the current vintage meta

[quentin]

Hey,

I have been lurking on these forums for, what, years and years, but this happens to be my first time posting.
What made me post is that in an attempt to get a good picture of the current vintage metagame, I have spent a couple of hours aggregating results from about 50 recent (2008) tournaments (16 US, 32 european, at least 25 players and 5 rounds w/ top8), and thought it would be interesting to share the results with others.
I have separated the results of each deck in top 2 and top 8 (includes the top 2), because I somewaht feel that top 2 is the most relevant to a deck's efficiency.

Probably many of the regular readers will only get confirmations from this, but I'm sure it can lead to interesting discussions.

First the results, than some remarks...

Global metagame:

Archetype	top 2	top 8	Notes about decks
Oath	18	49	in 99% tyrant/gushbond version
Flash	11	44	95% reveillark, some slivers
Ichorid	10	27	95% manaless unpow, 5% mana'd powered
Deeznought	7	20	icbm list most often, sometimes W splash w/ jotun instead of G, sometimes SS mix w/ cutpurse
MonoBrown Workshop	6	38	metalworker, tangle, karn, trisk etc.
Red Aggro Workshop	6	17	welder and magus
Long / TPS	4	13	grouped, "traditional" storm combo
Slaver	4	15	various versions, some including CotV
Gifts / Intuition	3	14	often intuition comes as a gift complement/replacement, with AK draw engine
Goblins	3	4	versions reaching top 2 include earwig squad
TTS	2	14	tendrils combo w/ gushbond, often 1-2 doomsday
Stax	2	12	"old school" w/ stax, crucible, welder etc.
UWFish	2	10	often unpow w/ null rod
Salvagers	2	9	most often w/ mindsencor and tinkolossus
Landstill	2	7	generally unpow w/ null rod
GAT	1	14	various numbers of driads, tarmos and/or psychatog
Drain Tendrils	1	11	often draw w/ intuition+ak, tinkolossus, difference from gifts=no red splash/recoup
MaskNought	1	8	"darkillusions"
RGBeats	1	6	often unpow
UG Fish	1	4	fish+tarmo, sometimes threshold often unpow
GW "Fish"	1	3	mindcensor, teeg, swords etc. sometimes splash black confidant duress
MonoU	1	2	win via tinkolossus or platz
RectorFlash	1	2	w/ form maindeck
RogueThief	1	2	earwig squad + grimoire thief fish
SS	0	4	sullivan solution (bob+cutpurse)
Belcher	0	3	belcher+empty
Random	0	6	the decks that didn't show up at least twice

US meta only (8 top decks only)

Archetype	top 2	top 8
Oath	7	16
Flash	6	26
Ichorid	5	12
TTS	2	7
Red Aggro Workshop	2	3
Goblins	2	2
Monobrown Workshop	1	9
Slaver	1	7

I think this gives a good idea, backed by real results (as opposed to personal convictions) of the current meta, and what decks to prepare against. Partially answers questions regarding what to expect in tournaments (although in the US local metas may vary).

I think we can extrapolate from this:
Tier 1 decks : oath, flash, ichorid
Tier 1.5/2 decks : deeznought, workshops, slaver (still posting good results regularly), etc...

Quick comments :

This is not to be read as a "best deck" ranking, since the number of decks played by archetype is not taken into consideration to normalize the results.

I think this shows how good the health of vintage currently is.  The meta is quite diverse with plenty of archetypes, and rogue decks are regularly posting good results. Seeing this list I don't think anyone should expect new restrictions anytime soon.

The meta is quite separated into decks that win very quickly (oath/flash/icho) and decks with intense disruption that put in the meantime a quick clock on the opponent (aggro workshops, deeznought). Pure control (slaver, gifts, bomberman, mana drain in general) is less represented than it used to be (probably outraced).

Unlike what some often claim, workshops are far from dead. Monobrown Workshop is the 3rd deck by the number of top 8s reported. However the traditional "stax" builds are indeed quite out of the game, and have left the place for quicker aggro builds. Metalworker seems to be a staple of the monobrown builds.

I was quite surprised at the number of decks posting results and featuring the intuition+AK draw engine.

