[Article] January 2014 Modern Metagame Analysis

[Griselpuff]

Enjoy!!

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...game-analysis/

I'll reply to comments on CFB's site, but not here.

[ktkenshinx]

Enjoy!!

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...game-analysis/

I'll reply to comments on CFB's site, but not here.

Interesting article. His MTGO analysis looks very wrong to me (Jund's metagame share is almost double what he estimates it at). I think that's because he only looked at 4-0 decks and not the 3-1 ones, which seems like an odd omission to me; if I was an MTGO grinder, I would want to know what the percentage is for the entire metagame, not just the 4-0 ones. I'm also skeptical of his classifications for the decks in the paper section. As an example, I wonder if he separated BGw Souls from BG Rock and called it Junk? Historically, I've thought of Junk decks in Modern as BGx shells that are playing white cards and/or [card]Stirring Wildwoods[/card] IN ADDITION TO [card]Lingering Souls[/card]. Going pure BG and then adding 2 shocks for the 3-4 Souls doesn't really make a deck Junk.

If nothing else, it's nice to see articles about the format on major sites, especially in "off-seasons" when Standard is getting most of the press.

[JACO]

Interesting article. His MTGO analysis looks very wrong to me (Jund's metagame share is almost double what he estimates it at). I think that's because he only looked at 4-0 decks and not the 3-1 ones, which seems like an odd omission to me; if I was an MTGO grinder, I would want to know what the percentage is for the entire metagame, not just the 4-0 ones. I'm also skeptical of his classifications for the decks in the paper section. As an example, I wonder if he separated BGw Souls from BG Rock and called it Junk? Historically, I've thought of Junk decks in Modern as BGx shells that are playing white cards and/or [card]Stirring Wildwoods[/card] IN ADDITION TO [card]Lingering Souls[/card]. Going pure BG and then adding 2 shocks for the 3-4 Souls doesn't really make a deck Junk.

If nothing else, it's nice to see articles about the format on major sites, especially in "off-seasons" when Standard is getting most of the press.

Bob (the author) is akatsuki, the poster here.

I think in general people have a tendency to call anything BGx Jund or Junk, depending on the format (see Modern for really annoying examples of this). Historically BGW decks have been Junk (following in the footsteps of the first 'PT Junk' decks), and the term has been sort of bastardized over the past 10+ years to date.

[Alfy]

My understanding is that in modern, BGR with or without white is Jund, and BGW without red is Junk. Of course, a few Jund decks that are very light on red might behave more like a Junk deck, but from what I've seen, generally they're just Jund + Lingering Souls.

I still have problem with the methodology though. I agree that if the 3-1 decks were not counted, it is very misleading. But then, with the mtgo results being culled in the way they are, it's usually difficult to produce useful data. I still feel BlippyTheSlug has the best Modern metagame stats available.

[Arsenal]

This guy's methodology seems strange. Only uses 4-0 records for MTGO and only uses 129+ entrant irl tourneys? Why?

[DragoFireheart]

This guy's methodology seems strange. Only uses 4-0 records for MTGO and only uses 129+ entrant irl tourneys? Why?

Why not just use top 8 / top 16 data?

I agree, confusing.