2004: The Type One Metagame

[Grand Inquisitor]

Regarding Fish, Tracerbullet seems to have a good feel for its role in the metagame.  I do disagree that bloodmoon is a direction it can go.  The majority of its disruption base, and six of its threats are non-basic lands.  Bloodmoon is in fact, a card that somewhat hoses fish.

As far as PTW's claims about Fish being the same type of 'metagame' deck that keeper is, I think thats a stretch.  Keeper is inherently more flexible and more powerful than fish could ever be.  Does this mean its always more suited for particular matchups?  Of course not.

Regarding Long, nothing personal against Smennen, but his view of Long has always been exaggerated.  Even some of his points in its defense are obviously flawed:

Quote The difference of Sphere is that Workshop decks ALWAYS have two mana on turn one and so the card is a huge threat.  But EVEN IF these cards resolve, there are FOUR burning wishes in the maindeck - and you only need 2 lands to cast Burning Wish and Primitive Justice the subsequent turn.  Not that hard if you have Tutors and Brainstorms.  

The problem here is that under a sphere, burning wish requires more than 2 lands, and so does primitive justice.  This opens you up to WMUD's 5 strips, and its likely they'll have sphere #2, chalice, Stack, or Tanglewire up by then, which will further delay your recovery (indefinitely?).

Quote All I can say is that I wish I would have been at Waterbury but I was at KC earlier in the month and I cant take off that many weekends for type one around the states in one month

I've never seen you play.  I assume you're excellent.  However, there were ten (10) long decks in Waterbury, in a field of over a hundred.  Many of them were players known to be hardened TMD'ers.  KC, on the other hand, was less than 40 people in a metagame that locals admitted was behind the curve.  I sympathize with you on the shortage of highly-skilled T1 players (I'm certainly guilty), but might it just be that in a field full of hate and good control players Long is not a great choice?

Regarding the 2004 metagame in general, I think we should all be very pleased.  There's plenty of room for innovation, with lots of powerful cards and teasing sets coming up (crucible of worlds anyone?)

There are SO many good decks to choose from.  WMUD and Dragon still put a clamp on a number of would-be aggro decks, but I see at least the following as great choices, meta allowing:

Combo:
Dragon
Tendrils
Scepter-Reap  
Mask

Control:
Keeper
Hulk
Urphid
Landstill
Prison Workshop (WMUD, Stax)

Aggro/Control:
Fish
GAT
Sui

Aggro:
Aggro Workshop (TnT, Stacker)
R/G (there's been too many properly metagamed to be a fluke)
Gobbo (so long as people drop their chalices)

Some of these are guesses, others will never be front runners, but should be competitive.  It reminds me of about this time last year, actually, except that now we have all this additional experience behind us, and a larger community.\n\n

[Milton]

Quote Combo:
Dragon
Tendrils
Scepter-Reap  
Mask

Control:
Keeper
Hulk
Urphid
Landstill

Aggro/Control:
Fish
GAT
Sui

Aggro:
TnT
R/G (there's been too many properly metagamed to be a fluke)
Gobbo (so long as people drop their chalices)

Interesting that you put Scepter-Reap in there.  I haven't playtested the deck, but it seems pretty fragile.  Too fragile to win a tournament.

Also, Keeper seems to be pretty bad right now.  Everyone is still trying to make Keeper viable again.  People certianly haven't given up on it at tournaments, but it isn't winning or even doing well.  Is it just a bad deck?  Outdated design?  is it being played by bad players?  Is it too flexible and not focused?  What is it?  Why can't Keeper compete?

[Matt The Great]

I would guess a combination of poor/incorrect play and people making poor choices in deck construction. I don't think it's an entirely outmoded concept, but it's getting harder to win with, because it's dropped down to where you have to seriously adjust your deck to suit a metagame (changing maybe 5-7 cards). Also, because there's so many ways to take the deck (Wish-based, or just a few? Wishes at all? Chalice? Scepter? How much artifact/graveyard hate, and is it in the side or main? Decree, Trenches? And so on) people probably spend more time trying out poor ideas and not enough on the good ones - the dazzle of all the possibilities makes it hard to choose the right one.

