Three main topics this week. First, the metagame is beginning to even out — just in time for Planar Chaos to shake things up. Second, I’m turning Mythbusters loose on the myth of the local metagame at PTQs. Third, I’ll talk about my experiences with Online Extended, including G/W Slide, Ben Bleiweiss U/G Mindslaver deck, and other decks.
First, the metagame breakdown. The last few weeks have clearly defined the Tier 1 and Tier Other decks. That is moderately interesting information — considering that the format is about to change. Still, Planar Chaos does not appear to have anything fast enough or broken enough to redefine the metagame. Instead, Planar Chaos should squeeze into certain decks, and provide some minor tweaks here and there.
I have compiled a spreadsheet with all the Top 8 decklists from 19 PTQs so far. Some are only partial lists, but I have 134 decklists to work with. Here are the totals so far.
| – | Total | % |
| Affinity | 18 | 13% |
| UW Tron | 17 | 13% |
| Flow Rock | 13 | 10% |
| Aggro Loam | 12 | 9% |
| Trinket Mage | 10 | 7% |
| Boros | 9 | 7% |
| Scepter Chant | 7 | 5% |
| TEPS | 7 | 5% |
| GW | 6 | 4% |
| Opposition | 4 | 3% |
| U/W Con. | 4 | 3% |
| Zoo | 4 | 3% |
| Gifts Rock | 3 | 2% |
| Tooth | 3 | 2% |
| Slide | 2 | 1% |
| GB beats | 2 | 1% |
| Ichorid | 2 | 1% |
| GW Trinket | 2 | 1% |
| CAL | 1 | 1% |
| Other | 8 | 6% |
The metagame looks quite varied, but it is beginning to settle down. Here are the decks, broken down by the month the PTQ appeared in. Note that a lot of archetypes made a Top 8 appearance or two last month, but have disappeared since. Today, we have four clearly Tier 1 decks, and another hanging out at Tier 2. A few others are within striking range of Tier 1, but they are not there.
Here’s the data:
| January | February | |||
| Affinity | 8 | 11% | 10 | 17% |
| UW Tron | 9 | 12% | 8 | 13% |
| Aggro Loam | 4 | 5% | 8 | 13% |
| Flow Rock | 6 | 8% | 7 | 12% |
| Boros | 4 | 5% | 5 | 8% |
| Trinket Mage | 7 | 9% | 3 | 5% |
| GW | 3 | 4% | 3 | 5% |
| Rock / Gifts Rock | 0 | 0% | 3 | 5% |
| Opposition | 1 | 1% | 3 | 5% |
| Scepter Chant | 5 | 7% | 2 | 3% |
| TEPS | 6 | 8% | 1 | 2% |
| Slide | 1 | 1% | 1 | 2% |
| U/W Con. | 4 | 5% | 0 | 0% |
| Tooth | 3 | 4% | 0 | 0% |
| Zoo | 4 | 5% | 0 | 0% |
| GB beats | 2 | 3% | 0 | 0% |
| Ichorid | 2 | 3% | 0 | 0% |
| GW Trinket | 2 | 3% | 0 | 0% |
| CAL | 1 | 1% | 0 | 0% |
| Other | 2 | 3% | 6 | 10% |
Affinity is holding on as the best aggro deck. This is partly because decks with four Pernicious Deeds have pretty much vanished, partly because it is not so vulnerable to Engineered Explosives and Chalice of the Void, and partly because it is damn fast and consistent. What did I say early in the season? Something like “Affinity won’t do well in the paper world”? I’m eating my words on that one.
I broke down Affinity decklists two articles ago, so if you want a gauntlet build, look there. Affinity is pretty well standardized.
The best control deck in the format is clearly a U/W Tron deck. The various U/W Tron decks all run Urzatron; Academy Ruins and Mindslaver; Crucible of Worlds; Decree of Justice; Condescend; and Remand. Beyond that, builds vary. Some prefer Solemn Simulacrum, which makes others “vomit in my mouth.” Sundering Titan makes appearances, as does Platinum Angel, and either Triskelion or Razormane Masticore. What is not in doubt is that Gifts Ungiven is the glue that holds all this together. As one online opponent put it, “No deck abuses Gifts as well as U/W Tron.”
I could write a breakdown, but I’m not an expert on the deck. Others are, and have written about the deck — see Zac Hill article if you are too cheap to buy premium, or Richard Feldman description, or Kenji Tsumura take on the deck here.
Third among the Tier 1 decks is Aggro Loam. Aggro Loam had only a few Top 8 appearances in January, but it’s tied with U/W Tron (so far) in February. Aggro Loam has two main win conditions: Terravore and Seismic Assault. It has two card drawing engines: Dark Confidant and cycling lands (powered by Life from the Loam.) It also has one real board wrecker in Devastating Dreams.
Right now, the most common Aggro Loam build seems to be the one that took first and second at the Los Angeles PTQ on February 3rd.
The fourth Tier 1 deck is the version of the classic Rock deck that splashes Red for Destructive Flow. Flow Rock has been appearing in Top 8s fairly consistently. What is fairly amazing is that Flow Rock is everywhere in PTQs, while Affinity and Tron decks continue to do well, despite having almost no basic lands.
