I love browsing on the ranking ladderboard to see top players teams. Generally, what you see was only Telluria tanks or variations with heimdall of Frigg.
Today , something different happened. I have found lots of red tanks flanked either by a blue and green hero or by two greens (being frigg in most teams).
Is it the new meta? Is garnet that viable on defense? Mine is 1.1 . I was planning to max mitsuko first but i may max Garnet first seeing how many people are running her.
I only have 3 of the heros shown above - Frigg, Zeline and Finley. Unfortunately, my team will never look like any of these for awhile to come! 
It’s also possible that they have figured something out about how the AI is working with Garnet where possibly she is firing on 1x or 2x most of the time instead of 3x. It would be good to dig further into why the high usage of Red and Garnet within the Top 100!
That make me thing . Why people are still running green tanks in wars? Its going to be really hard to break the telluria dominance. She established , due her being so spread among the users, a green metagame that is not even close to be replaced. Though i wont lie you if i tell you i felt glad to see something different on the ladderboard. Kind of naive of me, but its a matter of faith.
Well, that point of view has completely twisted my naive bubble. I hope it hasnt to do with an strange advantage of an AI bug. I would hate to have my Garnet “nerfed” …
Let be honest! The Top 100 along with their associate alliances do a “lot” of testing. It would not surprise me that they have noticed a trend in the AI for one or more or the ninja heros that the rest of us have not noticed. Mostly because the rest of us have not had the opportunity to either summons all of the ninjas, or, if we have each them, we have not leveled and emblemed them yet to be of any use!
Bare in mind, this is all speculation!
But it is an interesting trend! 
It doesn’t make much sense to refer to the defense teams of “online” players in the global rankings. The important thing is the defense team, which is ranked high even when offline for several hours.
I’m taking notes of the alliances that the defense teams that interested in and checking how long they hold the cup after a few hours. The defense teams featured in this topic do seem to keep around 2650-2700 cups, but they are far from overwhelming.
The question is why now red tanks. Is not one or two, are many accounts. And , something to highlight is the abundance of Garnet and some green heroes, like a pattern. Maybe is a test ? And tomorrow, or the next day the trend finishes
That’s a great stat to track! How are you tracking that info? I probably can figure it out, but I thought I would ask.
The Greens around Garnet I can get! There are some great Greens out there that are devastating to opponents! The use of Garnet is my question. BK is too easy to beat and most have figured out how regardless of the flanks.
Because of zeline and/or francine which are even better than Vela pre-nerf to provent the use of blues against a tank.
Also with respzct to ninjas even if supposedly chance to trigger the SS for each charge you still have 66% that it will fire in one or two charges. In addition multiples ninjas in your team allow the tank to evade tiles and special skills damages…
After Telluria’s nerf, many alliances seemed to be looking for new tanks and flanks, but it seems that “double flanks” have been in fashion since early November. For red tanks, flanks are green, for green tanks flanks are red, and so on. Currently, when using Frigg, which is an overwhelmingly powerful flank, I am using a red tank to prevent my opponent from using green tiles.
If you look carefully, you can still see the defense team with Telluria (green color) as a tank and double red on the flank.
Short answer: No, green tanks are still top in this meta. In late February/early March, however, this may change some for the tip-top leaderboard league. I expect green tanks to fall some and dark tanks to rise some. I would not be surprised to see green and red tanks somewhere around tied, with dark tanks not far behind.
Here are my deeper observations:
I went down the leaderboard a few hours ago and recorded how many of each hero there were, and in which position. I also did this on October 8th, making it twice so far I’ve done this. Green’s still top in tank position, with red in second place.
I counted 31 Tellurias today. On October 8th, there were 55. The Telly population is gradually dropping. 2nd most popular green tank is Heimdall at 7 in tank spots. I hear Frigg could do well as tank, but she’s being used in the flank position instead.