Deeznought is the true "fish" deck of the moment, with intense disruption and efficient creatures. It features good matchups vs 2 of the top 3 decks (flash and ichorid), although it has more difficulties versus other tier 2 decks.

Ichorid is unpowered decks' king (this might seem irrelevant to US players, but often in europe tournaments feature specific rankings and prizes).

In the US, the meta is less diverse than in Europe. Oath, Ichorid and Flash are much more present than the other decks.

TTS w/ doomsday seems to be a deck on the rise, out of the rankings a few months ago and posting good results in recent tournaments.

That's it for now .

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

This is a really great post. I do have a question about your data, you've got a lot of shop decks in the t8, and argue this to be evidence that shop is viable in the current meta. How many of these top 8's occurred before flash began to see play again, and tidespout oath hit the scene?

[meadbert]

Thanks for posting this.  Your data is very interesting.
It confirms some of what my private testing has been showing me for months.  I have also been finding that GAT has a tough time against the other top tier decks.
My results are very similar with the biggest difference being Flash.  Generally I have found that Shop decks are King.  These decks tend to be Brown or Mono Red and can be either lock oriented Stax decks or Shop Aggro.
The best foils for these Shop decks seems to be Manaless Ichorid and Tyrant Oath.
After that Drain Tendrils and Control Slaver seemed to be the best Drain based decks.  Drain Tendrils actually seems better.  I noticed that you categorized Drain Tendrils and Gifts/Intuition as seperate decks, but if you combined them into one archetype then that would have been the top deck that runs 4xDrain.
I did not find that Flash did that well against the Shop heavy meta with Ichorid and Tyrant Oath though.  Perhaps I need to go back and retest.

Also, Deez Goyfs/Noughts did well against Ichorid and even Oath (Duress, Thoughtseize, Force, Explosives), but it really struggled against the Shop decks.

[Xman]

It is interesting data.  What was the Time Span of the tournaments?  Was it from Jan-Present or was it just the past couple of months?  I assume you got your info from TMD, SCG, & Morphling.de, correct?

It does depend on the meta as to how well certain decks do because of the decks strength & weaknesses.  Did you find the meta's & the Top 8's to be generally open, or did you find the T8's to hold a large portion of one deck or another?  Such as a Flash Heavy Meta or a Shop Heavy Meta.

[meadbert]

Incidently, the GAT decks that have been doing best for me are U/b/g and have a sideboard that is something like:
4xDeglamer
4xOxidize
4xLeyline of the Void
3x Faerie Macabre

8x Artifact removal help against Stax.  Also, you generally board out your Duress effects so you are basically just trying to keep a Trops on the table.  This helps against Shop decks.  Although you do not get the 2 for effect that Ancient Grudge, Rack and Ruin and Shattering Spree could get, you have the bonus of only needing green which is the same color you want for Dryad/Goyf.  Also you should easily outdraw Stax/Shop Aggro so in the long run you are not looking for card advantage out of your removal.

Deglamer is great against Oath.  Some games Oath drops a turn 1 Oath and it is nice to not have to wait to combo off or to try to bounce and Duress it.
Also Deglamer is solid defense against anyone running Threads of Disloyalty.  Generally I would not board it in, unless I knew that Threads was in my opponent's deck.

Finally Leyline and Faerie Macabre each fight Flash and Ichorid farily well.  It is somewhat overkill against Flash which should already be a good matchup, but all are needed for Ichorid.
Perhaps a token Needle or Yixlid Jailer could work, but Faerie Macabre is good against AK decks as well as decks heavily reliant on Yawg.

Also I think Steve's list which was running 8xBrainstorm/Ponder and 6xDuress/Thougtseize was in the right direction.

[Negator13]

The problem with Type 1 now is not that there is a low number of viable decks or that any specific archtype is dead, but rather that the format is just unreasonably fast and uninteractive, and really each "different" deck is the same shell with different win conditions. Tyrant Oath/GAT/TTS are all really the same deck with different win conditions, Flash and Ichorid are two of the most degenerate and uninteractive decks ever, and the rest are just trying to find ways to beat them which means they have to devote the majority of their game plan to simply not losing in the first 1-2 turns of the game. To me the format is just nowhere near as fun as past formats, where not only a variety of decks were viable, but a variety of strategies and gameplans that maybe existed outside of the first two turns of the game.