The odd man out here is Boros. I won’t really say whether Boros is the bottom of Tier 1, top of Tier 2, or standing at Tier 1.5. It doesn’t really matter — Boros is clearly the beatdown deck for people that won’t play Affinity. I don’t know what the optimum build is — Mike Flores says that the good builds are playing Jotun Grunt over Molten Rain. On the other hand, I watched Boros beat U/W Tron in the finals of the Madison PTQ mainly because Molten Rain took out the Tron player’s second White source and the Tron player died to beats with Wrath of God in hand. I don’t think Grunt is better than Molten Rain. Then again, I don’t even know what the proper splash color is. Most decks splash green for Armadillo Cloak, Ancient Grudge and Krosan Grip, but I have also seen versions splashing black for Vindicate, Duress, and Cabal Therapy. That might be better.
A couple decks seem to be on the rise. Opposition has proven itself to be a real deck, although not necessarily a highly consistent one. U/W Slide has also been posting some results, and I like the deck in the somewhat limited playtesting I have done with it. Other G/W builds have been doing well, and G/W/r has been my best online deck.
A few classic archetypes are definitely on the decline. TEPS seems to be in trouble. I suspect that’s because too many decks have figured out how to beat it (e.g. Chalice of the Void for two.) Scepter Chant is also posting far worse numbers, possibly because most control players have shifted to U/W Tron. Tron is better at abusing Gifts. Another problem: everyone has Ancient Grudge (or “Ancient Grunt,” as one player listed it on his decklist.) Between Ancient Grudge and Krosan Grip, it is harder to keep an Isochron Scepter in play. (Teferi and Scepter with Chant is still good, however — but that is a three-card combo.)
I don’t really see Planar Chaos changing this all that much — but Grand Prix: Dallas may prove me wrong. At most, I foresee people trying Psychatog again, to see whether Damnation can help.
“Your Local Metagame”
I don’t know how many times I have read the phrase “adjust the sideboard to your local metagame” or its equivalent. Personally, I think this is a crock — or maybe it just indicates that the writer has not taken enough time to work out sideboarding strategies. (Writers, if you can’t provide a sideboard, a better approach is to list a dozen cards, explain what they are good against, and let the reader take it from there.)
Now metagames may exist in local play-groups, especially if some players do not own all that many cards. Some mages may bring the same decks week after week. That may also be true at some FNMs, in stores with a regular, and small, clientele. If you play in such situations, you may be able to predict what a significant portion of the decks you may meet, and build you sideboard accordingly.
In my experience, this just isn’t reasonable with Pro Tour Qualifiers.
First of all, Pro Tour Qualifiers bring in people from far and wide. Even if you know that all your local players play certain decks, a PTQ is going to have a lot more players, from a much wider area. The odds are that you will not know all the players that will attend.
Second, a lot of players do not play a favorite deck in every possible format. The majority of people coming to a PTQ play netdecks. I have reviewed decklists from local PTQs and from PTQs at major events, like Worlds and GenCon. I consistently see three quarters of the field playing netdecks. Netdecks define the metagame at larger events, like PTQs.
Look, I really don’t want to reopen the debate about netdecks versus original deck design. Yes, the best way to qualify is to play the best deck in the format. Yes, it morally reprehensible to play decks you did not design and tune. Both sides are right. Hell, sometimes I make pizza from scratch (flour, water, yeast, tomato sauce, basil, oregano….), and sometimes I call and have one delivered. Netdeck <> homebuilt or homemade <> delivery. Who cares? Let it go.
The simple fact is that the majority of players will arrive at the PTQ with a deck that either made Top 8 in the last couple weeks, or a deck that some writer has proclaimed good in a recent article.
This does not mean that people will not bring home brews. Adrian Sullivan is a local player, and I expect him to bring something new and unexpected to major Constructed events like States and Regionals. Sometimes he wins with a new archetype (e.g. Annex Wildfire, Baron Harkonnen), and sometimes he does well with a deck that no one else can win with (Jeska, Warrior Adept LD) — mainly because he playtests it endlessly.
Brian Kowal is also local, and sometimes he and his cohort arrive at PTQs, States and Regionals with unknown designs. They are hard to categorize — most frequently they have been five-color toolbox decks, but not always, and the toolbox decks were neither similar nor predictable.
The point, of course, is that you probably won’t know what Adrian’s or Brian’s deck is going to be ahead of time. (Okay, if, for some reason, you knew exactly what they were going to play, and you were not going to play it yourself, and you expected to meet those decks (not unreasonable if you expect to meet in the Top 8), and you couldn’t beat their deck without help — if all four of those “ifs” apply – then you might want to sideboard a few cards for that match-up.) For everything else, and for everybody else, sideboards will be built to beat the netdecks.
My Online Adventures
I’m playing a lot of online Extended, but I’m still reserving my online budget for Standard and Limited. I’m also trying to target my Extended purchases to the cards that will survive the 2008 rotation — and I’m accumulating cards far too slowly. Whatever — it’s only relevant because I’m still building according to what I have, not what’s best.
