Roleplaying (Analysing Matchups Properly)

[Rane]

It was a while back that I read something by someone somewhere (sorry for not giving you credit as really have no idea who you were it has been quite some time - I'll just say I didn't come up with this.)  It was about properly determining roles in a matchup, that is 'what each deck has to do to win'.  At first this seems simple but there are a whole lot of things that throw spanners in the works so to speak.  To give you a very basic example of what I'm talking about, let's say Keeper vs Dragon.

Keeper's Role:  Disrupt opponent before they can get the combo off.  Then find and use appropriate win condition.
Example - Tormod's Crypt
Note: Has alternate role of finding 'Silver Bullet'.
Example - Planar Void hits the table (YES KEEPER DOESN'T USE THIS IT'S JUST AN EXAMPLE)

Dragon's Role: Find combo pieces.  Use combo pieces to win.
Example - Demonic Tutor for Animate Dead which targets Dragon in grave.
Note:  Must either use acceleration to be fast and consistent, OR pack some sort of protection.
Example - Duress

Now the point of this thread is that I would like your comments on organising macthups in general.  This would help a lot of people from doing things that hurt their deck more than they help  (ex. putting Savannah Lions in Keeper for early beatdown).

With that my opinion on the MtG Tri-Force;

Combo vs Control
- Combo must try to 'go off' asap.  If control seizes 'control' then Combo has no hope.  Combo may pack protection, but Control will have more disrupt than Combo can handle.  MUST go for speed before all else.
- Control must throw aside it's win condition(s) and do anything it can to stop the combo.  It must quickly find an answer to the combo.  It can try to disrupt the combo player to buy some time and it can do this quite effectivly, but must find some way to really stop the Combo player from being a threat so that it can then focus again on winning.

Control vs Aggro
- Control must use anything to prolonge the game.  It can use disrupt/counter/silver bullets whatever it needs.  Once the early game has been stopped it can then find a more permanent answer if it does not already have one.  It can form here go in for the kill.  It must make sure to remember to protect it's Silver bullet however.
- Aggro must try to race control.  If it can kill before control can find the answer(s) it needs then that's all it has to do.  Problems arise when it over-extends and control makes a come-from-behind victory.  To solve this it can pack draw to make sure it doesn't run out of steam, use hard-to-solve problems that are consistent threats, or try to disrupt the Control player.  The control player will normally have more answers than the Aggro player can cope with though, so it must be continuously pushing for the kill.

Aggro vs Combo
- Aggro must try as hard as it can to kill Combo before it can go off.  This can quite often be near impossible.  The only chance it has is to risk major over-extension or disrupt the combo player, or both.  Aggro normally doesn't have an 'answer' to combo so it instead needs to race it or seriously hinder it.
- Combo just needs to mind its own business and work as fast as it can.  There is a good chance that it will out-race the Aggro.  It can however be slowed down so protection to the deck is still useful.  Protecting the combo is still a must but is easier than the Control matchup as it has normally sufficient Disrupt/Counters to protect itself.

So tell us your opinion/problems/agreements whatever on this.

[Metanoia]

This is an interesting idea, I suppose it was inspired by Smmenen's recent article and the references to "Who's the beatdown?"

Understanding the role of your deck is very important for your game-plan and side-boarding strategy vs. a particular opponent.
There is one  thing missing from you approach though:

There is no longer a "Magic TriForce" there is a new archetype "(Artifact) Prison" so there are now 4 roles to choose from

Now the most interesting questions (for me at least) are: what role should an aggro-control deck choose?

examples for deck building:
should mono-U fish use Unstable Mutation or Curiosity?
should GAT still run Fastbond and Future Sight or would 2 Pernicious Deed be better?

examples for sideboarding:
can GAT board out it's entire draw engine (4 AK, + 1/2 Intuition) against Prison decks to make room for artifact and creature removal?

examples of match-up analysis:
Fish vs. Sui, who's the Beatdown?
TNT vs. mono-B Mask, who's the Beatdown?
GAT vs. EBA, who's the Beatdown?

[Rane]

I've always thought of prison decks as combo-control.  However I haven't played with one in a while, only against - so I could be mislead.  I know exactly what you're talking about though.  It seems that many of the top aggro decks that are more so aggro-control have come to a crossroads where they must either commmit to full control whilst having beatdown, or light disruption and faster beatdown.  The tog SB example is exactly what I'm talking about.  Unfortunatly, I myself have been pondering the answer to this question for quite some time.  Any idea's?

[Plainswalker]

Very good concept, I think it's a good idea to start having a regular way to see if someone put some time into a deck. That way I can scan through threads and see if one is worth looking at if it least has the setup "norm"

There is some stuff lacking from your post, like Aggro-Control vs Aggro-Combo but I'm kinda confused whether this was more to make a point or to post examples, I'm assuming examples for now.

It seems that many of the top aggro decks that are more so aggro-control have come to a crossroads where they must either commmit to full control whilst having beatdown, or light disruption and faster beatdown. The tog SB example is exactly what I'm talking about.

I think this is more of a meta-game thing then something that can be put in a box. If there is more aggro, then aggro control, such as tog, may want more Deeds and such, if it's more control, then Duress most likely. I'd like to see the thing about what the decks goals are more often and would love to see someone put this into some sort of useable format though.

[Rane]

If a mod actually deems any of this usable and/or worth of sticky or whatever, I'd be happy to put it into an 'article format' or whatnot.  Until then, on with the discussion.

And it was Mike Flores article that got me thinking on this!  It was a while back but yes it was definatly that article, so credit goes to Mike.  Anyone who hasn't read 'Who's the beatdown' should pop over to SCG and take a gander.

I agree with your statement on how it is highly metagame defined, it's just that I'm in an extremely diverse and balanced metagame =P.  The biggest problem with this is that decks that are hybrid's (yes, they were examples) such as aggro-control or combo-control can fluctuate in their goals.  A perfect example is Sligh.  It's continues to play creatures trying to swing with Pups and friends, but as soon as the ground game stalls out, they ride burn as much as they can.  It's this 'contingency plan' that makes decks like tog so powerful.  Keeper is an example of a deck that is quite special, in that it relies more so on one or two win condition's whilst the rest of the deck attempts to shut down every contingency plan in existence.  This really turns the game into a 6-sided triangle... how that works I have no idea.