US and European Vintage, Will the gap ever close?

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

Here are a couple of questions that might fuel a pretty decent discussion.

1. Does it feel like the usual gap that exists between Europe and the US is closing?  

2. If there is such an effect happening, why?

3. Will the gap ever close and produce somewhat of a common metagame, local metagames aside?

4. Which is evolving more, the US Vintage scene or the European scene, or are they both?

[Methuselahn]

I would think you really need to define how the metas are different and what the gap is in order answer that question.  They could mean different things to different people.

Or, to answer your question, it depends on card pool available and whether the tournies are sanctioned or not.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

It seems that the metagame over in Europe doesn't feature as much aggro as one would like to see.

Do you think because a lot of the tournies don't allow proxies in europe, that has a major impact on results?

[Smmenen]

I am no longer concerned about whether metagames will converge.  My experience at gencon has given me great faith in the T1 metagame.  

I think you should also pay attention to how different the various metagames are.  Sweden is practially Stax v. Anti-Stax, Dulmen is what do the best Germans play, NE is basically heavy control and aggro control, Italy is TPS.metagame, and the South is Fish.metagame which is Fish and TMS, and Canada now appears to be Crucible.metagame.  They are all very distinct, but I feel they are sufficiently similar to not care about the variance.  Things might slowly converge, but then again, they might not.

One problem is that too few people write tournament reports.

[dexter]

i have the feeling that the metagames will need atleast a couple of things to start to look like each other.

first starting in europe starting organizing big regular europeen tournaments where all of europe can meet on regular bases.

after that is done (if it would ever happen) we need to find someway for USA and Europe to meet on regular bases (even less likely to happen) then we might find a meta that is a mix of thoose metas that exists in europe and america today.

one step closer for an mix of metas is to move the t1 "worlds" from america one year to europe next year so at least there will be a possible once a year to see what happens when metas crasch togther.

[Frankie]

If I may Expose my theory in this argument concerning the phantomatical gap between Us and European Metagames, I as an Italian can only explain the actual metagame in Norther italy(in the south there isn't much going on)relying on numerical data to reinforce my statements.

Well, to answer The M.E.T.H.O.D.'s question #1 the metagame between the US and Europe doesn't exist in the sense that considering that if for example you take Geramany,Italy and The Netherlands you will notice that
the metagame is highly powered and that Mr.Menedian's consideration are, with all respect, a little too concise.
To confirm this I have first hand Data; the Italian metagame is heavily fractioned and can be divided in local city metagames, but talking in a general perspective: even if in the most part of the country there aren't tournament held on a weekly basis the stats indicated that normally at a T1 event there are over 70 players, that 60% are powered and combo 20% Control and Aggro are at 40% each(answering the method's second post, at least in Italy there is a lot of aggro).
As a Side note to Mr.Menedian's post i would like to explicit the fact that conisdeing only the last 5 major Italian tournaments here are the results,that speak for them selves:
Turin 07/11/04                    
65 players  
1 Welder MUD                              
2 Hulk Smash                      
3 Madness
4 TPS
5 TPS
6 dragon
7 Hulk Smash
8 dragon

Massa 07/18/04
153 plaayers
1 Metagame deck
2 MUD
3 Ws Slavery
4Ws Slavery
5 Fish U/R
6 TPS
7 Welder MUd
8 TPS

Piacenza 07/25/04
89 players
1 hulk smash
2 TPS
3 MUD
4 Dragon
5 MUD
6 Metagame Deck
7 TPS
8 Madness URG

Genova 08/29/04
91 players
1 keeper
2 TPS
3 Ws Slaver
4 $t4cks
5 MUD
6 MUD
7 TPS
8 TPS

Turin 09/05/04
114 players
1 Welder MUD
2 Keeper
3 TPS
4 Control Slaver
5 Welder MUd
6 Madness URG
7 $t4cks
8 MUD

so that makes a total of 10 different archetypes (albeit counting MUD and Welder MUD different) a little more complicated than a simple TPS metagame.

to reply to qs#2 i think that with more and more people using the web a resource more people will play streamline decks and even if there will never be a common metagame.

I think that the US and the European Metagame have started differntly and will always be very different(e.g. Event like the StarcityGames one will never in italy at least be held because here we play only sanctioned tournaments) and thus they have take a different direction. The US is leaning more torwards is double facet tournamet scene were there are weekly local tournament decks and then (some of them 5-proxy) Big events  whereas European metagame is divided most in to city tourmnamets that aren't really local because all the good players always attend (Duelmen, Castricum, Genova,Milan for example).

