Chicago Metagame Breakdown

[Komatteru]

The lists should be going up within the next couple days (I submitted them tonight).  The metagame breakdown looks like this:

Workshops – 27 (24.10%)
Uba Stax – 6 (4 from STL)
Stax – 14
Aggro/Other – 7

Control – 52 (46.2%)
Slaver – 9
Gifts – 14
Oath – 19
Gifts Oath – 2
Landstill – 2
Sensei Sensei – 1
Psychatog – 1
Monoblue – 1
Stasis – 1
Other Drain Decks – 2

Combo – 20 (17.85%)
2-Land Belcher – 5 (all my style, no blue)
Grim Long – 4
TPS – 2
Kobolds – 1
Dragon – 6
Sneak Attack – 1
Ill-Gotten Gains – 1

Fish and Aggro – 13 (11.61%)
Joblins – 3
Ninja Mask – 1
U/W Fish – 3
U/B Fish – 2
WTF – 1
Affinity – 1
R/W – 1
Zombies – 1

Summary
Stax – 17.86%
Oath – 16.96%
Gifts – 12.5%
Slaver – 8.03%
Fish – 6.25%
Dragon – 5.35%
Storm – 5.35%
Belcher – 4.46%
Joblins – 2.68%

Slaver's Highest Finish was 23rd (had it right the first time, Josh Smith took 27th) and I believe Gifts (not GiftsOath) finished was at 24th.  Also note that most of the Oath decks did not run Mana Drain (only like 2-3 did).

[Phele]

I found it astonishing that 50 % of the Gifts-Oath - well, there were just two of them - reached top8. And that in a fielt full of regular Oath packing many wastelands. Any information how the other one came in.

[nataz]

I'm actualy surprised you put the oath decks in the control catagory. Many of the Oath decks are playing the beatdown role in almost all of the match ups except combo.

[DameonHv]

I was the T8 gifts/oath player.  I never faced another oath deck.  I did play against stax 4 times.  Wastelands were certainly the biggest problem for the deck.

[Komatteru]

I'm actualy surprised you put the oath decks in the control catagory. Many of the Oath decks are playing the beatdown role in almost all of the match ups except combo.

I more or less categorized them as "the Force of Will decks" (to use Randy Buehler's terminology), since Mana Drain has been taking a backseat in the decks that run it.  Rather, players have learned not to walk into big Mana Drains, so Drain players have had to adapt to win without relying on it as a huge crutch.  It makes the decks seem more like "Force of Will" decks than Mana Drain decks.  Oath would def. fall into that category.

[nataz]

then why put the fish with aggro?

[Komatteru]

then why put the fish with aggro?

Would you prefer no separation whatsoever?  I could put Stax in with the control, Gifts with the combo, etc.  You know, FCG is a combo deck too, so maybe we can lump that in with combo.  Next time, you do it.  I'm sure you'll do a much better job since you're such an expert.

[nataz]

would you like a little venom with my reply, or can you really not answer questions in a civil manner? Why post if we can't ask questions?

And its not as if you did this out of the goodness of your heart, you were paid cash money to get this information out there for us to look at. If it wasn't important, you wouldn't have been paid to do it. But it is important, you were paid, and I don't think its too much to ask why you grouped a deck (oath) which looks and plays almost nothing like the rest of the other decks in that category.

What use is creating bins, if the bins themselves don't make any sense?

That being said, I think this data could be pretty interesting if grouped a little different, or I at least understood the groupings)

here is how I would separate it.

Prison
Uba Stax – 6
Stax - 14

Aggro
WS aggro – 7
Goblins – 4 (with or without foodchain? If w/ food chain, certainly in aggro-combo)
R/W – 1
Zombies – 1

Control
Landstill – 2
Tog - 1
MonoBlue – 1
Stasis – 1
Other Drain Decks – 2 (unsure b/c don’t have the lists)

Combo
2-Land belcher –5
Grim Long – 4
TPS – 2
Kobolds – 1
Dragon – 6
Sneak Attack –1
Ill Gotten Gains -1

Combo-Control
Slaver – 9* (unsure if its control or combo-control)
Gifts – 14
Gifts Oath 2* (unsure)
Sensei Sensei – 1


Aggro-Control
Ninja Mask –1
U/W fish –3
U/B Fish –2
WTF – 1
Oath – 19 (depending on list, some probably could fall in different places)


Aggro-Combo
Affinity – 1

this would shift the meta-game much harder to aggro control, and away from control.

[Dozer]

this would shift the meta-game much harder to aggro control, and away from control.

But the shift would be on the strength in numbers of Oath alone. I don't see justification for this. For me, Oath is more combo-control than anything else. Unless we unanimously decide on a category for Oath, it is up to everyone where he wants to place it. Start separating by different lists of basically the same deck, and you lose the best use of a metagame breakdown, namely to provide an overview about how the tournament shaped up. Broad groups are better than detailed splits with 3-5 decks making a whole "group". I like the separation into Aggro, Combo, Aggro-Control, Combo-Control and Control, and would ditch Prison (those decks are Control) and Aggro-Combo (Affinity/ Ravager is an aggro-deck). It makes sense to separate Control and Combo-Control, which is basically Sensei, Slaver, Gifts and Oath (that last one is highly debatable, though). Those decks are distinctly different from Mono-U, Landstill or the prison decks.

The other way I see doing this is five categories: Gifts, Slaver, Stax, Combo and Others, with spikes like 19 Oath highlighted. That would place the focus on the arguably best archetypes in the format and at the same time show the popularity of other decks. Singletons can be mashed together in any breakdown as long as they don't T8, in which case they should be mentioned by name. The summary JDizzle provided does exactly that. It would also be hot to indicate how many decks from each category made T8.

FYI, that would give a breakdown like this:

20 Stax
Uba Stax – 6 (1 T8)
Stax – 14 (1 T8)

16 Gifts
Gifts – 14
Gifts Oath – 2 (1 T8)

9 Slaver
Slaver – 9

20 Combo
Dragon – 6
2-Land Belcher – 5 (all my style, no blue) (1 T8)
Grim Long – 4 (1 T8)
TPS – 2
single decks - 3

40 Other
Oath – 19 (!) (2 T8)
Joblins – 3
U/W Fish – 3 (1 T8)
U/B Fish – 2
Landstill – 2
single decks - 11

But as long as JD's breakdowns follow the same rules every time he makes one, I'm fine with any system.

I might add that I think this reflects the typical Vintage playtesting gauntlet best, at least for time being. Stax, Gifts, Slaver plus a combo deck plus Oath and/or Fish is a typical gauntlet which provides viable testing results.

Dozer