooper jumps from fourth into second and the Foundry Mechanic holds its place. Stunningly, so many Baba Yagas were included in decklists in the start of the month before the patch was applied that even by the end of the month, a currently suspended card is still the fourth-most-played rare in Ordis. The next most common rare, Jack Frost, needs at least another 10 playlist appearances to even match her.

Yzmir

Common

1. Off You Go! =
2. Tooth Fairy ↗ 1
3. Studious Disciple ↘ 1

Rare

1. Beauty Sleep ↗ 3
2. Kadigiran Mage-Dancer =
3. Baba Yaga =

It’s hard to do better than Off You Go in Yzmir’s commons, and the faction as a whole hasn’t changed its top card since February. Tooth Fairy and Studious Disciple swapped places this month, but they’ve also been in the top three for the entire season.

Beauty Sleep makes only its second appearance in the top three rares for the entire season, filling an obvious gap that Yzmir players are feeling after the WFM season patch that benched Helping Hand. It also helps keep Kadigiran Mage-Dancer (also still on the watchlist) around another turn while boosting it and providing extremely cheap card advantage. Baba Yaga still works her magic in Yzmir, where she’s been in the top three all season. Similar to the situation in Ordis, Helping Hand was so prevalent in decklists at the start of May before the patch was applied that here at the end of the month, it’s still the fifth-most-played rare in Yzmir. The next most common rare, Joyride, needs to show up 20 more times in playlists to catch it. With plenty of cheap spell options, however, Yzmir players didn’t have much trouble rebuilding around Beauty Sleep and Magical Training, which holds fourth place this month.

Hero standings

Teija may have overwhelmed the overall distribution for May, but she struggled to find victories. Afanas extended his reach over the rest of the heroes, showing that the WFM patch clearly hamstrung one of the two heroes in focus more than the other. After mostly sitting out for April, Fen is once again climbing the ranks, picking up second over Kojo, who took half of the number of victories Afanas did. Even with Sigismar’s help in fourth, Kojo couldn’t catch the Yzmir warmage. And for all of the shots Teija took at the top for the month, she managed just two victories altogether. Repeating last month’s feat, all six factions did pick up a first-place win, though to find Axiom anywhere you’ll have to go down to where Lindiwe, Nevenka, Sierra, Akesha and Treyst all share sixth place with a single win for the month.

May’s standings taking along with the distribution show a meta in flux. Teija is commonly seen as one of the decks that can counter Sigismar, and it’s clear that players saw an opportunity to push past one of the leading decks in the TBF online competitive field. It looks like they were successful at doing that much. But players couldn’t or didn’t yet find an answer for the other leading deck in the field, as Afanas holds an edge over Fen here at the end of the month. She’s not far off from overtaking him, though, as the game heads into the WFM season.

Afanas was also the most common second-place finisher for May, followed by Teija, who was also the most common third-place finisher for the month. Sigismar had to settle for being the most common hero to win fourth and fifth place this month.

Overall, Afanas had the most appearances in the Top 8 for May, followed by Sigismar. He still outran Teija and Kojo, who mostly kept pace with each other. Fen had the fifth most appearances, and has nearly twice the total number of Lindiwe, who comes after her in sixth.

Season-to-date first-place victories by hero

1. Sigismar =
2. Afanas ↘ 1
3. Fen ↘ 1
4. Teija ↘ 2
5. Kojo ↘ 2
6. Lindiwe ↘ 2
7. Sierra ↘ 3 /Treyst ↗
8. Basira ↘ 4/ Nevenka ↗ /Rin ↗/Akesha ↗

Here at the end of the season, Sigismar can breathe a sigh of relief. His consistent lead and ongoing pressure in the field since February were enough to keep him in first place even over Afanas, who slipped into second. That downgrade set off a chain reaction of others dropping one or two positions, with Fen and Teija breaking stride for third and fourth, respectively. Kojo holds onto a place of his own even as he skids into fifth. None of the other heroes won more than three events during the entire season, led by Lindiwe in sixth. Sierra and Treyst share seventh, and Basira and Rin couldn’t improve on the wins they picked up last month, with Nevenka and Akesha landing alongside. Atsadi, Auraq, Gulrang, Subhash, Arjun and Waru couldn’t find their way to even one win in the entire season. With WFM entering play and the effects of the WFM patch still being measured, it seems clear that at least a few of these standings will be quickly changing.