I had been putting off writing another pioneer article. Every week since Theros: Beyond Death came out I’d assumed that THIS week, they’d ban some Theros cards. Yet, it keeps not happening, now with assurances that it won’t happen for awhile. Not entirely unreasonable. There’s a pro tour coming (yes I know they call it something else now, can’t for the life of me remember what they’re called though), and changing things up too much right before one isn’t always a good idea. Mr. Duke also makes a good point that the metagame has had the ability to continually evolve. A 49% winrate for inverter is very surprising, but is perhaps representative of how hateful the format has become. I’m not sure Gideon of the Trials is quite a playable card, but it certainly can be when your opponent’s combo kills them if they don’t get him off the table.
Continue reading “The medium guide to pioneer’s combo winter”Tag: Metagames
The Medium Guide to Post-Beta Pioneer
We’re out of the bannings-every-Monday phase of the pioneer format (beta phase? alpha?). Pioneer is now officially a real boy, with its own pro tour and everything. Having called the previous several sets of banned cards pretty accurately, I’ve honesty been waiting the last few weeks to see if llanowar elves gets banned, to no avail. Not surprising, as the number of green stompy decks appears to have actually decreased by quite a bit with the rise of goblin chainwhirler decks. So long Oko, and thanks for all the elks.
Let’s address the elephant in the room. Having just been released, there’s the potential that walking ballista and his new partner in crime Heliod, Sun-Crowned will run the tables. The immediate comparison to the Saheeli combo comes to mind: add two cards to your deck that function as reasonable value engines on their own and together form instant-death Voltron. Both combos are easily broken up by wild slash and its ilk, both involve 3 and 4 drops. Ballista combo even takes fewer colors, and ballista itself is arguably better than either of the previous combo pieces, and the Heliod portion is near impossible to actually get off the table. Saheeli had two advantages; one, it only actually cost 6 mana to do all the things in one turn, and two, the two cards helped dig for each other. Basically, walking ballista is easier to fit into any ‘ol deck, but loses to any creature removal and takes more mana. The hardest part is that most tutors don’t find both pieces of the combo. (chord of calling, finale of devastation, etc.) Basically, all the normal tools that enable a creature combo of this type don’t really work. Also, the combo hasn’t actually put up a result yet, and it’s been like 5 WHOLE DAYS. I suspect that the fewer copies of Heliod in the actual deck, the better this combo will be; possibly in a 3 color delirium shell starring traverse the ulvenwald. In short, I expect that this will be a nuisance, especially once the right shell has been found, but I don’t expect it to run the tables in quite the same way Saheeli did.
Let’s go over the messed up cards that are still remaining in the format and how they warp around each other to form a metagame.
Continue reading “The Medium Guide to Post-Beta Pioneer”Medium Musings on Post-Ban Pioneer
I’d like to start this post off by pointing out how cool and clever I am after predicting the most recent bannings for the pioneer format. Almost every deck in the top 16’s of the ptq’s from last week contained the offending cards I mentioned in my previous metagame review. When a new format is that uniform and only ~3 actual decks are viable it’s time to make some changes.
Normally ptq’s will happen at disparate locations all over single weekends. In this case there was an online ptq every day of the week. As a result players could react between events with the publicly posted results from the previous event. This resulted in a month or more worth of metagame movement happening in a week. Mostly players just reacted by playing more dark betrayal; which seems pretty indicative of how things were going. I’m honesty surprised they pulled the trigger on all of the bannings at once. I expected them to perform the necessary smuggler’s copter ban, followed by field of the dead ban a week later, followed by once upon a time shortly thereafter. Clearly they knew what was up and took the necessary steps to remove the noxious play patterns that were haunting the format. Good job Wizards.
So what does this mean now? No idea! But we can guess pretty well, as there were technically a few decks that weren’t running any of the previous holy trinity. Also there are a few busted cards that can be identified as likely to run the room now that the specters of yesterweek allow cool things to exist again. Let me start with a traditional update to the metagame diagram.
Continue reading “Medium Musings on Post-Ban Pioneer”A Medium Guide to the Early Pioneer Format
Wizards really hit a home run with the Pioneer. A new format has been due for a long time. I don’t think I’m the only one that was starting to get a little burnt out with Modern as the only other commonly played format besides standard. And I’m certainly not the only one who was sick of standard. At MC Richmond I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to scrub out of a tournament; not seeing my Nissas coupled with questionable play on my part led to a rough tournament for me. Even with the recent standard bannings I think that Pioneer’s status as the new kid in town will keep it wildly popular for the foreseeable future.
