The Long and Winding Road – The Q4 Vintage Metagame Report

Introduction

The Vintage Metagame Report is designed to show you what’s been going on in Vintage tournaments during the past three months. What decks are winning, and which ones are over- or under-performing in the elimination rounds?

If you’re new to the format, this metagame report serves as a useful tool for you to learn about the format; it shows you which decks are popular, which decks are winning, and includes cutting-edge decks and tech from all over the world. If this is the case, and you’re new to these reports and to Vintage, you may want to go ahead and skip down to the header
“The Q4 Vintage Metagame Report”
and check out the data and the decks!

If you’re familiar with these reports from previous StarCityGames.com articles, please read the next section so you can follow the changes I’ve made in how the data is presented.

In either case, the story of the Vintage metagame doesn’t end here; head over to
www.themanadrain.com
or click on the link to the Mana Drain at the top of the page to read more about Vintage, and help shape the format. The Mana Drain is a website dedicated wholly to Vintage, with deck discussions for each major strategy, as well as tournament announcements, tournament reports, and in-depth article discussion. The Mana Drain can help you find a deck you like, tune it, and locate a local tournament, so you can get out there and win some of the Power Nine for yourself.

Changes to the Quarterly Vintage Metagame Report

I’ve spent several months debating over whether I should continue Stephen Menendian work with regards to a Vintage metagame report. Such reports are time-consuming to make and are relatively low on the list of articles that I enjoy writing. Before deciding whether or not to continue with Menendian’s tradition, I had to answer a few questions.

With regard to making a Vintage metagame report, is there sufficient return on the time investment for the Vintage community? Does the work result in a tool that’s useful for Vintage players, and if so, does it help propel and sustain the Vintage format?

I believe the answer to all of these questions is: yes.

However, just because one decides to continue a tradition doesn’t mean that it has to be exactly the same. Thus, given the opportunity to pick up the mantle of this report, I’m going to make a few changes that I believe will increase the value of reviewing the Vintage metagame.

The first, and most significant, change to the report is that I’ve increased the scope to include all tournaments that cut to a Top 8 that have twenty or more players as reported on Morphling. The previous reports included only events with 33 or more players and therefore had six or more rounds of Swiss. The logic in assigning this threshold to tournaments included in the report is that it excludes events where players can go 3-0-2 and therefore can reach the finals and split there, despite only winning five matches.

While there’s sound logic in this decision, I also believe that there’s a lot of value to be gained in reviewing the smaller events and including their data in an overall metagame report. In my report, you’ll see that by changing the cutoff, I was able to include twenty-three tournaments. This decision almost doubles the quantity of Top 8s; the tradeoff for including this data is that while we risk including events where players conspired to get into the elimination rounds without actually playing much Magic, we see a better, clearer picture of the metagame and include those competing in recurring local events, many of which contain some of the best Vintage players (such as those in San Jose or the Meandeck Opens). When almost 50% of the tournaments in a format are excluded, we’re cutting a lot of players, geographic areas, and tournament organizers out of the reporting, which I don’t think is necessary. If we review the data carefully and analyze it, we can eliminate any harmful manipulation inherent in including smaller events while potentially gaining a better understanding of the data.

Why is this important? It lets me get a clearer picture when applying location tags to my data, so that I can construct separate metagame report data on the USA and Europe. One of my chief complaints about the old style of data reporting used was that it drew broad strokes of a “metagame” using global data, but the metagame discussed didn’t really exist as suggested. That is to say, the American and European metagames have had significant differences, some of which are caused by proxy rules used by tournament organizers, others which are just player preference.

By including more events, I can draw conclusions about regional results and look at the metagames globally, but also separately, to look for trends. I can also see if there really is any type of bias introduced into the reporting by including smaller events; is there really a difference when we include five-round events, or are the same decks winning those as well?

