Mobula OP, I don't even know for how long I have been using that phrase.
The Meta was the Metajunker and Gat/Mortar Pyramidion with either a Hades/Flak (or Artemis) Pyramidion ally or some kind of Fish as ally. The Hades/Lumberjack/Heavy Flak Galleon, with close range heavy guns on the other side, was also a Meta and often accompanied by a Junker or Pyramidion.
Pyramidion is outgunned by a Mobula and the Junker is more easily disabled than a Mobula, while on top of that the Mobula can control the range against the Junker.
The Mobula is guaranteed to be outmatched by a single strategy that only a few ships can execute: Circling. A Squid has a very easy time flying around a Mobula and even Junkers do well circling it when giving the chance. Most other ships don't have the speed to circle around a ship, while keeping good dps against the enemy without taking to much damage itself. As in a Fish loses arcs of its important heavy gun, Spire loses almost all gun arcs when trying to circle, Pyramidion is too slow and a Galleon succeeding in circling a Mobula is a joke.
Although Hades/double Artemis has proven to be a favourite combination for long range light guns, the real Meta will always be close range brawling.
The invincible Paddling lost to the Brood, who charged in and killed them with Gatling and Mortar (while disabling the heavy guns of the Galleon with the Mercury while charging in), Wolfpack was unstoppable, because double Gatling and double Mortar had more power than anything, Holy Roman Army (Holy and SPQR) had a similar strategy with a Metamidion and a Gat/Carro Pyramidion and the Glowwater Thralls' ambushes always ended in close range, with the rare exception of a long range ship playing bait.
To make brawling easier for themselves, teams often took at least one disable ship to ensure that a ship was either in a vulnerable position or that the other ship was basically alone. Some other disable ships are also build on to just weaken the enemy so they die even quicker. Lumberjack, Carronades and Carrots put the enemy in a bad position and ships like the Gat/Carro Pyramidion weakened with a Gatling, negated vertical escape with the Carronade and was able to put a ship completely out of combat too.
A ship that excelled at disabling in close range was the Goldfish. Hwachas could always disable an entire ship with ease and the Carronade could always destroy a balloon in two shots or less. Because teams wanted to snipe each other all the time, the Goldfish was quite low on the tier list, but now that teams actually engage each other inside 1km, I guess it is arguably the perfect and best support ship.
Hwachafish only gets more spotlight than the Blenderfish now, because people for some reason think Blenderfish is bad, but it can still destroy a balloon within one clip, that is all it ever had to do to win a teamfight and survive every 1v1.
Spires also tend to dominate in brawling, because they have a heavy gun of their own and still have 3 slots for light guns left to kill the enemy with.
Thus the conlcusion on the current Meta:
Long range -> Mobula, with Junker and Galleon being behind on the Meta list. Also known as ships that can perform well in any range, which the Mobula does better than the Junker and Galleon since it doesn't have to turn 180° for close range guns to have arc.
Close range -> Goldfish and something with Gatling/Mortar. Also known as the basic Kill Ship plus Support Ship team.
