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The Vintage Mid-Size Tournament Metagame Breakdown – August

Steve catches up on all the summer tournaments and even gives a break down of not only what decks and cards you can expect to see at your next local Vintage tournament, but also details what decks are really ruling the Vintage metagame right now, as well as pointing out what he perceives to be future trends. This is a must-read for all Vintage players.

August


Sweden (49 Players)

8/01/04

Stax

Control Slaver

Stax

Gay/R

4CC

4CC

Tog

Stax


Karlsruhe (44)

8/7/2004

Stax

Stax

GAT

FCG

4CC

Tog

Tendrils

Tendrils


Basel (31)

8/15/2004

Stax

Control Slaver

4CC

Control Slaver

SuperGro

Gay/R

FCG

Survival Mask


Eindhoven (43)

8/22/2004

Gay/R

Gay/R

4CC

Rector

Salvagers (NO LISTING)

U/R Control

Tendrils

Tendrils


Mount Vernon, WA (39)

8/28/04

1) Dragon

2) Dragon

3) Tendrils

4) Mono-Blue

5) Stax

6) Ironworks Combo

7) Turboland

8) Workshop Aggro


The Sweden metagame has been heavily favoring Stax as an archetype and I can’t say as though I blame them. The deck is amazingly quick to lock down an opponent and is usually a good deck choice in the metagames dominated by Fish, Tog, and Control Slaver. The Eindhoven tournament had some odd output, but partially that was blamed on some of their better players being overseas for Gencon.


The Mount Vernon metagame is still young as far as I know, but off to a fantastic start. Really, considering this is a place I’ve never really heard much about, it’s quite a diverse top 8 without anything blatantly odd (except maybe the Ironworks combo) or seemingly subpar. My prediction is that the players will have hated out Dragon by the next month (this just in – in a 54-person tournament, the top 8 has zero Dragon decks. Keep looking for DrSylvan’s September report for more information).


There were 18 Separate archetypes for August, for an average of 6.2 archetypes per tournament Top8.



































































































Deck


Finishes


Count


Percentage of the Field


Stax


(1,1,1,2,3,8,5)


7


17.50%


4CC


(5,6,5,3,3)


5


12.50%


Tendrils


(7,8,7,8,3)


5


12.50%


Gay/R


(4,6,1,2)


4


10%


Control Slaver


(2,2,4)


3


7.50%


Tog


(7,6)


2


5%


FCG


(4,7)


2


5%


Dragon


(1,2)


2


5%


SuperGro


5


1


2.50%


Survival Mask


8


1


2.50%


Rector


4


1


2.50%


Salvagers


5


1


2.50%


U/R Control


6


1


2.50%


GAT


3


1


2.50%


Mono-Blue


4


1


2.50%


Ironworks Combo


6


1


2.50%


Turboland


7


1


2.50%


Workshop Aggro


8


1


2.50%

The top 3 decks of August were Stax, Tendrils, and 4cControl, the two decks that capitalize on Crucible of Worlds the best. Tendrils did really well, perhaps that is in part due to the Top 8 reports for two New England events being unreported or it could be that Tendrils has gained strength with Tog missing from the metagame (being the only control deck that ran Duress in addition to it’s normal eight counterspells). My incomplete data for one of these events were:


8/14/2004

30 Players

In no particular order:

Gay/R

Control Slaver

Control Slaver

TPS

Workshop Aggro

Stax

4cControl

Unknown


Assuming this is correct, the upper placement would remain the same except for that Control Slaver would now be tied with Gay/R and we would have a upper deck breakdown of:


Stax – 8 Top 8’s

4cControl – 6 Top 8’s

Tendrils – 6 Top 8’s

Control Slaver – 5 Top 8’s

Gay/R – 5 Top 8’s



Whenever a deck puts 4 or more decks in the top 8’s for a month, we look to this as the dominant archetypes. As I previously mentioned, Stax and 4cControl (and actually to a lesser extent, Fish should be included in this) are the decks that most make use of Crucible of Worlds, which is having a giant impact on the format (whether it is good, bad, or neither is beside the point). It should also be pointed out that only one of these archetypes even uses Workshops and we’re not even concerning ourselves with the notoriously Workshop-light metagame of New England.


Whenever a deck puts 1 or 2 decks in the top 8’s for a month, it could be summed up in three categories. Category One would be a beginning trend, much like Smmenen’s Top 8 performance with Mono-Blue kick-starting its sudden resurrection throughout Top 8’s (Again, see September’s breakdown when it comes out). Category Two could signify absolutely nothing other than someone played a pet deck and it randomly did well. Finally, Category Three could mean that it is a dying archetype that some players haven’t let go quite yet.


In our monthly breakdown, you really see none of the trend starter (Category One) decks, except for maybe the one Mono-blue deck. You can tell this is a trend because if you look through DrSylvan’s August update, you’ll see almost nobody playing it for months with a sudden appearance at Gencon, then regular appearances throughout various top 8’s.


As far as pet-decks (Category Two) go, I tread on dangerous waters here because implying that someone is playing a pet-deck implies that this person is playing the deck because it’s theirs and ignores any factual evidence of whether it is viable or not. Just the same, on the more admirable side of the coin, this could also signify that this particular player actually made attempts to make an archetype viable again. I would be quick to point out that one of these”sub”-reasons for Category Two is responsible for the oddball Salvager and Ironworks Combo decks.


