With the Star City P9 tournament behind us, what lies ahead?

[hulk3rules]

THIS JUST IN: DECK DOESN'T WIN EVERY TOURNAMENT EVER, CONSIDERED DEAD.

Or, maybe it's because you lost to a deck that you yourself have been claiming as "dead" for months.

And let's look at game 2.  You got to drain then cast mindtwist, a game ender on it's own.  Then you got to AK for a total of 4 cards.  If you lose after a start like this, perhaps the claims against tog have some merit

[Pest]

I agree with Phelon, Justin made the mitake of letting you AK for 2 twice...how do you lose after that?

I for one did terrible with 4cc...I went 3-3-1 drop

Round 2 I played against the winner, Mike Panas, and I took game 1 and had he not TD'd a Tundra in game 2 he would not have unmorphed Exalted Angel and I would have took that game. It was a play mistake on my part trying to cast an Angel with no back-up though.

To top it all off I entered one of the box Side events, and lost round one to Gay/r...the person playing the deck had never heard of PTW, I informed him that he was the one who came up with the deck, and he just simply said "wow, he must be pretty gay if he has that much time to come up with a deck like this" I wanted to punch him, but I refrained from doing so. I hate Gay/r and I hate Standstill even more.

I still had some good times nontheless and good job to those who made T8.

[Smmenen]

I completely agree with the comment that Tog isn't as good anymore. I'm not even sure it's tier one.

Although I'd like to reiterate my position that Fish is probably the strongest deck in the format.

I think PTWorm's rod must be getting chaffed from all that sucking on it that you have been doing.  I will admit that Marc is perhaps one of the best magic players I have seen, but Fish does well for him because it is HIS deck and he knows it like he knows the top of your head from the aerial view.  Fish is strong and a good deck, but all the other players playing fish (not to discredit some good players) are not the dominant force as you think.  It's just that they keep running into Tog and control, which the deck was designed to beat.  I ran over 4 fish decks on Saturday and never feared them.  The only thing I worried about was playing against Marc cause he's a great player, not because Fish is the pwn all you make it out to be.  Once the metagame shifts or people start respecting it's ability to beat hulk/control by boarding more antifish and less anti-combo/workshop, fish will stop coming out in such strong numbers.  I give Marc mad props for inventing a good deck that was a great metagame call for many tourneys, but the poor man's balls are running dry...rest your lips a bit.

I think you are completely right.  There are so many factors going on and its hard to figure out whats really at work.  I think you are spot on.  Tog isn't a weak deck.  It can't beat Fish.

[trufunxoldya]

Well, to address the question posed by this thread, I think the future holds much Fish, 4C Control, 7/10 and Man Show variants, and then everything else.  

Fish is more difficult deck to play *well* than most people realize.  The deck only carries itself so far.  People are not going to just goldfish the deck for a week and go t8 with it, due do its subtle complexities, its many different play options, and the increasing amount of hate that its recent success will generate.

4C Control will do well because it uses very powerful cards that are answers to most decks and most good control players have been playing this archetype for years.

The workshop decks will do well because they can be so broken and a lot of decks just fold up to their first two turns.  The weakness of these decks is their inconsistency.  Fish and control are more consistent than the workshop decks and will therefore do better on average over 8 rounds of swiss.

I played a version of 7/10 at SCG and placed 18th. (6-2)  I feel that the deck can be made more consistent with some tuning and can become a good bet to t8 in more and more tourneys.  I lost to a good player playing skullclamp/psychatog with main deck artifact removal.  I couldn't keep a trinisphere on the board and eventually he drew so many cards that he overwhelmed me.  The other loss was to Fish and I kept sketchy hands both games.  Not that my hands cost me the game, but in hindsight I felt that I was not aggressive enough all day with regard to mulligans.

The other decks not mentioned here will surely have some t8s because a good player playing a deck that they have played for a long time will usually beat a lesser player regardless of the deck.

[VGB]

Tourneys with less than 6 Swiss rounds should not be taken into account for statistics. 2-1-1 is often enough to Top4 in a 4-swiss tourneys (less than 16 persons).

I guess it would be prudent to get an indication of what the accepted cutoff is then, whether it be rounds of Swiss/T8/# of players, or whatever.  Specifically, what was used for Kowal's/DrSylvan's statistics.

The first 2 links I reference had 5 rounds of Swiss, and of course everybody knows Origins was 6 rounds.  Hulk also placed 1'st and 3'rd  there, and I don't know how many more Tog decks placed in the T8 (but I'd be willing to bet there were more).