This leads to the obvious question: what’s the best thing you can be doing in pioneer? Well that’s what we’ll set out to answer today. With the first few rounds of bannings, the most consistent and obnoxious combo decks have been removed or at least slowed down. Without Felidar Guardian, cat combo ceases to be a thing. Without Leyline of Abundance, green devotion at least has to work for it’s most busted draws. The result is that while a combo component to the meta exists, we are still squarely in the aggro-midrange portion of the metagame cycle. While the most flagrant violators of mtg law have been removed, there is definitely still a subset of cards that are significantly more powerful than the others. If I were forced to place the metagame into one of my signature aggro->mid->control->big mana->combo charts it would look something like this.
Continue reading “A Medium Guide to the Early Pioneer Format”A medium meta-game modernization
This article is a recap of what happened to modern in the last 3 months, along with some specific predictions about what will happen in the modern meta-game in the next 3 months.
A few months ago I spent some time writing about how Magic: The Gathering meta-games tend to evolve over time in a predictable way. At the time I included this delightful (and graphically questionable) image to put at the top.
While I don’t think this image perfectly captures the mtg circle of life, I do think it’s an amusing indicator of what things magic players expect to beat what things. I think it also represents the circle we all tend to move around when deciding on decks. Magic’s older formats have had some huge shakeups in the last few months with the advent of the London mulligan, War of the Spark, Modern Horizons, the faithless looting ban, and the stoneforge mystic unban. These changes have in many ways reset the modern and legacy formats. I think this provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the modern meta-game, try a guess at where they’re heading, and generally check in and see if my previous article has any merit.
The funniest part about a modern meta-gaming article is that it is a largely pointless endeavor. Everyone will show up with whatever they feel like, no matter how bad it is (*cough* uw control *cough*). Even better, no matter what actually happens in the future, my predictions will look correct( but not overwhelmingly so) because every reasonable deck remains at less than 5, but more than 1 percent of the meta. I do, however, plan to point out which decks I think are well positioned and which are not. By “well positioned,” I of course mean, “is the most efficient way to do a very linear thing.” Mostly I’ll just make fun of bad decks, because it’s much easier to punch down.
Disclaimer: Just because I say a deck is poorly positioned, or even bad, this does not mean you shouldn’t play it. Any deck can top 8 a modern event, especially if they win the match up lottery. Modern, more than any format, is a place where you can play whatever deck you want and still have a reasonable chance at winning some games. The margins are smaller because the match ups could be anything, even a boat.
First, let’s start with the customary greeting in mtg articles, a picture of the mtggoldfish metagame (9/16).
Most of these decks seem like reasonable piles of cards. Minus of course, bring-to-niv.
Let’s talk historically. How did we get here? and how did pillar of the paruns become a $35 card? First, the London mulligan unleashed a wave of tron and dredge onto an unsuspecting populace. This filled the format with oodles of combo and big mana decks. Then, Modern Horizons added so many highly playable cards to the format that it made some linear decks overly linear and needed to be banned (Hogaak). The initial wave of busted graveyard decks took a strong strike to its consistency, which unlocked some of the slower linear decks (Valakut, tron, burn). Stoneforge came out of exile, which led to the false belief that finally the promised time had come, making modern a fair and linear format again. This led to people jamming stoneforges into their control decks and just about any other deck that will tolerate it. This leads us to now, where I believe the format is re-learning how to linear without it’s good buddy faithless looting.
From here, we being to look at what is actually happening. I put the graphic back up with numbers added so that I can show contrast between that image and this one:
Stoneforge is the new face of midrange and niv I just wanted to have an explosion on top of (additionally, it is a card in a control deck). Also of note, stoneforge doesn’t actually beat burn, one of many reasons why burn is a popular deck at the moment. We also see urza and death’s shadow standing over the smoking ruins of midrange and control, which seems appropriate. Urza and shadow are also weirdly midrange adjacent, like many “fair” decks that happen to have a combo win in modern.
From here, I would define the 1 tier decks of modern to be whirza, burn, and Valakut. Shadow, tron and humans are mighty close, I’ll call them tier 1.5 for simplicity. Jund is probably on top of the heap for tier 2, followed by just about everything else down there in garbage tier territory. If your goal is to maximize your win percentage playing modern, I recommend not playing modern. If you insist, I would recommend a deck in tier 1.
