[Cleon]

Well,

I think Braxas is so powerful because she bypasses so much of what high level play encompasses - high defense and smart engagement. Raelin is arguably the best figure in the game, very common in competitive play, and Braxas completely gets around her. Her ability works the same against figures with height, which so much of high level play revolves around. Engagement stops her movement but doesn't nullify her ability.

Braxas, in my opinion, needs to stay on the board a long time to fully abuse her. Killing your opponent's hard earned position and taking advantage of disengagements to safety (8 life is amazing) is nasty. I usually slow roll her, because once I take out a certain amount of my opponent's army (obviously depends on the army) and board position, then towards endgame it becomes more and more a free win.

If you rush in with her and see how much she kills, which is fine it's not a bad tactic, then I'd say she's probably an A-. But if you fully abuse her and her longevity, I think she's deservedly an A.

Thinking about the top/high tiers matchups...

I think she does fine into melee. Dragons and figures that can dance around the board have a general edge on melee. Knight's and Orcs have high defense, which doesn't matter to her, and often other melee uses Raelin in high level play (Orcs too), which doesn't do anything against her. She fears fast swarm melee, but in higher level play, that's not as common. Knights can be swarmy but I think she goes pretty even with them. Greenscales are her worst melee matchup imo.

Obviously Uniques and beefy squads are her specialty. I don't think these are that uncommon in competitive play. Don't really need to explain why she's great against them. And certainly the Krav are common.

Braxas + rats might be the Trons' worst matchup. I played Deroche with his army (Trons + Raelin) against mine (Braxas, Hydra, rats, MW) in top 8 RtW and couldn't do anything, and he barely used the hydra. Thats a miserable matchup for Trons+Raelin. Her acid breath just annihilates the dual squad's tempo and army dependencies.

I don't think Phantom Knights pose a problem for her.

4th Mass/10th Reg isn't a favorable matchup but again, I don't think she does that bad into it. 4th/10th advantage but Braxas can kill probably at least 140-175pt. on average. And you have ~290pt. also in your army to combat this remember.

And her worst matchup imo is against armies that have multiple big heroes in them (Q's, dragons, hydra, krug, etc.). But most of the time you only see about one per army, if they have one. More than one isn't that common. She definitely loses the matchup (but isn't useless, she still is a 5/3 8 life with flying figure, she can still do some damage). She doesn't do so hot into very heavy elemental or wyrmling armies, but those armies are extremely rare.

Overall, I think she's a phenomenal figure. Most matchups she does fine in, her bad matchups you won't run into often, and you'll certainly run into matchups where she'll be dominant.

Also just an overlooked perk about her is her acid kills small/medium heroes at 17 or higher, that's not that unlikely. It does happen. And can really screw over bonding melee or just an army that wants raelin against the rest of your army.