So Many Insane Plays – The March/April Vintage Metagame Report

Introduction

Last week I introduced the new metagame, examining what I felt were going to be the top contenders in the New Age of Vintage. This week and next week will be a final retrospective on the closing months of the year-long trek through the second Gush epoch in the Modern Era of Vintage. This week we will look at the Vintage metagame based upon March and April tournament results. Next week we will look at May through June 20.

I intended to conduct the March/April metagame report in Mid-May, but my tournament reports, and my articles setting up my tournament reports (‘Playing With Fire‘ and ‘The Best Unrestricted Spells in Vintage‘) took precedence. When the DCI pushed the button, exploring those changes then took priority. After putting some thought into the matter, I decided that getting the historical record down now was too important.

Future Vintage analysts and present Vintage enthusiasts will need this data for many reasons, some of which I’ll mention and others that will remain unsaid. The past year has been an interesting experiment. The DCI made radical changes to the restricted list last June at a time of unprecedented fresh Vintage printings from Future Sight and the errata of Flash. It was an earthquake of metagame convulsions. I have documented the changes from month to month in this time.

First, I took a look at the tournament results from the last week of June, 2007, the month of July, and the weeks of August, leading up to the Vintage World Championship.

Next, I aggregated the tournament results from the remainder of August, September, and October 2007.

Then, I pulled together the data from November and December and did one comprehensive analysis for the preceding six months.

Finally, I compiled the data for January and February, tracing the metagame from 2007 into the new year.

Today, I will take a look at March and April. Next week I will take a look at May through June 20, including a year-long retrospective.

This data will be an important historical benchmark to measure DCI policy against real-world tournament stats. Moreover, there are many features of this metagame that could be useful reference points. Flash combo is one of the fastest and most broken decks ever to exist in Vintage. Measuring how Flash performed over this period will be useful for future Vintage players to understand how or why broken decks may be checked my tournament realities, or what appropriate responses may be to similar decks in the future. Next week, in particular, we’ll evaluate the restrictions in light of the stats over the preceding year. My hope is that Vintage analysts a decade from now will be able to read through these articles and find useful information.

But the historical record is not the sole reason for these articles. In reviewing the metagame changes from the last year, it is important to notice that despite DCI policy, the metagame shifts are not immediate. Although Brainstorm, Gush, Flash, Merchant Scroll and Ponder will all be restricted come June 20, the metagame will not completely transform overnight. Although Grim-Tutor-fueled Storm Combo was a big loser with the unrestriction of Gush and the restriction of Gifts, it took several months for those decks to filter out of the metagame, as they put up very strong results in July, August, and September of last year. Similarly, the present metagame will not entirely disappear come June 20. It will take time for some decks to filter in and others to filter out. Being able to observe these trends is useful for the active tournament player. There are some surprising results here that I think will prove quite relevant to the New Vintage metagame.

Tournament Results — Raw Data

There was, oddly enough, slightly more tournament activity in this period than the previous two data sets, with 17 tournaments in March and April with 33 players or more, for a total of 136 decklists. Here’s how it broke down (placement in Top 8 is in parentheses):

18 Hulk Flash (1,2,2,2,3,3,5,5,5,5,6,6,7,7,7,8,8,8)
16 Tyrant Oath (1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,3,4,5,5,7,8,8)
12 Ichorid (1,2,2,3,3,5,5,6,6,6,8,8)
11 Storm Combo (Aggregate for TPS, Tropical Storm, etc) (1,2,3,3,4,5,6,7,7,8,8)
9 MUD (4,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,8)
9 Fish (1,3,3,4,4,5,6,6,8)
8 Deez Naughts (1,1,2,2,3,4,6,7)
7 Drain Tendrils (2,3,4,4,5,7,7)
6 Grow (1)
5 Goblins
5 Control Slaver (1,1)
4 Landstill
3 Mono Red Workshop Aggro
3 Empty Gush
2 Bomberman
2 Tog
2 Staxless Stax
2 Masknaught
2 Mono Gifts Control (1)
1 Scroll/AK Drain Storm Combo
1 R/G Beatz
1 Platinum Oath w/ Gush
1 Turboland
1 WR Aggro
1 BW Hate.dec
1 RWG Hater.dec
1 Stax
1 Mono Blue Control (1)
1 Black Belcher Control

(1) Breakdown By Archetype Percentage: Metagame Dispersion!