[Smmenen]

I was exaggerating intentionally and I agree with the post directly above.  Thanks for the data.

[Willforce]

hello everyone i'm an italian player.

I think that  the true difference between usa and UE's metagame is the fact that in UE there aren't proxy tournaments.

infact in italy the unpowered decks are: Zoo Fish Dragon UG  Monored , this deck in usa simply dosen't exist because you can play some decks just takin a piece of toilet paper writin on "mox sapphire"  and you have a p9.

The italian metagame is dominate by Stacks and trinidecks, as u can see in a format that  when u  have to beat TPS ub (the best combo , no doubt) and unpowered decks a trinisphere is a very strong card.

i think the american metagame is a very strange metagame, belcher in eu cannot wins a tournament simply because every decks have a lot of  cards  like fow duress null rod trinisphere sphere of resistance cotv damping matrix pillar (sometimes), that can stop it, and a lot of deck (already zoo fish and so on) plays those cards.

also american metagame (as i can see on this site) is full of fish, a deck that as some problems in italy especially because who haves the P9 doesn't plays a deck so ugly like fish but alsobecause this deck has  some problem with zoo and goblin deck and  kiodo deck (another italian deck) and with TNT.

i'm sorry for my english

[bebe]

I take exception to calling Canada a Crucible metagame as well. Yes, six of eight decks used Crucibles but they were not essentially Crucible control decks. There was only one true Crucible deck. The final match up though was warped by Crucibles. Crucible will be seen in every meta as it is just so damn powerful. It is a card that warps the environment and it is just that we here in Canada recognized that fact very quickly. Force of Wills were every also as prevalent but I would not call our meta a "Force meta". As an aside - RESTRICT CRUCIBLE - it warps our game without helping it advance.

I played a deck sans Crucible and lost no games to it as my deck was prepared to handle them. I knew that Fish and Workshop decks were bound to play them and so they did. Playing a Mask deck I also prepared for Rods.

What we are seeing is innovation. Fish is evolving into hybrids like 'Old Faerie Men'. Workshop is eveolving into a deck that only Shock Wave and Dicemanx have fully explored. Black Mask has become blue Mask and a much more worriesome threat. Salvagers was felt and went through Swqiss as the only deck other thaqn Mask undefeated. The week before the Vintage Championships we began to see a number of new decks that surfaced at Vintage ...

Neo Drain Workshop by Shock Wave
Crucible Combo by Reanimator
Neo parfait by Razor
Blue Mask by Bebe
Salvagers by Matt C.
Old Faerie Men by Evilkin and PatronVoidMage

None of the new builds have been posted on themanadrain because no one wants to reveal new tech when a series of tournaments with P( prizes are coming up. After two losses to Shock Wave you can be sure i have improved my match up against Workshop.  Razor is nbuilding a new monster Parfait as well. But here on themanadrain Mask and Parfait are looked at as subpar decks.

The truth is that Type 1 currently has a number of powerful decks and choosing what to play has to be based now on what you expect to see. I do not believe the available card pool is the determinant. You can get any card by searching online today. Certainly Gush was less expensive than Workshops so that led to more GAT decks and today Fish is popular because it is more affordable. But both decks are/were power houses. FCG does not appear in top eights often because it needs great match ups and some luck to get there.

[Necropotenza]

1. I feel that it may be closing but that it'll never do as long as Europe helds non-proxy tourneys and N.America 5 proxy and 10 proxy ones.

2. One of the reasons why both metagames are becoming more and more similar is mainly because of great T1 internet sources which spread knowledge and top8 lists.

3. I think this is very difficult to answer because players from "a" zone from the globe will always have bias towards some kind of decks. (Europe likes ub-TPS)

4. Both are evolving, but in different ways. They have a lot of similarities but they evolve having in mind what are the strongest strategies in each of those metagames.

PS: I attended a 95 people tournament in Spain this Sunday and the top8 was almost identic (in the style of decks) to the "T1 Worlds Tourney"

[Xman]

I have been lookign around, and I know almost everything that can be said has been said, but I have noticed through looking at tourny reports and the like that certain deck archtypes are not represented in places.

here in America, we love our Workshop aggro, while not having as much MUD here as they do in Europe.  We run many different aggro decks, such as GAT (aggro-control), 7/10, 5/3, Man Show, FCG (Combo aggro), etc.  We also love our control decks such as Hulk, 4cc, Fish.

