[Free Article] Vintage Metagame Breakdown

[Meddling Mike]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11732.html

I'm no Dr. Sylvan, but I did what I could. I think the next one will be a bit more comprehensive.

[PacmanXSA]

Thanks baby!

Pac

[Cross]

Thanks baby!

Pac

Agreed, this article was extremely helpful and presented in a great way. More please!

[Dralock]

Nice breakdown. Thank you for the compilation.

[The Atog Lord]

Nice work, Mike!

[Twaun007]

Well played, good article.

[Pitlord]

I like the article, thanks for writing it. It is well written, and helps save a decent amount of time looking for popular lists and when stuff was played. Thanks again!

[God_Campbell]

Thank you, it was a very informative.
Keep up the good work

[Jacob Orlove]

This thread should be for discussing the contents of the article. Compliments are nice, but in general they should be kept to PM or posted on the SCG thread.

[Pitlord]

Well, not that Jacob makes that point, I feel obligated to discuss...

First of all, what does everyone think is the disapointing performances by workshop decks? Is everyone bringing lots of artifact hate, or are they simply not able cut it anymore? Are they old enough in the meta that everyone can already beat them, or is it something else entirely? I personally believe it is the prevelance of artifact hate that hits all the shop decks, and keeps them out of top 8s.

I am also surprised by the lack of fish decks that perform at all lately. With a deck as customizable as fish, wouldn't it do better? Slaver is highly customizable, and it put up good numbers. Is fish really naturally that bad, or was it not meta gamed properly? Is fish really dead, or just dormant, waiting to strike at the right meta?

Another question is what happened to oath? This deck that almost every team in vintage has a different build of, no one plays it anymore, and it doesn't win anymore. Did it ever win a lot, or were there just lots of people playing it because it is cheap?

Another thing of note is the HUGE  amount of rituals, especially with the new IT decks. How long does everyone think that this trend towards rituals and drains will last, edging out fish, workshop, and other combo decks like dragon, which I don't think is totally dead, it just needs a facelift.

Personally I give these trends until about halfway through summer, maybe until early fall, until everyone realizes that stifles are good and start playing more chalice. Workshops will make a comeback sometime before winter, including a new sort of workshop aggro build, probably stemmed from the terrific "the jester" deck. Those are just my thoughts on the meta game, but I could always be wrong. But so could everyone else.


LOL, maybe we will see a resurgance of food chain goblins and 2 land belcher, with tons of BBS on the side. :lol:

[Mantis]

First of all, thanks for the article. Articles on Vintage are always useful in general but breakdowns are amazing. Really appreciate all the effort you must have had put into this .

The problems with Fish and Workshop are probably that they lack sheer power. By power I don't just mean manadevelopment but also carddraw and answers. Drain control deck have this all. Fast aggro decks generally pack a lot more punch as well, though they are easy to hate out.

I am actually not very surprised fish and Stax have not been doing too well, what does surprises me is that Drain and Combo don't totally crush the opposition and that Fish, Stax and mostly fast aggro do manage to T8 sometimes.

[UR]

Thanks for the article!

Dragon again barely shows up to a major tournament, but still manages to land somebody in the Top 16. These results were almost identical to the SCG Rochester tournament preceding Waterbury. Underplayed, maybe?

Maybe it is a little underplayed since (usually) the only guys playing it are people who've played it for a very long time now. I think that is why it performs relatively well... those guys all know what to do. If random people start picking up the deck I think the percentages will be a bit more 'normal'.

[zeus-online]

About 'Tog...

As far as i know, 'Tog went from dominating to unviable because of fish - Now it seems like fish is pretty much out of the picture, and 'Togs did well in a major tourney....could this be related? Or is 'Tog still dead cause of the major deck improvements the last couple of years? (Killing many of the original "big" vintage decks)

Just my thoughts....

/Zeus, who miss Keeper and 'Tog 

[LordHomerCat]

Isn't "Tog" pretty much better when it doesn't even play with togs anymore?  Tendrils and Tinker both are faster and much harder to deal with nowadays, and since the whole plan of old Tog was just draw a million cards and then swing for 20, why not draw a million cards and then cast tendrils for 20?  I thought the Drain and Intuition based combo decks were kinda like the next evolution of Tog?

I even recall the guy who made the finals of waterbury saying that his togs were like some of the worst cards in the deck, and that DSC and tendrils were both infinitely better all day?