As the format settles I expect modern to follow the trajectory it always follows and linearize quickly as busted decks find the most efficient way to murder each other. My specific predictions from here I shall bulletize for review later, much in the manner of a financial article. My specific predictions I will give percentages based on mtggoldfish meta percentages; these percentages are largely useless, but provide a metric by which you can prove to me how wrong I am.
- I suspect that the number of whirza players will increase over time as it holds a splinter twin-like hold over the meta. I expect over 6% in the next 3 months.
- Burn may slowly dry up as a tier one deck as it receives more attention and more sideboard slots. I expect less than 4% in the next 3 months .
- I expect other linear options such as affinity and mono red prowess to increase in play as the number of fair decks decreases. I expect hardened scales affinity to be in the top 10 by next year.
- I expect stoneforge mystic will slowly dwindle into irrelevancy unless buoyed by play in unfair decks such as whirza or creature combos. It will be played way more than it’s win-rate should allow. I expect no more than 4 stoneforges in any GP top 8, but I do expect it to represent more than 2% of the meta at any given time.
- Valakut will remain a solid choice that is criminally underrepresented in the meta (check out the Valakut website, it’s great and it got me on the pro tour one time). I expect no more than 3% of the meta.
I will revisit these points next year to see how things did. In traditional modern fashion, I expect some kind of massive shakeup will happen early next year and render everything said in this article useless beyond repair.
In the meantime, may you never draw more than 3 lands playing burn. Unless they’re horizon lands, those are probably fine.
The medium guide to metagames
Every time something new happens in magic, the community goes through a predictable cycle finding out what the best decks are, and content creators spend a great deal of time shouting from the rooftops what the best decks, how you should build them, and how you should sideboard with them. I intend to similarly yell advice at you in future articles. First, however, let’s break down what the cycle is, and find some ways to take advantage of this cycle.
I am reminded of one of the best magic articles of all time, which still gives an excellent description of how magic players act in groups. If you haven’t given “information cascades in magic” a read, I highly recommend doing so. If you don’t know what “ghost dad” is, don’t worry about it, just insert the name of a bad deck that people love to play and will defend to the death (think of the rock or merfolk in modern). We have significantly more information about deck percentages, meta percentages, and conversion rates, but much of the information regarding how players tend to follow blindly is still very evident in tournament magic.
Ok, so we’ve got this cool new format due to cards either entering or leaving a format. Usually it’s because a new set just came into standard (War most recently), but maybe it’s because a set just came into modern (horizons), or maybe they just implemented the London mulligan rule AND IT’S RAINING GRISELBRANDS! BAN THE DREDGE MECHANIC!
Take a deep breath. Things are probably going to be fine. Here’s a simple timeline of any given first month of standard:
Week 1: Many show up with THE DECK that everyone is afraid of (nexus of fate, rw angels, bant flash, esper control), it generally does not go well for them. The good aggro decks (mono red/white) probably win the first tournament of the cycle or are heavily represented. Something like 10 different decks are represented in the top 16; 8/10 will never be spoken of again.
Week 2: Now that we know aggro is good and brews are bad, fewer people show up with aggro and the true midrange deck of the format emerges (gb/bug midrange). Aggro dies to a wave of life gain and sweepers.
Week 3: The midrange arms race begins. Decks become tuned and start cutting obviously bad cards. Opponents are now set to grind mode (esper midrange, gw tokens). By the end of the week an unexpected hero emerges to dumpster midrange (mono blue); this hero probably has a bad time against aggro.
Week 4: The midrange arms race has reached its peak. Ramp decks come out of the woodwork (gates, ug ramp) to tron themselves all over midrange decks. Control might be part of this arms race, depending on how they match up against hate cards.
Week 5-bored: If the format is healthy, the balance of aggro->midrange->midranger->combo->control->aggro will cycle indefinitely, probably with no more than 3-4 decks in tier 1. If the format is bad, everyone is playing rb vehicles because the midrange decks are killing too fast to be taken advantage of by bigger decks. The best deck is probably a midrange deck with either a transformative/strong sideboard, a combo finish, or is more aggressive than it has any right to be while still grinding.
If your format of choice is modern, double the amount of time and replace the word “midrange” with “combo.” If your format of choice is Legacy, quadruple the amount of time and remember that “midrange” in this context means “fair blue deck.” If your format of choice is Vintage, octuple the time, replace your 4 non-restricted list flex slots with the cool new planeswalker(s)/draw engine, rename your deck if your draw engine changed or was restricted, and call it a day.
