[Article] The Five Axis Metagame

[Eastman]

Tog has 'overrun' the environment as much as it ever will. It is powerful, and dominant in the sense that the meta has developed around it.  It hardly warrants any restrictions however.

Mindslaver is the force to be reckoned with now, and incidentally, it beats tog.

[Mixing Mike]

If anything it would be Accumulated Knowledge IMO.  We get to keep Mana Drains to punish what needs a good beating.  The only downside is that Hulk will never be the same without AK's.  WotC doesn't like killing the deck, well, usually.....(Academy, 4Necro Donate, Dream Halls, etc...).

[jpmeyer]

Tog has 'overrun' the environment as much as it ever will. It is powerful, and dominant in the sense that the meta has developed around it.  It hardly warrants any restrictions however.

Mindslaver is the force to be reckoned with now, and incidentally, it beats tog.

Right.  Once the metagame starts filling out with more Mindslaver decks and more draw-7 decks (and more [card]Sword of Fire and Ice[/card] Stacker )we'll be able to take a better look at what's going on.

[Smmenen]

If Tog ever becomes too good, I think the first card too look out is not actually Mana Drain (as I once said), but Cunning Wish.

If that doesn't solve the problem, then hit Drain - but I think one Wish is sufficiently restrictive that it loses more to Stax and more to Aggro decks becuase it can't use Berserk as quickly - it will have to mystical or vamp or scroll up Wish first.

I think Eastman is speaking to quickly.  Shaman Tog may be able to compete very well with Slavery.

[Dr. Sylvan]

If Tog ever becomes too good, I think the first card too look out is not actually Mana Drain (as I once said), but Cunning Wish.

This quote just drove me to the realization that Berserk is to Hulk as Yawgmoth's Will was to Long. (Not exactly, but you see what I'm getting at.) Berserk breaks rakso's "Cunning Wish is strictly for utility, not broken stuff like Burning can get" argument.

This speculation is depressing. Thank goodness I have all the hard data that the world provides me to correct my opinions with. :)

[Smmenen]

If Tog ever becomes too good, I think the first card too look out is not actually Mana Drain (as I once said), but Cunning Wish.

This quote just drove me to the realization that Berserk is to Hulk as Yawgmoth's Will was to Long. (Not exactly, but you see what I'm getting at.) Berserk breaks rakso's "Cunning Wish is strictly for utility, not broken stuff like Burning can get" argument.

This speculation is depressing. Thank goodness I have all the hard data that the world provides me to correct my opinions with.

Hilarious because its true.  But that was only one part of the reason.  The three wishes work VERY well against Prison - one of the key reasons why Tog beats prison: becuase you can, without too much difficultly, Cunning Wish for Artifact Mutation or Rack and Ruin (even under Trinisphere + Tangle Wire) and simply win.

Steve

[jazzykat]

Taking this thread in a slightly different direction: I am to assume that tog's game plan against slaver is:

1. get out the monkey and break all their moxes
2. stop welder
3. stop slaver

In this matchup tog is definitely the control player. When I can drop a tog then I will, but it is more important to leave drain mana open.

Am I seeing this matchup correctly?

[Rico Suave]

Yes.

It's very difficult to play the aggro deck here because if you try you'll oftentimes give your opponent a window to drop Slaver, and that takes you out of the game before you even get a chance to swing.

[TheFram]

@Steve's Prison Comment

I actually found it ALOT harder to beat Prison when they were running more Sphere of Resistance and no Trinispheres, since Wish was harder to use effectively. Trinisphere does more to my early mana development (If I am going second and have no FoW, which will be about 20% of the time in reality), but Wish-> R+R/Mut is still happening for me even under trinisphere.

However, I agree with Eastman, Slaver is the real force to be reckoned with at the moment. And it can beat Tog nicely from what I hear.

[Nehptis]

Looking at the SmmenenAtog build it seems that MD, FOW, CW, or Intuition are the obvious targets for restriction.  Although, restricting MD or FOW would hurt control decks a lot and IMO unbalance the format too heavily.  And based on the DCI's past views on "tutors" it seems that CW and Intuition are the heavy favorites.  If I were the DCI then I think I'd have at least a watch going on for Cunning Wish.