[zeus-online]

Just because one guy who happened to T8, said something dosnt mean its correct.
I believe i read something about a TPS deck, which cut tinker/DSC for 2 psychatog's cause they where "better" ?

I'm not saying that 'Togs are the way to go, just wanted other peoples opinions

/Zeus

[Hydra]

Well, not that Jacob makes that point, I feel obligated to discuss...

First of all, what does everyone think is the disapointing performances by workshop decks? Is everyone bringing lots of artifact hate, or are they simply not able cut it anymore? Are they old enough in the meta that everyone can already beat them, or is it something else entirely? I personally believe it is the prevelance of artifact hate that hits all the shop decks, and keeps them out of top 8s.

I am also surprised by the lack of fish decks that perform at all lately. With a deck as customizable as fish, wouldn't it do better? Slaver is highly customizable, and it put up good numbers. Is fish really naturally that bad, or was it not meta gamed properly? Is fish really dead, or just dormant, waiting to strike at the right meta?

Another question is what happened to oath? This deck that almost every team in vintage has a different build of, no one plays it anymore, and it doesn't win anymore. Did it ever win a lot, or were there just lots of people playing it because it is cheap?

Another thing of note is the HUGE amount of rituals, especially with the new IT decks. How long does everyone think that this trend towards rituals and drains will last, edging out fish, workshop, and other combo decks like dragon, which I don't think is totally dead, it just needs a facelift.

Personally I give these trends until about halfway through summer, maybe until early fall, until everyone realizes that stifles are good and start playing more chalice. Workshops will make a comeback sometime before winter, including a new sort of workshop aggro build, probably stemmed from the terrific "the jester" deck. Those are just my thoughts on the meta game, but I could always be wrong. But so could everyone else.


LOL, maybe we will see a resurgance of food chain goblins and 2 land belcher, with tons of BBS on the side. :lol:

Part of the problem is that Fish/Workshop aggro decks are tempo decks, using lock pieces to buy you time to pummel your opponent into submission with creatures.  This has become a problem because people have adapted to the tempo cards used in these decks.  Thus, the Fish/Workshop Aggro player can no longer rely on the tempo cards as they one were able to.  It's a matter of adapting really, as there's still a lot of cards for these types of decks that haven't be properly explored.  I have some ideas towards that end, but none of which are tuned enough to present publicly.  I wouldn't mind sharing dialogue on various ideas in PM with interested parties, however.

As far as the other Shop deck (Stax) goes, I think it's a matter of being underplayed by good players.  Travis Laplante has given up slinging Shops for Gifts at the moment, and Vroman hasn't been particularly active on the tournament scene as of late, leaving Roland Chang as the only real known player using the deck.  Roland is still putting up good results, but as a whole most of the good Stax players are either not playing or have moved on to try other decks.  I don't think it has to do with the presence of hate, as that's always been a constant for Stax, and has never stpped the deck from performing in the past.

There's a large amount of Dark Rituals being played because it's a trend in the format right now.  IT is "easier" to play than Grim Long, and is more consistent than TPS, leading people to try it out in droves.  I think the initial fervor over the deck will die down soon enough, and then it'll settle into a lower-key role in the metagame.  It's a great deck, but I think people will start shying away from it once they realize that while it is easier to play than Grim Long, it's still a skill-intensive deck, and people are going to reach a point where the sheer power won't carry the day for them anymore.  When this occurs, the numbers will drop.

As far as Dragon goes, I agree that it needs a facelift, and I'm sure there are people out there working on it...

As far as "The Jester" goes, I think the designers of the deck are hindering themselves by trying to nail down a specific "ideal" list.  The deck is an excellent example of metagaming in action, and took Richmond by surprise as a result.  The moment you reach a set configuration, however, is the moment you've weakened the deck's effectiveness considerably, as people will then be able to specifically plan against it.  The deck needs to keep evolving to survive, and there's a LOT of room for creativity with the concept, as the only real requirements are X number of Workshops and X number of Jester's Caps.

Goblins?  Belcher?  BBS?  Nah.

About 'Tog...

As far as i know, 'Tog went from dominating to unviable because of fish - Now it seems like fish is pretty much out of the picture, and 'Togs did well in a major tourney....could this be related? Or is 'Tog still dead cause of the major deck improvements the last couple of years? (Killing many of the original "big" vintage decks)

Just my thoughts....

/Zeus, who miss Keeper and 'Tog

Tog suffers because Gifts does essentially the same thing better.  DSC can kill in roughly the same amount of time, requires much less set-up and much less protection.  Gifts also offers you the Tendrils/Flame Vault combo kill conditions.  I think the Tog frame could work, as the European T1T decks illustrate, but Tog himself is a weak win condition in the current metagame.

