[Article] June 2014 Metagame Analysis

[Griselpuff]

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

If you reply to the article on CFB, I'll do my best to reply there. Enjoy! :D

[ESG]

Thanks for the analysis.

As a lover of graveyard-based decks, I had to meditate for a while on one of your lines: "People have an irrational fear of the graveyard in Legacy, so I don’t think the hate against Reanimator is going away any time soon."

I recall that, historically at least, top-finishing players in the SCG Open Series would skimp on graveyard hate to the point that writers noticed and recommended graveyard decks as sleeper powerhouses. We see this wax-wane cycle with nonbasic lands, too. There was a period in the Northwest when people were bringing Werewolf Stompy to the table just to destroy people with Blood Moon effects.

But I must say that, despite those cycles, my anecdotal evidence matches yours in regard to how players at local events view the graveyard matchups. They bring the hate, and they're often overboarded for those matchups. A couple of years ago, I was paired against a Stiflenought player who, in addition to running some number of Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, was running four Ravenous Trap. It makes me wonder if that's because those people more vehemently dislike losing to those strategies than losing to something like, say, Delver of Secrets. This graveyard-hate phenomenon doesn't seem to be the case with larger events. I'm not sure if that's because those players simply get eliminated before the top 16 or if they are simply casual-competitive players or otherwise don't make it out to the larger events. At this point, I pretty much view large-scale events as fundamentally different from smaller-scale events, even though when I say "smaller-scale," I'm still talking about events that are 20-40 players strong.

[Dice_Box]

You say going forward ANT will need an answer to hatebears, well, Void Snare looks promising but it is a far better fit in TES. Might see a fairly solid split in the game plans coming up where each deck is fundermentally better at fighting different styles of hate. This and the new elf have me interested in what happens over the next few months.

[HSCK]

Nice analysis for the big stuff. Helps give a view when I do mine including the smaller tournaments.

[Kap'n Cook]

Thanks for the shout-out Bob. I look forward to having a rematch with you whenever we play in the same tourney again.

-Jack

[Finn]

That was a very solid analysis article. You do not have a strong style, but I still read every word. I'm such a harsh critic, I know. I just really appreciated the delivery of the information. No frills. Just clean information that nobody else is crunching. Thank you so much. Do not stop writing these.

[Griselpuff]

Haha, I appreciate all of the kind feedback.

[Dzra]

It makes me wonder if that's because those people more vehemently dislike losing to those strategies than losing to something like, say, Delver of Secrets.

I'd suspect that something like this is operating. Dredge is especially frustrating to lose to because it operates on such a different axis than the rest of Magic. You have several turns to find graveyard hate and if you don't then you probably just lose without the ability to interact. While Delver decks might be better decks overall, they always give opponents the ability (or in some cases at least the illusion of the ability) to interact.

[ESG]

Personally, I love Dredge, and I also usually enjoy playing against it. My one bad experience was against someone who didn't know what he was doing and played horrendously slowly. Some of my most deep and skill-testing games have come on one or the other side of the matchup. I think it's a common misconception that a player can't interact with Dredge unless dedicated hate is involved. How about these?
* A timely Lightning Bolt to take out Bridges
* Swords to Plowshares on Ichorids or Narcomoebas in the upkeep step
* Various counterspells to stop draw spells and/or discard outlets
* Wastelands to hit any land the deck runs
* Stifle on Cephalid Coliseum
* Jitte counters to remove Bridges and to eat zombies and/or Ichorids
* The Deathrite Shamans that seemingly every deck plays these days

[Zombie]

Personally, I love Dredge, and I also usually enjoy playing against it. My one bad experience was against someone who didn't know what he was doing and played horrendously slowly. Some of my most deep and skill-testing games have come on one or the other side of the matchup. I think it's a common misconception that a player can't interact with Dredge unless dedicated hate is involved. How about these?
* A timely Lightning Bolt to take out Bridges
* Swords to Plowshares on Ichorids or Narcomoebas in the upkeep step
* Various counterspells to stop draw spells and/or discard outlets
* Wastelands to hit any land the deck runs
* Stifle on Cephalid Coliseum
* Jitte counters to remove Bridges and to eat zombies and/or Ichorids
* The Deathrite Shamans that seemingly every deck plays these days

Most of that is pretty useless against an opponent going T1 LED, T1/T2 you lose consistently :/

[Tormod]

So good I read it twice.

[ESG]

Most of that is pretty useless against an opponent going T1 LED, T1/T2 you lose consistently :/

1) Not all Dredge decks run that configuration.
2) Not all Dredge players will be able to fan open a hand containing all the pieces to allow them such an explosive opening. I personally have gotten that only three times in tournament play.
3) The player can still whiff on dredges. I always play more dredgers than stock lists do, and I still whiff surprisingly often.
4) If LED was involved and the dredges whiffed, the player then has no hand and is entirely at the mercy of slow dredging. A Turn 1 Deathrite Shaman can often beat this opening.

I would offer that maybe your Dredge opponents ran really well, or maybe you ran really poorly, or maybe you lacked ways to interact and would have lost to a Dredge deck of any speed. If you don't like playing against Dredge, that's fine. I respect that. There are certainly matchups that I like and dislike in varying degrees. Would you say you more greatly dislike losing to Dredge than losing to other decks, and, if so, do you feel you overboard in anticipation of the matchup?

[Megadeus]

I think I'd ratherplay against dredge than belcher. That's theactual worst