[SpencerForHire]

In Tog Intuition isn't hampered much by only having one,  i've watched one build locally that only runs one and he does fine.  His runs more merchant scrolls so he can always get the needed, wish/AK/intuition when he wanted it.

[Smmenen]

I'm going to have to take issue with the comment that restricting Mana Drain would destablize the format IF we conclude Tog is too good.   Mana Leak is in many ways actually superior and more effectiving at stoping speed based combo like Draw7 or pure speed like Belcher than Drain simply becuase it can be cast on turn one a huge majority of the time, and more often than Drain on turn 2.  Counterspell would also become relatively more important.
In fact, The Deck could function fine on one Drain and 3 Counterspells, not to mention URphid esque decks and Landstill.  Not that I'm advocating the restriction of Drain, because Tog hasn't even come close to meeting the threshold for dominance, but I'm just trying to counter that one narrow contention.

Steve

[Nehptis]

I’m not  certain if that last post was directed at my comments or not.  But, it seems that it was.  Although I agree with the analysis of Leak, Drain, CS etc…and I try to avoid issues of semantics, I clearly used a clarifier of “IMO”.  Also, I used the word “unbalance” and not “destabilize”.  Those are two dramatically different words in the context that they were used.

In any case, all I was trying to say was that in the hypothetical situation that Tog was to show up in 90% of the T1 decks then IMO the card to consider for restriction is probably the CW.

[The Hamburgler]

*Sigh*
@ Nehptis:
Instead of thinking how to restrict a card to hose the deck, try to just beat it. Tog is far from unbeatable and can be taken out. Tog has been axed once, no need to do it again until it gets to a point where it is so disgustingly rampant that the value of everything else goes down in value. If you can't beat it, don't join it- get creative.

@ Smemmen:
I thought it was an interesting read, but I have some points I disagree with:

1) Welder MUD being beat by control not combo
I played Welder MUD and disagree entirely. The deck is a machine made to hose control and is stable against the combo decks of the environment. It has such threats as Goblin Welder, Smokestack, Karn, Silver Golem, Blood Moon and removal of Red Elemental Blast (some builds). Against combo it has the flexible Tormod's Crypt. By combo I mean Rector and Dragon, the most populous of the age currently.

2) This sentence:

second because the prison player may have needed to aggressively mulligan to get a decent hand and the effect of that is that Force of Will may have stopped a key threat

I don't like this because it is true for nearly every deck, and Welder MUD is least likely for this to happen. With a very stable amount of mana sources and the need for card advantage and an engine to get going Welder MUD and most artifact prison dislikes the mulligan.
All in all it was a great read. I didn't mean to criticize or flame, as you are a much better writer than I could be. Well, it was a great perspective at a glance of the Meta, although I am a firm believer in studying your personal habitat and what would be the best deck for your Meta. Good job, good read.
                                                      - The Hamburgler

(P.S: I'm sure if you had it your way it would be Aggro<Combo>Control- you loyalist of combo   )

[Smmenen]

That's actually not true - as much as it may seem otherwise.

I remain stunningly objective in my desire for their to be a balanced Type One metagame - but I've also realized another virtue: a dynamic environement is actually more important than balance.

Why?  A completely stagnant environment can be balanced.  Innovation is the engine of change in any format.  Without the proper incentives in place for innovation to take place, formats die - even if balanced.

I want a relatively balanced, thriving, dynamic environment.  One of the benefits of vintage is that our restriction policy is like a Tax - it can provide a short term policy answer to a broken metagame creating dynamics and innovation.

As for Control beating Prison - I carefully qualified that by saying that TOG does.  If, then, you do not agree - that's fine, but you are arguing with some of the best members of Team Meandeck who have done intensive testing with Prison Toad, Myself, Cha1n5, and so on.  The only reason I had Control --> Prison on the diagram is for completeness, not accuracy.

