[Article] The Fall Vintage Metagame Breakdown

[Smmenen]

Phil Stanton has recently retired from the supercomputer business. Since no one else has stepped up, and since I inspired his template, I have decided to take over where he left off. Thus I give you the full Vintage Metagame Breakdown, complete with musings on the format and whether certain cards have crossed the threshold from broken to bannable.


http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10959.html

I will be doing these articles on a regular basis.  The next one will be Nov-Dec metagame breakdown.  In the meantime, I will be doing analysis of successful decks on Stax, Oath, and Gifts - like Phil did. 

This is the sort of information every T1 player should have at their finger tips.  It helps us make sense off the metagame and understand our format. 

[Moxlotus]

It's noW official.  Stephen Menendian is the sole reason for me staying premium now.

EDIT: not-->now

[Smmenen]

Suggestions are welcome.

I think these articles can do a great service of helping to consolidate the metagame and help us make sense of it.  This is the real data - this is not bloviating theory or high minded speculation.  This is commentary based on hard numbers. 

I hope you enjoyed it and if you didn't, tell me why. 

[forests failed you]

Steve, I think you did an excellent job, and it was a fine read.  A fantastic follow up to the supercomputer himself.

Cheers,
FFY

[ReAnimator]

The only problem with these articles is having the Euro and N.American being smooshed together like one big meta.
The two Meta's are so totally different, one based on proxies and 40-100 person tournaments and the other based on no proxies and 80-300 person events.

It would be interesting to see them split up into separate analysis, maybe not everytime but as an end of year perspective or something.

I also don't like the arbitrary 50 person cut off for results. There are a lot of 35-49 person tourneys that happen every month in the N.east and Canada that get ignored yet still have a lot of good competition and valuable information.
 If these are the standard size of non SCG tournaments for our format it seems foolish to ignore what is happening in them just cause the sample size is small.

That being said I love these articles these points are the only thing i would really like to see changed.

[Moxlotus]

Perhaps the end of the year would be a good cut-off to use "all X round tournaments" as a cut off.

[OutsideAngelX]

You say "every T1 player should have at their fingertips" but the article is Premium...

I know that you have nothing to do with that, and I don't want to come off as whiny, but like you said, this information is important to the general understanding of the format, and the more people understand the format the better.

I can understand deck-related articles and tournament reports being Premium, but this in particular seems like the kind of article that should be avaliable for everyone to read.

Maybe I'm just dissapointed because I really liked Stanton's breakdowns...

[Dante]

You say "every T1 player should have at their fingertips" but the article is Premium...

I know that you have nothing to do with that, and I don't want to come off as whiny, but like you said, this information is important to the general understanding of the format, and the more people understand the format the better.

I can understand deck-related articles and tournament reports being Premium, but this in particular seems like the kind of article that should be avaliable for everyone to read.

Maybe I'm just dissapointed because I really liked Stanton's breakdowns...

Just because everyone should have the data at their fingertips doesn't mean it should be free.  Like most other information worth having, you typically have to pay for it.  Gathering information takes time, which is money to most people.  $20 or $30 is such a small amount per year compared to the cost of playing Vintage that my personal feeling is anyone who doesn't get it because "it costs too much" is just full of it and looking for an excuse to bitch.

[vroman]

wow. I understand now why I keep getting emails from random dutch ppl and such. maybe I should read more of these european tournament reports, I had no idea ubastax was winning so consistently over there.

[Smmenen]

Yes, Uba Stax is doing VERY Well in Europe.  I was mistaken in the article - 4 of the 15 Uba Stax lists were 5 color.

In other words, of the 35 Stax lists (I was mistaken, there were actuall 36), 15 were Uba Stax, and 11 were mono red.  2 of the stax lists were MUD and about 16 of them were traditional Stax.  The other was Time Vault combo STax and another was Slaver Stax. About six copies of the traditional stax was UR STax.  The rest were five color.  So the archetype can basically be divided into four ways:

Uba Stax
mono red
five color

Traditional STax
UR
five color

Mono red is beating out five color in uba stax, but five color is beating out UR in traditional stax



Now that I have all this data compiled, you can expect alot more articles like this.