Kind of like the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.\n\n

[bebe]

Quote
because it's dropped down to where you have to seriously adjust your deck to suit a metagame (changing maybe 5-7 cards).

This is more a statement about how quickly new arch tyoes are developed and transmitted - via the net - then the viability of control decks. Every control deck goes through these transformations - new colors added and deleted, cards restricted, metas changing. If we look at control as PTW does, we are adding meta hate whenever we put a deck of this type together so of course we need to test and review the meta carefully before choosing which cards remain and which go. Rock, Paper, Scissors is quite blurred now so I think a well tuned Keeper is an excellent choice for most metas if we think it out properly.  
I think there are a number of possibilities for Keeper and hardly think its time is over. It has always been a difficult deck to master and I feel that is closer to the truth of its current success rate. A number of top players are investigating other arch types now but I feel a resurgence of Keeper is in the offing.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Quote Keeper seems to be pretty bad right now

People keep saying this, but its not really true.  Keeper put people in the top tables of these recent tourneys:

Eindhoven 9/27, T4
Concord 9/28, Winner
Carta Magica 10/5, T8
Heildelberg 10/11, T8
Lincoln, RI 10/11, T4
The Gathering 10/18, T2
Auburn, MA 10/19, T2
Duelmen 10/19, T8
C&J's 10/23, Winner
Hadley 10/25, T2
Eindhoven  10/25, T4 & T8

...and I stopped this process with a page and half of recent tourney's to go.  Note that all this happened in a single month.

Obviously these are results from an old metagame, but everyone is always discrediting Keeper, and its always showing up in competitive forms.  Its likely that Keeper will never hold its 'top-spot' in the metagame ever again, but its certainly not extinct.

I think one of the issues is that better players often know what they expect to play against, and there are better metagame choices.  Also, while not the cryptic tome that it was once made out to be, Keeper is certainly difficult to tune and play well.

Quote Interesting that you put Scepter-Reap in there.  I haven't playtested the deck, but it seems pretty fragile.  Too fragile to win a tournament

I sort of threw that in there to see who would comment.  A few people I know have been testing it, but you're right in that the results haven't been stellar.

[MoreFling]

GI: you're lacking wmud and mindslaver.dec, and also Stacker should be in that list. The workshops are alive, baybee!\n\n

[Grand Inquisitor]

Quote GI: you're lacking wmud and GI, and also Stacker should be in that list. The workshops are alive, baybee!

Derf, the damn decks in my gauntlet and I forgot it...

What is GI of "wmud and GI" ?

[Milton]

Quote People keep saying this, but its not really true.  Keeper put people in the top tables of these recent tourneys:

Eindhoven 9/27, T4
Concord 9/28, Winner
Carta Magica 10/5, T8
Heildelberg 10/11, T8
Lincoln, RI 10/11, T4
The Gathering 10/18, T2
Auburn, MA 10/19, T2
Duelmen 10/19, T8
C&J's 10/23, Winner
Hadley 10/25, T2
Eindhoven  10/25, T4 & T8

Interesting.  I guess I just look at the decklists and the comments like "23 Keeper decks, one made top eight" and I don't really process the results.

Maybe Keeper can come back a little in this meta.  Are we going to find a typical Keeper for a balanced meta?  We can clearly do this with Hulk.  One Hulk deck maybe has a 4-8 card differential from another Hulk deck in a different environment.  Keeper, though, is still trying to figure out what it should be.  The questions are almost endless.  Challices?  Scepters?  Wastes?  Shaman?  What is the best kill mechanism?  How much creature control?  Duress?  Future Sight?  How important is Wish?  How much card drawing?  I wouldn't even know where to begin when making a Keeper for the new meta.\n\n

[Mykeatog]

It is to my experiance that the term "Keeper" means more than it is being credited for here. I don't think that the name has a relationship to a set decklist that we should be all be looking for, as much as an understanding that the name is more of an archtype.  I also think that it is impossible to come up with a decklist that will work across the boards. Keeper needs to be viewed as more of a metagame toolbox than as an exacting deck.