Steve

[Nehptis]

@ The Ham:

I don't recall ever saying that I'm having trouble beating Tog or whatever nonsense you are *sighing* about.  Sure I've lost to Tog, who hasn't? If you bothered to read the posts I was merely making some conjecture based on a hypothetical situation.  T1 is very balanced right now.  I'm not asking for any restrictions.  I just felt like making some extrapolations of my own based on what I read in Steve's article.

Now I know why there is an Open forum and a Members only one.  I wouldn't want to read a post like this in a closed forum!

[defector]

I'm working Good Read Steve,
I can't support a tog decklist myself, but I agree about the power of Cunning Wish.  Th ediagrams were nice and encapsulated the meta in a fair way, the detail was approriate.  I wonder how far Tog is ahead in the first tier, my feeling is not by much, I think the level that yuo and therest of TeamMean Deck are at are probably measuring inches.  Something Dr. Sylvan woudl quantify for us over hudnreds of Tog trials I'm working onslaver, I feel like there is more opportunity for innovation here.  The meta is good, no restrictions atall please.  This is quite sortable in my opinion.
thanx for the read steve,
defector

[SpencerForHire]

Ironically, for Tog being suck a big deal, it was easy to beat.  I owned it with an Old BUphid build (shadowmages instead of phids) and I shifted to WS builds before I ran into much more of Tog.  The deck never really threatened me, and I never had to face it after the shift to WSs.  I don't see how Tog is a big deal.  
I in no way see how tog is a threat.  Maybe  I just run the right decks to beat it.  But I mean, why does it need to get nulled any?
Excuse my ignorance if there is any.

[Gothmog]

I also have a basic issue with the diagram, in that the arrows are supposed to indicate dominant matchups, but our testing evidence doesn't seem to indicate some of the arrows are correct.

Specifically, Control destroying Prison seems like a stretch.  I agree the Control decks have game versus Prison, but our testing doesn't indicate its a dominant matchup.  Prison seems to have more trouble with pure aggro than with control.

Also, the 5-axis theory ignores the exact flavor of the hate in various decks, which of course is extremely important in actual play (Null Rod gives me game versus DeathLong but not Dragon for example, both of which are classified combo).

The article was an interesting read, and obviously includes diligent work, but I don't agree that your model accurately reflects the current state of Type I.

[Smmenen]

It's obvious you didn't read the article, because the arrows do not in fact reflect dominant matchups.  There is no such thing as a truly dominant matchup in anything as flexible as a metagame.  Read the article again - the arrows point to theoretically advantages matchups.  And as I pointed out again, no diagram would ever be perfect or even close and that the weak part of mine was the arrow from Prison to Control which was added simply to keep the pentagram complete.  Which was part of the point you made - that hate changes matchups, which I agree with.  

Furthermore, your entire post implies that the diagram is the centerpiece of the article. If you are had read the article, it would have been clear that the diagram was a conceptual framework within which the article played out - the words were far more important than the diagram, a point which you seem to miss.

[Gothmog]

The top diagram has "pwns" within each arrow, its very logical to assume that you intended to have the bottom diagram include that also since the coloring and everything is the same, but didn't for space/aesthetic reasons.

In addition, you state "The arrows along this diagram represent theoretically most favorable matchups and are merely a generalization at that."  I disagree that Prison is Control's most favorable matchup.  I missed the part of your article where you wrote your pentagram was changed to be pretty and not accurately reflect your thoughts.  Where I come from, when we model things we do so to accurately reflect phenomena we observe.  We don't do so to draw pretty pictures in our articles, but maybe that's just me.

In short, I read the article.  In my opinion, it has some issues worth discussing.  Try not to be such an asshole.

[Vegeta2711]

You guys are cute. Few things.
A. Let's not talk about theoritical Tog restrictions.
B. Smmenen, stop skipping the thought process of making a response and stop assuming stuff. You did the same thing to Matt already just a few days ago, so LEARN.
C. Gothmog: Don't call Stephen an asshole. It's not nice.  :lol:


Fail this and I'll close the thread.

