[Free Article] So Many Insane Plays -- Meandeck Beats !

[DubDub]

Before I'd take this deck out again, I'd carefully run it up against all three of the top finishing decklists and see what changes need to be made. 

This raises a question for me, how do you weigh the results of proxy/non-proxy events when testing?  While I wouldn't write off the top decklists from the Vintage Champs, it seems to me that if I'm preparing for a proxy event they may not be the most relevant decks to test against.  Is this a situation where you were originally pushing Meandeck Beats as a choice for that tourney, so you'd like to tweak it retrospectively?

I assume you wouldn't claim that a deck can be optimized for proxy/non-proxy tournaments at the same time, right?  Not that that is necessarily what the quoted text above implies.

[Smmenen]

Before I'd take this deck out again, I'd carefully run it up against all three of the top finishing decklists and see what changes need to be made. 

This raises a question for me, how do you weigh the results of proxy/non-proxy events when testing?  While I wouldn't write off the top decklists from the Vintage Champs, it seems to me that if I'm preparing for a proxy event they may not be the most relevant decks to test against.  Is this a situation where you were originally pushing Meandeck Beats as a choice for that tourney, so you'd like to tweak it retrospectively?

I assume you wouldn't claim that a deck can be optimized for proxy/non-proxy tournaments at the same time, right?  Not that that is necessarily what the quoted text above implies.

I'll answer your question, but it suggests another one: how much should one prepare for a regional or local metagame?   I mean, certainly most people think that local metagames matter.

Yet, consider Itou.  He's from Japan.   Do you really think he has any working knowledge of the Midwest metagame that tends to show up at Vintage worlds?   

The truth is that at highest level events, the difference between proxy and non proxy is basically nil.   There is no metagame difference between a Starcitygames P9 tournament in Chicago and the Vintage Championship metagame of the same year.    Sure, there are more decks that are unoptimized, but the metagame is almost identical.   

[Gekoratel]

Regarding Itou's Tezz list the announcers during the live coverage mentioned that he was playing/scouting at the pre-lims and used some of the information to make changes to his maindeck such as running 1 Rack and Ruin in the MD.  I'm not sure what other changes he made to his default list to accommodate it to the metagame but assuming the announcers are on point he did do some metagaming.

[Smmenen]

Regarding Itou's Tezz list the announcers during the live coverage mentioned that he was playing/scouting at the pre-lims and used some of the information to make changes to his maindeck such as running 1 Rack and Ruin in the MD.  I'm not sure what other changes he made to his default list to accommodate it to the metagame but assuming the announcers are on point he did do some metagaming.

I certainly expected that he would metagame somewhat, but the point remains: how much metagame knowledge could a japanese person who may have never even been to the US have done?   

[DubDub]

I'll answer your question, but it suggests another one: how much should one prepare for a regional or local metagame?   I mean, certainly most people think that local metagames matter.

Yet, consider Itou.  He's from Japan.   Do you really think he has any working knowledge of the Midwest metagame that tends to show up at Vintage worlds?   

The truth is that at highest level events, the difference between proxy and non proxy is basically nil.   There is no metagame difference between a Starcitygames P9 tournament in Chicago and the Vintage Championship metagame of the same year.    Sure, there are more decks that are unoptimized, but the metagame is almost identical.   

I'm afraid I'm just working on assumptions and woefully thin actual experience.  I'm glad to hear that proxy/no-proxy is less important (at that level) than I had thought.  I'll have to keep this in mind when I next attend a large no-proxy event (which is to say, next year's World Championships).

[Valorale]

I assembled this deck and did some casual playtesting against Nat Moes last week. I was pleased with the performance and both he and I were surprised with how many turn 1 plays it could make. We thought that would be it biggest weakness, but it wasnt uncommong to have an ESG/mox etc in the opening hand to get out a nullrod or Teeg first turn.

Nat piloted a Tezz, Staxx andBelcher deck. Against Staxx, I found Teeg to be the MVP, get him out and good bye smokestacks and tanglewire. Against Belcher unless he had a win condition in his opening hand it was pretty much GG. Tezz games were competetive, i would like to play some more against that.

The biggest loser of the deck I feel is the Aven Mindcensor and this is probably because I didnt play a fish deck. But often times I found myself sitting with him in my hand because I didnt have 3 mana to cast him early to stop a fetch land or I just had more important stuff to get out on the field and thus couldnt afford to sit back and flash him in to stop a demonic. Id consider cutting 1 out for the 4th ESG

[Smmenen]

Glad to hear you are enjoying the deck.   