[PucktheCat]

Here are some questions this result raises for me:

1.  What is the best fast large creature deck in the format that isn't hosed by Null Rod?  Is it a Madness deck of some sort?  Whatever it is, it needs to be seriously examined as a foil to Fish.

At a recent local tourney the field was almost 1/3 Fish and the two decks that made it to the finals were a Fish deck and the only good aggro that was played, a U/R/G Madness deck.  The Madness player literally made it to the finals with nothing but Fish matchups.  As the Fish player he met in the finals I was quite happy to split the prize with him.

2.  If Crucible of Worlds is the new anti-Fish hotness and people are going to start bringing in Tsabo's Webs as well (as PTW suggested on the SCG forums) does it make sense for Fish to adapt to these innovations?  In particular, does a Goblin Vandal or two make the cut either main or sideboard as a answer to these cards that doesn't reduce threat density?

3.  What will the Fish mirror tech be?  Crucible looks like a good one-of for the mirror, but if it continues to succeed then it seems possible that more dramatic measures will be taken to get a leg up.

4.  Can Tog adapt?  So far all the answers to Fish have been sideboard answers, but that gives Fish game one almost every time, and the anti-Fish boards aren't good enough to win two in a row reliably.  Maindeck answers (akin to Gorilla Shaman as an answer to Slaver) seem like they might be a viable option.  Fire/Ice, in particular, seems like a justifiable two-of in some meta's.

Any thoughts on any of these points?

Leo

[eddavatar]

My answer to Fish is GAT. Fish usually can't deal with a 5/5 dryad unless they waste a lot of resources.

Also, once people are ready to accept Fish as a threat (as I've for the last year) and sideboard for it, it's going to subside.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Those three links I post above were just the noteworthy tournaments that Tog decks took first place that I found on this site - I'm sure if I took the time to research other sites I would find others for just the month of June.

The point is that Kowal misrepresented tournament results for Tog in the June metagame, and I felt compelled to uncover the truth.

OH NOES! I don't count little tournies!

I guess it would be prudent to get an indication of what the accepted cutoff is then, whether it be rounds of Swiss/T8/# of players, or whatever. Specifically, what was used for Kowal's/DrSylvan's statistics.

Well, I think it's been said about 9675658 times, but the cutoff is fifty players, and I make exceptions for tourneys of 40+ with Lotus as top prize. Obviously, the limit is arbitrary. It could just as easily have been 33 players or 65 to force Swiss round constraints, but way back on winter break, 50 seemed as reasonable as any other number. It has worked well so far to prune out the most unrepresentative or uncompetitive tournaments, despite everyone's irrational dislike for the European metagame.

This thread doesn't need me to hijack it, so please, PM additional questions.

[Whatever Works]

Fish is Tier 1... MOST of us new that before this tournement, and people who dont like standstill have been forced to realize its Tier 1 now. The deck deserves its praise, but is it just me, or has everyone forgotten that 4cControl WON the tournement. In fact, it won the tournement with 3 wastelands (a sin IMO.)

4cControl has posted by far the best results over the past couple of months at major power tournements, and should be considered one of the favorites going into GenCon.

I personally am not incredibly worried about fish, because of the following reasons:
1.) Its not an easy deck to play well, and I bet alot of people will end up picking up the deck less than a week before GenCon. The deck looks simple enough, but there are so many little details to the deck that decide games. So unless im sitting across from PTW or Marc Perez, I would feel that I would have a good chance.
2.) Hate, Its been only 2 days sinse the tournement, and every single new deck list I have seen has been packing much higher ammounts of hate cards. One great thing about playing fish is that nobody is ever ready for it. With decks packing multiple copies of Tsabo's Web, and CoW etc. I will be interested to see how the deck fairs in coming tournements.
3.) Agro-Workshop decks: After "The Man's Show" placed 2nd at the tournement (Like the deck or not), we can already almost guarantee that we will see a surge of similar decks hitting the format. If they are good or not is another question, but either way that have a very strong matchup vs. fish.

Fish is a great deck, but i will be interested to see how the deck will fair and adapt to a metagame that seemingly overnight has come to respect and evolve to improving the fish matchup.