You’ll see that I run through the data several times, first including all of it and then refining the location tags, size tags, and analyzing each major deck type in decreasing order of percentage on the report. I’ve also included many example decks in this report, so that you can be clear on what I’m talking about in reference to each deck and can also see examples of what’s actually winning Vintage tournaments during the time period of October 1, 2010 through December 31, 2010, also referred to as Q4.

On to the report itself!

The Q4 Vintage Metagame Report

This first table shows you, by general classification, the 184 decks from the 23 tournaments during Q4, with the decks labeled broadly and presented in
descending order of appearance. (For an Excel spreadsheet of all the data,
download here.
)

Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6 th	7th	8th	Total	Overall %	Winner %	Finalist %	Tags
MUD*	6	4	6	4	6	4	5	8	43	23.37%	26.09%	21.74%	Workshop
Tezz*	1	6	3	3	4	5	5	2	29	15.76%	4.35%	15.22%	Mana Drain
Fish*	Â	3	2	6	4	Â	2	3	20	10.87%	0.00%	6.52%	Null Rod
Gush*	4	2	2	3	1	2	1	Â	15	8.15%	17.39%	13.04%	Gush
Dredge*	1	2	2	3	1	Â	2	2	13	7.07%	4.35%	6.52%	Bazaar
Oath*	3	1	Â	1	3	3	1	1	13	7.07%	13.04%	8.70%	Mana Drain
TPS*	1	1	1	Â	2	3	2	3	13	7.07%	4.35%	4.35%	Dark Ritual
Stax*	2	Â	Â	1	1	Â	1	1	6	3.26%	8.70%	4.35%	Workshop
Beats*	Â	Â	2	Â	Â	1	1	Â	4	2.17%	0.00%	0.00%	Â
Gro	1	Â	1	1	Â	Â	Â	1	4	2.17%	4.35%	2.17%	Gush
Bomberman	1	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	3	1.63%	4.35%	2.17%	Mana Drain
Dark Times	Â	1	1	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	3	1.63%	0.00%	2.17%	Â
Madness	2	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	3	1.63%	8.70%	4.35%	Mana Drain
ANT	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	2	1.09%	0.00%	2.17%	Dark Ritual
Elves	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	1	Â	2	1.09%	0.00%	0.00%	Â
Painter	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	2	1.09%	0.00%	2.17%	Â
The Deck	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	1	Â	Â	2	1.09%	0.00%	0.00%	Mana Drain
Goblins	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	0.54%	0.00%	2.17%	Â
Highlander	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	0.54%	0.00%	0.00%	Â
Landstill	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	1	0.54%	0.00%	0.00%	Â
Remora	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	1	0.54%	0.00%	0.00%	Â
Survival	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	0.54%	4.35%	2.17%	Â
Two-Card Monte	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	1	0.54%	0.00%	0.00%	Workshop
Welder Control	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	1	0.54%	0.00%	0.00%	Â

 

This table paints things broadly; there are decks that we can, and should, subcategorize. The first nine decks in the table have an asterisk and are further subdivided in the table that follows:

Deck Subdivision
Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
Beats – Mono-R	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	Â
Beats – G/W	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â
Beats – Meandeck	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
Dredge – Fatestitcher	Â	1	1	1	Â	Â	1	1
Dredge – Turtle	 1	1	Â	2	1	Â	1	1
Dredge – Sharuum	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
Fish – U/W/(b)	Â	Â	1	2	1	Â	Â	Â
Fish – Noble	Â	3	2	4	3	Â	Â	3
Fish – BUG	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â
Gush – Control	4	1	1	1	1	Â	1	Â
Gush – Combo	Â	1	1	2	Â	1	Â	Â
MUD – Aggro	3	Â	4	3	5	3	4	6
MUD – Espresso Stax	2	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
MUD – Forgemaster	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1
MUD – Prototype Portal	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	1	1	Â
MUD – Stax	Â	Â	1	1	1	Â	Â	1
Oath – Elephant	3	1	Â	1	2	2	Â	1
Oath – Gush	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	1	1	Â
Stax – 5C	1	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	1	Â
Stax – Mono-R	1	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	1
Tezz – Thoughtcast	1	Â	Â	1	1	Â	Â	Â
Tezz – Trygon	Â	3	3	Â	1	2	2	1
Tezz – Cobra	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â
Tezz – Preordain	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	1	2	Â
Tezz – Traditional	Â	1	Â	2	1	1	Â	Â
Tezz – SCV	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	1	Â	1
TPS – Mana Drain	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	1
TPS – Bob	1	Â	Â	Â	1	1	2	1
TPS – Gush	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1
TPS – Traditional	Â	Â	1	Â	1	1	Â	Â

