What is the Optimal Deck to play in a balanced metagame?

[Sephiroth_FFVII]

First Ill introduce myself, I guess, I have been a lurker on The Mana Drain website for about 8 months now and slowly carving myself into a vintage player    I can finally say that I believe I have acquired most of the required skills/cards needed to be a competitive vintage player. In the past I have enter numerous local T1 tourney for small playing all sorts of different decks. After doing well in most of them and scrubbing out in others, I believe I should actually take a long long road trip and play at a more skill intensive vintage tourney. Here is where my problem kicks in...

I have looked over the meta-game and it appears to be pretty much equally distributed between the top archetypes (+/- 5% or so...). Basically, the meta game 
contains pretty much equal amounts of the following archetypes:

Gifts (all kinds, included)
Bob based (combo, gifts, etc.)
Slaver (all kinds)
Stacks (all kinds)
Combo (grim long, some dragon and IT)
Oath (all kinds, includes salvager oath)
Fish (mostly UBW)
and other less abundant decks such as charbelcher, gilded claw, etc.

The decks towards the top are a little more abundant. I can make any deck that can be played in T1 and I have experience playing most of these decks and can learn to quickly play them near perfectly.

Now to the main point, what would you, TMD community, think would be the best choice to play in such a metagame...Please leave decknames and any possible changes you might make to the deck/sideboard to make it better compete in this type of meta game. Thanks all in advance.

[Harlequin]

For a larger tournement (128+ ppl at 7 to 8 rounds) I would say some Drian based deck like gifts.

If you have a developed meta like the one you described, I think WU Null Fish would be a good deck to sweep a typical 5-6 round tourny.  It basically has all the tools you need to beat all the top decks.  Null Rod Fish, howerever, has an extremely difficult time beating aggro (and by aggro I don't mean other fish decks... but Gobs, Madness, Stompy, Shop-Agro)  and has about a 5% chance to beat Ichorid.  Its all about those first few round. 
The way Swiss works is that in round 1 your opponent is random, It could be any one playing any deck.  In round two, If you win you play against the winners and if you loose... well you play the loosers.  in order for fish to sweep a tourny it needs to get lucky with first two rounds pairings.  If out of 35 ppl only 3 of them have aggro decks then fish is a good choice.  In a big 135 person tourny its probably closer to 50 have some sort of aggro deck.  THis means you have to be lucky for your first three rounds, and your odds are worse ... A good ol' UBER-Broken deck will probably preform better in a major tourny.  So I as I was saying.  If you can get to the 2-0 tables, fish is easy street to top 8.  the 2-0 tables is where your drain decks and your tendrils decks and your stax decks and your oath decks will be hanging out.  And your aggro buddies will all be in the X-1 or worse tables.  A friend of mine ("Mr.Fish" as some ppl call him) And I call those tables "The Claws."  If a fish deck goes 2-1, It's in the claws... And It might be the end for fish right there.  now that fish deck is likely to get paired against some form of extremely solid aggro, or Ichorid, or another fish deck.  Pulling out from the claws is rough.  Again your at the mercy of your pairings.  Its much hard to get to 3-1 than go 2-2 at that point.

Back around to what to include and not include:

-- Maindeck cards --
NULL ROD: Gifts, Slaver, Combo ... yup thats good
STIFLE: Everything, Esp Combo ... no agruments there
SWORDS TO PLOW: Slaver, Stax, Oath
KATAKI: Stax, and can be randomly awsome against Gifts
-- Sideboard cards --
SACRED "MF'ing" GROUND:  hands down the best solution to stax
DISENCHANT: Flame/vault Gifts, Stax, Oath
ORIM'S CHANT: Tendrils Combo   (the greatest response to duress you have).
EXTRACT: Oath, Gifts, Slaver


I would say get some Jite's or Old men of the sea on your sideboard to handle those first few rounds, or to handle any other fish decks that you might see in those X-0 tables.