The only problem with these articles is having the Euro and N.American being smooshed together like one big meta.
The two Meta's are so totally different, one based on proxies and 40-100 person tournaments and the other based on no proxies and 80-300 person events.

There are alot of differences between the European and American metagames, but I don't think that is one of them.

The American tournaments are basically 80-180 players and the European tournaments that make it into this analysis are basically the same.  The Waterbury is about 160+ usually and the SCG events and Gencon are apparently 100-130 pretty consistently. 

Most of the Euroepan events are under a hundred players.

The big difference is the proxies.  The American metagame has almost no tog and has no TPS or MUD in top 8 at all.  Not so in Europe. 

Combined double posts - Klep

[vroman]

if the statistics reports articles are separated into an american and european sections, thats just going to exacerbate the problem of the 2 continents ignoring each other's results. the metas are not irrelevent to each other. nor is the proxying difference a critical factor. TPS, for example, has to be a fully powered deck, or its a pointless exercise waiting for the 3rd land drop to cast windfall. if that deck is doing exceptionaly well there, that indicates enough power is showing up at tournaments to support tier decks. stax is a strictly more expensive archetype than drains, bc both run full moxen and then drain @ ~$120, vs workshop @ ~$200. true some of the euro-stax decks are running under-powered w ancient tombs and crap, but if anything, thats evened out by the slower unpowered lower tier decks failing to beat stax, just as slower powered (via proxy) lower tier decks, lose to powered proxied stax in USA.
in general, combo is definitely hurt the most by lack of proxying, yet that archetype is succeeding better there than here. maybe owners of power are arbitrarily choosing to play combo in greater numbers in europe (never a very reliable judge of statistical trends), or maybe there is some subtle reason that in a mixed power/unpowered environment, combo rises to the top. a few specific decks being unique to each meta (ie tog) isnt part of the overall picture. the fact that Psychatog card counts are unexpectedly high given the suposed obsolesence of that deck, should be ignored in favor of that decks contribution to mana drain and yawg will numbers. although tog is a lot easier for me to beat than gifts or slaver, its good to know what percentage of drain archetype is being played world wide.
regardless, the metagames although different are not completely alien to each other, and the results are very worth considering in agregate. if someone else wants to do a more concentrated breakdown, they might as well issue a full report for every regional american meta as well, ie midwest vs east coast vs wherever else. this isnt pro-sports, w bookies and million dollar purses. there is such a thing as time management and over-analysis. at a certain point, information too detailed, just becomes noise. this is an excellent report and doesnt need to change (besides the gaps the author himself recognizes).
thats my point and Im not going to discuss it further, bc I really not interested in mindlessly bashing euro-meta, or as I just warned about, contributing to information glut.

[Smmenen]

My next article is on Stax.  I will then do Oath and then Gifts.  Hopefully, it will be up next week. 

How long do we have to wait before the Northeast realizes that Stax is good?

[Jacob Orlove]

How long do we have to wait before the Northeast realizes that Stax is good?

Get them to stop playing Goblin Welders in their Mana Drain decks and we'll talk.

[Smmenen]

Remember, Control Slaver actually saw more play in the Chicago SCG 2005 than any other deck.  In fact, there were three Control SLaver decks and 3 Stax decks in the top 8 but the Stax decks each beat a different Control SLaver deck.  Then the top 3 decks were three different Stax decks. 

[The Atog Lord]

Get them to stop playing Goblin Welders in their Mana Drain decks and we'll talk.

Well said. My current Slaver list has 4 drains, 4 Forces, 4 Welders, a Rack and Ruin maindeck, and a couple of ways to find it. And none of that is directed at beating Stax; that's just a fortunate coincidence. The popularity of Control Slaver back home, combined with its very strong Stax matchup, is enough to disuade many players from sleeving up thier workshops. That is not to say that Slaver is autowin against Stax -- just that the matchup is one that I'm very comfortable with.