I wanted to play U/W Trinket Tron. I had three Hallowed Fountains, the Tron, the trinket Mages. I did not have the Chrome Moxen, Pithing Needle, Engineered Explosives, Decrees of Justice – and if you think Exalted Angels and Meddling Mages are important to those decks, there’s two more cards I don’t own. That’s out, at least for now.
I have built Rock variants, but I don’t have Deeds, and I don’t have Destructive Flows. G/B Beats with Dark Confidant and some equipment is nothing special, even with Duress and Cabal Therapy.
When Ben Bleiweiss posted his articles on his U/G Mindslaver deck, I did a quick card count. I had most of the deck — I only had two Mindslavers, two Oblivion Stones, and no Fact or Fictions — but I do have Gifts Ungiven. With Gifts Ungiven, I have a better tutor — but I have the potential to win up with what I want in the graveyard. I added a Genesis and Eternal Witness to solve that problem. I had also been running a second Academy Ruins, but moved it to the sideboard for a Living Wish.
One problem with Gifts was that I did not have all that many useful “win the game” Gifts targets. Sundering Titan was a mixed blessing, and it did very little to Tron decks. Triskelion was too slow. Mindslaver was only useful if I had the lock. To add a fourth threat to the Gifts package, I added the two copies of Tooth and Nail I owned to the deck. With Tooth, I also added a Kiki-Jiki and Sky Hussar for the combo kill option.
Here’s the decklist, as I am currently playing it:
Creatures (14)
- 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- 1 Genesis
- 2 Eternal Witness
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 1 Indrik Stomphowler
- 1 Sky Hussar
Lands (23)
Spells (23)
The Demonfire has proven marginal — I have never won a game with it, but have killed some problem creatures. The Red splash has proven useful primarily for Dwarven Blastminer (a house against opposing Tron decks, if I find him) and Ancient Grudge. Dwarven Blastminer is about this deck’s only answer to TEPS, although Stifle or Chalice of the Void would be other possible answers. Opposition is another bad matchup that Chalice would help.
I had been playing Search for Tomorrows, but I hadn’t been all that impressed. It was a second card to “play” turn 1, and it did buy a shuffle late game, when Top wanted one, but Sakura-Tribe Elder was just better — as was the third Gifts. The multiple Wall of Roots are critical to beating Affinity and Boros.
I kept track for a while, and went something like 13 and 7 in the Tournament Practice room. The only deck that completely owned me was TEPS and, surprisingly, Dirty Kitty. In short, the deck seems okay, but I would recommend splashing Black over Red, to allow you to play Pernicious Deed and Cabal Therapy. Another option might be to add Birds of Paradise, and maybe a Trinket Mages replacing a Top or two.
Personally, I got bored with the Tooth for Kiki plus Hussar combo. Yes, it generally wins. After I had done it a dozen times, though, I wanted something new. I decided to try G/W.
Since the most common deck online now seems to be U/W Tron, with U/B Tog decks making a run at it, I decided to skew G/W to attack the manabases of those decks. I wanted to run four maindeck Ghost Quarters, and splash Red for Ancient Grudges and Dwarven Blastminers. Here’s the decklist I have been playing:
G/W/r Beats
4 Windswept Heath
4 Temple Garden
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Flooded Strand
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Loxodon Hierarch
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Phantom Centaur
3 Ohran Viper
2 Viridian Zealot
2 Armadillo Cloak
2 Call of the Herd
2 Worship
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Umezawa’s Jitte
Sideboard
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Dwarven Blastminer
3 Krosan Grip
2 Ravenous Baloth
1 Razormane Masticore
2 Tormod’s Crypt / Loaming Shaman
1 Worship
I treated myself to a playset of Chalices, since I wanted an answer to Opposition and TEPS. I did smash the one TEPS deck I have faced so far, but the U/G Opposition decks are far more common. Chalice for one and two help a lot against these decks.
This deck is doing quite well. One reason is that I forced myself not to add Living Wish and Eternal Witness and other cards that would slow the deck down. For me, that’s still a battle — Living Wish is one of my all time favorite cards.
Phantom Centaur is really good — especially with either a Sword or an Armadillo Cloak. With Psychatog reappearing in the format, it is getting a bit better. Too bad it isn’t immune to Repeal.
Unlike the first deck, this one probably could well be competitive in a PTQ. It has enough land destruction to oppose the Tron decks, and enough life gain (and Worship) to outrun Boros. It is okay against Affinity — but I have lost to Affinity when it gets the god draws. It is hard to beat Affinity when it is on the play and gets the Plating / Ornithopter turn 4 kill. I took a break a minute ago to play the deck, and that’s what happened. Games 1 and 3 I lost on his turn 4 — both times with Worship and a land in hand and a Troll Ascetic on the board.
I will be playing this, even after Planar Chaos becomes legal. I’m not seeing Planar Chaos changing the metagame all that much.
PRJ
Pete {dot} jahn {at} Verizon {dot} com