I think as the deck evolves, though, Aven Mindcensor will be more important than ever, simply because Tinker is more important to our enemies. 

[Troy_Costisick]

I think as the deck evolves, though, Aven Mindcensor will be more important than ever, simply because Tinker is more important to our enemies. 

Stopping Tinker is job #1.  Tinker becomes the primary strategy vs. XG Beatz decks.  Stop that card, and you will have all the time you need to lock up the board and win with CA from Bob and dmg from Goyf beats. 

[kuberr]

Using Mindcensor as your Tinker answer makes this deck even more vulnerable to Darkblast.  With the number of Confidants running around, a singleton Darkblast already seems really powerful in the tutor decks.   I think this deck is vulnerable to blast already, and therefore have an x/1 be the answer for one of their biggest threats doesn't seem great.

I still don't have the data to support this, but I think this deck might be too focused on beating highlander decks.  At some point it might be worth shaving a few % points against that deck to try and shore up some other matchups.  Just my initial reaction.

[Smmenen]

Ugh.   Bad news.

Hiromichi Itou's deck stomps Meandeck Beats...

[kuberr]

mind sharing what it is about his list that makes the matchup so difficult?

[zeus-online]

Ugh.   Bad news.

Hiromichi Itou's deck stomps Meandeck Beats...

How so? What makes it so different from other tez decks

[Smmenen]

Look at his list and it's obvious

[Phele]

It has plenty of solid and powerful answers for all the major threats of any aggro control deck maindeck – namely CoV, Fire/Ice, Rack and Ruin, Hurkyl and Darkblast. And Pyroclasm out of the board is still an effective solution for any creature rush beside Goyf. I would say that he is a little low on quick tools against storm combo and an variable mix of Ichorid hate. But for the rest, the deck seems to be really well prepared – which his great result has shown. Fire/Ice is so great in the meta.

[Smmenen]

That's exactly right.   I spent hours and hours working on it today, and I think I cracked Itou's deck for Meandeck Beats.   My results will be published a week from Monday.   I'm almost done with this match, then I'm turning to the Steel City Vault matchup.   

[kuberr]

With so much time between big tournaments and seemingly constant innovation amongst the top decks, are Fish decks in vintage doomed to always be behind the curve by one tournament?

Sure you can plan for what you think is going to be played at any given tournament, but thats just one more layer of decisions that you need to be correct for your deck to be good. 

Also, isn't it, by their very nature, always going to be easier for the tutor decks to solve the fish decks than for the fish decks to solve the tutor decks?

Maybe I'm way off, but I'm curious what everyone thinks about the fact that Fish decks appear to be at a competitive disadvantage vs the decks they are trying to beat.

[Smmenen]

Or you could look at it the other way:

Null Rod = 1 card
Key + Vault = 2 cards

1 card is easier to get and resolve than 2 cards.   not to mention, Null Rod > Moxen, Black Lotus, etc. 

From that perspective Fish and Beats decks have a natural competitive advantage over their prey.   

There are infinite ways to look at this. 

[voltron00x]

That's exactly right.   I spent hours and hours working on it today, and I think I cracked Itou's deck for Meandeck Beats.   My results will be published a week from Monday.   I'm almost done with this match, then I'm turning to the Steel City Vault matchup.   

Steve, do you think Steel City Vault is going to continue to develop and see play?

I'm not overly impressed with it personally, but the games where it "clicks" really are ridiculous.

[Smmenen]

That's exactly right.   I spent hours and hours working on it today, and I think I cracked Itou's deck for Meandeck Beats.   My results will be published a week from Monday.   I'm almost done with this match, then I'm turning to the Steel City Vault matchup.   

Steve, do you think Steel City Vault is going to continue to develop and see play?

I'm not overly impressed with it personally, but the games where it "clicks" really are ridiculous.

I have no idea.   

[voltron00x]

That's exactly right.   I spent hours and hours working on it today, and I think I cracked Itou's deck for Meandeck Beats.   My results will be published a week from Monday.   I'm almost done with this match, then I'm turning to the Steel City Vault matchup.    

Steve, do you think Steel City Vault is going to continue to develop and see play?

I'm not overly impressed with it personally, but the games where it "clicks" really are ridiculous.

I have no idea.  

I'm guessing you think that it will, otherwise why devote time and article space toward playtesting against it?  