If what i predict is true (big IF), then i think HULK is not the dead deck people say it is. The deck is still very strong in the metagame, but like Smennen said earlier.... It just cant beat fish. I dont have a solution for Hulk, but if i was playing Hulk at the next big tournement 4 Tsabo's Web would be in the sideboard.

If fish does start to gain these sideboard spots from the other tier 1 decks, what is going to be taken out? I imagine alot of decks are going to have to hurt their matchup against combo to combat fish, and a draw7 deck could suprise people.

[bebe]

I think the results demonstrate regional disparities. I'm not ready to discard the tech played in Canada and Europe yet. I did not see one combo deck in the top echelons. I find that strange as a whole.

I'm not sure that the results indicate that I should play Man Show ( btw, i posted a year ago that Juggies belonged in lock, Stock decks). Man Show is a very solid deck and it incorporates a lot of new tech and great consistency. I do see it having a number of bad match ups though. TriniTnT also surprises a few people when its played here. I think a well built new deck or a seldom seen always has an advantage.

I also don't want to play Fish anymore as at least here it has too many bad match ups. It does top four occasionallybut it seems to lose in the semis when facing other top decks. Only Marc seems to get consistent tournament wins from it.

I am a firm believer that the best meta choice is 4c control. This deck does well globally not just in the U.S.

[cardiffgiant]

Personally, I don't think Tsabo's Web is a good sideboard choice. It's too narrow and doesn't affect the pingers in U/R.

I shouldn't help the enemies, but something like Plague Spitter or Nausea is much more effective and versatile.

[BlueJay]

My answer to Fish is GAT. Fish usually can't deal with a 5/5 dryad unless they waste a lot of resources.

Also, once people are ready to accept Fish as a threat (as I've for the last year) and sideboard for it, it's going to subside.

I beg to differ. Having played some fish its not a 5/5 dryad that makes a fish player scoop (factory,fire/ice, post SB Maze). The worst threat to fish is a ready sideboard.

[VGB]

So unless im sitting across from PTW or Marc Perez, I would feel that I would have a good chance.

PTW or Marc Perez?

[cardiffgiant]

I agree with BlueJay. I would be happy having SB dedicated to Tsabo's Web. It hinders a few creatures that aren't curious. Nausea in response to Standstill is a much bigger problem. I would be much happier dealing 1 damage and getting a card then dealing 2 damage.

[cssamerican]

Control Slaver (8)
Ben: Another Workshop deck, this one uses Goblin Welder to recur Mindslaver, allowing the Slaver player to take every turn for the rest of the game. Unlike 7/10 split, this deck doesn't get to attack with a seven-power creature. It just makes the opponent feel like they are smack dab in the middle of Urza's Saga-induced combo winter, all one-sided and such.

I am just curious was anyone playing the Enslaver (Drain Slaver) variant? The reason I ask is it seems that with its stable mana base, solid draw engine, and sideboard tech (ReB, BeB, Kavu, Fire/Ice, and Blood Moon) that it would have been a seemingly good choice in this metagame. And wasn't it only a couple of months ago everyone was touting it as a Tier 1 deck? I just found it extremely strange that a deck this good wasn't played...Am I missing something?

[Azhrei]

After all this talk about teams forwarding innovation, the most truly innovative deck in the top 8 was made by an invididual, not a team. (Or is everyone keeping their tech quiet until GenCon?)

Eric lived with me and SliverKing until a few months ago; we've done more testing together than probably any other two teams combined. Nothing happens in a vacuum except sucking.

[darkmindtone]

I am just curious was anyone playing the Enslaver (Drain Slaver) variant? The reason I ask is it seems that with its stable mana base, solid draw engine, and sideboard tech (ReB, BeB, Kavu, Fire/Ice, and Blood Moon) that it would have been a seemingly good choice in this metagame. And wasn't it only a couple of months ago everyone was touting it as a Tier 1 deck? I just found it extremely strange that a deck this good wasn't played...Am I missing something?

I played UG Fish and faced a deck like the one you described forth round and won 2-1.  I'm not sure my opponent name, but he had Blood Moon, Kavu, Fire/Ice and REB(and Slaver of coarse), so I'm thinking it was the same deck you are mentioning.  Blood Moon was game against me game 2.  Strip effects and Null Rod won me the third.

[Hi-Val]

Control Slaver (8)
Ben: Another Workshop deck, this one uses Goblin Welder to recur Mindslaver, allowing the Slaver player to take every turn for the rest of the game. Unlike 7/10 split, this deck doesn't get to attack with a seven-power creature. It just makes the opponent feel like they are smack dab in the middle of Urza's Saga-induced combo winter, all one-sided and such.

