[Premium Article] Chapin Was Right: SCG Open Metagame Breakdown

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18922_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Chapin_Was_Right_A_Legacy_Result_Overview.html

In this article I talk more about the Reserved List, my specific proposal.

Then, I do the whole Too Much Information. SCG gave me all 236 decklists from the SCG legacy Open, and I broke down the entire metagame and analyzed the results. Curious about what people played? Answers here.

Finally, I typed up the rest of the top 32 decklists.

Enjoy!

[Smmenen]

FYI: this article has my proposed solution to the Reserved List.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

FYI: this article has my proposed solution to the Reserved List.

It might be useful for the purpose of discussion for you to recap your proposed solution a little for those of us who don't have premium membership to SCG...?

[Smmenen]

Sure: I propose a redemption program for cards on the reserved list with a 6 month expiration date, with card values priced on 6 month average pre-announcement. The details/logistics of this program are described in detail in the article.

[Smmenen]

FYI this article is free:

Also, consider the charts and some of the graphs:

http://www.starcitygames.com/images/article/03082010menendian3.jpg

Dredge is a terrible performer.

[SpikeyMikey]

Haha, Chapin is usually right. Do you remember when he said that Gro was the only thing keeping Mask-Naught from dominating the format and all the of the "serious" T1 players were convinced that he was out of his gourd (because EVERYONE knew that Keeper was just the best deck ever)? And guess what? Inside of a year, Gush was banned. I generally take whatever Pat says very seriously.

[Bardo]

This must have been a ton of work. Nicely done. :)

[Forbiddian]

FYI this article is free:

Also, consider the charts and some of the graphs:

http://www.starcitygames.com/images/article/03082010menendian3.jpg

Dredge is a terrible performer.

Pointless commentary removed. If you're about to post something, and you read over it and it sounds super bitchy and passive aggressive, just delete it next time. Thanks. -zilla
But yeah, good article, I only got one month of premium and it was the month where all the articles got published free because of the reprint fiasco.

[jazzykat]

I think this was a good article. I appreciate that the content was made public because you have a lot more clout with WoTC than the average player and when you make a suggestion for such broad changes to the format it is nice to let everyone have access to it.

I still don't feel that reprinting just dual lands will really help. I mean great, you have a chance to not take 2 damage from having a land come into play tapped but look at the rest of the cards for the format. My guess is that with more people entering due to the availability of duals the price of other things (ahem Tarmogoyf, etc.) will push up so much that the overall entry cost will remain somewhere around the same. I think we have to ask ourselves what the ideal price of entry for Legacy is and work to make sure there are always a few entry level archetypes that are viable.


Regarding your statement: "Reanimator will undoubtedly be a player, but the question is whether it will be like previous marginal archetypes that broke out, like Mono-White Stax, Enchantress, Aggro Loam and the like: will it disappear again? Or will it find a way to sustain itself and become a bona fide top archetype, a pillar of the metagame? Only time will tell. "

I think Aggro-loam is still very powerful and consistent but isn't often played (I'm honestly not sure why but...). Mono-white stax had a few good showings but the nature is that it occaisionally loses to itself so you really need to persevere and get a little lucky to make it there. I have no comment on Enchantress. Numbers don't lie so we'll have to wait and see about reanimator.

[wcm8]

I still don't feel that reprinting just dual lands will really help. I mean great, you have a chance to not take 2 damage from having a land come into play tapped but look at the rest of the cards for the format.

I think you're right for the most part, but Duals are simply as necessary and ubiquitous in legacy as the author said, basic Forests. And there really can't ever be a better replacement printed, unless they made 'Tri' lands. I guess if they made a 'reverse shock' land, some decks could play them regardless, but they'd still be suboptimal.

The other cards can go in and out of fashion, and some of the most expensive staples (Goyf, FoW, anything post Urza's block basically) are able to be reprinted. Duals unfortunately don't fall in this category.

[Gheizen64]

Dual will never be obsoleted by power creep. Nothing will even come close.
On the other hand, we can expect to see card that could be better than tarmogoyf in the right deck (for EXAMPLE, a BG Goyf that start at 1/1 instead of 0/1), meaning that reprinting Goyf is not really as important as reprinting duals in the long run. Not to say Goyf isn't on the retarded list and could be reprinted easily in T2, seeing as his powerlevel in a slow format is mediocre.

[Grollub]

What does all of this mean for the future? Well, if you are preparing for an SCG Open, you better have a plan for Merfolk. Merfolk is invested in the American metagame. The key to the metagame is the same one that I articulated two months ago: find a deck that can beat both Zoo and Merfolk, and you have a fundamental advantage over the greatest part of the field.
Makes one wonder if the metagame is ripe for 8-plow WW?

[Julian23]

Makes one wonder if the metagame is ripe for 8-plow WW?


Haha, please someone come and proof him wrong because by now I actually like the idea. How crazy would that be :P