[quentin]

How many of these top 8's occurred before flash began to see play again, and tidespout oath hit the scene

What was the Time Span of the tournaments?

100% of the us data is from the last 2 months, as well as 90% of the european data. The oldest tournament taken into account was late january.

I assume you got your info from TMD, SCG, & Morphling.de, correct?

those and a few more (magic-ville.com , tipo1.it ...) yes.

Did you find the meta's & the Top 8's to be generally open, or did you find the T8's to hold a large portion of one deck or another?  Such as a Flash Heavy Meta or a Shop Heavy Meta.

the us top8s were generally less varied than the european ones (i took a couple japanese which were completely different too) and featured mostly oath/flash/ichorid.
The spanish ones were similar to the us for the most present decks, italians were heavily workshop-ish (noticeably, a 150 people tournament last month in italy saw like 6 workshop decks in the top 16, two of them taking the first 2 spots), while german and french were quite varied.
But it happened very often to find a top 8 with 8 different decks )or close) among which the usual suspects.

[diopter]

The problem with Type 1 now is not that there is a low number of viable decks or that any specific archtype is dead, but rather that the format is just unreasonably fast and uninteractive, and really each "different" deck is the same shell with different win conditions. Tyrant Oath/GAT/TTS are all really the same deck with different win conditions, Flash and Ichorid are two of the most degenerate and uninteractive decks ever, and the rest are just trying to find ways to beat them which means they have to devote the majority of their game plan to simply not losing in the first 1-2 turns of the game. To me the format is just nowhere near as fun as past formats, where not only a variety of decks were viable, but a variety of strategies and gameplans that maybe existed outside of the first two turns of the game.

Could you elaborate as to the variety of strategies and gameplans? In my view, past formats were predominantly Mana Drain / Storm / Workshop metagames that suffer from the exact problem that you describe the current format as having:
- Every Drain deck was the same - Drain into draw engine.
- Every Storm deck was the same - Play a storm enabling tutor or bomb.
- Every Shop deck was the same - play lock pieces.

There was not very much room for aggro Shop, Fish was forced into a hugely defensive role instead of being able to play 12/12's of its own, and the best decks - Mana Drains - while fun to play with, were getting old to play against. Mana Drain decks were notorious for being the same shell with slightly different win mechanisms.

[Negator13]

Well the main difference is the window of turns you are allowed to operate in this metagame- a whole host of otherwise viable decks are completely unplayable because the fundamental turn is so low. I guess you still have the same relative number of viable decks and strategies, but (to me anyway) the overwhelming speed of the format just makes it much less fun. People look at the fact that creatures are actually being used right now and use this as evidence to say we are in a "golden age", but those creatures are just an afterthought, used as win conditions simply because there have been some incredibly powerful creatures printed/errated lately (see Tarmogoyf/Dreadnought). Now imagine if the format had a fundamental turn closer to 3 than 1, like in the days of the Drain/Ritual/Shop dynamic... you bet your ass you would see ALOT more creature-based strategies. My point is that the format is so ridiculously fast and condensed into the first 2 turns of the game that it just doesn't really feel like magic anymore, even vintage magic. The more turns you have to work with, the more room for innovation you have, and the more fun individual games are (again, for me).

Like, before you had Drain decks, storm decks, and Shop decks, and yeah they all played FoW/Drain/BS or Ritual/BS/Draw7's or whatever, but after that they really did vastly different things. Playing Slaver feels a hell of a lot different than playing Bomberman, and to a lot of people it's a lot more fun... it's just personal preference. Now, you've got Merchant Scroll/Gush vs Merchant Scroll/Flash, basically, and if you go with the former yeah you have a choice of winning with Oath, or Dryad, or Goyf, or Doomsday, but either way the deck still feels almost exactly the same... Gushbond and Merchant Scroll as 4 of's will do that. Plus you only have 2 turns to plan out your decks gameplan so there just isn't much room for innovation. Look at GAT vs TTS vs NLD... all "innovations" off the same shell, but really they're like, 6 cards different from each other, and at least half of their games play out exactly the same way. The games are so condensed that, while exciting and skill intensive in that there are a ton of decisions to make, such BS/Ponder/Duress decision trees, that once you get to a certain level of play pretty much all of your games look and feel exactly the same. Which gets boring. Really fast. When the format is slower, there is just more time for new, different things to happen within individual games, which for me is where the real fun comes. I've always loved T1 because it was a great mix of strategy, attrition, and random brokenness. Now, though, it's mostly just brokenness, unless you're just way better than your opponent.