There are many different issues about wether to use chalice, sticks, or neither, but it depends alot on what is going to be in the field. Keeper isn't a decklist anymore, it has become a strategy. There are some fields that are going to die to chalice, and others that will not be able to handle some fire/ice on a stick. As opposed to looking to the internet for the deck that can beat them all, players in 2004 are going to need to start taking a closer look at their own metagames, and stop looking for the general analysis.

In the past couple of months there was a combo deck that could have potentially ruined the field. Here in the northeast it didn't exist so the chalice keeper strategy that had prepared for it fell behind the anti-keeper keeper deck. I don't need to explain how metagaming works, and I don't need to give more examples of how deck evolution happens, but it is important to realize that keeper is just as much a weapon now as it has ever been. The main difference; only players with awesome skill are going to be able to properly determine what they are going to need to get the job done.\n\n

[Grand Inquisitor]

Quote the chalice keeper strategy that had prepared for it fell behind the anti-keeper keeper deck

This is spot on, and it was compounded by the fact that there is a decent amount of 'better' blue based control in the form of Hulk, GAT, or scepter control.  By better, I mean just as Mike did, that it was more suited for control mirrors.

[Eastman]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Dec. 05 2003,14:40)

Quote the chalice keeper strategy that had prepared for it fell behind the anti-keeper keeper deck

This is spot on, and it was compounded by the fact that there is a decent amount of 'better' blue based control in the form of Hulk, GAT, or scepter control.  By better, I mean just as Mike did, that it was more suited for control mirrors.

Mike's definitely right on here. Although I love true keeper and enjoy playing it beyond any other deck, I've been unable to play it around Hadley for the most part due to metagame considerations. The only major tournament I've taken Chalice Keeper to was Waterbury, where I knew it would be the best deck to beat that meta (which it wound up proving itself to be).

The 'hidden variable' in determining the formats best deck will always be the meta... not just what decks are THERE, but how they are built to deal with other decks... it is often a complicated (though attainable) solution.

Quote but everyone is always discrediting Keeper, and its always showing up in competitive forms.  

right, sort of the inverse of what long has sometimes been (touted much but played/won with little)

[kirdape3]

There are several fundamental precepts that one has to deal with in this format.

1) The player base is absolutely atrocious.  Even if you handed them a degenerate deck (Long does spring to mind), they may not be able to play it correctly.

2) Mana Drain and Force of Will are the two most defining cards of the format.  Drain forces decks to either not run high casting cost permanents or forces them to run enough fast mana to cast those permanents before the player with Drains has UU active.  Force just keeps the format from being completely combo driven - and most of the time the mighty Force needs backup as it is.

3) The format has enough cards to permit multiple turn 2 kill decks even after the restriction of Long.  Therefore, most if not all aggro decks are completely obsolete unless they can handle those turn 2 kills.

So.  You end up with a Combo-Control-Prison paradigm.  Right now it's shaping up as Dragon-(Hulk or Keeper)-Slavery metagame.  Unless there's a real good reason to run otherwise (mostly based around not having the cards or not being good enough to run those decks), the metagame should literally lock itself like that.  A deck outside of that fundamental ideal has to beat at least two of those, and that's that.

[Dante]

If aggro is dead, then why have all the recent tournaments (crazy con 2, eindoven, dulmen, etc) had at least 3 aggro decks (more if you count aggro-control like gro, void, or suicide) in the top 8?

Bill

[Dante]

Quote (Smmenen @ Dec. 07 2003,23:49)Because nothing is dead.  Type One is at a very low point right now.  The metagames are so horrid that I would feel confident taking ICT to a tournament.

Stephen Menendian

What does that mean "the metagames are horrid"??  I.E. for the Dulmen tournaments, they've averaged 90-110 people or so for awhile now.  I don't buy the fact that the skillset of the players is any lower than it was 6 months to a year ago.  The fact is that there's been a rise in reliance on artifacts (chalice, scepter, etc) and the aggro decks are packing things like deed, naturalize, etc as well as running their own chalices etc.

I sincerely doubt the number of aggro decks making the top 8 is because of sheer numbers.

[Smmenen]

Quote (Dante @ Dec. 07 2003,21:34)If aggro is dead, then why have all the recent tournaments (crazy con 2, eindoven, dulmen, etc) had at least 3 aggro decks (more if you count aggro-control like gro, void, or suicide) in the top 8?

