This week Pip produces the usual numbers, takes a look at the Vintage Watch List, and then riffs about a resurgence of Psychatog decks before analyzing some of the more lamentable decks seen at one of the GenCon Vintage events. If you are looking to stay on top of the Vintage metagame or play in the upcoming StarCityGames.com “Power Nine” tournaments, this article is a must read.
In the latest edition, Pip brings you the August Metagame Breakdown, the perceived fallout from the Banned and Restricted List changes, and the skinny on which cards might get restricted next!
So the DCI blew up the world at midnight Eastern time September 1st by splitting the Type One and Type 1.5 Banned and Restricted lists. Type One players have been clamoring for this ever since the perceived misdeed of the Earthcraft and Entomb restrictions (which has long been blamed on 1.5, though I’ve heard 1.5 players deny that it made any sense for them, either). If I recall correctly, some of the leading 1.5 players actually didn’t want a split for fear of list mismanagement, because their format is a small niche even compared to Type One. But let me explain to you here and now why this was an amazingly good decision for the DCI to make.
You cannot be fully prepared for the Type 1 Championship at GenCon this weekend without having read this article. Pip outlines all the lastest top 8 decks, tells you how deck builds have changed in the past month, and warns that you better prepared to play against Crucible of Worlds or you will be sorry.
One of the things that I’ve noticed over the course of my time reporting on Type One is The Metafight. In Type One, for so long, so many metagames were so dramatically bad that results from them could be dismissed as products of ignorance and underdevelopment. This reflex was most useful when most everyone truly did suck a few years ago, and it was important to have an intellectual shortcut available that could make more people pay attention to serious playtesting results from the Paragons than tournaments. This reflexive dismissal has outlived its usefulness.
Recently, there have been a few different decks to catch my attention, trying to pass themselves off as new archetypes despite being just slightly different from already existing or well-known decks. So today, I’m going to pull a JP Meyer and tell everyone that they’re wrong, and I’m right. (JP quotes sprinkled in to make sure you at least”heh” a couple of times.)
The Type 1 supercomputer is back with all the summertime number crunching you can shake a stick at, including June’s WTF of the month, the Banned and Restricted Watch List, and so much more.
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so I’ve been building up a collection of nifty data for you, including an analysis of the probable usefulness of Misdirection in Type I.
Another diverse, interesting month is behind us, and hopefully a good sign for the summer. If you want to see the most up-to-date information on the Type I metagame before heading into the summer convention season (which officially starts at Origins this weekend), this is the place.
A continuing look at the trends of Type I, and some observations about what to expect for the Summer Convention Season.
Ferrett’s recent article about Poker’s effect on the Pro Tour, and its likely future effects, immediately inspired me to think about what insights might be gleaned from the way the Type One community works. The reason I thought of Type One is that it’s a format which is growing, but without pros, without much in the way of DCI support, and in fact without very many large tournaments in general.
Last time, I discussed the appearance rates of the cards currently on the restricted list, and took the opportunity to explain why some of them don’t belong there. This week, I’m going to look at a lot of noteworthy unrestricted cards and discuss their fluctuations over the last seven and a half months. For the people who’ve been paying close attention to Type One over that whole time, there won’t be many surprises here, but for the relatively un-hardcore reader, you can catch up on a lot of conventional wisdom all at once.
Back in 2003, Aaron Forsythe wrote an article explaining how R&D looks at the Banned and Restricted list. One of the pearls of wisdom in the article was when Forsythe said,”in general, if a restricted card isn’t showing up in decks, its status probably deserves some scrutiny by the DCI.” I happen to be an expert on what cards are played and not played in Type One, so I figured I should get around to looking at the list right before the June 1st announcement.
This month is a watershed in data collection, because for the first time in 2004 I’ve gone a whole month with just one missing decklist (FCG). I know some of you don’t get the major physical stimulation I do from that knowledge, but I’m sure there are some of you that feel the same. I feel vindicated for my efforts to harass and torment the decklist underreporting of the world. This cajolery yielded fruit such as two Frenchie decklists that they still don’t want published, but are in the totals anyway.
I have dissected a variety of Hulk Smash builds – fifteen total – looking for the trends in winning cards. This actually worked out a lot smoother than when I did the same thing to Keeper, because Psychatog is a card which invites much less flexibility to a deck that uses it, whereas Keeper is nothing but metagame customization. The first thing I did was amass a set of thirty-eight cards (and one sideboard card) that were played in all fifteen builds available from my metagame summaries of the last six months.