Based on the assumptions from our week by week breakdown, we can draw a few conclusions. This all assumes that the goal is to maximize win rate; an obvious assumption, but not always a true one. This also assumes one can switch decks with some regularity; this is true even less often, but we can address that a little later.
Aggro is almost always best in week one when people are trying to brew; this is repeated ad nauseum and hardly worth going into. Basically just be wary of the dangers of doing cool things during week one when everyone knows to burn you out. There’s also an argument for bringing the thing that beats aggro week one, especially if there is a midrange deck well-tuned for doing this from last season (g/b midrange); this assumes that something actually beats aggro, which is not always the case (mono blue of pre-war).
Week two is when you’re likely to play against the remnants of aggro and the up and coming midrange deck; now is probably the time to be going over the top. Week two is also when the rules of engagement start to become defined; this season it’s the hunt for the best planeswalker deck, last season it was a race to see who could draw the most cards, preferably with hydroid krasis, before that it basically a matter of finding the best deck that could contain aggro (golgari, thanks to find // finality).
Week three is deep into arms race territory; now is probably the time to zag and try to do something that abuses midrange decks: combos, ramping, mono blue, etc. Previously this was around the time when the pro tour took place. This is no longer necessarily the case, so it is harder to find a single event to answer the simple question: what am best deck?
By the time week 4 hits there’s usually a pretty good idea of what the “best deck” is, if it exists. The best deck often checks more than one of the archetype boxes. If it’s the best aggro deck and the best midrange deck, it’s probably busted (rb vehicles); if it’s the best midrange deck and the best combo deck (4c command the dreadhorde?), probably not a bad choice. This standard season there are an unreasonable number of decks that have an excellent fair plan backed up by a combo finish. Command the Dreadhorde, bolas’s citadel, and bontu all allow a player to win in a position where they are significantly behind on board. This is somewhat unique to just-before-rotation cycles and older formats, usually the deck that best interacts while still enacting its own consistent game-plan is the best deck (think phoenix decks in modern).
I’ve pretty much laid out how level 0 and 1 work out for the first month of a cycle. The level 0 solution to metagames is: play aggro, then play midrange, then tune midrange to be midrange-ier (in many ways control is the midrange-iest midrange of all), then keep tuning midrange to actually win once we’ve found the midrange-iest deck. Level 0 is the safest bet and will probably give you the most consistent good-but-not-winning-the-tournament results. The level 1 solution is one step faster than level 0; play midrange, then make it durdlier, then find a combo or trump, then probably go to aggro or combo to finish out the season and punish durdlers; in short, try to be one step ahead of the level 0 players. Level 1 is mostly likely to win or very quickly lose you the tournament; i.e. playing to the winner’s meta. Level 1, if you can manage it, is where you’re supposed to be if the goal is to spike a tournament; I usually end up somewhere in level 0 and as a result I have a ton of top 16s. Just don’t be on level 2; don’t play ramp/durdly midrange versus a sea of aggro, and don’t play aggro into slightly more interactive aggro decks.
If you don’t have the ability or desire to repeatedly swap decks, that’s fine, we can use these results to select 1 or 2 decks in a cycle that let you keep playing magic without continuously changing things. In general, if you can only get one deck, and the goal is to minimize win-rate, you should probably pick up an aggro deck. Aggro decks are cheaper, good week 1 and week 4+ and usually aren’t too awful in the bad weeks, as you can always catch a stumbling opponent.
If you have access to multiple decks, but not all the decks, I would still recommend having an aggro deck for the start of any given season, followed by the most obvious midrange deck with a good endgame and tools to break up combo (duress, spell pierce) and aggro (shock, cry of the carnarium). For the last 6+ months or so this would mean carrying around mono white or red, coupled with gb/bug midrange or drakes. No matter the meta, one of these two decks will be close to correct, and they persist across different metagames with minimal changes; naturally the gb midrange deck will run you up a pretty penny, especially if you had to buy Hydroid Krasis at the wrong time, but it is a reasonable long term investment given how long it has been a player in the format.
Anyway, after all that rambling there should probably be a conclusion. Metagame cycles are predictable and magic players follow information cascades in a repeatable fashion. Doing what everyone else is doing will give good but not great results but takes significantly less effort; being one step ahead of the cycle is ideal, but only comes with a great deal of testing work and is very punishing if misjudged. This applies to all magic formats (including limited), but that will take further discussion in the future.
Good luck out there!