[REPORT] Almost making top 8 with TPS in Hengelo 12-13-2009

[Marske]

@Matchups,
I believe most people don't really realize how Vintage works. I don't really agree with Vroman's take on things as some "truths" will always remain. The biggest problem is that piloting the decks we chose to play correctly is very very hard. I cannot think of a single Vintage deck that's "easy". This skews testing and assumptions / conclusions taken from it

I've tried to touch on the subject a bit  in my previous posts in this thread. For example:

TPS vs WS Aggro
This matchup, when played by 2 players with the highest knowledge available regarding their weapons of choice slightly favors TPS as it can easily win out of nowhere because the few spheres WS aggro drops in general (not taking god hands into account) are hardly relevant enough and the clock (barring multiple artifacts + Karn) is just something TPS doesn't care about. However, the slightest slip results in a game loss for either side of the table. Take in account this matchup being played by a player that's very familiar with TPS vs WS aggro piloted by a novice and one could assume TPS is highly favored. If it's the other way around and a TPS novice battles against a veteran WS aggro pilot he's gonna think the matchup is nigh unwinnable.

The fact that perception of matchups changes according to the skill level involved with the pilots doesn't take away some fundamental truths, namely: Generally Drain based strategies are trumped by Dark ritual strategies which are in turn trumped by Shop strategies. Null rod strategies naturally prey on Drain and Shop strategies but have a problem facing Dark ritual strategies. It's the Rock / Paper / Scissors example. This doesn't however mean it's untrue that Rock can't ever beat Paper. This is where the pilots skill with his weapon of choice, sideboards etc all come into play.

[Mantis]

Skill levels play a big role, tutoring for the wrong card, setting a Chalice at the wrong number, keeping the wrong hands, seemingly small mistakes have grave consequences for either side. To me, the percentages indicate nothing, Vintage is indeed all about skill, but also about who opens the broken cards. Matchups are of far greater importance in other formats, such as Extended and Type 2 where 75-25 matchups are actually common. Even if one player were to be slightly advantageous, a minor slip up could cost him the game.

Again, let's not focus on matchup percentages, it's just no guarantee for achieving good results. What truly deserves our attention is how to play a certain matchup and how to best prepare your deck to beat the expected metagame.

In my perspective this is how the TPS vs Shop Aggro matchup plays out (blowouts from either side not taken into account):
TPS starts by developing it's manabase, at the same time Shop Aggro tries to halt this progress by dropping Spheres/Chalices and eating Moxen. After this initial phase, the Shop Aggro players hopes to have succesfully interfered with TPS's development and seeks to apply pressure through Juggernaut, Karn or Triskelion. The TPS player struggles to find enough mana for it's Rebuild plan and then win on the next turn within the timeframe Shop Aggro has presented. Tangle Wire is included to trump this plan, but it's definately not flawless. Sometimes the TPS plan works, sometimes the TPS plan fails, I have definately won a lot more games against TPS than I lost and I like to believe this is because my extensive testing against TPS showed me what I should do to beat it. That said, I did get a little lucky during the tournament as you can read in LennoxLewis report where I topdecked the win just before he was going to kill me in two of the four games.

[sean1i0]

Yeah, that sounds about right to me.  And I think you're right about that.  It's pretty much what I was trying to say before:  That in this format we can't look quite so much at MU percentages; that we should focus more on how to play tight and take the MUs that we "weren't supposed to win."