 

The next table is a full table with all twenty-three tournaments, including the entire Top 8.

Metagame Report by Tournament:

Event Info				Finalists		Semi-finalists		Quarter-finalists
Date (2010)	Location	Location Tag	Players	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
10/2	Ann Arbor	USA	23	Gro	Fish – Noble	Highlander	Fish – Noble	Tezz – Trygon	Welder Control	MUD – Aggro	Fish – Noble
10/3	Mol	Europe	28	MUD — Aggro	Tezz – Trygon	Gro	Stax – 5C	TPS – Bob	Tezz – Trygon	Tezz – Cobra	Fish – Noble
10/9	Melbourne	Australia	50	Stax – Mono-R	Tezz – Preordain	Dredge – Sharuum	Oath – Elephant	Stax – Mono-R	Tezz – Preordain	Tezz – Preordain	Dredge – Fatestitcher
10/9	Alcobendas	Europe	148	Gush – Control	Gush – Control	Tezz – Trygon	Gro	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Dredge – Fatestitcher	TPS – Gush
10/10	Madrid	Europe	24	Tezz – Thoughtcast	Gush – Combo	MUD – Stax	Gush – Combo	Gush – Control	TPS – Bob	Stax – 5C	Gro
10/10	Zurich	Europe	38	MUD — Aggro	Dredge – Fatestitcher	Bomberman	Fish – Noble	Fish – Noble	Beats – Mono-R	TPS – Bob	Dredge – Turtle
10/17	La Habra	USA	20	Oath – Elephant	MUD – Aggro	TPS	Fish – Noble	Oath – Elephant	The Deck	Tezz – Trygon	Oath – Elephant
10/23	Badalona	Europe	51	MUD – Forgemaster	Tezz – Traditional	Gush – Control	Fish – Noble	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Fish – BUG	MUD – Aggro
10/30	Bloomsburg	USA	25	Dredge — Turtle	Tezz – Cobra	Gush – Combo	Tezz – Thoughtcast	MUD – Stax	Landstill	Fish – Noble	MUD – Aggro
10/31	Lutzelhouse – French Open	Europe	69	Madness	Tezz – Trygon	Fish – Noble	Dredge – Fatestitcher	Dredge – Turtle	TPS – Mana Drain	Tezz – Trygon	Stax – Mono-R
11/14	Macerata	Europe	28	Survival	Goblins	Aggro – Meandeck Beats	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Gush – Combo	Dredge – Turtle	MUD – Stax
11/14	Durham	USA	35	Gush – Control	Fish – Noble	Dredge – Fatestitcher	Fish – Noble	Oath – Elephant	Tezz – SCV	Beats – G/W	TPS
11/14	Zurich	Europe	45	TPS – Bob	MUD – Aggro	Fish – Noble	MUD – Stax	Fish – Noble	Tezz – Trygon	Two-Card Monte	Fish – Noble
11/20	Floret de Mar	Europe	58	Gush – Control	Oath – Elephant	Madness	Tezz – Traditional	TPS	Gush – Combo	Tezz – Preordain	MUD – Forgemaster
11/20	Blue Bell	USA	63	MUD — Aggro	Dredge – Turtle	Tezz – Trygon	The Deck	MUD – Aggro	Oath – Elephant	TPS – Bob	ANT
11/21	Eindhoven	Europe	39	Madness	Dark Times	MUD – Prototype Portal	MUD – Aggro	Elves	TPS	Bomberman	Tezz – Trygon
11/27	Bloomsburg	USA	22	MUD – Espresso Stax	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Gush – Combo	Tezz – Thoughtcast	Dark Times – Green	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro
11/28	Mol	Europe	22	Stax – 5C	TPS – Mana Drain	Aggro – Mono-R	Dredge – Turtle	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Prototype Portal	MUD – Prototype Portal	Remora
11/28	Darmstadt	Europe	23	Oath – Elephant	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Dredge – Turtle	Fish – U/W	Painter	Gush – Control	MUD – Aggro
12/5	Zurich	Europe	23	Bomberman	Fish – Noble	MUD – Aggro	Fish – U/W	Tezz – Traditional	Oath – Elephant	Oath – Gush	TPS – Bob
12/11	Bloomsburg	USA	26	MUD – Espresso Stax	ANT	Dark Times	Gush – Control	Fish – Noble	Oath – Tyrant	Elves	MUD – Aggro
12/12	Chiba	Asia	41	Oath – Elephant	Tezz – Trygon	Tezz – Trygon	MUD – Aggro	Oath – Gush	Tezz – Traditional	MUD – Aggro	Tezz – SCV
12/29	Hanau	Europe	80	Gush – Control	Painter	MUD – Aggro	Tezz- Traditional	Tezz – SCV	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro

 

That’s a lot of data to review! The decks can be found throughout this article. Let’s dig into this before looking at the data as sorted by some of the tags.

Deck Analysis — MUD

Q4 was dominated by Workshop decks. There’s no other word for it. Look at the data as sorted by the Workshop tag:

Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Total	Overall %	Winner %	Finalist %	Tags
MUD	6	4	6	4	6	4	5	8	43	23.37%	26.09%	21.74%	Workshop
Stax	2	Â	Â	1	1	Â	1	1	6	3.26%	8.70%	4.35%	Workshop
Two-Card Monte	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	1	0.54%	0.00%	0.00%	Workshop

 

Of the tournaments in the report, over 27% of the decks that made the elimination rounds were using Mishra’s Workshop. The vast majority of those were MUD decks, making MUD the most common archetype at 23.4%, almost 50% more than Tezzeret; Workshop prison decks that include other colors are labeled as Stax, which includes Mono-Red Stax and 5C Stax (Five-Color Stax). Two-Card Monte, a Workshop combo deck, also had one Top 8 appearance. I included those with MUD, above, for reference.

We can subdivide MUD into a few major categories; Aggro and Stax are the main two, but versions using Prototype Portal and Kuldotha Forgemaster also popped up in the reporting, as Scars of Mirrodin impacts Mishra Workshop decks.

Workshop decks weren’t just the largest part of the Top 8, they also made up over a third of the winning decks and over a quarter of the finalists. Based on the data alone, it would appear that Workshop decks are a terrific choice if you want to win a Vintage tournament. Workshop decks were overrepresented among the tournament winners as compared to percentage of the Top 8.

While most people are using MUD, it appears that Stax has plenty of life left in it, with two of the six Stax decks in the report reaching the finals and winning. Note that many people have moved away from Mono-Red and 5C Stax due to Lodestone Golem, as there’s inherent tension in playing many resistors but still trying to resolve spells.

Let’s take a deeper look at the MUD decks and how they break down:

Deck Subdivision
Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
MUD – Aggro	3	Â	4	3	5	3	4	6
MUD – Espresso Stax	2	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â
MUD – Forgemaster	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1
MUD – Prototype Portal	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	1	1	Â
MUD – Stax	Â	Â	1	1	1	Â	Â	1

 

MUD Aggro is by far the most popular build:

Sam won Blue Bell with a highly aggressive build, utilizing Sword of Fire and Ice, a full set of Steel Hellkites, as well as Metalworkers and a Memory Jar. This is a high-powered, full-octane take on this strategy, one which even includes Wurmcoil Engine and Tabernacle in the sideboard.