Bill

Contrary to my assertions in articles and my previous conceptions, Type One is not a unified format.  Instead of having a predictable trend of decks, we have a discernable trend that turns around prefrences of most players.  The result is that the top metagame is unpredictable unless you have a sense for what people like to play and Who is going to play what.  

That said - there is one trend - Workshop Aggro.  Look at the Dulmen and Eindhoven - both had at least 2 Workshop Aggro decks and most had Chalices and Blood Moons.  Perhaps that suggests that Workshop Aggro with the threat of both cards for disruption has given Workshop aggro new legs.  I think that it does.

That still doesn't take away from the fact that one reason people played them is becuase they probably enjoyed TnT and wanted to play it as opposed to making a calculated decision in light of rigorous testing.  

What does all this mean?  It means that anything is "viable" in type one until the metagame becomes more coherent.  That has been one of my biggest criticisms - an incoherent metagame means that we have less understandabilility and agreement.  All decks are Not created equal.  At some point, people are supposed to be squeezed out who want to play their pet/favorite deck - even if they are very good.  I wasn't being facetious when I said that the ICT deck would do alright - the metagames are so incoherent - they haven't forced people into playing the relatively narrow band of decks I call the "Top Tier" and that is what is making them bad.

Stephen Menendian\n\n

[Kaervek]

Quote 1) The player base is absolutely atrocious.  Even if you handed them a degenerate deck (Long does spring to mind), they may not be able to play it correctly.

To what specific player segment are you comparing the entire T1 community now? Sure, the average T1 player has fewer skillz than the average pro, is what you seem to be implying. I sincerely doubt that T1 players on average are 'worse' than the average Standard player. Within T1, much as within T2, there are different player groups. There are those on the 'pro level', there are the 'wannabe pro's', there are casual players, etc. etc. The only difference is that all groups are smaller.

Smmenen: while I absolutely agree with most everything you're saying (read this as: I believe your statements to be true), I feel compelled to chime in and let you know that I do not share your vision for the future of Type One. I would positively hate to see our beloved format turning into what you would have it be: a high-power Standard thing. I will vehemently oppose this every chance I get. There's a reason I quit T2, you know...\n\n

[jpmeyer]

I would not compare the player level of the average Type 1 tournament as being equivalent to say, a PTQ.

[Kaervek]

Re-read your own statement and think about it for a while.

You're comparing two fundamentally different things, which was my point from the beginning. You can't compare an 'average' T1 tourney to a PTQ. You need to compare it to an 'average' standard tourney. I've been there, and believe me: the skill level does not differ much at all.

You want to compare PTQ's to something in T1? You can't. We don't have tournaments of that calibre in our format, for various reasons. Whether or not that's a bad thing remains open for debate, but it's the case, period. Does that prove that there's a larger percentage of skilled T2'ers than T1'ers? No.

To refer to what kirdape3 said: give an Extended Tinker/Mind's desire deck (whatever the hell it's called these days) to a random T2 kid (and I'm talking about kids you meet in average tourneys here, nit just n00bs) and chances are he won't know what to do with it either. Your being unfair to the T1 community.

[jpmeyer]

It's less fair to compare a Type 1 tourney to a FNM than to a PTQ.  Half of the point of an FNM is to have a fun little tourney that you can enter for a couple bucks where you win a foil card.  Comparing it to a PTQ is more accurate in that both award a prize of similar value and have a similar number of rounds.  You do not see the small children that everyone seems to hate so much at PTQs.

[kirdape3]

Chances are good that the random T2 n00b can maximize his cards much more effectively than the random T1 player.  He actually has to know how to use creatures, whereas that T1 player just has to tap W and Swords them, or R and Bolt them away.

The only decks that are significantly harder to play than the norm in T1 are (or were) Long and Keeper.  And they were underestimated since nobody can play them correctly.

[Milton]

Quote Chances are good that the random T2 n00b can maximize his cards much more effectively than the random T1 player.  He actually has to know how to use creatures, whereas that T1 player just has to tap W and Swords them, or R and Bolt them away.