Dying Archetypes (Category Three) seem to be light this month because out of the list, I can only reasonably see Rector and Survival Mask as being decks that no longer hold their former glory. Since Rector will get”accidentally” hated out by Dragon hate, there really hasn’t been a reason to run this deck recently. I know that personally, myself and some teammates gave the project attention but it was abandoned after preliminary testing.


Totals by Jeek (Missing 1 Salvager deck list and the”mystery” top 8 lists)

84 Force of Will

72 Wasteland

71 Volcanic Island

70 Brainstorm

56 Polluted Delta

55 Island

53 Rack and Ruin

49 Mana Drain

48 Underground Sea

46 Red Elemental Blast

42 Flooded Strand

38 Thirst for Knowledge

36 Goblin Welder

33 Cunning Wish

30 Fire / Ice

29 Crucible of Worlds

29 Tormod’s Crypt

28 Ancestral Recall

27 Duress

27 Time Walk

26 Blue Elemental Blast

25 Blood Moon

25 Mox Sapphire

24 Black Lotus

24 Mishra’s Workshop

24 Sol Ring

23 Mox Ruby

23 Smokestack

23 Tangle Wire

23 Trinisphere

23 Tundra

22 Mox Jet

22 Mox Pearl

21 Gorilla Shaman

21 Mox Emerald

21 Strip Mine

20 Dark Ritual

20 Skeletal Scrying

20 Stifle

20 Swords to Plowshares

18 Null Rod

17 Grim Lavamancer

17 Triskelion

16 Accumulated Knowledge

16 Ancient Tomb

16 Cloud of Faeries

16 Demonic Tutor

16 Mishra’s Factory

16 Spiketail Hatchling

16 Standstill

16 Tropical Island

16 Yawgmoth’s Will

15 Curiosity

15 Exalted Angel

15 Library of Alexandria

15 Mana Crypt

15 Shivan Reef

14 Mana Vault

14 Tinker

13 Fact or Fiction

13 Flametongue Kavu

13 Tolarian Academy

13 Vampiric Tutor

12 Energy Flux

12 Memory Jar

12 Taiga

11 Daze

11 Hydroblast

11 Misdirection

11 Mystical Tutor

11 Wooded Foothills

10 Chalice of the Void

10 City of Brass

10 Coffin Purge

10 Mindslaver

10 Mountain

10 Sundering Titan

10 Tendrils of Agony

10 Viashino Heretic

9 Echoing Truth

9 Swamp

8 Food Chain

8 Goblin Lackey

8 Goblin Piledriver

8 Goblin Recruiter

8 Goblin Ringleader

8 Intuition

8 Quirion Dryad

8 Timetwister

8 Tsabo’s Web

7 Disenchant

7 Goblin Warchief

7 Psychatog

7 Rebuild

6 Balance

6 Chain of Vapor

6 Faerie Conclave

6 Gush

6 Lotus Petal

6 Mind Twist

6 Naturalize

6 Pyrite Spellbomb

6 Skirk Prospector

5 Damping Matrix

5 Darksteel Colossus

5 Deep Analysis

5 Gempalm Incinerator

5 Gilded Drake

5 Hurkyl’s Recall

5 Karn, Silver Golem

5 Necropotence

5 Platinum Angel

5 Time Spiral

5 Wheel of Fortune

5 Windfall

5 Winter Orb

5 Yawgmoth’s Bargain

4 Academy Rector

4 Artifact Mutation

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Cabal Therapy

4 Chill

4 Goblin Matron

4 Goblin Vandal

4 Illusionary Mask

4 Mana Leak

4 Maze of Ith

4 Meddling Mage

4 Mind’s Desire

4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

4 Pyroclasm

4 Seal of Cleansing

4 Shattering Pulse

4 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Survival of the Fittest

4 Volrath’s Shapeshifter

3 Berserk

3 Decree of Justice

3 Earthquake

3 Elvish Spirit Guide

3 Engineered Explosives

3 Gemstone Mine

3 Goblin Sharpshooter

3 Goblin Tinkerer

3 Ground Seal

3 Jester’s Cap

3 Merchant Scroll

3 Metalworker

3 Morphling

3 Night’s Whisper

3 Sleight of Hand

3 Voidmage Prodigy

3 Windswept Heath

2 Bloodstained Mire

2 Defense Grid

2 Duplicant

2 Fastbond

2 Force Spike

2 Forest

2 Geth’s Grimoire

2 Gilded Lotus

2 Meditate

2 Meekstone

2 Nevinyrral’s Disk

2 Oxidize

2 Pentavus

2 Pernicious Deed

2 Pyroblast

2 Quirion Ranger

1 Anger

1 Brain Freeze

1 Counterspell

1 Crumble

1 Ebony Charm

1 Fling

1 Flying Men

1 Frantic Search

1 Future Sight

1 Ghastly Demise

1 Glimmervoid

1 Great Furnace

1 Grim Monolith

1 Memnarch

1 Mox Diamond

1 Phage the Untouchable

1 Razorfin Hunter

1 Regrowth

1 Savannah

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1 Smother

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

1 Starstorm

1 Sylvan Safekeeper

1 The Abyss

1 Transmute Artifact

1 Viridian Zealot

1 Wail of the Nim

1 Zuran Orb