Europeans love thier combo decks (anyone else notice more and more combo in the T8's in Europe?).  Every Top 8 listed by Frankie has at least 1 TPS, 1 MUD, and 1 Hulk.  In America, Hulk is so hated it is generally considered obsulete.  At the same time, I can't remember a recent T8 in America where I saw a TPS deck.  But it works in Europe.  There is original keeper in EUrope, but we run 4 Color Control.  it is because of the more aggro here, 4cc is a better choice in a slightly higher aggro meta, as a higher combo meta like Europe.

And I can't remember who said it, but they were talking about the lack of control decks in Europe, since over there it is generally accepted that Hulk is the best control deck.  keeper is a good deck aswell, and works, but Hulk is in my humble opinion, better.

As for combo, I have noticed Longdeath has not really picked up anywhere, and while Europe loves TPS, there is a large lack of Draw7 (at least, from the info I see).  Perhaps this has to do with efficiency, and being American, we like our flashy toys as much as the next guy, but also gamble a little more, which is why Draw7 may beat out TPS here, even though it randomly fizzles, we probably just like casting our Draw 7 spells (no pun intended).  and in Europe, they like effiency, so they prefer the more stable TPS deck, which is just as, if not more so, lethal of a deck compared to Draw 7.

Anyway, thats my thoughts.  Hope it was somehwat coherent.

[Smmenen]

The prevalence of Workshop Aggro is directly related to the prevalence of Fish.

Since we all have proxy tournaments, everyone is powered and Null Rod is far more powerful, therefore Fish is far more powerful in the US than in Europe.  Therefore Workshop Aggro is far more powerful.

[Tolarianacademy]

In our metagame is impossible to play Belcher sith the goal of winning an entire tourney with it.

If you carefully take your time on reading the Top8s listed above, you will' find that anyone of them pack in AT LEAST some key spells that can block his first turn kill.
Both FoWs and 3Sphere are cards that can kill that entire deck stand alone.



The biggest difference is the lack of Proxy tourneys here in Europe at all.
Having this idea in mind, you'll see that we have to play different decks ( sometimes unpowered ) to face and win against the tier1. This is a key factor that let us "think" and "build" about decks that "can" win without the "p9-factor" being extraordinary competitive as well.

I made some top8s some months ago with an Unpowered-Ur-Phidian build that was geared to face and win against TPS, Keeper and Hulk
Now I don't play it because the metagame has shifted itself: We have a lot of decks that try to play around non-basic-hate with more basic lands and my maindeck BloodMoon aren't so effective as in the past.


But, even if I'm an unpowered player, I'm totally AGAINST the development of Shitty-Proxy-Tourneys, because i don't like to play with NON-REAL cards. I prefer to play metagamed-unpowered ones instead.

I noticed that your tourneys usually have the same small number of winning archetipes in the Top8, with a minimum number of changes.
This fact reflects that anyone would choose ONLY the 2 or 3 best decks to play and you can use forgot about all the other ones. So your path to victory would be easier if you bring a deck that can easily win against those two or three decks.

On the other hand, we have weekly 80-100 players' toruneys that FORCED us to think to face almost ALL the possible opponents, because of the inherent "variety" that Non-Proxy toruneys bring with them. IMHO, it is really more difficult to prepare a deck to face and win against 20 different types of opponents rather then metagaming it to face only 3-5 of them.

That fact let us to perform really well when we travel in different countries playing in unknown metagames.


So, IMHO; we have the "real" metagame, made of a lot of different and almost competitive decks. A metagame without proxies and with true P9s.
I think that a lot of bad-players could try to luckily win with some "broken" decks and it is far more frequent in a metagame where almost anyone can netdeck any possible decks with ease.




@3Sphere Argument@

To anyone that think of being able to win against a resolved first turn trinisphere. How many times did you win in this situation? I fear, too few times to be sure of being able to do it during your usual tourneys...