Typical Stax decks have a few extra mana sources and replace some of the aggressive cards with Smokestack and Crucible of Worlds; a subdivision of the MUD — Stax set of decks is Espresso Stax. Espresso Stax is the brainchild of Vinnie Forino, with testing and additional development done by Raf Forino and Nick Detwiler, among others. Both of the wins for this deck in Q4 were at the hands of Allen Fulmer, whose build looks like this:

Espresso Stax builds are distinguishable in their use of Serum Powder, which helps with consistency issues, and finds key cards in the Dredge and mirror match.

The Forgemaster version looks something like this:

You can distinguish these builds easily by use of their namesake card.

Finally, another recent Scars innovation is the use of Prototype Portal. I find this one particularly interesting, as the use of Voltaic Key can really turbo-charge this design.

Deck Analysis — Tezzeret

Tezzeret decks made up the second-highest grouping in Top 8s, coming in at just under 16%. I was surprised to see that Tezzeret decks were only able to win one tournament during Q4, but Tezzeret decks were still the second most popular deck among those in the Top 8:

Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	Total	Overall %	Winner %	Finalist %	Tags
Tezz	1	6	3	3	4	5	5	2	29	15.76%	4.35%	15.22%	Mana Drain

 

Tezz strategies made the finals at a percentage just barely above their percentage of the field. Under fire throughout 2010, Tezz decks finally
fractured into a number of different, distinguishable archetypes during Q4. Trygon Tezz,
Owen Turtenwald winning Champs 2010 deck,
was the most popular, but several others are present:

Deck Subdivision
Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
Tezz – Thoughtcast	1	Â	Â	1	1	Â	Â	Â
Tezz – Trygon	Â	3	3	Â	1	2	2	1
Tezz – Cobra	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â
Tezz – Preordain	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	1	2	Â
Tezz – Traditional	Â	1	Â	2	1	1	Â	Â
Tezz – SCV	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	1	Â	1

 

The Thoughtcast builds are loaded with extra artifacts and use Thoughtcast as a draw-engine replacement for Thirst for Knowledge. Trygon Tezz is built on Owen’s deck, and Cobra Tezz (or Snake City Vault) is the Tezz deck Meandeck used at the TMD Open on Sept 11, 2010. You can see examples of both
in this article,
but here’s another look at Trygon Tezz.

Trygon Tezz is a powerful option for a Tezz player looking to beat Workshops as they were earlier this year, but it’s light on answers to Gush and doesn’t have an answer to Maze of Ith. The fact that Gush, both control and combo variants, as well as full-on combo decks like TPS (The Perfect Storm) and ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) are present in the format in non-insignificant numbers makes picking the right Tezz deck difficult.

Preordain Tezz is an interesting development, wherein Preordain is utilized to smooth out draws, dig for mana, and keep a steady stream of action cards coming in. This one is particularly anti-Gush, anti-Jace:

Mr. Unwin clearly didn’t want Gush to resolve…

 

Do any of these Tezzeret decks have the tools to push Tezzeret back on top of the metagame in 2011?

Deck Analysis — Fish

Noble Fish spiked briefly in 2010, as the format pushed back against Oath and Tezzeret. How did Fish do during Q4?

Deck

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

Total

Overall %

Winner %

Finalist %

Tags

Fish

Â

3

2

6

4

Â

2

3

20

10.87%

0.00%

6.52%

Null Rod

 

Fish was the third-highest representative in Q4 and the last deck to come in above 10%. It didn’t have a very successful time in the Top 8, however, with only 6.5% of the finalists being represented by Fish decks, including none of the winners.

