Is combo a sign of randomness in current metagames?

[Revvik]

I was thinking about this during the car ride home after someone mentioned there was a lot of combo mixed in with the random / odd deck choices we saw.

So this started me thinking - is the presence of combo, meaning Combo is a defining percentage of the metagame, a sign of a "random" metagame?
My theory was that in areas that have been developed, random budget aggro decks are essentially absent.  It is instead composed of stronger, optimized control decks and the aggro-control and prison decks that feed off them and compete with each other.

And the presence of the optimized Control decks and Prison decks work together to cancel combo out (probably Aggro-Control does so more than Control, though).  Add in the fact that the optimized Control decks are Combo-Control in nature, and are starting to combo out faster than traditional Combo.

Now, I realize that saying "random" field or underdeveloped metagame is a lot like saying "you live in an underdeveloped part of town" - it's not really a compliment.  Please keep in mind that this is not a shot at anybody, it's more or less my lack of vocabulary.

If this is the case, and I found out about a little store in Muskegon or something that runs a small sanctioned Type 1 event every month, I could probably take TPS and clean house there.  But as soon as people started learning and developing their decks, TPS could no longer be a viable contender.

[onelovemachine]

Alan, I am going to assume you are talking about our "random" metagame at Pandemonium on Monday night.  The combo was not random, in fact it was an awesome decision to play in the current metagame there.

 Workshop.dec is nonexistent at our tournament for the moment and aggro is at an all time high with at least 2 fcg decks and 2-4 fish decks making an appearance in a twenty person metagame as well as at least 2 shop aggro/affinity nonsense both of which were light on the disruption.  The control decks present were: you with tog, one with oath and two other people who had control slaver.  Combo represented a good portion of the field: 1tps, 1deathlong, 1bendrils, 1meandeck sx, 1two land belcher, and I thought one more but I could be wrong.  Let's look at the matchups.

Three of the control decks played only forces and drains maindeck as counter magic.  Oath had challice of the void and you had at least a couple of duress.  Challice isn't good enough to stop tps or two land belcher if it isn't in multiples and duress as a two of in a deck full of wastelands and off color mana sources doesn't do that well either not to mention the fact that wastelands and shamans don't beat storm combo.  I saw 2 arcane labs from the same deck: oath.  No one else even had sideboard material capable of stopping combo.  Not only that but the player that did had a poor understanding of how the matchups played out and brought in platz.  The control decks did not employ the tools necessary to beat combo and were most definitely not optimized. 

The aggro decks have poor matchups vs a majority of the combo decks too.  The fcg players pretty much roll over and die game one to all of the combo decks.  Fcg is capable of beating the control decks (again the wastelands/shamans weren't helping) and fish but has a rough time vs the storm combo and has no cards worth anything vs belcher.  Fish has maindeck challice of the void, but its lack of counter magic and sideboard cards dedicated to storm did it in for those matchups. 

It is a sign of a random metagame that combo was everywhere and here's why: 
Combo normally has this habit of getting beat down by sideboard hate and its own inconsistency over time.  It has a negative matchup vs highly disruptive shop aggro/ stax.  No sideboard hate and lack of stax makes for combo, tps especially in this metagame, to be an awesome choice if you want to win everybody's 5 bucks in store credit.  Tps is a viable contender for almost ANY metagame though just ask those who pilot it to victory.  As far as our metagame being under developed: take some of the blame.  Stop playing tog with wasteland in a field unaffected by land destruction.  Play a deck that will win and see where that takes our metagame.  The other players in the field do not feel the need to change their deck choices because they can win without even changing cards in their sideboards.  As soon as everyone removes themselves from their comfort zones of decks to play and begin forcefully changing the metagame it will shape up and become quality again.

As soon as stax starts showing up in force, played by good players with good builds, all of the decks we see on Monday will wane and fall. 

[Revvik]

As far as our metagame being under developed: take some of the blame.  Stop playing tog with wasteland in a field unaffected by land destruction.  Play a deck that will win and see where that takes our metagame.  The other players in the field do not feel the need to change their deck choices because they can win without even changing cards in their sideboards.  As soon as everyone removes themselves from their comfort zones of decks to play and begin forcefully changing the metagame it will shape up and become quality again. 

Wastelands were killing me in my opening draws.
Again, this really had little to do with Pandemonium, it was spawned more off Edman pointing out the unexpected decks there, and I started thinking on the early tournaments I played in where people first started playing Vintage - when budget aggro was a good choice, people hadn't been playing for long, and a couple combo decks could have walked in and cleaned house.  Give that same environment some time to develop, and that wouldn't happen.