[Arvid]

Sweden is practially Stax v. Anti-Stax

Since this is practically true it would be interesting to ask ourselves why this hasn't happend in, let's say, USA? The answer, I think (and I'm quite sure a lot of Swedes would agree) is that our Stax decklists are quite different from yours. It would be interesting if one/some of you piloted a "Swedish Stax" in your meta (I know Kenny Öberg have at least once, this could never be on a regular basis, though), perhaps you'd see how broken it is.

[Gabethebabe]

One problem is that too few people write tournament reports.

A lot of people write tournament reports but European ones usually end up at a local forum.

I write my tournament reports in Spanish to put on "our" forum. This is worth my while, because the people that read it are the people that know me, know my opponents and have possibly been playing the tourney themselves.

It is not that I haven´t tried. I´ve written some tourney reports for TMD and presented some T8´s, but usually I find out that the tourney reports get no comments and the T8´s get more negative than positive response. Since I don´t like putting myself in a defensive position about imperfectness of other people´s decks or enter in some discussion with people that know jack about our meta I decided to just stop putting info on TMD.

Less work, less trouble and the same amount (lack) of admiration.

[dexter]

just offtopic about the "swedish" staxx, kenny played it at the worlds sideevent and from what i understood he had no problem whatsoever with taking a t8 with it and then just lost to mad topdecking skillz of 4cccontrol, should be some kinda proof that that staxx build is pretty good for either usa meta or swedish meta

[VGB]

We have the true metagame.  Without proxies and with true Power. I don't have Power, but I prefer to play unPowered rather than play with toilet paper with "mox" written on it.  In your metagame there are a lot of scrubs that may play ultrapowered decks and have some good results with them.  This is because in America T1 is not played as much.

I edited this above quote for readability.

1) DCI sanctioned T1 tournaments everywhere do not allow proxies.
2) I doubt this is the place for a proxy argument.  Needless to say that it is a proven fact that proxy tournaments are good for the health of T1, and are here to stay.  The US is not the only place where T1 proxy tournaments are held, as well.
3) I don't quite catch the relevance of the last sentence - and would very much like to see you provide proof, in any case.

[Moxlotus]

Sweden is practially Stax v. Anti-Stax

Since this is practically true it would be interesting to ask ourselves why this hasn't happend in, let's say, USA? The answer, I think (and I'm quite sure a lot of Swedes would agree) is that our Stax decklists are quite different from yours. It would be interesting if one/some of you piloted a "Swedish Stax" in your meta (I know Kenny Öberg have at least once, this could never be on a regular basis, though), perhaps you'd see how broken it is.

What is that different between the different Stax builds?  Go off the T8 Stax deck at Gencon.  Also the prevalance of Fish in America stops Stax a bit because Null Rod is such a house.

@TolarianAcademY:  That is pretty bold saying yours is the "true" metagame.  My interpretation of a "true" metagame would be something where everybody could have access to all decks like type 2 (given by proxies-but this is not going to turn into a proxy debate).  How does America play less type 1?

Also if scrubs play powerful decks, that highlights the importance of playskill and playtesting.  Also I don't know how many games I've won against Workshop->3sphere with any deck just by playing Wasteland.  It is a broken play but when you have 9 (4fow, 5 strip) answers to your opponent it is not that big of a deal as you would think.

[dexter]

first of all i want to kill the thought that null rod kills of staxx, it slows it down a little but still null rod doesnt effect the key cards in the staxx deck like smokestack, trinisphere, tangle wire, workshops and so on, during the time i played staxx i won multiple games even though my opponent dropped round 1 null rod, just smoke em out.

second compare the builds of staxx from sweden and the one who t8 gencon u will notice big differences, first of all the gencon player has choosen meditate as it carddrawer instead of thirst, the thirst is just so much better, the mana cost is the same and okay it draws only 3 cards and u have to dump one but still do you really need a couple of more trinipheres smokestacks etc when u already have a couple on the table? and when u got an active welder thirst is even nicer, meditate on the other hand is a card that when u play it scenarios are. 1. u are probably winning the game since u can afford to give an extra turn. 2. u are probaly loosing the game and desperatly searching for an answer, meditate isnt a carddrawer u want to cast unless u have a solid lock. the staxx from gencon maindecked darksteel ingots for reason unkown, it does pretty much nothing excepts costs 3 and dies from null rod, at best it gives u random color mana at random time but probably mostly just smokestack food. other very odd cards i find when i look at the maindeck of "gencon" staxx are cards like balance, demonic tutor and hurkyls recall?!? he misses cards like winter orb, triskelion in maindeck and karn. the decision not to play triskelion in a what seems to be an meta infected by welders and fish decks seems very odd to me,  he doesnt care about mana acc lands like ancient tomb which is excellent complement for the workshops as for example casting thoose carddrawers, the mana looks more or less like hes trying to play a combo deck of some kind... if most of the american staxx looks like that i understand these things i hear about staxx draws inconsistly and soo on...

