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Honestly I believe sam was hit but not hit enough to where the meta is slow enough again for balanced decks to to truly be viable. I think as it stands A tier would look like this:

     A:  Gardensciples
          Various spread offenses focused on Sam or FBTNB.
          Disciples
          Watertomb

     B: Genesis aggro
         Straight FBTNB
         Judges
         Teal/X
         Prophets(Isaiah)

      C: Straight teal
           Blue/silver
           Royality
          Straight Red
 
     D: everything else.

Honestly I believe sam was hit but not hit enough to where the meta is slow enough again for balanced decks to to truly be viable. I think as it stands A tier would look like this:

The question isn't so much whether balanced decks are viable (I think they are, though I doubt one will place at Nats) but whether other offense-heavy decks have overtaken Sam in overall power. For your actual tier list, you neglected to put Prophets (probable B tier), Disciples (probable A tier), and Water Garden (probable A tier) in.

I agree that prophets should be higher than D but why is Royalty so high up? It should be D with everything else

Royality does not suck.  People don't seem to grasp that but then again it's not really played and is slightly slow. And I made the list on the fly so I left some stuff out on accident.

In my opinion Sam FBTNB variant is the best deck out there.

What does that look like to you?

I don't play online and haven't had much recent competition, but I do build a crazy amount of decks, so maybe my thoughts are worth something.

The new rules haven't changed the meta, at all, and being such the meta is at an advantage. Yes, the meta is good against the meta. Which makes me agree with Wings of Music for the most part.

That said, the gap between the powerhouse Samuel offenses (and the like) and balanced/defensive-heavy has shrunk massively. No longer does the meta defense have any assured blocks. This puts them at a huge disadvantage compared to what they were. Now it's more reliant on what your opponent gets and manipulating that. IF it's meta vs. meta, this isn't much of a problem, as you can use Gib Delagates, Ammy Slave, and Cupbearer without second thought to make up for that, or Captured Ark to get rid of Lampstand so your Falling Away is good, etc. However, against a slower moving deck, this can become increasingly frustrating, causing you to get so nervous in between rounds you FORGET YOUR DECK IS IN YOUR POCKET.

Okay, but seriously, I think defensive heavy does have a chance. Balanced less so, as it tends to be more haxy, since you have two things to worry about. In the end, speed will take it due to odds. When there's 10 good speed decks being piloted by good players against 2 turtle decks, it'll be tough. Next year it'll hopefully change.

FORGET YOUR DECK IS IN YOUR POCKET.

I saw what you did there

A Tier
Sam/FBTNB
Gardenciples
Other Sam decks
Genesis
Watergarden
Diciples

Even combining the multiple TGT, disciple, and Sam varients above, it is nice to have 4 or 5 different offenses that are all considered to be top tournament worthy this year.  That is far more balanced than years in the past.

Also, straight Red is better than straight Judges in my book.

I think that the Water-Garden is far below Gardenchiples because it's significantly slower.  Water-Garden is unable to make use of the speed tactics that Gardeciples and Sam have available, simply put, it's just not fast enough to win. 

Soul Gen is great but even with this slight shift in the meta speed is still king.

I think Genesis and Disciples are on par with each other cause they both have strong characters and good speed and enhancements. I say this cause I don't know is you listed those in A in order of how great they are or not.

Can I have a definition of a Gardensciples deck. Is it heavy on TGT or Disciples?

That's good description. 

What is TGT?

The Garden Tomb (RA)

Type: Fortress • Brigade: None • Ability: None • Class: None • Special Ability: If opponent has a redeemed Lost Soul, then Salome, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Peter, John, and Mary the mother of James ignore all evil brigades that do not have at least two Characters in play. • Identifiers: Empty! • Verse: Mark 16:1 • Availability: Rock of Ages booster packs (None)

So there is a whole deck strategy based on one card? Wow.