I am just curious was anyone playing the Enslaver (Drain Slaver) variant? The reason I ask is it seems that with its stable mana base, solid draw engine, and sideboard tech (ReB, BeB, Kavu, Fire/Ice, and Blood Moon) that it would have been a seemingly good choice in this metagame. And wasn't it only a couple of months ago everyone was touting it as a Tier 1 deck? I just found it extremely strange that a deck this good wasn't played...Am I missing something?

Look at 7th place. That's me. That's the best version of Control Slaver in existence. Kthx.

[Kowal]

I love how a couple pages back someone decided that 16 person events were high profile enough for Pip's results, and that somehow by demonstrating that occasionally Tog can win over elves that it simply must be too good.

Re the rest of this thread:  What is being said here everyone doesn't already know?  Yes, 4cc and Fish are better than most if not all of the rest of the metagame.  Poor Pip is apparently not attracting many readers to his statistics if you don't know that already.

[Vegeta2711]

I finished 11th with FCG and was pretty proud of myself. I do agree that the fish deck is probably my hardest followed by 7/10. I have since made some changes to my deck, I.E. cutting the worthless crap they call food chain. The reason for cutting food chain is this, if 1 out of 20 games the card is an instant win, however the other 19 it dosn't do anything for you would you run it?

Let me get the niceness out of the way first. Congrats on coming in 11th.

Now the 'wtf-ness'.
1. How'd you lose to FISH, unless you happened to play against Marc, it isn't even close to a hard match-up. -_-

2. Yes. Please cut Food Chain, because the arguement you make for it's cut makes sooo much sense.    Ugh. No it's not always a instant win, often times it simply baits a counter, helps provide more mana or yes sometimes doesn't do much of anything.

Re the rest of this thread: What is being said here everyone doesn't already know? Yes, 4cc and Fish are better than most if not all of the rest of the metagame. Poor Pip is apparently not attracting many readers to his statistics if you don't know that already.

Truth. Nice to see some people are finally catching on.

[Thug]

I think the real question is what deck does have very good matchups against both 4c-control and Fish...

Right now I'm thinking Mono-Brown Stacker or whatever you like to call it. Pretty simular to the one-man show, but faster and a little more consistent.

Another options could be some kind of madness build, maybe take another look at Oshawa Stompy?

What other options are there?

Koen

[BreathWeapon]

Ya know, wouldn't "Legion" (G/r/b TnT) with MD Chains be > than "The Man Show?" That's more or less what the deck reminds me of, except it lacks the goodness of Survival.

[Sean Ryan]

When I saw the list for the "Man-show" you all know what tune started playing in my head...TNT dynamite!  Variations on this archetype have a very strong game against both Fish & 4c Control, it also has all the tools to beat the current combo decks.  Fittting in Chains of Mephistopheles wouldn't be that hard, you would just need to be careful with the manabase.  We need to test whether Survival is stronger than running all of the tutors.  I've got some ideas that will need testing before any lists start getting thrown around.  I encourage others to do the same.

TNT dynamite!

Sean

[TheWhiteDragon]

I think Survival doesn't fit in the deck.  As it is, the deck runs smoothly.  To address a few questions on weakness in the deck:
As far as the newest version of the list, I have swapped out the StoP for a gorilla shaman.  I think this helps the mana denial greatly, and since treats were not huge against me in the tourney, the swords were not too great.  My biggest concern was early opposing welders, but since the mox monkey eats the welder's swapping food (moxen), it's as good or better than the swords.  I was also contemplating intuition in the main to grab crucible, 3sphere, or a strip effect, as well as a fatty.  It also puts a jug in my hand and two in the grave if I have a welder in play to constitute potential 2 juggs in play the next turn.  The problem is only running 2 welders, and after testing extensively, I can't justify more than 2 main with no thirsts or discard effects to put shit in the dirt, and I doubt one intuition would fix that.  I'd like people to play test with these options and get at me with results.
Overall, I think Tutors rule and Survival is limited, especially with non broken critters.  Pitching a jugg for a Karn or a razormane for a welder is neat, but not broken.  It's not swapping a squee or birds of P for a 12/12 dreadnaut.  I can see some deck variations utilizing survival, especially with a higher welder count, and I encourage all to let me know how the changes are coming and testing.
The board is my biggest focus currently.  The deck, to address comparisons to TNT, falls mostly into the slot of burning wish and an answer-based board selection.  The main deck does not use just utility critters really, and the board is my utility spot (using BW to use them game 1).  In the tourney, I rolled everyone without a game loss which showed me that the majority of the main deck was solid.  Similarly, in all my game 2s, I rarely boarded in more that titan for a su-chi...keeping the deck relatively the same and won game two against a boarded opponent.  I think that swaping out the third matrix in the board for a bomb sorcery will be key.  Yawg Will is ass with Trini in play, but if no trini is in play, the will may be a come-from-behind game breaker that we should look at for a board slot.  I think Balance is as good or better than pyroclasm against FCG.  While FCG is my worst matchup, it's not nessecarily a bad one.  It needs the FC to win, cause goblins won't beat the juggs.  Affinity may be a threat (I haven't tested against it), but I think with R&R, D2D, and Art Mut., I should be okay against it.  I'd love to see people's testing results with TMS vs. affinity.
The keys to TMS's success were the rainbow sideboard over U/B and the addition of crucible.  My list of the deck is the same as the one posted on SCG site, but with shaman over StoP, and a couple board card slots open.

