The first Calling in 2026 took us to Akihabara, Japan. Hope for otaku pop culture, it's the fitting spot for the first tier 3 event events of the year.
World Tour Akihabara boasted a two day Classic Constructed Calling, and one of the last remaining Battle Hardened events in the fine and shiny Silver Age formats.
Calling Akihabara
The Day 1 Meta is surprisingly diverse, with the top heroes of the past and present metagame still holding strong. What's interesting to note is how even it is, with the top decks having the same number of players, or being a single digit number away from their next competitor. The entire first column make up, what I believe, to be the best 5/6 decks in the game at present.
Also as a player who has been entrenched in the game for a long time, the fact that there are double the number of Arakni, Huntsman to Arakni, 5L!p3d 7hRu 7h3 cR4X.
The story of event is the fun ascent of the one of Betsy, Skin in the Game. Being on a dedicated fatigue strategy, and still being very close to Top 8 contention.
Conversion Rates
After 7 rounds of Swiss, the day 2 metagame was wildly different. With only a small number of Verdance players making it through, there was a significantly higher number of Florian players at the higher tables.
We've seen a significant change in how the Earth Runeblade has been playing as of late. The high number of Blues still means you get to use Grasp of the Arknight and Reaping Blade as one of the strongest one card hands in the game. The inclusion of cards like Channel Mount Heroic and attacks with Go Again make for a surprisingly high, aggressive damage output whilst also being able to block a great deal of damage.
The other high performing decks include such meta all stars as Kassai of the Golden Sand, Oscilio, Constella Intelligence and Arakni, Marionette.
Top 8
The Top 8 bracket is much more diverse and eclectic than we could have expected.
With the rise of Arakni, Marionette, we can expect the reactions based aggro deck to be strong, but putting 3 copies into top 8 has now cemented, in my opinion, Arakni's place as one of the strongest decks in the format. Even after the December bannings.
The bannings that Cindra faced are also surprisingly understated, with the mirror match played between 3rd and 6th seed. The prevailing deck building in Cindra is whether or not one should play more Draconic cards and Oath of Loyalty or fewer, and return to aggressive cards like Cut Through. Some deck builders have taken an even more ambitious approach, and been pairing Kunai of Retribution with Harmonized Kodachi to diversify threats.
The runner up deck list was Arakni, Marionette piloted by Gaichi Yamada. The daggers matter gameplan has always been Mario's focus, but this version appears to have a hybrid plan of sending Stealth attacks as well as daggers buffed by the usual effects like Up Sticks and Run, Cut From the Same Cloth, and Savor Bloodshed.
The deck features respectable Stealth attacks like Infect and Infiltrate to offer alternate sources of aggression. It can put a great deal of opponents on the back foot, not expecting to deal with effects like this.
The winning list was the only Florian in the Top 8, run by Ryosuke Urase. This version has the Go Again attacks that are becoming more common in Florian, but fewer than some of the lists I've seen recently. It also doesn't feature Channel Mount Heroic which has also been featured in several aggro Florian lists that have been appearing.
Fundamentally, despite the lower Blue count, Florian is perfectly comfortable blocking and playing on smaller hands, but can send aggression in the form of Outed and Swarming Gloomveil when it lines up. This also makes its Gravy Bones matchup significantly better.
This Calling win, and his superior performance during Road to Nationals week 2 puts Florian into touching distance of Living Legend status. As of the completion of this event, he stands at 936 points, and is likely to leave the format if he picks up any more rated wins.
Battle Hardened Akihabara
Silver Age is a format which technically should not be in effect. The heavy demand from the player base for a low power, budget format forced Legend Story Studios to bring it to the centre stage in numerous Battle Hardened events. Valencia, Hong Kong, and Seattle were all taken down by Chane, which utilised aggression in the form of cards with Rune Gate like Deathly Wail alongside absurdly efficient defences like Reduce to Runechant and Sigil of Suffering.
The Winning Deck was Oldhim. The efficient block value in some of the Mastery Pack Guardian Blocks such as Clash of Arms allows the deck to reliably Fatigue almost anything. Tech cards like Renounce Grandeur shores up the matchup against the meta defining Chane, and pitch stacking a Macho Grande is always effective.
Wrap Up
World Tour Akihabara was a testament of what the post bans CC meta and the ever evolving Silver Age meta can be. We can only imagine what future events will look like going into the release of Compendium of Rathe.
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