Two months ago, I counted 10 Black Knights–9 in flank spots in 1 as tank. Today I counted 13 Black Knights, 10 as tank and 3 as flank. He’s shifted from flank to tank, probably for lack of faith in Telluria. This also implies to me that we may see Krampus in some leaderboard tank positions. (Anyone else got thoughts on that?)
There were 12 Garnets on the leaderboard at the moment I started counting (9 tank, 2 flank, 1 wing). I expect we’ll see more of her as the ninja tower keeps returning and more players have a chance to draw her. I would not be surprised if she outdoes Gravemaker as the game’s best red hero.
I also don’t think the raid meta cares too much what color your tank is. It matters for wars because people can use tanks of the same color and deplete the enemy’s reds, but in a one-off raid fight, you get no such advantage from using a single color unless you think reds just don’t have the heroes needed to break a tank. If THAT’S the case, it may be better to look at what new tank busters there are rather than which specific tanks are being used if you’re trying to predict a new meta.
So I’ll walk a few steps down that road… I’ll point out that Telluria’s a minion summoner. February’s upcoming monthly looks like a promising minion buster (🧪 Early information on the February 2021 HOTM Uraeus), which should harm Telluria’s leaderboard standing. When you’re on the leaderboard, I expect a lot of the people hunting you have the means to buy whatever new monthlies they want. Said minion buster is yellow and not red, but I don’t think that’s a deal breaker. I don’t know how many people play strictly mono in their attacks, but I think they’re very few.
If this makes the Telly population drop, her place in the leaderboard will likely be replaced with more of whoever’s already on there (and maybe Krampus). Other tanks frequently seen on the leaderboard at the moment are Black Knight, Alfrike, Garnet, Heimdall, and Ursena. As I’ve mentioned before, I expect to see more Garnets. At around March, reds may match greens in their number of leaderboard tanks.
That being said, I expect all-green tank formations to stay more popular in wars. Telluria was an accessible monthly, she’s everywhere, and she’s just tough to beat. Also, I think most leaderboard-level people can buy Uraeus, but I can’t say the same for entire alliances. Uraeus (February monthly) may rewrite the leaderboard, but I’d be surprised if he rewrites the meta for war.
If you want to see what the upcoming meta may be for wars, I think it would be a good idea to look at the accessibility of tanks in each color. Right now, the only new tank on my radar that might shake things up is Krampus–and he’s not easy to draw. I think it would take a new monthly tank to change the most popular war tank color.
Here are the top heroes I’ve recorded and their popularity on the leaderboard, if anyone’s curious:
Take a screenshot of the player and enter the name of the alliance you are looking for in the Alliance Search from the Alliance menu.
I agree with what you’re saying! Telluria is basically being phased out either by nerf or by opposing heros coming out or already out. I feel that Frigg and Krampus are key new tank possibilities! Although, Frigg has shown that she can also serve as a over-powering flank! If a person has has both, Krampus will be tank and Frigg will be flank. If you only have Frigg and no other good tank option, she will be the tank!
Currently, I’m building up my Frigg to be my tank! But if I get Krampus, he will fill that role instead!
Maybe now, but it really is leaning towards Krampus becoming the tank of choice and the blue tanks will reign for the first time since Aegir came along.
Kranmpus won’t become the meta is rarer than BK since available once per year.
Same could be said for Telluria and she was only HotM and she’s still the top tank. There are 33 days in total that the Christmas Portal is open so people have plenty of time to do pulls. Christmas heroes are essential HotM’s if you think about it.
If you want to know what’s meta, the thing to look at is war defenses for top alliances. When you start fighting 20+ of these teams you wish for Tel to come back.
If any single one of those heroes go off with BK buff your whole team dies.
Telluria was a 1% chance each pull in every 5* portals. Krampus is 0.5% only on the christmas event portal.
Anyway telluria is no threat at all since the first nerf and completely useless in offense since the second nerf. Krampus on the other hand is a threat in both defense and offense.