In any event I am anxious to see the next article on G/W, as the deck has clearly struck a chord with players and seems better positioned now than ever.  I think you have to chalk up your "Vintage on a Budget" articles over the last 12 months in the "win" column, for sure.

[Smmenen]

Well, it's interesting.   One of the reasons I want to test against SCV is also to see how the deck runs against that particular configuration of anti-Null Rod cards (Ancient Grudge) as opposed to the Itou configuration.

I'm finished with my article for next week, which focuses on the Meandeck Beats v. Itou  matchup.  It was somewhat frustrating to put so much effort and energy in testing only to arrive at answers that seem obvious in retrospect.    All of my intuitive choices ended up being wrong.   For example, I thought that Seal and Aven Mindcensor would be strong, and both cards proved themselves to be suboptimal, and that's putting it nicely.   The card choices I settled on, which will seem obv. in retrospect to many, only became evident to me after I analyzed testing data.   

The folks in this thread who were complaining about Aven Mindcensor were dead right.    And Choke.  Choke is long gone.   

[kuberr]

1 card is easier to get and resolve than 2 cards.

This is only true given that every thing else is constant.  Given that their deck has some combination of a dozen tutors, 8 counterspells, and blue draw spells vs your 4 discard (assuming this is still the case), 2 tutors (same) and 4 x/1 bobs I'm not so sure that your 1 is easier than their 2.  Not to mention that those two cards pretty much win the game on the spot, if you want to win you're still going to have to resolve another spell.

I think vontron00x illustrates my point to some extent.  While you're busy trying to beat the decks that were on top last week, their pilots are quite possibly moving on to a newer shinier version of the deck or at the very least tweaking their deck in ways that might make your tweaks irrelevant. (see Itou's deck)

I don't want to derail this thread though.  I really look forward to your next article, and I'm glad to hear that Choke and more importantly Mindcensor won't be included.

[Valorale]

After Aven, I agree choke was the 2nd big loser in the deck, its 3 casting close plus situational use simply didnt do enough. This deck runs a very light mana base, it is unusal to have more than 4-5 mana sources on the field when the game wraps up because your artifact mana gets shut down by null.

[Smmenen]

Results have been posted:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38726.0

[Smmenen]

This article is now free!    As I said at the beginning of this thread, I am very proud of this deck, as well as the GW deck that I developed a few months before.

In this article, I update the GW deck for 8.10.09, and introduce and explain the black splash.

Plus, a bonus tournament report!    If you have never read one of my articles before, check this one out!   

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I think boarding out Tarmogoyf is questionable, even against Tezz.  You reduce your threat density as well as your clock, and as you noted after round 2, a clock is very important.  Furthermore, every creature in your deck besides Goyf dies to Pyroclasm.  If they board 2-3 Pyroclasms instead of Sowers, they should crush you.  Even if you keep in the Goyfs and they board Sowers, you can still bring in Swords to deal with them (along with your Thoughtseizes), in addition to the fact that Sower can often be difficult for them to cast given your mana denial.  Of course there will be times when they Sower your Goyf, but I think this is far outweighed by the times Goyf will help you quickly beat them to death.

[Smmenen]

I think boarding out Tarmogoyf is questionable, even against Tezz.  You reduce your threat density as well as your clock, and as you noted after round 2, a clock is very important.  Furthermore, every creature in your deck besides Goyf dies to Pyroclasm.  If they board 2-3 Pyroclasms instead of Sowers, they should crush you.  Even if you keep in the Goyfs and they board Sowers, you can still bring in Swords to deal with them (along with your Thoughtseizes), in addition to the fact that Sower can often be difficult for them to cast given your mana denial.  Of course there will be times when they Sower your Goyf, but I think this is far outweighed by the times Goyf will help you quickly beat them to death.

Agreed!   

[scipio]

In this article, I update the GW deck for 8.10.09, and introduce and explain the black splash.

Excellent article.  I'm still surprised that the manabase works - it has a fragile feel to it overall.

Are there any changes you would make on the basis of the new Set, apart from tinkering with the new fetches?  Is Jitte ever relevant, and is it strictly better than, say Sword of Fire and Ice?  Does choke perform as well as you'd like, and if so does unrestricted enlightened tutor strike your fancy?

[Smmenen]

Choke was pretty unimpressive, and got the axe from the maindeck of GWB.   I made a number of adjustments to the mana base, but those were sort of mooted by the new printings.  You want a basic of each of the three main types, at a minimum. 

[humppa]

I have one question about Swords - why you prefer StP over PtE?