[Lunar]

Somebody touched on it above, but will we possibly be seeing a small to midsized meta breakdown from somebody again? I remember seeing one or two pop up last year like that (tourneys from like 30-60 people or something like that) and I was just curious if that was in the works from anybody?

I think a lot of people would love to see a smaller meta breakdown as well as a large portion of players are more regularly playing in these small tournies, in fact I get a lot of people requesting ideas for smaller metas all the time and I am really curious as to what the national (or global for that matter) meta looks like right now compared to the larger tourney meta.

Is anybody else curious about these metas also?

[Jacob Orlove]

Somebody touched on it above, but will we possibly be seeing a small to midsized meta breakdown from somebody again? I remember seeing one or two pop up last year like that (tourneys from like 30-60 people or something like that) and I was just curious if that was in the works from anybody?

Zherbus was doing those, so unless someone else starts, we won't be seeing them again.

[Lunar]

Thats too bad...I recently did one for my team with the California meta breakdown and it was a pain and took a lot of time, so I dont blame people for not wanting to tackle it...but a guy can hope, heh.

[ReAnimator]

@ Vroman

I was in no way suggesting that the Euro meta was bad, I was just saying in some respects that it is very different and it would be cool every once in a while (like once a year as opposed to every time) to see the breakdowns separately by continent to compare and contrast them.

I like the fact that a lot of Europeans try out "weird" and "obsolete/unproven" decks and still do really well with them in large competitions. i love creative deckbuilding and playing rogue decks, which i think happens a lot more over there than here.

[Dozer]

maybe there is some subtle reason that in a mixed power/unpowered environment, combo rises to the top.

That is a major thing. Combo is easy to play through fields that half comprise of unpowered aggro decks and semi-powered control decks. You often don't see this data, since T8 usually is the exclusive point of examination, but there is a lot of weak decks going round the low tables (unpowered Dragon, for example, seems to be as common as U/W control with only a couple of Drains or unpowered Oath, from my anecdotal evidence). When you meet a fully powered Stax or Gifts player, you have decent shot, too, and you can sometimes just cruise through a tournament with a combo deck TPS. Fizzles are not punished as hard as they are in a fully powered/ proxy environment -- you get a second chance.

I like the way the Euro and US environments are presented together. It is enough to take note of the different trends, but a separate analysis would go too far. Players over here look closely at SCG results, as well as Americans looking to the European Vintage Champs for tech and developments. Ironically, rogue developments often come not from more, but from less testing. When you don't want to look hard into the established decks and tweak and test the hell out of them, you just take something that's fun and has a decent shot at winning. In addition to that, we have some people who go rogue every single time, and some really crack-down TPS addicts. I cannot give reasons why TPS is so popular, but people are hanging on to it and not doing too bad.

Btw, I really dig that T8 appearence-graphic, thanks to Yawgatog for that sweet thing. It looks better than the ones on MTG.com, too!

Keep up the good work, Stephen. Looks like you abandoned Legacy again... right?

Dozer

[Smmenen]

yes, legacy is now behind me.

I am going to work hard to get Vintage exciting again.  I am working on some cool stuff with meandeck again, so hopefuly we can shake things up once more. 

[lplaat]

yes, legacy is now behind me.

I am going to work hard to get Vintage exciting again.  I am working on some cool stuff with meandeck again, so hopefuly we can shake things up once more. 

I thought I read somewhere (starcity?) that you were going to "break the legacy-format". I might have missed something but I don't recall anything of that nature being reported anywhere.

Have you abandoned this quest? If you have ... why?

cheers,
laurens

[Machinus]

yes, legacy is now behind me.

I am curious about this too. I still find Legacy to be a lot of fun, and I see myself continuing to play both 1 and 1.5.

Is there anything in particular that caused your decision?