But it is my experience that the T2 player has a really poor view of what T1 is. How many times do we listen to these idiots claim that T1 is about first turn kills?  I explain that first turn kills are really, really rare in T1.  Then there is the idiot T2 player that claims that his deck is better than a T1 deck, not understanding that they are very, very different formats.

I would say that the best T1 players are not as good at the game of magic as a T2 or extended PTQ type player, but those types of players generally have a much different type of experience.  They (the PTQ types) generally don't have to spend any time deckbuilding as the internet does it all for them.  In Type I, metagame is so important that a dude who net-decks could very easily get crushed.  Also, the level of rules interaction for a good T1 player is much higher than that of the PTQ guy.  How does Hurkyls Recall, Grafted Skullcap and Memory Jar work?  Can the Jar player stack the discard part of the Skullcap before they get back their original hand after the return your original cards to your hand part of the Jar effect stacks?  What if your opponent has a Hurkyls Recall in his original hand?  How is he able to force you to pick-up all artifacts and then discard them?

T1 is more and more about these very complex rules interactions.  Shit, look at Dragon!  As such, many T1 players are far behind the rules curve, whereas T2 players, for example, don't really have to know these really complex rules.  These T1 players being behind the curve makes it look like the T1 meta is filled with dumb asses, but it's hard to know everything.  Also, decks are changing so fast in our format that it's hard to keep on top of everything and it's impossible to prepare for everything.

[Dante]

Quote (Smmenen @ Dec. 08 2003,01:39)Contrary to my assertions in articles and my previous conceptions, Type One is not a unified format.  Instead of having a predictable trend of decks, we have a discernable trend that turns around prefrences of most players.  The result is that the top metagame is unpredictable unless you have a sense for what people like to play and Who is going to play what.  

That said - there is one trend - Workshop Aggro.  Look at the Dulmen and Eindhoven - both had at least 2 Workshop Aggro decks and most had Chalices and Blood Moons.  Perhaps that suggests that Workshop Aggro with the threat of both cards for disruption has given Workshop aggro new legs.  I think that it does.

That still doesn't take away from the fact that one reason people played them is becuase they probably enjoyed TnT and wanted to play it as opposed to making a calculated decision in light of rigorous testing.  

What does all this mean?  It means that anything is "viable" in type one until the metagame becomes more coherent.  That has been one of my biggest criticisms - an incoherent metagame means that we have less understandabilility and agreement.  All decks are Not created equal.  At some point, people are supposed to be squeezed out who want to play their pet/favorite deck - even if they are very good.  I wasn't being facetious when I said that the ICT deck would do alright - the metagames are so incoherent - they haven't forced people into playing the relatively narrow band of decks I call the "Top Tier" and that is what is making them bad.

Stephen Menendian

<sigh> I couldn't agree and disagree with you more.  The first 3 paragraphs are pretty much right on.


"an incoherent metagame means that we have less understandabilility and agreement.  All decks are Not created equal" - Yes, this is exactly true!  This is the beauty and subtlety of Type 1!  I think that the gap between the top tier decks and the next level of decks has blurred so much that it's just a smear rather than distinct levels (if it ever was levels).

So what if there is less agreement and understandability about the metagame?!  There's rarely ever been agreement and that's part of the beauty of type 1.  The minute it turns into a PTQ, play one of the top 4 decks or lose, type atmosphere, then that will truly be the death of type 1, more so than any stupid restriction or banning the DCI could do.

Steve, most of us can see what you describe as your vision for Type 1.  We just don't agree that's what we want for Type 1.  By trying to make Type 1 something more than what it is, it would lose exactly that which makes it what it is.  (If that didn't make sense, I'm sorry, but that's the best way to describe it).

Bill

[bebe]

Quote
Contrary to my assertions in articles and my previous conceptions, Type One is not a unified format.  Instead of having a predictable trend of decks, we have a discernable trend that turns around prefrences of most players.

There's the rub. We have three different stereotypical Type 1 players.