[Pitlord]

Come on Hydra, you know you want to see BBS make a comeback....

Seriously though, I think Hydra makes a lot of good points. Fish and workshop aggro are easily beaten by anything with more than 1 game plan, which is basically a must in vintage. I also agree that stax is underpayed, at least by good players. Roland Chang is about the only big name who puts up good numbers with it, with the occasional random guy top 8ing with it. (Like Me!!)

Dark rituals will calm down a lot, once everyone has tried playing IT a couple times, people will make their decision of playing A. Grim Long B. IT or C. Play something wihtout rituals. This is a result of a new deck, bringing everyone to try and pilot it and break it even more...

My question about oath still stands though. Here in the midwest where I am from, we see a lot of oath decks, but only 1 or 2 tops making top 8, even at local tournaments. Is this a case of hate, bad pilots, inflated numbers from previous testing, or what?

[Harlequin]

I think Newer type 1 players generally start in Oath or Stax.  In fact I think Oath is probably the best deck a new player to piolet.  because it has the ability to win (more or less by itself) so it keeps being fun for newer players.  Plus they get to smash face with the biggest baddest creatures in all of MTG, also very fun.  A deck like Fish or Stax is extremely hard to play RIGHT.  by no means do iether of those decks play themselves in the same way oath does.  In fact in Stax for every Play there are 2 "ok" plays, there are like 10 subtle missplays, and like 100 blatant misplays.  Fish is a bit more user-friendly, but not by much.  Aslo both decks require intensive knowledge of the stack and all game rules (paying for spells, what can be stifled, and timeing of combat). 

Now, Oath, however "easy" it is to play ... cannot simply win by itself.  I think Oath is becoming what FCG was two summers ago... its the deck that you hand-down to friends / new players to get them interested in T1... while you move onto bigger better decks.  All in All, Oath is a great deck for new players it teaches "the Upkeep," The Stack, dabbles in combat tricks, and also dabbles in the control mirror.  At the same time, you get duress wich gives you insight into your opponent's hand/deck mechanics.  And perhaps this is why it has not done well recently.  Its not a "bad" deck, its the vast majority of Oath players are newer to the format, and do not fully understand vintage yet.

A similar arguement can be given for stax.  But stax has two additional factors.  #1 is WAY easier to screw up with, and #2 is WAY more expensive to play even at 15 proxy.  But for some reason, new-ish players tend to play stax.  Its a solid deck.  And its also likely that when the player was first starting the game, they got OWNED by stax... so it stuck in thier head as a deck they want to play (because it "frieken owns!").  But these players hardly understand the amount of subtlety in the deck... heck I don't even have the confidence to play stax - its way to hard!  So that could account for the the fact that stax doesn't really do that well.

I think the natural progression of decks is something like:

Newest players: Agro, Oath, or Rouge Combo (belcher, Kobald)
Average Player: Stax, Oath, or Solid Combo (IT, Long)
Very good Players: Drain Based decks, and other Control Decks
the Best Players: They've played all the decks, now they pick the one that suits their play preferances the best.
the UBER Players: Create brand new decks, or rebuild current decks (and win).


DISCLAIMER:  In no way shape or form am I implying the reciprocal of this statement.  I am NOT saying that IF you play oath THEN you are Newb.  I'm just pointing out the trends ammoung particular populations of players... and even at that ... It's just how I precieve these populations.  So Please don't missunderstand my argument and come back saying "d00d I've won so much power with Oath its Inzane!  You're totally wrong!"

[Pitlord]

That seems actually pretty close to dead on. My experience in vintage has been:
Kobalds --> WTF --> Oath --> Stax --> Control Slaver --> back to stax

I am not claiming that I am one of "the best players" in vintage, but I have played a little of everyhting and come around to what I really enjoy playing. I love my reusable lotus'es (loti?)...

Oath has definitly lost a number of good pilots, even Endress and Ben Carp are not playing oath all that often. However, the other question with the progression you presented then is why is fish showing in small numbers? It is just as cheap, if not cheaper than oath to build, and pretty simple to pilot. Wouldn't that lead to the general conclusion that more new players would play fish as well as oath, depending on what is available to them?