Hear is a link to a tourny report of Fish Vrs the Meta you described:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27951.0

[exit music]

There are a few things you need to consider when preparing for a large tournament.

1. Play a deck that you are the most familiar with.
2. Play a deck that is easy to play
3. Don't play something rogue unless you have hundreads of hours of playtesting to back it up

With that in mind, you should consider these decks:

Brassman Gifts, Rich Shay's Control Slaver, or GWS Intuition Tendrils.

You could pretty much flip a coin to determine which of these decks to play, but pick one right now and playtest the shit out of it. Playtest until you know how you plan on winning every single matchup you expect to face, both pre and post SB. After that, you can make slight changes to their decklists to incorporate your playstyle... but don't do this until you understand their deck inside and out because otherwise your changes could compltely fuck up the deck's mechanics.

Good luck.

[AmbivalentDuck]

GWS IT is *easy* to play? 

Strong, competitive decks that survive minor player error and can be "picked up" in a sane amount of time:

5C Stax
GWS Oath
Fish

Fish is considered easy to play, but hard to build.  A good fish deck with sideboard contains about 90 cards 30 minutes before a tournament and 75 cards 1 minute before the first round begins/registration ends.  Theoretically, you should be almost overhauling your *entire* sb and 4-5 maindeck slots based on what you expect to see.

[Vegeta2711]

CS or Gifts is the easy answer. If you're a really good (And I mean it this time) limited player and know how to metagame, W/B Aggro, U/B or U/B/W Fish might also be worth it.

If you want something you can pick up and win with right off the bat ask yourself what decks you've played in the past and what you'd be attuned with.  If you played High Tide a lot, Gifts or IT would be right up your alley. If it was like Bargain, then try Grim Long. Red decks? The fish decks I mentioned. Etc.

[Sephiroth_FFVII]

Could The Jester be a good choice for this type of meta-game? I mean that is if I configure the deck correctly to face decks that are not merely defeated by the 
activation of a single Jesters Cap. What are your toughts on this?

[Juggernaut GO]

Go rogue all the way, pick out 5 cards you would never put together in the same deck, then build a deck around it and then win.  Suprise factor alone is worth a few match wins.

Just abide by the number 1 vintage rule:have a good mana base.

15-17 land + 9-10 artifact mana.  The rest is all fluff.

[Smmenen]

Just abide by the number 1 vintage rule:have a good mana base.

A rule I see you adhere to strictly

2 island 2 swamp 1 trop 3 fetch lmao

[Juggernaut GO]

basics are sooooo solid!  I had so many insane plays all weekend!

[RezDawg]

I think the right question is, what's your playstyle?  If you're a control player CS has decent numbers across the board, if your a combo player, etc...

[mgouthro]

What I think that people are saying is that there's no optimal deck for a balanced metagame. A common axiom that I've heard repeated many times is: Combo > Aggro > Control > Combo. If all factors were balanced in such a way that there is a representation of all decks and also that skill factor were equal, then there really is no best deck. It would all depend on what matchups you'd face in a tournament. If you faced the right matchups, you would end up winning. If not, you wouldn't.

That being said, I don't think there is going to be a universally acknowledged best deck to play anywhere. Yes, I see this question as asking for the best deck in the format as apparently virtually every deck is represented in your metagame. Optimal = best.

The best bet is to follow the advice of exit music & RezDawg and play to your strengths. Choose a strong deck of that playstyle to take to the tournament. After testing it, try to shore up the weaknesses (if you don't win) by tweaking the deck by a card here or there. Modify your sideboard with answers to any weakness of your deck.

Any of the decks listed in this thread could win on any given day as they have in the past. Just pick one that you are both familiar with and good with.

Not much of an answer, but the question really doesn't have a right answer.

