What kind of meta do you expect for the GP next week? And what deck do you see well-positioned in that kind of meta?
Tons of random crap aside, I would expect lots of Burn, due it being cheap and requiring little to no format knowledge.
Delver is probaby coming at full force, with UR at the helmet and UWR to counter the mass of UR Delver decks. Also some RUG and BUG variants.
Miracles is likely another big player. While I don't see Elves being well-positioned in that kind of meta, I assume that quite a few people are still going to play it.
D&T might be well-positioned, but I don't think that it's going to be a big part of the meta compared to the other decks, as far as deck numbers are concerned.
Aside from that, Dredge and combo (S&T, Storm, Reanimator, etc.) are going to show up, but not in big numbers.
1. Number of players will be pretty high, in the thousands.
2. There will be some number of European Legacy players who're willing to travel, those are the skillful ones who aim for Top 8. Miracles seem to be more popular there than in the US.
3. People in the US seem to be strongly favor Delver, along with any decks that can jam Treasure Cruise into it.
#'s of entries:
1. UR Delver (cheapish and hot)
2. Elves (cheapish and very consistent)
3. Miracles (no comment)
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Stoneblade
UWR Delver
BUG Delver
Burn
Dredge
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Everything else
Not sure if RUG Delver will sneak up into the group of 5 and make it 6.
High penetration: URx Delver. Burn. Elves. D&T.
Moderately high penetration: BUG strategies (Delver or otherwise). UWx Stoneblade. Sneak & Show. Dredge.
Enough that you'll notice: Storm. Jund. Maverick.
More than you'd expect: Enchantress.
Less than you'd expect: Miracles.
A good place to start looking is the top 16 deck lists from the SCG Open in Edison, New Jersey at the end of September. This is the event where Huang introduced the world to UR Delver by winning the tournament with it. The other big decks in the top 16 were 3 Miracles, 3 Elves, 2 Team America and 2 Dredge. UR has exploded since then and will be in DTB the next time that thread is updated. So come packing an answer to Delver and Graveyards, but have a plan against Miracles.
A lot locals are asking to borrow burn related cards and Volcanic Islands. LOTS and LOTS of Volcanic Islands apparently.
Take that for what you will.
Same here in upstate NY. Its like 25% UR delver and 10% Burn. If you have a bad matchup against these decks, you need to play something else. You will not get far with something like Team america without some major modification.
I also expect a lot of decks that are cheap or easy to make/port. SCG is making this event really appealing to modern/standard players and legacy casuals with the 70$+ of stuff you get just from entering. At least in the early rounds, expect people playing borrowed decks, UR delver with shock lands, Manaless dredge, affinity, FoW/waste-less Merfolk and lots of burn.
Thinking about it, with countermagic and discard at a low, and Red blasts at a high I anticipate fast blackbased combo decks like TES, ANT, Tin fins or Reanimtor being VERY well positioned. Decks with stoneforge mystic also seem to be in a good spot.
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I didn't say Miracles would be absent, just less than you'd think. I've seen a drop off in the amount of Miracles at my store recently, and I live in the NYC/NJ area. I think there are a couple reasons:
1) People like casting Treasure Cruise and if you have Miracles you have most of the cards for a TC deck
2) Miracles has a sort of meh burn matchup. UR delver and burn are omnipresent and UR delver is basically a burn deck that can counter Counterbalance
3) Miracles means long rounds and with a 3k person GP that is already going to be heavily delayed you probably don't want to go to time a lot
As for enchantress, I feel like no one ever expects it so there's generally more than you'd expect. On top of that:
1) Enchantress has dedicated players who come out of the woodwork for this kind of event
2) It can play maindeck RIP and even Energy Field if you want making it pretty good against the expected field
I think there will be far more Miracles than Enchantress, but not as much Miracles as you would think.
I'm anticipating a lot of burn and UR delver. I will be on enchantress. As some people already said, some of us will play this deck whenever we can.
Well, there will be a TON for FoW. But the delver decks have really trimmed back on discard, pierce and stifle. Its really just Daze, FoW, and Red blasts for interaction now. Any black-based combo deck should wreck them. A fast clock is really all UR delver has going for it against combo. A FoW will hardly even slow down something like ANT or Reanimtor.
I distinctly remember at GP DC last year, doing some scouting in the first 2 rounds because of byes and seeing Burn, Affinity, Dredge and merfolk (partially because TNN just came out) together were AT LEAST 40% of the decks I saw. Because of the side events and "GP swag", GPs attract a LOT more casuals, legacy novices, and cross-format players than any SCG open or local high prized legacy event will.
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