[Vegeta2711]

So, IMHO; we have the "real" metagame, made of a lot of different and almost competitive decks.

So the real metagame is the one where some plays have gigantic advantages over the other ones? Yeah, that's v. fair I can tell.

This fact reflects that anyone would choose ONLY the 2 or 3 best decks to play and you can use forgot about all the other ones.

Yes, because playing the best decks = intellgent. Certainly it's possible to win with other things, but if your not playing the best decks, then it'll be much more unfesiable. Simply put most people want to maximize their chances of winning.

[Dante]

@dexter - I think judging the whole US nation of stax decks on 1 team's build (the meditate, 5color-land, 1 darksteel ingot, balance, DT-version of Stax is just the Meandeck version) is extrapolating a little too far.  I think trying to generalize the American stax builds based off just Kevin's Gencon build is a bad basis for any kind of discussion/argument.   The guy from Cali who top 8'd in the side event at worlds had a pretty "standard" U/R version.

Bill

[Zherbus]

1. Does it feel like the usual gap that exists between Europe and the US is closing?

I feel that it is. Europe, the mid-west, New England, and the west coast seem to all still have their nuances yet have more in common that ever before. We're not there yet, but I'm not sure the gap will ever be completely closed.

4. Which is evolving more, the US Vintage scene or the European scene, or are they both?

The US Vintage scene is much too broad, as is Europes. The Northeast US will always be more heavily concentrated with counterspells than the mid-west for example. The west coast is incredibly hard to pin down - not because it's shifty, but because until this past weekend, they generally don't have gigantic tournament venues happening. I attribute that in part to them having a great climate (notice Florida has a shitty Vintage scene too) year round, where as places like New England, New York, and Minnesota spend many months knee-deep in snow.

The Germans metagame is constantly shifting. There's a difference in evolving and shifting though, the evolution of Vintage as a whole came when more attention and support was given to the format. The shifting is more of what comes in waves of control-dominance, combo-dominance, lock-dominance, and aggro-dominance. Italy seems to have something similiar going on.

So, IMHO; we have the "real" metagame, made of a lot of different and almost competitive decks. A metagame without proxies and with true P9s.

I think that a lot of bad-players could try to luckily win with some "broken" decks and it is far more frequent in a metagame where almost anyone can netdeck any possible decks with ease.

The proxy versus non-proxy metagames are also very revealing but for only THAT specific metagame. If you look to the non-proxy decks of <insert european or west coast or whereever here>, you won't gain insight much into the biggest non-local non-proxy tournament, Gencon. The non-proxied event's will always have people playing something other than what they WOULD play otherwise. It's because of this that the data for these metagames is, in part, specific to that environment.

You mention that a bad player can proxy up a fully-powered deck and get lucky in a proxy metagame. Let's use our own Waterbuy for an example. While this is true, this bad player would still have to contend with 120-150 OTHER fully powered players. This cancels out the advantage of him being powered.

Given a metagame of the same size that is non-proxy, I would speculate (and this is entirely arbitrary but I'm using it to make a point) that there's like 30 fully powered players, 40 partially powered, and 30 unpowered? Whichever... it doesn't really matter. Those 30 powered players start off with an automatic advantage against 70% of the field. This player has a major advantage against 30%, a small to major advantage versus 40%, and is on a level playing field with 30% of the field.