Hulk Flash – 13%
Tyrant Oath — 12%
Ichorid — 9%
Storm Combo 8%
MUD 7%
Fish 7%
Deez Naughts 6%
Drain Tendrils 5%
Everything else is less than 5%

The Rest of the Field: 33.8%

The field has badly fractured! I suspect that the metagame dispersion is a feature of the metagame dynamics over this two-month period, which I will touch on in a moment. Note that not only is no deck above 15% of the metagame, only two decks made it even above 10% of the field. The fact that no deck even made it to 15% suggests that this is an extremely level and competitively balanced metagame.

(2) Hulk Flash and Tyrant Oath Move Ahead of the Pack

In the January and February data set, there was a extremely unusual situation of a virtual five-way tie. The archetype breakdown looked like this:

12 Oath (11 Tyrant Oath (1,1,1,2,4,5,6,6,7,8,8) + 1 Akroma Oath (5))
12 GAT (2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8)
12 Workshop Aggro – 10 Mono Red (2,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,7)+2 5c Shop Aggro (4,7)
11 Flash Combo (1,1,1,2,3,5,5,5,6,6,7) (note that 1 was Rector Flash)
11 Aggro MUD (1,1,2,2,3,3,4,7,7,8,8)

Oath, GAT, Workshop Aggro, Flash and MUD all had claims to being the best deck. Ultimately, Oath and Flash laid greatest claim to that title because of their skew within Top 8s, both winning three tournaments in that time.

In the March and April metagame, Flash, Oath, and Ichorid surged ahead of the other members of the pack, leaving GAT, and Workshop decks behind.

Here’s how those five decks, that were in a tie in the previous time period, came up this time around:

18 Hulk Flash
16 Tyrant Oath
9 MUD
4 GroAtog (+2 Grow decks)
3 Mono Red Workshop Aggro

(3) The Best Performing Deck is Tyrant Oath, Not Flash

Although Hulk Flash had two more Top 8 appearances than Tyrant Oath, Tyrant Oath clobbered the competition in tournament wins and skews within Top 8s. Tyrant Oath won a massive 35% of all tournaments in March and April, and made it to the finals over 50% of the time. Take a look. The numbers in parenthesis note placement within a Top 8.

18 Hulk Flash (1,2,2,2,3,3,5,5,5,5,6,6,7,7,7,8,8,8)
16 Tyrant Oath (1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,3,4,5,5,7,8,8)

Flash only won one tournament in this time period, and had a heavy skew in the bottom half of Top 8s. In contrast, Tyrant Oath skews not simply to the top half of the Top 8, which it does by a 2-1 margin, but it skews heavily towards first place. Hulk Flash’s average finish was about 5th place. In contrast, Tyrant Oath’s average finish is about 3rd place.

(4) Workshop in Decline

The numbers for both MUD and Aggro Workshop fell precipitously in this period. Mono Red Workshop Aggro fell from 8% of the Top 8 metagame to around 3%. MUD fell from 9% to around 7% of the metagame, but more importantly had no tournament wins in this period. In fact, it never did better than 4th place.

In the previous data set, Workshops were 25% of Top 8s. In this dataset, they were a piddly 11%.

(5) Explanation and Analysis

After looking at the data, I think there are three interrelated metagame trends that need to be understood to make sense of this data.

a) Surge in Workshops in Previous Time Periods
The printing of Thorn of Amethyst in a Grow metagame led to the a huge surge in the number of Workshop decks in the previous two data periods, from November through February. MUD and Workshop Aggro decks moved into the top tier.

b) Rise in Oath as Gushbond Answer to Shop Metagame
The rise in Workshops caused the Grow players to switch to Tyrant Oath. The metagame dispersion, with a near even split between Tyrant Oath and GroAtog in the January and February data can be explained, I think, as the transition period when GroAtog players, including myself, were transitioning to Oath. This time period marks the culmination of that move. Unlike Dryad or even Goyf, Oath can win the game by itself against Workshops. Oath can still be played without too much difficulty under Spheres and Thorns, whereas Grow cannot effectively execute its game plan under Spheres.