[theorigamist]

I missed the part of your article where you wrote your pentagram was changed to be pretty and not accurately reflect your thoughts.

You also apparently missed the part of his article where he says to take the diagram with a grain of salt because a complex metagame cannot be so simplified as that.  Here's the quote from his article that you seem to have missed:

"Take them with a grain of salt and the recognition that a complex metagame can't be so easily diagramed - what I have attempted here is nothing more than a useful visual to frame the discussion."

By the way, if you don't agree that the arrows represent "pwns" because, if they had, the diagram would not be accurate, then I hardly think it's reasonable to assume that they do, in fact, mean "pwns."  I think, rather, it's easier not to assume and to instead read five or six sentences ahead.  The other thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of work was put into this article, and you seem focused on this one assumption that you made (not that Steve wrote).

Steve, great article.  I really enjoyed it.  The only thing I didn't see there that I would have liked to is this reason why Tog is so great: it's a one card combo.  The same is true of Tendrils.  The reason a Tendrils-based combo deck is almost strictly better than any other is because there's no real combination of cards.  Since you are looking for only one card, the deck becomes more consistent, better, yadda yadda, you know this already.  As for Tog, I feel the same way.  Old control (Morphling-style) took control of the game and then started a four turn clock.  Tog is like that, except it's a one turn clock and also board control and also costs three instead of five and also takes advantage of a non-mana resource so you can spend your mana on doing useful things like drawing your deck.  In short, Tog is a combination of a lot of powerful things that control would have to use otherwise, and Tog does its job very cheaply (very little mana to cast, little to no mana to protect, no mana to pump, etc.).  To an extent this is just a semantics argument, but I think the idea of a one card combo in general is important enough to need to be explicit.  I think the concept of a one card combo almost puts a limit on the innovation one can do regarding combo decks, and Tog shows how that limit transports itself to control as well.  (Of course this limit may or may not actually exist, depending on what Wizards continues to throw out, but the concept, in my opinion, is still important).

[TutoreIlluminato]

Ironically, for Tog being suck a big deal, it was easy to beat.  I owned it with an Old BUphid build (shadowmages instead of phids) and I shifted to WS builds before I ran into much more of Tog.  The deck never really threatened me, and I never had to face it after the shift to WSs.  I don't see how Tog is a big deal.  
I in no way see how tog is a threat.  Maybe  I just run the right decks to beat it.  But I mean, why does it need to get nulled any?
Excuse my ignorance if there is any.

Who played the Tog? Your grandfather?

Hulk is clearly one of the best deck of the format, and its ability to adapt for various metagames makes it "NEVER dead"

[defector]

Whether or not you beat a tog deck in your playing career, or beat a tog deck consistently has no bearing on this discussion.  What matter is what the community is seeing as the best deck, this is objective through tourney reports, etc.  Tog is doing nicley, it is not GAT, or Keeper in it's day, but it is strong.  The only other thing that I found interesting is that outside of Keeper(pure control), and TPS, it seems that everything competitve right now is a hybrid of supertypes.  Tog can work all three, whereas STax only works 2, I wonder is this bleinding is what is shifting the balance in not only Tog, but the entire metagame as we know it.
defector

[theorigamist]

defector, Smmenen talks a lot in his article about the assignment of roles.  I can't remember if he said this explicitly, but it can certainly be implied, that the ability to assign Tog to several different roles (which is a result of the blending of strategies that you talked about) is a huge part of what makes Tog so strong.  So I think what you're talking about is actually a huge part of the article, even if stated a different way.