Looking at this players 10 rounds:

Round 1: UNPOWERED (MAJOR ADVANTAGE - Low playskill needed)
Round 2: UNPOWERED (MAJOR ADVANTAGE - Low playskill needed)
Round 3: UNPOWERED (MAJOR ADVANTAGE - Low playskill needed)
Round 4: PARTIALLY POWERED (MAJOR ADVANTAGE - Low playskill needed)
Round 5: PARTIALLY POWERED (MEDIUM ADVANTAGE - some playskill needed)
Round 6: PARTIALLY POWERED (MEDIUM ADVANTAGE - some playskill needed)
Round 7: PARTIALLY POWERED (MINOR ADVANTAGE - some playskill needed)
TOP8: POWERED (NOADVANTAGE - maximum playskill needed)
TOP4: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE - maximum playskill needed)
FINALS: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE - maximum playskill needed)

Now for arguements sake, let's look at Waterbury:

Round 1: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
Round 2: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
Round 3: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
Round 4: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
Round 5: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
Round 6: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
Round 7: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
TOP8: POWERED (NOADVANTAGE)
TOP4: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)
FINALS: POWERED (NO ADVANTAGE)

Note: this is completely ignoring archetypes and the fact that some low-powered decks ARE very good.

[dexter]

@dante

ive seen the sidevent staxx aswell, the reason why i compared with gencon staxx is just cuz someone told me.

the sideevent staxx is looking more of a "normal" staxx but still it has aswell some big question marks, for example why isnt that version running ancient tombs as a complement to WS? what does mystical tutor doing in maindeck (or the deck at all for that matter) 1 rack and ruin and 1 fire / ice might be a meta call but still, kinda random just to run 1 copy each, feels like thoose slots can be used better, and finaly, razomane masticore? i can understand that the new masticore brings down fishy decks, but still, a second copy of fire/ice would have been more reasonable in a deck that can empty its hand in the first 2 turns without any problem and second i have never seen a good staxx have any bigger problem with bringing down fish anyway so.

[Moxlotus]

first of all i want to kill the thought that null rod kills of staxx, it slows it down a little but still null rod doesnt effect the key cards in the staxx deck like smokestack, trinisphere, tangle wire, workshops and so on, during the time i played staxx i won multiple games even though my opponent dropped round 1 null rod, just smoke em out.

second compare the builds of staxx from sweden and the one who t8 gencon u will notice big differences, first of all the gencon player has choosen meditate as it carddrawer instead of thirst, the thirst is just so much better, the mana cost is the same and okay it draws only 3 cards and u have to dump one but still do you really need a couple of more trinipheres smokestacks etc when u already have a couple on the table? and when u got an active welder thirst is even nicer, meditate on the other hand is a card that when u play it scenarios are. 1. u are probably winning the game since u can afford to give an extra turn. 2. u are probaly loosing the game and desperatly searching for an answer, meditate isnt a carddrawer u want to cast unless u have a solid lock. the staxx from gencon maindecked darksteel ingots for reason unkown, it does pretty much nothing excepts costs 3 and dies from null rod, at best it gives u random color mana at random time but probably mostly just smokestack food. other very odd cards i find when i look at the maindeck of "gencon" staxx are cards like balance, demonic tutor and hurkyls recall?!? he misses cards like winter orb, triskelion in maindeck and karn. the decision not to play triskelion in a what seems to be an meta infected by welders and fish decks seems very odd to me,  he doesnt care about mana acc lands like ancient tomb which is excellent complement for the workshops as for example casting thoose carddrawers, the mana looks more or less like hes trying to play a combo deck of some kind... if most of the american staxx looks like that i understand these things i hear about staxx draws inconsistly and soo on...

I believe the Staxx player wrote somewhere on his decision to play Meditate over TFK and it was due to extensive playtesting so calling 1 almost strictly superior is a little presumptuous.  Winter Orb is an odd choice to many because of the other available lock cards.  Ancient Tomb can hurt you so much, especially in slower metas, that some don't play it.  There are reasons that the deck has some of those "odd" cards as you say.

Razormane Masticore OWNS fish.  It is Game over when it comes down which is why it is played.  Mystical fetches Tinker!!! or the other powerful cards in the deck.

[Arvid]

I believe the Staxx player wrote somewhere on his decision to play Meditate over TFK and it was due to extensive playtesting so calling 1 almost strictly superior is a little presumptuous.

Don't you think Dexter, as well as every other Stax player using TfK instead of Mediate, has done extensive playtesting?

[dexter]

oh noooo i get a shock in me for manaboosting and locking down faster rather than let som random cloud of faeries beat me down faster..... nah the life in staxx is very rarely so relavent that u cant take the drawback a few times to feel the advantages, fine if u want to waste a random maindeck slot for mystical to fetch the tinker that someone can counter since u dont have any counter deff in the deck at any moment and loosing 3 card for nothing go ahead. with only 2 relevant mystical targets deck (AR and Tinker) its not worth it.

but back to topic and im not gonna discuss staxx more on this thread atleast.

i think this disscusion proves the different views on the same deck in usa meta and europe meta, the thing is that it would be nice someday to have an opportunity to have a global tournament that wotc sponsors that accutally has qualifiers that has prizemoney enough for example us in europe to come over there or the other way around so we could gather the best players in the world this way to see what would happen...

