April Metagame Analysis

[HSCK]

Hey everyone,

We're two weeks into May so I'm hoping the bulk of April's results are in. I went with the same formula of surveying all decks on The Council with 6 or more rounds of players, the tournaments (some of these will date to the end of March but their results came in quite late) are:

SCG Milwaukee (376 players)
SCG Dallas (308 players)
SCG Detroit (225 players)
Trial BoM 9 ( 35 players)
3 Toreno Legacy (33 players)
Kingdom Galactus 7 (40 players)
Prague Eternal Trial (47 players)
Evil 10 (205 players)
Hymn to Wave Legacy (96 players)
BoMbs 3.0 (62 players)
LCL April (94 players)
Arcanis 20k (203 players)
Liga Valenciana Torneo 8 (38 players)
WL6 Vado (33 players)
AZMagic April (34 players)
GBLL Tapa 8 (46 players)
Knight Ware April (66 players)
Legacy Linz 2014 (38 players)
Scandicci April (39 players)
BoM 9 (535 players)
Hannover (79 players)
2 Torneo Legacy (39 players)
3 LCL Store Evolution (55 players)

This covered 181 decks (one or two tournaments did not report a full top 8) and the decks with the most top 8s over this period are:

Miracles 27 top 8s
Team America 19 top 8s
Death n Taxes 10 top 8s
ANT 9 top 8s
Deathblade 9 top 8s
Jund, RUG, and UWR Delver 8 top 8s
Sneak and Show, Fish, and UR Delver 7 top 8s
Shardless BUG 6 top 8s
Elves, Esper Stoneblade, and PW BUG 5 top 8s
Maverick, Painter, and Dredge 4 top 8s

35 decks total appeared in a top 8 over this period as well.

If you want I can also give the results of the TNN-forward meta, but so far no deck has more than 9.17% of top 8 placings since TNN became legal and the top 12 decks are 65.32% of all decks placing from November through April.

[BVB09]

Thanks for the analysis, very useful! But one question, with "Fish" you mean Merfolks or UWx Aggro?
Is interesting how Esperblade passed from DTB to that position...

[HSCK]

Merfolks, I think that's what they use in Europe but I've always used them interchangeably here in the States.

[Tammit67]

It is interesting to me that none of the PLS events nor Michael Caffrey's events are on the council :(. Oh well, this analysis is still awesome. Thanks!

[ironclad8690]

If you want I can also give the results of the TNN-forward meta...

That would be awesome if you have the time!

[twndomn]

This month's data is a bit different.

BoM staff was kind enough to sort out all 535 deck lists into different archtypes, so you get to see how well each archtype performed in the swiss. That's something SCG could have done but lacks resources.

[HSCK]

Sure, this is just the crunched version of the criteria I've been using:

November: 248 decks
December and January: 364 decks
February: 104
March: 193
April: 181

Total of 1090 decks surveyed

Team America and Miracles: 100 top 8s
UWR and Deathblade: 57 top 8s
Sneak n Show and RUG: 56 top 8s
Jund: 52 top 8s
Elves: 51 top 8s
Blade Control: 50 top 8s
Death n Taxes and ANT: 48 top 8s
Shardless BUG: 37 top 8s

Total: 65.32% of the metagame. I think that's the lowest percentage in terms of consolidation for the top tier decks in a long time for Legacy, maybe ever. That's 12 decks! Pre-TNN these same 12 decks took up close 85% if I recall, but Arsenal has those numbers.

[Scott]

It is interesting to me that none of the PLS events nor Michael Caffrey's events are on the council :(. Oh well, this analysis is still awesome. Thanks!

I don't really know how it works, but if you know anyone who has the deck lists, there's a submission page: http://tcdecks.net/submit.php

[GoblinZ]

I don't really know how it works, but if you know anyone who has the deck lists, there's a submission page: http://tcdecks.net/submit.php

By the way, I sent some decklists about one week ago, but it seems that the deck lists are not published yet...And I also sent message to them, but there is no reply...Do you know how I can contact them? Thanks...

[Ellomdian]

In B4 whining about sample size and teh udder dominance of TNN and Brainstorm LOLZ!

Seriously though, this data is great - it's nice to be able to have some balance to "Common knowledge" (ie, SCG=Legacy)

Keep it up! +1 internet dollars!

EDIT: While the Archetype groupings are great, I don't see the logic of grouping America and Miracles, let alone RUG and Sneak'n'Show. Thoughts?

[HSCK]

They're grouped by frequency, not archetype? So those two go together because they each have the same amount of top 8s.

[[SLAYER]chaos]

^I'm pretty sure that's just saying EACH had a 100 top 8's. Not combined they had that many.

[Ellomdian]

^I'm pretty sure that's just saying EACH had a 100 top 8's. Not combined they had that many.

Aha! That makes way more sense :)