The majority of these decks were Noble Fish, with the breakdown coming in as follows:

Deck Subdivision
Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
Fish – U/W/(b)	Â	Â	1	2	1	Â	Â	Â
Fish — Noble	Â	3	2	4	3	Â	Â	3
Fish — BUG	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	Â

 

One particularly interesting Fish deck caught my eye, using Aether Vial and Chalice of the Void:

Here is another interesting Fish build, which actually uses Gush and Lotus Cobra:

In mid-2009, I posted an unpopular comment on The Mana Drain in which I blasted Fish players for blaming the format (and Time Vault) for their woes, rather than the fact that they’d done nothing to push their deck designs forward. While traditional Noble Fish may be struggling to win, it’s still performing reasonably well, and it appears that some players are taking a cue from Tezzeret decks and are pushing the Fish archetype in new directions, ones that may be able to stay relevant during 2011.

Deck Analysis — Gush

In this section, I’ve grouped together decks which are defined by their use of Gush and are built with it in mind specifically; I have, however, excluded Gro, so that what you find are Gush Control and Gush Combo decks. Gush Control decks are built similarly to Tezzeret in some respects but with more of a combo slant, generally speaking; Gush Combo decks are like Tezzeret decks pushed heavily along the combo axis toward a storm finish, and most aren’t playing Time Vault.

Gush did relatively well in its return to the metagame report:

Deck

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

Total

Overall %

Winner %

Finalist %

Tags

Gush

4

2

2

3

1

2

1

Â

15

8.15%

17.39%

13.04%

Gush

 

As you can see, the deck made up less than 10% of the field among Top 8 decks, but it was far overrepresented among tournament winners and finalists, suggesting that a Gush deck correctly built is a powerful choice, provided you can make the elimination rounds.

Here’s the breakdown on the various Gush decks:

Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
Gush – Control	4	1	1	1	1	Â	1	Â
Gush – Combo	Â	1	1	2	Â	1	Â	Â

 

And, here are examples of each of the two major types. First, Gush Control:

And, Gush Combo:

It didn’t make up a significant percentage of the field, but Gro was present, with players basing lists mostly off Stephen Menendian version:

Deck Analysis: Dredge, Oath of Druids, and TPS

All three of these strategies comprised 7% of the Top 8s during Q4. Let’s look briefly at each.

Dredge

With regard to Dredge, there are three main strategies at play:

Deck

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

Total

Overall %

Winner %

Finalist %

Tags

Dredge

1

2

2

3

1

Â

2

2

13

7.07%

4.35%

6.52%

Bazaar

 

Deck Subdivision
Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8 th
Dredge – Fatestitcher	Â	1	1	1	Â	Â	1	1
Dredge – Turtle	1Â	1	Â	2	1	Â	1	1
Dredge – Sharuum	Â	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â

 

Dredge struggled in the elimination rounds compared to some of the reports earlier in 2010, suggesting that fields are beginning to adapt to the threat of modern Dredge; an increase in the amount of combo seeing play, and Gush decks more capable of racing Dredge than strategies like Trygon Tezz, may also play a role in this.

Here’s an example of Turtle Dredge:

Oath of Druids

Oath had a bit of a resurgence during Q4; while overall the deck made up 7% of the meta, it performed very well once in the elimination rounds:

Deck

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

Total

Overall %

Winner %

Finalist %

Tags

Oath

3

1

Â

1

3

3

1

1

13

7.07%

13.04%

8.70%

Mana Drain

 

Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
Oath – Elephant	3	1	Â	1	2	2	Â	1
Oath — Gush	Â	Â	Â	Â	1	1	1	Â

 

Note that all of the Oath decks that made it past the quarterfinals were in the Elephant Oath style, although not all played Terastodon in the main. Emrakul appears to be gaining popularity as well. Here’s an example of what this strategy looked like at the end of 2010:

TPS

I included a variety of Tendrils decks, including traditional TPS, Bob Tendrils, and one version of TPS that included Gush in an otherwise traditional Bob Tendrils shell.

