Yeah. Wonderful things. All it did was that in the top 20, people ran one of those:
Option A) Blightosis +
Agent M + Whitara
Lilybybdia + Lotus + Whitara
Option B) C.W. Frontline
On top of that, every high WR team ran the exact same 5 myths in the endgame, so the matches were super interesting.
I played all tickets all 4 days and I haven’t seen a less diverse meta in months.
Lily + Lotus is a legitimate FL that just happens to counter Blight.
Similar story with CW. Playing it this season could’ve simply been a smart meta call.
Agent M + Whitara using Blight to counter Blight is an argument for it being parasitic, but I’d argue the more prominent issue here is how oppressive Agent M is as a high speed FL monster and Whitara fits perfectly with it… which is nothing to do with Blightosis.
End-games being very similar is nothing to do with Blightosis either, that’s just the restriction list for the season + balance changes not tackling how the likes of Rinmu, Vivienne, Pandora, etc. are a stronger choice than other options + the lack of creativity from competitive players
Not really. They just gave out another 99 speed, 13 cost monster to shield Agent M and other high-speed waifus from Arbustodon and such. Who would have guessed that adding another decent 99 speed legendary would not solve the issue of who has the faster frontline.
I don’t think is lack of creativity, is just inevitable acceptance of what is stronger and if you have it you use it
That’s very true. The old Prixis → Charybdia problem where one high speed monster leads into another that sets up basically whatever medium speed shenanigans you have going on that should normally be countered by something higher speed, while also heavily disrupting the opponent’s strategy.
Removing sonic strike from Blightosis would probably be a smart call to avoid that issue. Perhaps it should be:
It’s well known people copy one another. The best possible setup has never been solved and opinions change with time. It’s very normal in a game that there is a meta people follow, so I mean it with no disrespect. The end-game monsters in question are obviously a great choice. However, you’re kidding yourself if you think it’s impossible to try something else and get a better result. For most people it’s a case of using what’s known to be good, rather than experimenting enough to find something better… i.e. an overall lack of creativity.
Completely agree with you, but remember that end game we are talking about was in almost 100% of the first 20 players in the top, which leads us to the solution of using something outside that end game would not be so effective
It’s a shame none of them were running Bastia!
Why would you run Bastia in any team if you can just use Nightingale before your chain of entrances?
Wholeheartedly agree. Such a dumb thing in a time where they wanted to stop the Bastia locks that they have now dealt with in other ways (if I’m remembering my history correctly).
They should revert that buff to Nightingale, as well as making a second mythic with a Bastia-like effect that can stop a bunch of the problem entrances
Lotus 
Bastia’s gradual decline is due to his increasingly demanding usage conditions. He is a monster that relies heavily on on-field advantage and control, yet such advantages and control over the field barely exist in the current meta.
Nightingale was never a problem. We could use penetration and knockback to deal with her. But nowadays, it’s already extremely difficult to gain field advantage by setting up a team.
Why go for an extremely inconsistent outcome when you can just use more stable and powerful monsters instead?
That’s also one of the reasons why the current game environment is so bad.
Myths like thaala, daji, melusine etc, cannot be well managed if you have no revenge negating mon. In that case , there’s nothing much to do. Either you kill her , get two copies or send her at the back. Thalaazar is still somewhat about luck without negation , but since daji is inevitable to duplicate , it is best to kill it first than later . If we can sweep through half of the enemy team , two extras won’t cause much of a trouble if you still have sweepers and comparatively more mons. Nowadays , revenge negation is much of a need in pvp.