Double post merged.  -DA

[kalisia]

Like, before you had Drain decks, storm decks, and Shop decks, and yeah they all played FoW/Drain/BS or Ritual/BS/Draw7's or whatever, but after that they really did vastly different things. Playing Slaver feels a hell of a lot different than playing Bomberman, and to a lot of people it's a lot more fun... it's just personal preference. Now, you've got Merchant Scroll/Gush vs Merchant Scroll/Flash, basically, and if you go with the former yeah you have a choice of winning with Oath, or Dryad, or Goyf, or Doomsday, but either way the deck still feels almost exactly the same... Gushbond and Merchant Scroll as 4 of's will do that. Plus you only have 2 turns to plan out your decks gameplan so there just isn't much room for innovation. Look at GAT vs TTS vs NLD... all "innovations" off the same shell, but really they're like, 6 cards different from each other, and at least half of their games play out exactly the same way. The games are so condensed that, while exciting and skill intensive in that there are a ton of decisions to make, such BS/Ponder/Duress decision trees, that once you get to a certain level of play pretty much all of your games look and feel exactly the same. Which gets boring. Really fast. When the format is slower, there is just more time for new, different things to happen within individual games, which for me is where the real fun comes. I've always loved T1 because it was a great mix of strategy, attrition, and random brokenness. Now, though, it's mostly just brokenness, unless you're just way better than your opponent.

Interesting post, I understand what you're saying. For sure, with the time, Magic Vintage has been more and more fast and the fundamental turn of each archetype is decreasing. I think that the problem is coming from the players themselves. It is a "fashion" phenomen : Gush is unrestricted, and everybody goes immediatly in this direction. Why? Because the card is ridiculously powerful. May be some years ago, people were choosing their decks in adequation with a feeling, with a manner to play one deck they were loving. Now, originality is at the second plan. The most important is to choose a competitive deck, and which is not giving an headache each game. In this vision, I can understand many players have chosen the "quick" route(Gush direction, or quicker > Flash), even if I don't agree with this.
This can be strange, but I think players would be able to "slow" metagame. For example, I looked at each "Tier 1 deck" in Quentin's list, and after that, I searched "The Deck" list...you remember ?...the Brian Weissman "old school"! Ten years ago, this list was incredibly strong and was able to beat any deck, but I agree that new capacity inventions like Storm for example have become the "end" of this deck (apparition of Combo). If we establish a list of the typical win conditions of the current tier1 decks, we can see that it would be eventually possible to rebuild a deck using the Weissman philosophy. If a deck like this could be made, and could beat easily any "new fashion" deck, the metagame could be slowed. I agree with Negator13 in the idea that it is better for the game itself, and so for the players, when the metagame allows some "suspens" in a game. I mean, when you loose turn1, you did'nt enjoyed the game. Identically, if you win turn1, you have a smile on your face because you won, but you did'nt take the time to enjoy the game. More time and more turns in a game, is just more pleasure and more fun for the players. And more turns means more "situation reverses", which is an important aspect in Magic!
All this can be done, by building new decks which can beat easily the fastest decks. Right now, except Stax, who can beat a fast deck?>>> a faster deck ! We can change that, so let's find new ideas!

[ELD]

I love it.  Excellent post, and a great contribution to the community.  It show how many options we have, with 24 different archtypes making the Top 2 of these events.  Truly a Golden Age of Vintage.  One thing that would be a great asset would be an appendix with the tournaments you used.  I question the %'s in the Oath, Flash and Ichorid rows.  At my last Lotus Event, there were 4 out of 11 Flash decks with the Sliver kill.  Both Sliver decks lost their final match to miss the Top 8.  Has the Sliver kill really been outperformed to that extent? 

