Today is the Round of 16 for the Top 64 qualifiers from the April Season. We've had a few weeks for this meta to settle now, and the meta is similar to last month, so the decks and lineups should be getting more and more optimized. Let's see what these 16 players brought. All decks can be found here.

Northern Realms (15 total decks):

• Pincer Maneuver Traveling Priestess (14)
  • w/Roche (13)
  • w/Thaler (12)
  • w/Heatwave (12)
  • w/Margarita (10)
  • w/Amphibious Assault (3)
  • w/Pellar (3)
  • w/Surrender (2)
  • w/Mutagenerator (1)
  • w/Prince Ansies+Vincent Meis+Ornate Censer (1)
• Stockpile Siege (1)

Priestess reigns supreme once more, showing up in the most decks on the day with 14 of 16 players choosing Priestesses. There's still some oddball choices here, with magpie bringing Mutagenerator once more and Puzzle.Express bringing the Censer/Anseis/Vincent Meis combo. Sebinho101 is the lone Siege player holding out, while 国服社区赛03 elected not to bring NR at all.

Syndicate (13 total decks):

• Off the Books Devotion (10)
  • w/Jacques (9)
  • w/Philippa (7)
  • w/Kurt (6)
  • w/Gellert Bleinheim (6)
  • w/Tinboy (3)
  • w/The Scoundrel (1)
  • w/Excommunication (1)
• Off the Books GN (3)
  • w/Freak Show (2)
  • w/Surrender (1)
  • w/Xavier (1)

Off the Books remains an extremely popular choice, with Devotion the more common pick. This time around we saw Tinboy in some of the Devotion decks as a wide punish tech. Otherwise, nothing too unusual there. Three players decided to bring the Golden Nekker version, more than last week, but still not as popular as the Devotion version.

Nilfgaard (11 total decks):

• Golden Nekker Control (10)
  • w/Tactical Decision (2)
  • w/Imprisonment (8)
  • w/Hen Gaidth Sword (5)
  • w/Vivienne+Puzzle Box (5)
  • w/Surrender (5)
  • w/Summoning Circle+Golem (4)
  • w/Alissa (2)
  • w/Fisher King (1)
• Imprisonment Assimilate (1)

Nilfgaard grew in popularity this week, with most players choosing a GN Control deck of some kind. Hen Gaidth Sword was probably the most interesting newly popular card this week, while other combos like Vivienne/Puzzle Box and Summoning Circle/Golem remain included in about half the decks. Puzzle.Express is the lone player who chose to bring Assimilate, and a fairly nonstandard Assimilate with that, including Vilgefortz, Surrender, Gorthur Gvaed/Canteralla, and without Artaud Terranova.

Scoia'tael (9 total decks):

• Deadeye Ambush Elf Swarm (4)
  • w/Surrender (3)
  • w/Alissa (3)
  • w/Great Oak (2)
  • w/Aerondight (1)
• Guerilla Tactics Dwelves (2)
  • w/Aerondight, Decree, Roach, Knickers (1)
  • w/Hen Gaidth Sword, Oneiromancy, Lady of the Lake (1)
• Precision Strike Dwelves (2)
• Precision Strike Dwarf Hybrid (1)

Scoia'tael probably had the most diversity of any faction this week, and with just 9 players bringing the faction. Four went with Elf Swarm decks, where I think by far the oddest choice is Sebinho choosing not to bring Alissa, instead either shuffling back the Waylays from Vanadain or playing less than four from Simlas. The other three deck types are somewhat similar, relying on Zoltan:Warrior and Munro at the high end and using Ornate Censer for very effective tall punish. I decided to split the PStrike decks this week into two groups though – the Dwelves decks are similar to the Guerilla Tactics decks and use Simlas and Vanadain, while the Dwarf Hybrid deck uses Council for Filavandrel and plays extra Zoltans to make Zoltan's Company a strong way to swarm and slam points.

Monsters (8 total decks):

• Fruits of Ysgith GN Relicts (7)
  • w/Decree (5)
  • w/Cursed Scroll/Operator (5)
  • w/Necromancy (5)
  • w/Idarran (2)
  • w/Rat Catcheress (2)
  • w/Summoning Circle (1)
  • w/Toad Prince (1)
• Blood Scent Vampires (1)

Relicts was a fairly popular choice, and the interesting thing here is how many players are opting to use the determined coinflip in the tournament format to ensure they get to play Cursed Scroll for Operator onto a Selfeater. Toad Prince's inclusion fell off dramatically as players decided that control option wasn't worth bringing, perhaps worried in open decklists that it's too easy to play around. Once again Puzzle.Express is the oddball, choosing a Vampires deck instead, and neither a Devotion deck nor a GN deck at that.

Skellige (8 total decks):

• Ursine Ritual Self Wound (7)
  • w/Ermion (5)
  • w/Dorregaray (5)
  • w/Vildkaarl(3)
  • w/Oneiromancy (4)
  • w/Decree (3)
  • w/Harald Houndsnout (3)
  • w/Heatwave (1)
• Reckless Flurry GN (1)

Self wound was still fairly popular, with a lot of players believing in Ermion this time around. Kerpeten (TurboChimpSlicer) decided to bring a Heatwave, potentially for the mirror. A few players decided to bring Harald Houndsnout, which I personally appreciate as he's got some of the best/funniest voice lines in the game. It's Sif_Great_Wolf as the odd man out this time around as he chose to bring Reckless Flurry GN rather than Self Wound.