(c) Reveillark Makes Its Way into Flash Combo
Patrick Chapin and others discovered that by using Reveillark combo instead of Sliver kill in Hulk Flash, you could improve the Flash deck by being able to win at instant speed, a huge boon with Pact of Negation triggers. You could now counter a spell on their turn with Pact or on your previous turn, and then win in response to the Pact trigger. Although Morningtide had become legal in the previous time period, this combo was unveiled in early March. It contributed significantly to the huge surge in Flash decks. You see, printings really do make a big difference in Vintage.

It was also not simply that Reveillark was printed, but also the fact that Hulk Flash seemed to be a good metagame choice in a field that was high in Oath and Workshops, but low in GAT. I believe that the very low frequency of GAT, essentially negligible, is directly related to the high Flash numbers.

I think all of the ancillary trends are explained by the three essential features of the March-April metagame that I have just articulated. For example, the bump up in Drain Tendrils numbers and Control Slaver numbers in Europe are explained by the previous surge in Workshops. Both Drain Tendrils and Control Slaver have highly favorable Workshop matchups.

(6) Breakdown by Engine Percentage: Gush Still on Top, by Large Margin

Gush Engine (15 of the 16 Tyrant Oath decks, 6 Grow Decks, Turboland, 1 PlatOath, 3 Empty Gush, 1 of the 2 Psychatog lists, 5 of the 9 Storm decks): 23.5%
Workshop Decks (9 MUD, 3 Mono Red Workshop Aggro, 2 Staxless Stax, 1 Stax): 11%
Flash Combo: 13%
Dredge: 9%
Fish 7%
Deez Naughts 6%
Drain Tendrils 5%

When we aggregate the engines, a different picture emerges. Gush decks still make up almost a quarter of the field, it’s just a bare amount of Grow and a lot more Tyrant Oath this time around. There are roughly the same number of Tropical Storm and Empty Gush lists.

Workshop took a huge hit, though.

Take a look at the January and February engine percentage for comparison:

32 Workshop Decks (25%)
32 Gush decks (25%)
11 Flash Combo (8.6%)
9 Ichorid (7%)

The biggest change was a small surge in Flash and Ichorid percentages and large drop in Workshop percentages, which mirrors the analysis in point (5) above.

Closing Thoughts

I think one of the surprises, for me at least, is the performance of Fish in this time period. I think the fact that Fish proves to be such a resilient metagame player even in such dire metagame circumstances suggests that I may have underestimated Fish in my metagame analysis last week. I think it will be a serious contender in the new metagame, a solid upper tier 1.5 deck, or perhaps even better.

I think it is also critical to see how important printings have been to these basic metagame dynamics. Printings inform the basic shell of the metagame, even as much as restrictions or unrestrictions. Thorn of Amethyst, Reveillark, and Painter’s Servant all become benchmarks for making sense of the last six months.

Although we know how this particular Flash and Oath metagame dynamic resolves — it is completely transformed by the printing and use of Painter’s Servant from Shadowmoor and many Red Elemental Blasts aimed at Flashes and Tidespout Tyrants, it is still a story that needs to be told from the data. That is what we will do next week when we break down the final data set for the second Gushbond period of the Modern Vintage Era.

