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Today I want to talk about the trails and tribulations of breaking a splintered metagame. First you may ask yourself what the heck I’m talking about and mutter something about all metagames being equal. Here’s the thing… usually semi-coherent metagames are shaped pretty early in a format’s life-cycle. You know X and Y are going to be the “best” decks and somewhat popular, while Z is good and even a bit more popular for some reason (Easier to play, easier to make, etc.). Then you have the rest of the letters filling out the rest of the metagame. Arrogant and / or confident players may be labeling all of these as byes…

You don’t play TEPS because it beats every deck. You play it because it puts pressure on every deck. Most keepable hands win very early in the game, so by playing TEPS you force every opponent to win or find an answer in five turns or less. Also, you have a Burning Wish package such that even if the opponent should come up with something, you can find a bullet to deal with it. Many PTQ decks, and a great many more PTQ players, operate much worse under that kind of pressure.

Pop quiz time – The article begins with a massive list of Magic cards. Over 150 in total. What do they have in common?

“They all have capitalized letters?”

Oh, you are so clever. Here’s a clever little thing you can do with your deckbox. Sideways. For everyone else… well, the title of this article is a clue…