Disclaimer-> This article is my attempt to put down my thoughts on the perfect meta, and what a meta really is. There has been a lot of articles on how things affect the meta (for good or bad) and this is my attempt to set a framework for discussion. My apoligies if ive plagiarized anyones previos work on the subject, as I have recently moved to Australia and havent been up on my reading too much lately.
This article isnt a slam or rebuttal against anything or anyone, so if it seems that way that was not my original intent.
Oh yeah, im not a writer, so be gentle
What is a perfect meta.In order to discuss how to achieve a perfect meta, we must first decide what a perfect meta is. By definition (partially borrowing from economics,) a perfect meta is one where all players possess all knowledge about the cards and decks, and all cards are equally available to all players. This would lead to a two deck system, Deck.dec, and IhateDec.dec (Think homogeneous products at a fixed price).
While this is the theoretical ideal I don’t think it’s the best for the game. The practical ideal would be a meta where many deck types are viable, and all players possess limited information.
The theoretically perfect metaIt is my assumption that the theoretically perfect meta does not exist at present, and is a future imposibility.
In order to have a perfect meta, all players must have perfect information and no barriers to entry.
Perfect information can be described as the knowledge of all cards and their interactions, all knowledge of given deck designs (their strategies and weaknesses), and knowledge of the competition. These points are mostly theoretical, since there isn’t an effective way to test card interactions, people preferences, etc.
The first aspect of this is perhaps the most likely to happen theoretically, but the least probable. If we consider that at any given time the card pool is static, then is it quite possible for people to understand all the cards, their interaction, their strengths, and weaknesses. However when we look at the long term we see that the card pool is in fact dynamic, with new sets rotating in and cards becoming restricted or unrestricted. New sets are even more of a challenge to complete understanding because they not only add new cards and mechanics, but also change the relationship of existing cards and combinations. For example, cards like planar void affect the way reanimation spells work with creatures, and cards like trinisphere affect infinite engines, like cavern harpy-aluren. Some may argue that the effective card pool is much smaller because some cards are just plain better than others. This may be true for a lot of cards, but the dynamic nature of the card pool means that some cards that were strictly inferior may become superior. Where would illusions be without donate, LED without wishes or madness, etc. Given wizards recent spat of casting cost hate (sphere, trinisphere, chalice, pyrostatic pillar, etc.) it maybe become advantageous to look for higher casting cost cards in the future.
The next aspect is equally as impossible to fully comprehend. Since the card pool and deck designs are dynamic it is nearly impossible to understand all deck designs and strategies and effectively combat them. It is easy to hate out or compete against a set decklist, but within each deck is a myriad of possibilities. For example, the inclusion or absence of pernicious deed in tog greatly affects is ability to combat weenie-horde armies or decks with a lot of low CC permanents. While it is true that most contain a relative few core cards (lotus, moxen, ancestral, etc), it can be the unexpected cards that can have the most effect. Essentially the problem is that it is impossible to fully comprehend the almost infinite number of interactions a given deck can possess.
The final aspect of perfect information is knowledge of the competition. Its impossible to know what the competition will be playing considering people have different tastes, preferences, cards, thoughts, etc.
Most of the above aspects relate to the almost unlimited number of possibilities players are presented with, and the resulting impossibility of complete understanding because of it.
The next assumption of a perfect meta is perhaps the most poignant to real life; the barrier to entry. This can mainly be seen as a problem of cost. Whether the game costs money, time, or effort the cost will always be greater than zero, and will always affect how the game is played.
The first and perhaps most understood cost of type 1 is money. The cards are definitely not cheap, and some players will always face cost decisions in the face of anything less than unlimited proxies. However, it is my belief that the barrier to entry that cost creates actually makes for a more diverse and healthy metagame, which will be discussed later.
The second cost is time. Players who can devote more time to the hobby, whether playing or strategizing or just reading about it, will always have an advantage.
Geography is another cost (or limiting factor). No matter how much I would like to, I probably wont be playing in Dulmen any time soon (I live in Australia). Until transport costs equal zero, there will always be some degree of local isolation and preferences in any given area. This is because in order to all meta’s to equalize the cost of getting players (or even cards) from one to the other must be zero.
So essentially if the cost of play are greater than zero we will never arrive that the perfect meta, because there will always be price distortions (think monopolies).
More than rock paper scissors.Anther reason a two deck system will never work is that there is always an incentive to change a given deck design to improve one matchup or another. We can think of this as rock paper scissors.
There is always an incentive to change your deck (decision) given imperfect information. Lets say that you can improve you matchup vs scissors while loosing a little in your matchup vs paper. You might do this if you think scissors will be more prevalent or you happen to despise scissors. As a result, the remaining paper people will have an improved mathchup versus your rock (since you optimized versus scissors) and the meta will have distorted slightly. This in turn will create further distortions as people react to the distortions. This is why the meta is constantly in flux.
A real world example of this is suicide black. Since its main claim to fame is disruption, it tends to do better against better decks (like keeper) which actually play resources to be disrupted. A hyppie looses something when your playing an elf deck that doesn’t have cards in hand after the third turn. Likewise sinkholes and wastelands are next to worthless in a deck with all basic forests and mana elves.
This is why I feel that the distortion created by the higher barrier to entry actually makes metas more diverse. If everyone played moxen then there would be two types of decks, Moxen.dec, and IhateMoxen.dec. Mox monkey would be in every deck and diversity would suffer. At present mox monkey actually hurts the keeper (or whatever) player when they go against a deck w/o artifact mana, because its essentially a 1/1 for 1 with no ability. Likewise, wasteland doesn’t become an auto inclusion when budget decks are around. It seems that the more decks optimize the more they become susceptible to something random, like lifegain or whatever.
The real perfect meta.So for me the real perfect meta is the current one. Where you can expect to face any number of decks at any given tournament, and people play a large number of decks because they want or have too. As decks rise in popularity and prevalence they will be hated our or restricted if they turn out to be abusive, and the meta is perpetually in a constant state of flux.
