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paradigm
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« Reply #3 on: August 26, 2004, 02:25:46 am » |
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These are just some basic preliminary thoughts to spur discussion and debate following worlds and entering the SCG and TMD tournaments of the fall.
Initial observations yield that the metagame was slanted towards decks that contained the Crucible/Wasteland engine. In every instance in the top eight, those two cards were in a pair (and generally appear to be so with all decks that use Wastelands), and have become synonymous in essence as most decks with Wasteland will sacrifice card slots for bombs.
In addition, Artifact Prison decks are now able to use Gemstone mine in particular, as shown through Cron's 6th place list, as the synergy with Crucible first noted from Eric Miller's TMS allows for bombs such as Balance to be fit in the maindeck along with better mana smoothing.
Current Workshop-Prison and Workshop-Aggro decks have taken a cue from Fish. Fish thrived because it was difficult to find a solution to the deck's many threats. Backed up by counters and with a number of redundant threats that can chip away enough to let topdecks finish the deal, there was no encompassing or silver bullet answer. Current 'shop decks echo this through their use of a volume of threats. The density of threats such as Trinisphere, Crucible, Big Men, Smokestack, Sundering Titan (in other cases, Chains or Moon) make it difficult to stop, as the Shop and artifact mana allow for such threats to drop turn after turn, and thus the opponent, pushed into the control role, cannot outcontrol. In addition, the over-the-top strategy which worked against Fish (larger men) does not apply here, and the answer appears to be to find ways around it (via basic lands/Citadel, or options like that which remove the number of threats that you must address).
This assault on non-basic lands has pushed typical multi-color control out of the limelight, unless they adjust (such as Tog dropping red). Even a handful of basics are not enough to mount an assault on the array of artifact decks. The two strategies most prominent were the basic land strategy (which could not only be seen in the 1st and 5th place lists - the only without Wastes/Crucible - but had an effect on other lists as well, such as the 8th place list, which uses extra basics, even suboptimal ones, to smoothen the mana base), and to use Crucibles of one's own. In a similar manner, one can try to ignore via a combo strategy such as Belcher (4th). However the vulnerability of the deck to an early Chalice for zero/one or Trinisphere is crushing to combo in general, and thus makes Belcher/Storm combo very unviable, as they cannot merely Xantid away the problem or through spells into counters.
Meanwhile, Workshop aggro has fixated itself as the premier aggro deck. Although lacking as consistent a goldfish, it makes up for it with a larger potential explosion, along with stronger disruptive elements in Trinisphere, Crucible/Waste, Chalice post-board, and more specific builds can incorporate Blood Moon or Chains.
This use of nonbasic hate (including Titan, which was in every Workshop deck, along with Control Slaver) hated out 4cc and Tog in particular. Of those two, Tog is best equipped to metagame to it, as it can survive on three colors, which Kerz can attest to with his 21st place showing. On the other hand, 4cc has a more difficult time as one or two Islands do not carry the deck through such matchups, and the loss of red (REB, Rack and Ruin) is devastating in terms of keeping pace with the metagame. 4cc running it's own Crucibles (in multiples) MD is the other strategy, albeit one that dillutes the deck, and tricks with Goblin Welder and moxen in the grave (via Memory Jar, Shaman, etc) is a major difficulty, along with the ability of the Workshop-based decks to active Crucible/Waste faster than 4cc can. As it was noted in the forums, the coin flip is becoming more important due to this factoring in of Shop, Trinisphere/Crucible, etc.
The top eight does not indicate a pull to a specific deck, in that sense, however it does indicate the power of builds which have the following in common:
3-4 Trinisphere
3-4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Wastelands
1 Strip Mine
(These bombs can decide games on their own)
As much artifact mana as possible
4 Goblin Welder
1-3 Sundering Titan
1-3 Triskelion
(Resilience against control and the mirror)
And, to get more narrow,
4 Mishra's Workshop.
Force of Will's power is diminished somewhat due to the sheer density of threats in these decks (Welder, Crucible, Trinisphere, Fat men), especially since non-prison control is weakened by the amount of brown in the format, and Duress for the same reason (especially against Welders, and even Fish).
The reason why Mono U proved to be so strong is that
a) Mana Leak gives it a better chance to counter on one land
b) The ability to ignore Crucible of Worlds/Wastelands
c) Postsideboard Flux and Blasts for Welders (in other cases Control Magic as well for aggro)
Which breaks the norm of 4cc and Hulk.
To adjust to the power of these decks, decks will need to allow for more basic lands (two or three usually isn't even enough to suffice, especially once another threat is on the board or when facing B2B), and/or Crucible. In addition the hate needs to be directed at Welder before artifact hate is considered. For decks with green, Ground Seal becomes a more potent option as it is a more permanent answer. For other colors, Fire/Ice or Triskelion remain powerful options both for Fish and Welders at once. In addition, Energy Flux has risen in value sharply, and will be a sideboard card which non-Control Slaver control and aggro-control must now turn to.
The metagame deck for the moment is obviously Mono U, as it has one of the better strategies versus the artifact men, namely to steal with with Control Magic. Other than that, the format really is having trouble adjusting to the big men. Control Slaver's use of Platinum Angel and Pentavus is strong, but niche. Flametongue Kavu's value obviously shines more here, and also versus Phids. Due to Mono U, the threat of B2B obviously becomes more of a consideration in addition to the Wasteland threat.
And that brings up some concluding thoughts
Archetypes weakened
-Fish: The use of large artifact men is too much for Fish to handle on it's own, much less when couple with Trinisphere and Crucible locks. Fish's pitch counters, even when combined with Standstill are simply not enough. In addition, the downfall of Tog and 4cc cause Fish to lose matchups which helped to make it so strong. Nevertheless, Flux is a bomb, and Fish, while no longer the top deck, is still a threat which can still close matchups to nearly 50/50 despite the hate due to its redundancy and inherent strength as a whole.
-Storm/Belcher combo: Too much potential for autoloss from prison decks, as well as hate from the revamped Mono U. This applies to combo in general, as the chance of Workshop (at times, even regardless of the coin flip) can be game and can cause simple match losses which combo isn't prepared to take.
-4cc: Mana base needs to be reconsidered. Not only to deal with Wastes, but Back to Basics as well, as Mono U will be popular at least for now, especially among five-proxy environments. Although it takes skill to master, it's not incredibly hard to get bombs and cast them (i.e. B2B) with Force backup.
Note also that the strength of these brown-based decks and variants will not be as strong in the US due particularly to the lack of Workshops to go around and the inability to function in five-proxy (even nine-proxy) environments. However Mono U will spread much like Fish due to the lack of duals, and the ability to survive five-proxy by simply adding in four moxes and lotus.
Congrats to all who played, and additional praise to all who made the top eight, and to Windfall, of course, for taking it all.
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