Deck

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

Total

Overall %

Winner %

Finalist %

Tags

TPS

1

1

1

Â

2

3

2

3

13

7.07%

4.35%

4.35%

Ritual

 

Deck Subdivision
Deck	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th
TPS – Mana Drain	Â	1	Â	Â	Â	1	Â	1
TPS – Bob	1	Â	Â	Â	1	1	2	1
TPS – Gush	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	Â	1
TPS – Traditional	Â	Â	1	Â	1	1	Â	Â

 

While I’m a fan of Bob Tendrils, these strategies as a whole were not all that successful once they made the elimination rounds.

Here’s an example of Bob Tendrils deck:

Regional Analysis

As a reminder, the overall global metagame looked like this:

MUD — 23.4%

Tezz — 15.8%

Fish — 10.9%

Gush — 8.2%

Dredge — 7.1%

Oath — 7.1%

TPS — 7.1%

Here’s how the tournaments in the United States broke out during Q4:

Event Info				Finalists		Semi-finalists		Quarter-finalists
Date (2010)	Location	Location Tag	Players	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
10/2	Ann Arbor	USA	23	Gro	Fish – Noble	Highlander	Fish – Noble	Tezz – Trygon	Welder Control	MUD – Aggro	Fish – Noble
10/17	La Habra	USA	20	Oath – Elephant	MUD – Aggro	TPS	Fish – Noble	Oath – Elephant	The Deck	Tezz – Trygon	Oath – Elephant
10/30	Bloomsburg	USA	25	Dredge – Turtle	Tezz – Cobra	Gush – Combo	Tezz – Thoughtcast	MUD – Stax	Landstill	Fish – Noble	MUD – Aggro
11/14	Durham	USA	35	Gush – Control	Fish – Noble	Dredge – Fatestitcher	Fish – Noble	Oath – Elephant	Tezz – SCV	Beats – G/W	TPS
11/20	Blue Bell	USA	63	MUD – Aggro	Dredge – Turtle	Tezz – Trygon	The Deck	MUD – Aggro	Oath – Elephant	TPS – Bob	ANT
11/27	Bloomsburg	USA	22	MUD – Espresso Stax	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Gush – Combo	Tezz – Thoughtcast	Dark Times – Green	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro
12/11	Bloomsburg	USA	26	MUD – Espresso Stax	ANT	Dark Times	Gush – Control	Fish – Noble	Oath – Tyrant	Elves	MUD – Aggro

 

The Top 8 metagame in the US was as follows:

MUD — 23.2%

Fish — 14.3%

Tezz — 12.5%

Oath — 10.7%

Gush — 7.1%

TPS — 5.4%

Dredge — 5.4%

And, those in Europe:

Event Info				Finalists		Semi-finalists		Quarter-finalists
Date (2010)	Location	Location Tag	Players	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
10/3	Mol	Europe	28	MUD – Aggro	Tezz – Trygon	Gro	Stax – 5C	TPS – Bob	Tezz – Trygon	Tezz – Cobra	Fish – Noble
10/9	Alcobendas	Europe	148	Gush – Control	Gush – Control	Tezz – Trygon	Gro	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Dredge – Fatestitcher	TPS – Gush
10/10	Madrid	Europe	24	Tezz – Thoughtcast	Gush – Combo	MUD – Stax	Gush – Combo	Gush – Control	TPS – Bob	Stax – 5C	Gro
10/10	Zurich	Europe	38	MUD – Aggro	Dredge – Fatestitcher	Bomberman	Fish – Noble	Fish – Noble	Beats – Mono-R	TPS – Bob	Dredge – Turtle
10/23	Badalona	Europe	51	MUD – Forgemaster	Tezz – Traditional	Gush – Control	Fish – UWB	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Fish – BUG	MUD – Aggro
10/31	Lutzelhouse – French Open	Europe	69	Madness	Tezz – Trygon	Fish – Noble	Dredge – Fatestitcher	Dredge – Turtle	TPS – Mana Drain	Tezz – Trygon	Stax – Mono-R
11/14	Macerata	Europe	28	Survival	Goblins	Aggro – Meandeck Beats	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Gush – Combo	Dredge – Turtle	MUD – Stax
11/14	Zurich	Europe	45	TPS – Bob	MUD – Aggro	Fish – Noble	MUD – Stax	Fish – Noble	Tezz – Trygon	Two-Card Monte	Fish – Noble
11/20	Floret de Mar	Europe	58	Gush – Control	Oath – Elephant	Madness	Tezz – Traditional	TPS	Gush – Combo	Tezz – Preordain	MUD – Forgemaster
11/21	Eindhoven	Europe	39	Madness	Dark Times	MUD – Prototype Portal	MUD – Aggro	Elves	TPS	Bomberman	Tezz – Trygon
11/28	Mol	Europe	22	Stax – 5C	TPS – Mana Drain	Aggro – Mono-R	Dredge – Turtle	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Prototype Portal	MUD – Prototype Portal	Remora
11/28	Darmstadt	Europe	23	Oath – Elephant	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	Dredge – Turtle	Fish – U/W	Painter	Gush – Control	MUD – Aggro
12/5	Zurich	Europe	23	Bomberman	Fish – Noble	MUD – Aggro	Fish – U/W	Tezz – Traditional	Oath – Elephant	Oath – Gush	TPS – Bob
12/29	Hanau	Europe	80	Gush – Control	Painter	MUD – Aggro	Tezz- Traditional	Tezz – SCV	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro	MUD – Aggro