[Smmenen]

The optimal deck to play is the deck that you will not make mistakes with.  Period.  Play a deck you will play flawlessly.  I'm not even talking about obvious errors.  I'm talking about not making subtle mistakes either becuase you have so much experience with it. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

The optimal deck to play is the deck that you will not make mistakes with.  Period.  Play a deck you will play flawlessly.  I'm not even talking about obvious errors.  I'm talking about not making subtle mistakes either becuase you have so much experience with it. 

As a completely straightforward question:  How do you suggest a new player accomplish this? 

In games like Go or Chess where the game state is completely visible to both players at all times, highly advanced players teach newer players by pointing out errors and opportunities as they occur.  In Magic, the game state is partially hidden preventing this method from being viable.   Even if tools to circumvent this were to become available, the Magic elite, unlike the Go and Chess elite, don't seem inclined to tutoring newer players.

How do you recommend that a newer player find and correct *subtle* play errors? 

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

The optimal deck to play is the deck that you will not make mistakes with.  Period.  Play a deck you will play flawlessly.  I'm not even talking about obvious errors.  I'm talking about not making subtle mistakes either becuase you have so much experience with it. 

As a completely straightforward question:  How do you suggest a new player accomplish this? 

In games like Go or Chess where the game state is completely visible to both players at all times, highly advanced players teach newer players by pointing out errors and opportunities as they occur.  In Magic, the game state is partially hidden preventing this method from being viable.   Even if tools to circumvent this were to become available, the Magic elite, unlike the Go and Chess elite, don't seem inclined to tutoring newer players.

How do you recommend that a newer player find and correct *subtle* play errors? 

Most of the Vintage "Elite" don't have a problem pointing out to newer players then they make mistakes, and help newer players by writing primers to help you learn these decks. To be honest however, some players just don't listen to these tips and pointers, and it can get frustrating when your just trying to help, the newbies just whine and complain. It's not just the "elite", it's also the new players not being willing to listen.

The easier way for a new player to learn how to correct these mistakes is to play some games against a better player, and ask questions. 90%  will not have a problem doing this...just frigging ask, and then listen to what they say.

[jpmeyer]

The optimal deck to play is the deck that you will not make mistakes with.  Period.  Play a deck you will play flawlessly.  I'm not even talking about obvious errors.  I'm talking about not making subtle mistakes either becuase you have so much experience with it. 

It's also a good idea to tie up any holes your deck might have.  Don't try to do something like cheating on your basic land count.  That can easily cost you a game against a lucky Wasteland-heavy draw, rather than letting you say, win a close match because of your familiarity with the deck.

[Kowal]

In games like Go or Chess where the game state is completely visible to both players at all times, highly advanced players teach newer players by pointing out errors and opportunities as they occur.  In Magic, the game state is partially hidden preventing this method from being viable.   Even if tools to circumvent this were to become available, the Magic elite, unlike the Go and Chess elite, don't seem inclined to tutoring newer players.

How do you recommend that a newer player find and correct *subtle* play errors?

Here's how I learned Drains.

You need three people.  One person with a testing gauntlet, one inexperienced player with the deck you're trying to learn, and one player who's extremely familiar with the deck.  As an example, let's say I'm playing Gifts, with BrassMan over my shoulder, and Rich Shay across the table.

As I play, BrassMan will point out things that do or do not make sense that I'm doing.  Brainstorming too early for example, or breaking a fetch unnecessarily.  Discarding the wrong cards to Thirst.  Yawgmoth's Willing incorrectly, giving Rich outs.  With just two players, say, if I were playing against BrassMan, his play is influenced by the knowledge he has of my cards, and his own advice.  With three, you have an impartial in Rich, and as such pursue a more realistic game state while still getting the input of someone familiar.

This is also a good way for a couple good players to become exceptional players--  you can only get better by considering all alternatives.

[Special K]

There is always another angle to look at this situation why not post a list of the deck you are most confident with and ask for advice on tweeking it towards the metagame that you presented to us all.