[Moxlotus]

I believe the Staxx player wrote somewhere on his decision to play Meditate over TFK and it was due to extensive playtesting so calling 1 almost strictly superior is a little presumptuous.

Don't you think Dexter, as well as every other Stax player using TfK instead of Mediate, has done extensive playtesting?[/b]

Yes but when one of the best teams in Vintage decides that for a particular metagame that Meditate is the best choice for the particular deck I believe that calling it subpar IS presumptuous.

This just goes to show that the meta in different parts of the world IS different and that different deck choices and card choices are influenced by this.  Ancient Tombs aren't good when you have to expect a turn 1 Juggy from the opponent.

EDIT:  In a below post it lists a possible list of things if WS->3sphere meets with a Wasteland.  Each of those things involves a 2ND WS.  Note the low probability on which that happens.  Also note that if we are doing "well i can draw 2 WS"  then the argument could go "well I could  draw 2 Waste" (which is more likelly to happen becuase of 4 WS compared to 5 Strip).

(4/60) X (1-(56/59)(55/58)(54/57)(53/56)(52/55)(51/54)=1.86%  

The chances of having 2 workshops in your opening hand is 1.86% so if you are going to use an example of how to come back from Ws->3sphere getting wasted don't use the 2 WS hand example because it is rare.

[Willforce]

i can't understand why we are speaking about stax in a thread about metagame.

@Zherbus
you say that a powered player has an automatic advantage against unpowered, ok thats right in your metagame, were there aren't any different deck rather then the deck you usually plays.

in a metagame when u KNOW there are people with p9 and you haven't it, you can choice to fill your deck with some cards against p9

chains of mefistofele? null rod ? pyropillar?

the missing of proxy made a different metagame just because the unpowered  player has a different strategy, it means different decks.

it means that a goblin can kill a powered keeper , but if no one plays goblin obv keeper is a more safe deck.

this is the difference between usa and UE.

i think is right the choice to do some tournamente proxy allowed, but not all.
because i don't want to see another type 2 format with the same 4 deck.

then about the shifting of meta:

if every people in your meta run proxy is obvoius that no one will ever face a deck that goes off your
usual decks and so some archetipes are in a better position than others,
for ex:  fish against zoo is not easy for the fish player ,  but zoo < stacker so stacker has an advantage .
now stacker is > unpowered ,    and if starts mw's ---> trini  he is next to win with 90% of the field. so stacker is dominant in italy.


@vegete2711

i don't think that plaiing on internet is the same things that playing the real cards,even if in internet i have all the cards i want.
 if u need a game when everyone has the same resource  play chess.

[Gaea]

Someone told that you can fow or waste a trinisphere and easily win the game... god! i wonder why i haven't ever thought to this solution, it's so easy to do but....

-to counter 3sphere you need a fow and a blue card and if you play 4c or hulk you haven't so much blue cards... and will you have a solution to the 2 menace?

3sphere resolves...:

-if you'havent got wastelands... i think you're not in such a good position
-if you waste his lands now he got 5 strip effects, 3 ws, 5/6 2mana-lands, and petrified fields, and don't forget that he could also play some moxes before trini...

EX:

ws mox trini

u waste

ws smokestack

crucible

bye bye

EX2:

ws trini

u waste

ws metalworker

reveal many artifacts

bye bye

[Xman]

Well, speaking from the point of havign won my power through proxy tournaments, I do think it is healthy for the metagame in general.  While there are near endless amounts of options, and people will always try to show up with their own concoction, as well as net deck whatever, and most of those people do not test enoguh against certain deck archtypes (I myself am guilty of this also).

Those people who show up with whatever, while I wouldn't say deserve to lose, still get fed to the sharks.  But at the same time, something could just come out of left field (Man Show anyone?) and do well.  At the same time, established decks can just fold if there is to much hate.

but it is a healthy meta, and Proxy tournaments, IMHO, help keep it healthy.

Edit:  I agree with Gaea about the 3sphere dilemna