If we look at the Tier 1 decks we find Dragon, Long, Mask, Chalice Keeper, WMud, Neo-TnT and U/r Phid ( possibly). Yet there seems a number of decks appearing in the top eiught lists that resemble nothing on this list. Serious hobbyists - that is whom I would consider Smemmen, Toad, Morefling and a few others ( I am not going to list everyone). These are p[layers that test decks thoughtfully and thoroughly, optimize lists, have a testing a group and  understand the nuances of selecting just the right card for the deck. These players will play one of these decks.

Next we have a gropup of players that are well versed in Magic but for their own perverse reasons like to play rogue decks from time to time. They are often not competing for an outstanding prize and therefore they elect to play a deck that they know is not Tier 1. Dicemanx, myself and a few others brought some very strange decks to our last meeting. You rarely see a Eureka deck competing in a Mox tournament. So these results are obviously skewed. Shock Wave loves Standstill but he brought Dragon to Worlds. I will play Dragon, Fish or Mud when the prize or pride of winning warrant it.

Then there are social players. They play Type 1 because they can interact with a nice group of people and pull out all there old cards from their binders. Or they7 tweak up an extended or Type 2 deck and bring it along just to play. This results in some strange results as I've seen Zombie decks top four.

This should be no deterent to applying ourselves to tweaking the decks we feel trruly are Tier 1. In the end the cream rises to the top.

BTW, STeve, I think I was the first to say that aggro was far from dead ...

[jpmeyer]

Quote (kirdape3 @ Dec. 08 2003,11:06)Chances are good that the random T2 n00b can maximize his cards much more effectively than the random T1 player.  He actually has to know how to use creatures, whereas that T1 player just has to tap W and Swords them, or R and Bolt them away.

The only decks that are significantly harder to play than the norm in T1 are (or were) Long and Keeper.  And they were underestimated since nobody can play them correctly.

There is actually a good point here.  There is definitely a higher degree of skill involved at maximizing resources in Standard and Limited.  Along with the example of creature removal being less generic, it's also harder to randomly replenish your hand and harder to accelerate out a fast threat that will simply win you the game on its own.

That said, I do agree with Milton that Type 1 is significantly more difficult when you are dealing with the incredibly high number of potential card and rules interactions.  In a way, it seems like Type 1 is harder to play on any given turn, while the other formats are harder to play over the course of the game as a whole.

[leviat]

I would like to take a moment to put this thread slightly back on track and address the statement of Rock-Paper-Scissors and "Aggro is dead."

When I think of viable Aggro in Type-1, three decks to spring to mind--
- Ninja/Venguer Mask (Survival builds)
- Goblins (With Lackey, Piledrivers, and such)
- TnT (With Chalice and Pyrostatic Piller)
(I'm not sure if Madness will survive without LED)

I think that each of those decks are strong and have a decent shot at getting T8 in tournaments come January 1st. When I make the claim that these decks are Aggro, I will often get the response "No, they're combo decks with creatures."

I think there's an obvious difference between Dragon and Goblin beatdown. As a reiteration to what was previously mentioned; What do you expect with Mana Drain in the format? Aggro is going to have to seem like combo when it has to drop all it's creatures before you get UU, or come up with a clever way to get around it (Mask, Welder).

I'll try to keep this brief and short before I start to ramble on too long and bore you off the subject. I think Aggro IS in the format. If you disagree, I have to wonder what your definition of Aggro is. I think people are inappropriately labeling many Aggro decks as Combo by saying "but it wins on turn three, how is that NOT combo?" I think similar statements can be applied to other archetypes.

The lines between Combo, Aggro, and Control are becoming blurred and I think it might be time to revamp the them. What's a Prison deck? Control? Should we consider mask decks to be Combo or Aggro? What's Hulk?

What do you guys think about this? At the very least I think we should add Prison as one of the major archetypes and try to distinguish what the difference is between fast Aggro and Combo.

[MolotDET]

Well what started out good just became something less.

1) I had the choice of deleting the last page or replies.

2) Closing the thread.

3) Moving it back to the base Vintage Mill.

I decided on the latter because it seems that every thread on a related topic seems to degrade into this "type one players play bad decks" topic.

just so you know This will not be tolerated further if you want to talk about that topic start a thread about it or I will open a thread for you to bicker in.

MOVED again