It really is remarkable to me how people have dismissed GAT.  It played to a Top 4 mirror in my event Saturday, and the deck is more than capable of putting up the results.  I believe that is an indicator of just how many choices people have right now.  A deck that I've been telling people that the best way to go right now is the deck that you play the best.  Metagaming for Oath/Flash doesn't work out when you run up against Shops, Zoo or any of the multitude of viable decks.  Skill is king right now, and I hope the trend continues. 

[quentin]

I love it.  Excellent post, and a great contribution to the community.  It show how many options we have, with 24 different archtypes making the Top 2 of these events.  Truly a Golden Age of Vintage.  One thing that would be a great asset would be an appendix with the tournaments you used.

I wrote them down as i did this, i will find this and add it to the first post. Can't do it until next monday though.

I question the %'s in the Oath, Flash and Ichorid rows.

These are not mathematical, just rough numbers i extrapolated from what i'd seen.
I know there was only one non-tyrant oath (akroma/DSC).
The number of manaless ichorid vs mana'd was definitely above 90%.
Maybe if i re-took all the lists i'd find that flash/slivers got to 10%, but i'd be surprised if it was above this. Slivers were very present 3-6 months ago but in recent tournaments most build packed the reveillark kill.

At my last Lotus Event, there were 4 out of 11 Flash decks with the Sliver kill.  Both Sliver decks lost their final match to miss the Top 8.  Has the Sliver kill really been outperformed to that extent?

Outperformed, or just less played than its counterpart. The instant/pact trigger kill is tempting, even consireding the extra sensitivity to tormod's crypt and other instant-speed gy hate.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

@eld
 in the mid west, the last series of tournaments I've played the overwhelming majority of the flash variants have been the mogg fanatic, occasionally sb slivers to dodge extirpate. I've seen the mogg kill blow through  a lot of mini warrens, fish creatures, goblins and a few platz. Previously I'd say that, yes, the sliver kill has definitely been out performed. However, within the last month I would say that slivers are the right choice after seeing the amount of sb and main deck extirpate, as well as 4x extract in sb.

[Nehptis]

This is good data.  However, I do think you are a bit light on the R/G beats #'s for the US.  I thought they had some Top 8s.  Also, I 'm surprised at the high amount of US Ichorid in the Top 8.  But, the numbers are what they are.  Thanks for pulling this together.

Using this data as a starting point, in my opinion US Vintage is almost always in the same "cycle".  Some like to call one of the "phases" a Golden Age.  For me, it's just a matter of Steady-State, to Critical Mass and / or Transitional and then back to Steady-State.  The key is to minimize the Critical Mass phase.  Longer or shorter Steady and Transitional phases are matters of opinion.  Some players like a predictable, yet balanced meta.  Some, prefer something less predictable as found in a Transitional phase.  But, except for a few problem "times" in the past it's usually 3 or 4 archetypes jockeying for position during the Steady-State phase.  This then lasts for a period of time until a Critical Mass is reached and / or when a new card, combo or a restriction shakes things up that brings us into a Transitional Phase.

In the previous era we had Prison (Shop), Storm (Ritual), Drain (Gifts/Drain), as people have noted.  For better or worse we reached a Critical Mass.  Gifts was neutered, Gush was unrestricted, and new sets were released.  So, we entered a Transitional phase.  If you believe the data and read TMD reports then the current US era is Flash (Merchant Scroll) and Oath (Gush/Scroll) with Storm, Shop and Dredge (Ichorid) jockeying for that 3/4 position.  I think GAT (Gush/Scroll) is also in contention, as well.  I'd call this time the beginning of the end of the Steady-State with the Critical Mass phase on the horizon (look for the Green Flash).

So, depending on your ability to see the future you might agree that we are nearing the end of another era. A new set has been released, there is a lot of discussion about restrictions, power-level erratas are occurring and there are "pet decks" that are starting to put up some #'s (See Tyrant Blue, MUC 2008).  As usual the new era won't be drastically different from the previous.  The Storm mechanic is here to stay, Workshop is a staple, and there will always be the possibility of Drain being re-invented.  The question of Ich's lasting power is a good one to consider, as well.  And of course, there will be a heavy Blue based Control/ Aggro or Control / Combo deck that will be in contention.

I'd be interested to know, for the folks who feel that we are in a "Golden Age" right now.  Which deck or decks did you play at the last 3 tourneys that you attended.