[zero]

I think the new versions of GAT have some game against both 4C and fish; so far, I've been testing lists similar to Ultima's, and IRL have ripped through both of those decks, to my surprise. And maze of ith doesn't do jack to GAT; time walk, regrowth and yawg will see to it, and you almost always have more threats on board than fish has mazes anyway. The deck needs to be tuned, but it does have potential.

[MaxxMatt]

Unbalanced fields ( like SCG's ) apparently underlined Death decks and Godly decks.

If you all started to play combo consistently, you'd realize how much your metagame would reward you.

-4c-control has a hard time against Storm-based combo
-Fish can be overhelmed any time a Null Rod doesn't hit the board in the first two turns

All the decks that usually win all around your areas could be redimensioned if a good number of Combos would be played by some good players.

If you ONLY have to face Control and Aggro-Control, I think that reasoning about the "possible death" of some particulary archetype is flawed.

Fill the meta with all the decks available, let all the players have EXTREME difficulties on putting cards in his sideboard because it is fucking tight and then I think that some decks could be rediscovered as "Winners" in not only in a "large"  but even in a "complete" field.

The same argument can be applied, as Thug said some lines above, for all the MUD/Monobrown decks. It is really good in a control, aggro-control oriented field and it's full of weapons against combo decks, too. And among the Metalworker decks, it is the most consistent because of his mana base and thanks to CoW.

Props to all the ones that Top8ed in such a large event.

Edited for clarity. -DrS

[rozetta]

After all this talk about teams forwarding innovation, the most truly innovative deck in the top 8 was made by an invididual, not a team. (Or is everyone keeping their tech quiet until GenCon?)

Eric lived with me and SliverKing until a few months ago; we've done more testing together than probably any other two teams combined. Nothing happens in a vacuum except sucking.

Not to deviate this thread, but I feel the need to clarify. Firstly, I was not aware that Eric worked with you guys on the deck, so my bad.

Secondly, it's obvious that people do test and tune with fellow players before a tournament, especially if they're working on something new (who would be mad enough to not do that?).

My point was to address the claims that the team breakdown of the type 1 community was mean't to be leading new innovations, which hasn't seemed to have been the case outside of metagamed builds of existing decks (rumoured salvagers deck aside).

Admittedly, metagaming an existing deck for a given tournament is innovation, but it stands only for that specific expected metagame. Bringing a new or unexpected strong deck to a tournament gives you not only the edge, metagame-wise, but surprise value (as evidenced by the one match where the guy thought he was playing against 4cControl). That was the difference I was trying to convey.

[Frappie]

Vegeta2711, The Fish player that I had to play against oddly enough was marc. Yeah not only did he use fish to eat a bunch of gobs he also did some real estate work at the start of the match. Yeah I'm still sore from having to play that match. My losses were to Doug, and Marc. If you look at my other thread Help with food chain, you can see the options that im looking at running now. Im going to be testing Berserk as it seems the best choice in terms of Curve/Damage ratio. Also the turn two lackey swing into welder is now better with berserk.

[Eastman]

When keeper and fish are the top dogs, expect change. Fish is a hate deck and keeper really a metagame deck. It's a format just WAITING to be smashed open.

[Zherbus]

*Ding ding ding*

Eastman wins the prize!