[ChemEng]

A few questions...
1. What is the purpose of the underscore besides some of the data points? Its highliy distracting when looking at the numbers if it doesnt serve a purpose.
2. Im a little confused about your numbers. If there were 35 STAX decks that Top8d out of a field of 157, that is a 22.2% showing. You report that total STAX % for the period at 25.8%. Curious about the difference...
3. This kind of "analysis" leaves the results open to be GREATLY skewed by the representation of decks played in the Swiss. Saying that Gifts dominated the Top8s with 18% kind of misrepresents the situation if the total field was, for example, 35% Gifts. In that case, Gifts is underperforming. A much more interesting metric is finding the decks that *overperform* in the field. If Gifts was only 10% of Swiss but 30% of Top8s, then that is much more important analytical point than knowing the % that Top8d.

[Smmenen]

yes, legacy is now behind me.

I am going to work hard to get Vintage exciting again.  I am working on some cool stuff with meandeck again, so hopefuly we can shake things up once more. 

I thought I read somewhere (starcity?) that you were going to "break the legacy-format". I might have missed something but I don't recall anything of that nature being reported anywhere.

Have you abandoned this quest? If you have ... why?

cheers,
laurens

There is no tournament for me to play Legacy in.  If they do another Grand Prix, then I'll pick the format back up again.  It's really that simple. 

[Smmenen]

A few questions...
1. What is the purpose of the underscore besides some of the data points? Its highliy distracting when looking at the numbers if it doesnt serve a purpose.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

2. Im a little confused about your numbers. If there were 35 STAX decks that Top8d out of a field of 157, that is a 22.2% showing. You report that total STAX % for the period at 25.8%. Curious about the difference...

I'll check into that and get back to you.

3. This kind of "analysis" leaves the results open to be GREATLY skewed by the representation of decks played in the Swiss. Saying that Gifts dominated the Top8s with 18% kind of misrepresents the situation if the total field was, for example, 35% Gifts. In that case, Gifts is underperforming. A much more interesting metric is finding the decks that *overperform* in the field. If Gifts was only 10% of Swiss but 30% of Top8s, then that is much more important analytical point than knowing the % that Top8d.

Agreed, but it is unavoidable.  We can estimate.  My guess is that Control Slaver is probably the most played deck in the format, at least in the American metagame, during this time.  We can also assume that Stax is always less than it would be becuase it is so hard to build in Europe and not easy to build in the US.  Uba STax is well out of range for most proxy events. 

To answer one of your concerns, we have a miniture anlaysis in that we know the frequency of top 8 versus frequency of winning tournaments.  In that regard, Gifts HAS radically underperformed. It has far fewer tournament wins than COntrol slaver with twice as many top 8 spots. 

[ChemEng]

This is a lift from the article:
10.8, 2.8, 17.5, 6.3, 12.6, 5.1, _2.2, _3.6,_5.4 9.5,_ 3.8 Workshop Aggro
_3.6, 20.8, 12.5, 11.0, 17.5, 16.3, 19.4, 14.3, 10.8, 12.2, 22 Stax
_3.6, _4.2, _2.5, _1.6, _0.0, _1.3, _4.6, _0.0, _1.8, _3.1, 0.0 Workshop Slaver
18.0, 27.8, 32.5, 18.9, 30.2, 22.7, 26.2, 17.9, 19.8, 25.1, 25.8 TOTAL Workshop

Notice how most of the interior points have the underscore, while some do not. Just curious about its purpose, if any. (As an aside, I seriously doubt anyone wades through the number by visual inspecting so I would recommend leaving the sets comma delimited at the sake of prettiness for the ease of inputting into Excel and the like.)

In response to number of wins versus number of top8s. I dont think that that statistic is as important as you claim. To not win a tournament, all it takes is a single match loss in the top8. This leaves the results much more open to swings of randomness (ie luck) than are present than in the swiss. The format of swiss reduces the impact of luck in many ways that the top8 doesnt. 1. Its has more rounds. 2. It isnt single elimination. Whatever...

I realize that the number and variety of archetypes played isnt a readily available data point for most tournaments. Just need to make sure that the results that are posted arent overstated or misrepresented as the article was dangerously close to tinkering towards.

[Jacob Orlove]

The underscores keep the tables lined up visually when one entry has 2 digits (eg 3.6) and the entry above has 3 (eg 10.8). You can see how missing two in the first row throws it off relative to the other three rows, which line up perfectly.