Until then…

Stephen Menendian

Appendix

1) Madrid, Spain (45 players)
March 1, 2008

1) Goth-Style Control Slaver
2) Deez’s Naughts
3) Platinum Oath w/ Gushbond
4) Drain Tendrils
5) Drain Tendrils
6) Ichorid
7) Turboland (Gush Combo deck)
8) Mono Blue Fish

2) New Berlin, WI (37 Players)
March 3, 2008

1) Tyrant Oath
2) Scroll / AK TPS
3) Flash
4) Tyrant Oath
5) Mono Red Workshop Aggro
6) Deez Naughts
7) Deez Naughts
8) The Tropical Storm (Gush Storm)

3) Rome, Italy (40 players)
March 9, 2008

1) UW Fish
2) Staxless Stax
3) Tyrant Oath w/o Gush
4) MUD
5) MUD
6) Threshold/Grow
7) Drain Tendrils
8) Landstill

4) Bilbao, Spain (38 players)
March 15, 2008

1) Deez’ Naughts
2) Hulk Flash
3) Drain Tendrils
4) Mono Red Workshop
5) Tropical Storm Combo
6) Aggro MUD
7) Aggro MUD
8) Hulk Flash

5) San Juan, Philippines (45 players)
March 16, 2008

1) Threshold/Grow
2) Tyrant Oath variant
3) Fish
4) Fish
5) Hulk Flash
6) Masknaught
7) WR Aggro
8) Tendrils Storm Combo

6) Quebec, Canada (42 players)
March 22, 2008

1) Control Slaver
2) Hulk Flash
3) Ichorid
4) BW Hate.dec
5) Goblins
6) Control Slaver
7) Hulk Flash
8) Landstill

7) Albacete, Spain (41 players)
March 29, 2008

1) Hulk Flash
2) Tyrant Oath
3) Deez’s Naughts
4) Deez’s Naughts
5) Empty Gush
6) Ichorid
7) Mono Gifts Control
8) GAT

8) Badalona, Spain (78 players)
March 29, 2008

1) Tyrant Oath
2) Ichorid
3) Grow
4) Bomberman
5) Aggro MUD
6) Empty Gush (without Empty)
7) Landstill
8) Mana Ichorid

9) Fall River, MA (48 players)
March 28, 2008

1) Tyrant oath
2) UR Stax
3) Flash
4) 4c Tog
5) Control Slaver
6) UWB Fish
7) Tyrant Oath
8) Flash

10) Bilbao, Spain (38 players)
April 5, 2008

1) Manaless Ichorid
2) The Perfect Storm
3) UW Fish
4) MUD
5) Manaless Ichorid
6) Hulk Flash
7) Bob The Perfect Storm
8) Tyrant Oath

11) Madrid, Spain (38 players)
April 5, 2008

1) Tyrant Oath
2) Drain Tendrils
3) Ichorid
4) MUD
5) Hulk Flash
6) Deez’ Naughts
7) Drain Tendrils
8) Goblins

12) Granada, Spain (54 players)
April 5, 2008

1) Deez’ Naughts
2) Tyrant Oath
3) The Perfect Storm
4) Drain Tendrils
5) Tyrant Oath
6) MUD
7) Gush Tendrils (Tropical Storm)
8) MUD

13) Blue Bell, PA (35 players)
April 5, 2008

1) Doomsday Tropical Storm Combo
2) Hulk Flash
3) Goblins
4) Tropical Storm Combo
5) Hulk Flash
6) Hulk Flash
7) R/G Beatz
8) Hulk Flash

14) Milwaukee, WI (45 players)
April 6, 2008

1) Tyrant Oath
2) Goblins
3) Bomberman
4) Fish
5) Mana Ichorid
6) Tog
7) Flash
8) Empty Gush

15) Alcoy, Spain (45 players)
April 13, 2008

1) Bob Mono Gifts Control
2) Control Black Belcher
3) Mono Red Workshop Aggro
4) UB Masknaught- Deez’s Naughts hybrid
5) UWB Fish
6) Ichorid
7) Landstill
8) Goblins

16) Salem, MA (39 players)
April 13, 2008

1) Mono Blue Control
2) Ichorid
3) Tropical Storm Combo
4) Control Slaver
5) Hulk Flash
6) UB Storm Combo
7) Staxless Stax
8) Ichorid

17) East Wareham, MA (35 players)
April 26, 2008

1) Tyrant Oath
2) Grow(Atog)
3) Grow(Atog)
4) RWG Hater.dec
5) Tyrant Oath
6) UWB Fish
7) Hulk Flash
8) Tyrant Oath