 

In Europe, the metagame looked like this:

MUD — 25.0%

Tezz — 13.4%

Fish — 11.6%

Gush — 8.9%

TPS — 8.9%

Dredge — 7.1%

Oath — 3.6%

While mostly similar, we can see some trends; Gush, Tezz, and TPS were more popular in Europe, while Fish and Oath were more popular in the US. Among the less popular decks, ANT shows up twice in the US but not at all in Europe, while Madness shows up three times in Europe but not at all in the US.

The Impact of Small Tournaments

What about the metagame of the small events, compared to the large events?

For the events with less than 32 players, but more than 20, the metagame looked like this:

MUD — 26.1%

Tezz — 11.4%

Fish — 11.4%

Gush — 9.0%

Oath — 8.0%

TPS — 5.7%

Dredge — 4.5%

Looking at the small events only, it looks as if Oath performed well, beating Workshops in two finals, while Gush didn’t perform well. Five of the eleven tournaments in this group were in Europe, while the rest were in the United States.

And, for the events with 33 or more players, the metagame looked like this:

MUD — 20.8%

Tezz — 19.8%

Fish — 10.4%

Dredge — 9.4%

TPS — 8.3%

Gush — 7.3%

Oath — 6.3%

Looking at the large events only, we see a metagame where Tezzeret and MUD are almost equal in metagame percentage among Top 8s. MUD won three of the twelve large events, while Tezzeret won none. In fact, the striking change in the numbers is that Gush drops to 7.3% of the metagame but wins four of the twelve large tournaments, actually out-performing MUD in tournament wins and annihilating the other decks in terms of wins compared to percentage of the field. All that being said, it’s important to note that eight of the twelve tournaments in the large events bracket took place in Europe, where performed far better than it did in the United States.

Conclusion

Gush has had an interesting reentry into the Vintage landscape, but to date, it appears to be a piece of the puzzle; certainly as a percentage of the field making up Top 8s, it wasn’t dominant in Q4. The top dogs of the format remain MUD and Tezzeret, with other strategies (Fish, Dredge, TPS, and Oath) making up healthy portions of the metagame.

Of the articles I’ve written for StarCityGames.com, this one easily took the longest to put together, but it’s packed with information that we don’t normally get on Vintage, and I think the effort was worthwhile.

I hope you agree.

I’d appreciate feedback on this article; should I continue to do these metagame reports every three months, and are there any changes you’d like to see as far as how the data is selected and presented?

Matt Elias

[email protected]

Voltron00x on SCG, TMD, and The Source