New players playing stax is something that sometimes pains me to see. Honestly, stax is hard to play, about as much as gifts or slaver, and beaten by grimlong. It took me a long time to get even decent with stax, and now I am not even that great with it. I have learned to avoid any savage misplays, but looking back on tournament notes, I see a couple of subtle misplays all the time. If you are trying to get a friend into vintage, for the love of god don't give them stax or grimlong, their brains might explode.

I think that is a skill that new players need to learn if they are going to get better at magic. They need to experience all sorts of decks, and look back at their plays after the fact and see what went wrong.

[Harlequin]

Fish doesn't Really Apply to any group of vintage players in particular.

#1 - It has a very low "brokeness" factor, so its a turn off in the fun department to newer players.  Who wants to swing 10 times with a 2/2 when you can swing twice for 6 then 12!!  Fun with Angels > Fun with Mini-beaters

#2 - It requires alot of knowlege about the current meta-game and rides alot on conjecture and luck ... so its a turn off to "Sunday Magic" type players who do not want to concern themselves with rebuilding an entire deck for EVERY tournement.  On a different thread a player posted that "Fish should walk in the door with 90 cards, and be down to 75 cards 10 mins before reg is due"  Very eloquently put.

#3 - It has a low "Option" factor.  With no tutors, and rather narrow solutions to problems ... It is a turn off to players who enjoy Combo or Control-Combo like Gifts.  The deck is no better or worse than the 7 cards your lookin' at.  Hand's rarely have "so many insane plays."  But rather out of 7 cards you have 2 lands and 5 "decent" single card plays.

I Think of Fish as more of a Player type, than an archetype.  I think I could have added "Or Fish" to the end of each break down above and still felt fairly accurate.  A fish player enjoys deck construction, and enjoys running scenario's and outcomes up in thier head.  they like to tinker with a deck on thier feet.  Additionally the best fish players fully understand all the ins and outs of the top decks of the day ... which may or not be the top decks of yesterday.

On that note, I like fish... mainly because I hate playing the Drain Control Mirror.  Esp because the TFK Gift CREATORS themselves are close at hand ... how can I really expect to beat them with THIER deck. I guess I get intimated to easily...  I like Fish because I find fun in deck construction, therefore I like a deck that is highly diverse rather than a narrowly contructed proven deck.  I feal like Jer and I have done alot to perfect the Fish build, and I love testing new cards. 

[M.Solymossy]

For the record, ALL Ben Carp plays is Oath.

He and Dan are the "ICBM Oath" division of our team.

[Hydra]

Yeah, I forgot to touch on Oath, silly me.

Oath suffers from the "beginner" label, and as a result a lot of good players shun the deck, preferring to hand it off to their barns.  Ben's about the only "known" Type 1 player that even plays Oath on a regular basis, and I think that's a shame.  Oath can be a very strong deck if played properly, but doesn't lend itself to "OMFG BROKEN!" plays that draw the good players to decks.

Personally, I've been thinking about giving the ICBM version of the deck a test run or two at tournaments, just as a breather after having played Control Gifts almost exclusively for the past 8 months.  Sometimes a change can be good, helps refresh certain skills (such as proper Upkeep stack abuse) that don't come up very often with other decks.

As far as Stax goes, I will NEVER give a Stax deck to a new player in Vintage, regardless of how good of a player they might be in other formats.  The micro-management that can be required for decision making, along with the need to maximize the effectiveness of each card you play, makes for skills that people from other formats just aren't likely to have.

GWS Oath and Shop Aggro are probably the easiest "starter" decks, as both can be "dumbed" down to a "stall with disruption till you drop a fattie and win" principle.  ICBM Oath and Harlequin's "mono blue" Oath lists are both much more complicated, as they try to play the control role and then use Oath as a fast clock to win them the game when they're ready, instead of rushing into it.

Fish decks are interesting in that so many different theories can be applied to their construction and how they function.  If I get the time within the next few days, I may break down the various disruption options available so that there's a posted list for people to consider when building Fish or Aggro style lists.

[Nantuko Rice]

"Friggorid 1 (A vintage attempt at the extended Ichorid/Tolarian Winds/Dredge Cards Combo deck)"

Twas I

My spiderman instincts told me that friggorid was going to be a very good choice for the metagame as I explained in my waterbury report a while ago. Unfortunately, my build was "sub-par" (but that's ok because it was in back in the pioneering days) and the matchups were terrible for me (of the 14 combo decks, I played against at least 1/3 of them).

If you want my opinion of the metagame at this point... I don't really know cause I haven't touched a magic card since the last waterbury. But the right deck might involve Pyschatog and Ninjas.