[defector]

I recognized that, what I was trying to explicate was that blending roles may be whats pushing the entire format with other blended successful decks like Workshop.dec and 5 Strip.aggro-control making big gains while bluecontrol.dec and redattack/burn.dec have steadily diminshed.  I was saying that Steve was right about Tog, but Togg isn't the only deck using Supertype.blend to push the format.  This i svery interesting because Supertype doesn't regulate well via restrcition, and provides the narrow possibility for a new Supertype-Comggro or some nonsense like that.  It also distorts our historical interpretation of how aggro baords for control or combo.  On a side note, it also shows that the best cards in type one are finding themselves placed into decks whose supertype wouldn't traditionally use them.  Berzerk in controlis intriguing, but Slaver in Prison is perhaps more subtle or dangerous extension of this idea.  Maybe I'm just saying what's already been said, but I thought the Supertypebelnd.dec was bigger than "Tog is new King", though the discussions stem from the same fount.  I'm getting dangerously off topic, so that's all for now.
thanx,
defector

[Luc, Use The Force]

@ Smmenen

I'd like to adress a question about the tier brakdonw you made.

While arguing against the restriction of Workshop, people used to bring the following argument : Workshops decks are inconsistents as hell.

I'm not claiming to restrict Workshop if a Tier 1 deck plays it here, I simply want to ask how an inconsistent deck could be a Tier 1 deck.

For example, in the Prison V. Aggro-Control V. Aggro part of your article, you talk about the importance of a proper combination of mana and lock spells in the opening hand, which to me means the importance of luck in certain matchups.

How can Prison be a Tier One deck if it is normal to justify yourself losing a match by saying "I got an improper combination of mana and lock spells on my first and second hand, and 5 cards gave me not ennough thread to lock my opponent." I'd never play such a deck in a tournament...

I haven't played against Prison a lot since Trinisphere came out, thus I can't calculate the influence of this card in the deck. It's clearly a thread, but does it really solve the consistency issue ennough to make it a tier one deck?

Luc

[Dr. Sylvan]

I totally talk about why adding blue to prison makes it better by addressing consistency concerns in the forthcoming February article. Basically, it comes down to "blue draw spells fix bad mulligans".

So Slavery > Stax > MUD, IMO.

[Smmenen]

I missed the part of your article where you wrote your pentagram was changed to be pretty and not accurately reflect your thoughts.

You also apparently missed the part of his article where he says to take the diagram with a grain of salt because a complex metagame cannot be so simplified as that.  Here's the quote from his article that you seem to have missed:

"Take them with a grain of salt and the recognition that a complex metagame can't be so easily diagramed - what I have attempted here is nothing more than a useful visual to frame the discussion."

By the way, if you don't agree that the arrows represent "pwns" because, if they had, the diagram would not be accurate, then I hardly think it's reasonable to assume that they do, in fact, mean "pwns."  I think, rather, it's easier not to assume and to instead read five or six sentences ahead.  The other thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of work was put into this article, and you seem focused on this one assumption that you made (not that Steve wrote).

Steve, great article.  I really enjoyed it.  The only thing I didn't see there that I would have liked to is this reason why Tog is so great: it's a one card combo.  The same is true of Tendrils.  The reason a Tendrils-based combo deck is almost strictly better than any other is because there's no real combination of cards.  Since you are looking for only one card, the deck becomes more consistent, better, yadda yadda, you know this already.  As for Tog, I feel the same way.  Old control (Morphling-style) took control of the game and then started a four turn clock.  Tog is like that, except it's a one turn clock and also board control and also costs three instead of five and also takes advantage of a non-mana resource so you can spend your mana on doing useful things like drawing your deck.  In short, Tog is a combination of a lot of powerful things that control would have to use otherwise, and Tog does its job very cheaply (very little mana to cast, little to no mana to protect, no mana to pump, etc.).  To an extent this is just a semantics argument, but I think the idea of a one card combo in general is important enough to need to be explicit.  I think the concept of a one card combo almost puts a limit on the innovation one can do regarding combo decks, and Tog shows how that limit transports itself to control as well.  (Of course this limit may or may not actually exist, depending on what Wizards continues to throw out, but the concept, in my opinion, is still important).

Thank you for quoting that line to Gothmog before I did - vegeta should see that too.

Your point about Tog and Tendrils is dead on.  I've recent thought that Tendrils is in many ways what Tog is to control, but I could never figure out why specifcialy, until you just put your finger on it.  They are both one card combos.  Of coruse, Tendrils doesn't have as big an efffect as Tog, but the comparison is valid nonetheless.

Steve