Anything But: A ‘Month’ in Review

Posted on February 21, 2013 by JustSin

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  1. Just wanted to clarify quick this article is a little past date, but there were some issues getting it up.. for those who are eagerly awaiting the new meta article that will be the next one you see from me

  2. Confirming the above. The date change was an editing decision (my responsibility) as opposed to JustSin’s. With that said, this article is still incredibly valuable, I think, and took a ton of hard work.

  4. I personally think Electrickery is one of the most important red cards in the meta. It’s one of the only ways to deal with G/W Hexproof and still holds utility against Fae and Delver.

  5. Your number crunches are always awesome. You can read all the speculative articles you want, but nothing is as good at looking at some real numbers! It is particularly interesting to see that Mono Blue Fae actually has a favorable matchup against Izzet Post. I wasn’t expecting that, but with the largest sample pool of any match up in your table it is sort of hard to dispute. Thank you for all the hard work!

  7. I was thinking, and wouldn’t it be cool to start some sort of collaborative data-mining project with as many people as possible involved? It must be a lot of work watching all the replays from a daily event, but if a group of people did it we could actually get a much more statistically significant sample of the metagame. It would be very cool to see a matchup table with real data like the one you presented, but with many more data points. Also, being able to track how the matchup table changes with something like the introduction of a new card to the format (like electrickery) would be pretty sweet.

    If enough people were involved, it may actually be possible to start breaking each person’s work into rounds rather than full events. Let me know if you would be interested in something like that and I’m on board.

  8. it has been proposed before, but you need the man power and trust that everyone who volunteers would stick with it

  9. I’d like to take a look at the Azorius Trinket build. Can you post the link to the daily the deck placed in?

  11. I have to agree with the current state of the format. I was a white weenie player in dailys before the bannings enjoying my storm and infect matchups and now with delver and post being such a large part of the format I really haven’t found something I enjoy running in dailys. I always have been a bit of a deck builder but haven’t really struck on a idea that functions to well thus far.

    Anyway though great article as always and I to hope that someone busts up the format any day now with something new and exciting.

  12. Now that we’re a bit into the post BnR meta we can clearly see that Temporal Fissures has become the go-to option for all combo decks, taking the place of both Empty the Warrens+Grapeshot storm decks as well as Infect which was a pseudo combo deck. There are a lot of different versions of this deck, like Mono Blue Stormpost, Familiar Storm, Simic Stormpost, etc. We also see a rise in all the other non Fissure 8 post strategies like Izzet Post, Dimir Post and even Green Post, and these decks have some variety too within them. The 2 go-to decks for aggro players are still Stompy and Affinity. MUC, Delver Blue, White Weenie, Goblins, etc aren’t dead but aren’t seeing as much play as they used to, but are still very much contenders. The 2 newest decks to become major contenders are Elves and Delver Fiend(I suspect that’s what you meant when you used the term WeeFiend). Elves has become a surprisingly strong aggro deck that can also play the long game thanks to various creature tricks and numbers and the potential massive life gain from the likes of Wellwisher. Delver Fiend is the only combo deck that’s left that still aims to kill the opponent fast rather than just bounce all his permanents back and slowly beat him down with Mulldrifters or whatever.

    Overall, while Temporal Fissures and the 8 post engine are still somewhat oppressive, all the other decks that weren’t directly affected by the BnR are still alive, as are many rogue decks. So on the 1 hand we have 2 archetypes that dominate the field, on the other hand we have tremendous variety outside of these 2 archetypes. Also both archetypes consist of a variety of decks themselves, though all of the different varieties within each archetype work in the same way pretty much. So looking into the health of the format, there are 2 ways to look at it. The first is that there’s a very high chance of facing either the 8 post engine or Temporal Fissures, oftentimes both in the same deck. The second is that you can still be very competitive without playing either Temporal Fissures or 8 post, or even pick 1 of these powerhouses and make your own version using said powerhouse. Whether this is considered healthy or not is up to each individual’s point of view.

  13. Believe it or not unlike the Brits in The most beneficial Exotic Marigold Hotel, who want to leave England I might enjoy to retire to England. I really like that country!