The Conquest Format

The Top 8 of the Atlas Conquest League will be played in Conquest, a multi-deck format popularized by competitive Hearthstone. Instead of settling a round with one deck in a best-of-three, each player brings three decks and has to win with all three to take the round.

The point of the format is simple: it stops one overpowered deck from carrying a player through a bracket. Your best deck can only win once. After that, it retires, and you have to close the round with the other two.

The Rules

1. Three decks, three commanders, locked for the whole Top 8

Every player registers three decks, and each must have a different commander. You cannot have two Soultaker Viessa decks, even if the lists are completely different.

Your three decks are locked for the entire Top 8 — quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. There is no sideboarding, no swapping between rounds, and no adjusting after you see who you’re up against. Build your lineup for the whole field, not for one opponent.

2. Single elimination, seeded by Swiss

The Top 8 is a single-elimination bracket seeded by the final standings after the League’s Swiss rounds. First seed plays eighth, second plays seventh, and so on. Your Swiss finish buys you seeding, and seeding buys you choice in game one — more on that below.

3. Win with all three decks

A round is won by the first player to win a game with each of their three decks. After every game, the winner retires the deck they just won with — it is out of the round permanently and cannot be played again in that round. The loser keeps all of their decks, including the one that just lost.

Both players then choose a new deck for the next game. Because each player must bank three wins, a round runs a minimum of three games and a maximum of five.

4. Game one: simultaneous selection

For the first game of a round, both players select a deck simultaneously — neither knows what the other is bringing. The higher-seeded player then chooses the map and who goes first.

5. Later games: winner reveals, loser counter-picks

For every game after the first:

1. The winner of the previous game announces their commander first, choosing from their decks that haven’t been retired.
2. The loser then picks their commander with that information in hand — any of their decks, including one that has already lost.
3. The loser also chooses the map and who goes first.

The map must be different from the map just played. Beyond that there’s no restriction — unlike the Swiss rounds, maps are free to come back around later in the round. Dunes → Snowmelt → Dunes is perfectly legal.

This is the balancing mechanism of the format. Winning a game costs you your best deck and hands the initiative to your opponent; losing a game gives you the counter-pick, the map, and turn order.

An Example Round

Let’s walk a quarterfinal between Ana (2nd seed) and Ben (7th seed).

Ana’s lineup: Jagris, the Huntsman Beast Midrange · Elyse of the Order Human Tokens · Soultaker Viessa Sacrifice

Ben’s lineup: Rosirix the Witch Spellcaster Aggro · Macks Speed Lightning Aggro · Lazim, Thief of Gods Chant Ramp

Game 1 — Ana (Jagris) def. Ben (Macks Speed)

Both players lock a deck blind. Ana brings Jagris, Ben brings Macks Speed. As the higher seed, Ana chooses Dunes and elects to go first.

Ana takes it. She retires Jagris — her best deck is banked, and she’ll never cast Stampede again this round. Ana 1–0.

Game 2 — Ben (Rosirix) def. Ana (Viessa)

Ana won, so she announces first. Down to Elyse and Viessa, she picks Viessa.

Ben now knows exactly what he’s facing before he chooses. He answers with Rosirix, takes Snowmelt (it can’t be Dunes again immediately), and elects to go first to support his aggressive draw.

Ben wins and retires Rosirix. Note that Ana keeps Viessa — losing costs her nothing but the game. 1–1.

Game 3 — Ana (Elyse) def. Ben (Lazim)

Ben announces first from Macks Speed and Lazim. He picks Lazim, betting the ramp deck can go over the top of whatever Ana has left.

Ana counter-picks Elyse, whose Human Tokens deck applies pressure long before Lazim assembles Chant of the Old Ones. She chooses the map — it only has to differ from Snowmelt, so she goes back to Dunes — and elects to go first.

Ana wins and retires Elyse. Ana 2–1. She is now one win away, but she only has Viessa left, and Ben knows it.

Game 4 — Ben (Macks Speed) def. Ana (Viessa)

Ana announces first. With only one deck remaining, this is a formality: Viessa.

Ben picks Macks Speed, takes Snowmelt, and goes first. He wins and retires Macks Speed. 2–2.

Game 5 — Ana (Viessa) def. Ben (Lazim)

Both players have exactly one deck left: Viessa against Lazim. There are no choices left to make except Ana’s — as the loser of game 4, she picks the map (anything but Snowmelt; she takes Tropics) and elects to go first.

Ana wins. Having taken a game with Jagris, Elyse, and Viessa, she wins the round 3–2 and advances to the semifinals — with the same three decks, because nothing is ever swapped.

Strategy

Conquest rewards a different kind of preparation than a normal bracket. A few things to keep in mind:

Build a lineup, not three good decks. The single most common mistake is registering your three favorite decks and discovering they all lose to the same thing. Three strong lists that share a weakness are a worse lineup than two strong lists and one deck that specifically covers the hole. Ask what beats deck one, and make sure decks two and three don’t fold to it.

Your best deck only wins once. Whatever your strongest, most-likely-to-win deck is, it retires the moment it does its job. That means the round is usually decided by your third-best deck, not your first. Spend your tuning time there — the deck you’re least confident in is the one you’ll be holding at 2–2.

Losing buys you information and choice. This is the format’s central tension. The winner reveals first, the loser counter-picks and takes the map and turn order. Dropping a game is not the disaster it looks like — you go into the next one knowing your opponent’s commander before you choose yours.

Count your opponent’s remaining decks. Retired decks are gone permanently. By game three you often know exactly which two commanders your opponent has left, which makes the last two games far more predictable than the first. Play the whole round forward from game one: if a given deck of yours is dead weight against both of two likely finishers, it needs to win early or not at all.

Game one is a coin flip you should plan for. Simultaneous selection means no reads. Higher seeds get the map and turn order, which is meaningful but not a counter-pick. Many players lead with their most flexible deck rather than their most specialized one — a deck that’s fine against everything is better blind than a deck that’s excellent against half the field.

Map choice is a real lever. The only constraint is that you can’t replay the map you just played. If one of your decks is notably better on Tropics, remember you control the map every time you’re coming off a loss — and that a map can come back later in the round.

Good luck in the Top 8. See you on the Battlefield!