Metagame analysis for GP DC

[ziggy_stardust]

Hey all, I wrote up this piece on analyzing the mid-atlantic regional meta in hopes of predicting the types of decks you might expect to see at the top tables in DC. I suppose DC and Philly are close enough that you could also use it to help prepare for Legacy Champs.

http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/10/hope-eternal-road-dc-mid-atlantic-metagame-analysis/

[Koby]

I'm drunk with your math. Good stuff Tim!

The only complaint is that for a Grand Prix, you tend to see some familiar trends:

1. Regionally biased metagames get thrown out. The local meta might have higher weight, but people will bring whatever they have/want in travelling from afar. This will likely skew the best performing decks to the most consistent -- Tempo.
2. Budget considerations are in higher prevalence. This means an increased presence of RDW/Burn/Affinity decks. Anything that can be ported easily and cheaply from other formats or requires non-dual land manabases. Vial decks tend to also be included.

Based on your statistical analysis, along with those two ideas, I would expect that Merfolk and D&T variants to perform well. Both have good resources in dealing with Combo and Tempo.

[alphastryk]

Good stuff, thanks for sharing. Makes me more confident with sticking with RiP Miracles. :)

[Patrunkenphat7]

Cool article! My only major disagreement is the high ranking of Esper decks. It was really popular 6 months ago, but now a lot of those people are playing Shardless BUG. I expect Shardless BUG to be the most represented midrange/control deck due to the surge in popularity since Somerset in July.

[Star|Scream]

Good stuff, thanks for sharing. Makes me more confident with sticking with RiP Miracles. :)

Do you like the draw tables?

[Higgs]

Cool article, thanks for this. How did you come up with this number though: 100-(9/8/2013 – date of event)*0.321427?

I was doing a similar thing with the thecouncil.es data and applying that sort of linear decay filter would be interesting for the global results.

[Richard Cheese]

Do you like the draw tables?

That deck is not terribly slow anymore with RiP/Helm as an additional wincon. I think it's probably a reasonable choice, given that Dredge is both cheap and well-positioned in tempo.meta, and Reanimator seems to be making somewhat of a comeback.

[ziggy_stardust]

I'm drunk with your math. Good stuff Tim!

The only complaint is that for a Grand Prix, you tend to see some familiar trends:

1. Regionally biased metagames get thrown out. The local meta might have higher weight, but people will bring whatever they have/want in travelling from afar. This will likely skew the best performing decks to the most consistent -- Tempo.
2. Budget considerations are in higher prevalence. This means an increased presence of RDW/Burn/Affinity decks. Anything that can be ported easily and cheaply from other formats or requires non-dual land manabases. Vial decks tend to also be included.

Based on your statistical analysis, along with those two ideas, I would expect that Merfolk and D&T variants to perform well. Both have good resources in dealing with Combo and Tempo.

Yeah, in hindsight, I kinda wish I expanded my analysis radius to include New England, upstate NY, as far south as Charlotte, and a bit into the midwest. While people will definitely travel from afar, that radius probably captures over 75% of the crowd. As an aside, I wonder how a model weighted by distance from DC would look (we're probably getting too cute with that).

In regards to more budget decks, remember, this analysis is based off of top 16s, so we're trying to find out what decks you're going to have to start worrying about when you're beyond 4 rounds in and x-1 or better. A lot of those budget decks will get weeded out by that point, but I will concede that a greater quantity of them obviously increases the number of them that will slip through the cracks and make it deeper into the tourney.


Cool article! My only major disagreement is the high ranking of Esper decks. It was really popular 6 months ago, but now a lot of those people are playing Shardless BUG. I expect Shardless BUG to be the most represented midrange/control deck due to the surge in popularity since Somerset in July.

Agreed on Esper's ranking looking a bit deceiving; however, when we use my time-weighted score, you can see that traditional Esper Stoneblade falls big-time, from #2 to #12 (7.4% -> 3.5%). While Deathblade isn't as popular as it was when Todd put up back to back Open wins with the deck, it still has a higher time-weighted score than average score, so it's still a deck you may want to consider in your testing gauntlet.


Cool article, thanks for this. How did you come up with this number though: 100-(9/8/2013 – date of event)*0.321427?

I was doing a similar thing with the thecouncil.es data and applying that sort of linear decay filter would be interesting for the global results.

I chose this number because I wanted it so that the earliest event that I used (the Baltimore Open from last Dec) carried a 10% weight, while the most recent event was weighted at 100%.

[Koby]

In regards to more budget decks, remember, this analysis is based off of top 16s, so we're trying to find out what decks you're going to have to start worrying about when you're beyond 4 rounds in and x-1 or better. A lot of those budget decks will get weeded out by that point, but I will concede that a greater quantity of them obviously increases the number of them that will slip through the cracks and make it deeper into the tourney.


Actually, I agree that the Top 16 composition is fine and fairly accurate. My contention is that some of these decks fall on their face versus Burn. Rather handily in fact. The increased presence of Burn for example, may act as a spoiler for decks such as Shardless BUG and Delver decks. This reduces the effectiveness of 3c Tempo/Midrange decks in a long tournament by a small but significant degree. Likewise, Vial decks tend to run about 50% basic lands as part of its mana base. Their exposure to Price of Progress is reduced. Merfolk and D&T also have enough tools to fight the expected Combo metagame, and still have equal matchups with Tempo. Thus, I predict these Vial decks to out-perform the Top 16 metrics.

This conclusion corroborates your own analysis.

[alphastryk]

Do you like the draw tables?

I've rarely had an issue with time and often finish before friends playing combo in the last few SCG opens I've attended. The deck gets a bad reputation due to slow / inexperienced pilots I think.

It probably helps that I've played miracles pretty consistently since they were printed (~18 months), and counterbalance variants for years before that.

[ziggy_stardust]

Actually, I agree that the Top 16 composition is fine and fairly accurate. My contention is that some of these decks fall on their face versus Burn. Rather handily in fact. The increased presence of Burn for example, may act as a spoiler for decks such as Shardless BUG and Delver decks. This reduces the effectiveness of 3c Tempo/Midrange decks in a long tournament by a small but significant degree. Likewise, Vial decks tend to run about 50% basic lands as part of its mana base. Their exposure to Price of Progress is reduced. Merfolk and D&T also have enough tools to fight the expected Combo metagame, and still have equal matchups with Tempo. Thus, I predict these Vial decks to out-perform the Top 16 metrics.

This conclusion corroborates your own analysis.

Okay, I can see that. I don't have a lot of experience playing tempo decks, but a good friend of mine who does loathes playing against burn. And yeah, I also like your point about vial decks doing a good job of blanking price of progress. Your prediction that they will outperform their past results makes a lot of sense, here.

[Patrunkenphat7]

Actually, I agree that the Top 16 composition is fine and fairly accurate. My contention is that some of these decks fall on their face versus Burn. Rather handily in fact. The increased presence of Burn for example, may act as a spoiler for decks such as Shardless BUG and Delver decks. This reduces the effectiveness of 3c Tempo/Midrange decks in a long tournament by a small but significant degree. Likewise, Vial decks tend to run about 50% basic lands as part of its mana base. Their exposure to Price of Progress is reduced. Merfolk and D&T also have enough tools to fight the expected Combo metagame, and still have equal matchups with Tempo. Thus, I predict these Vial decks to out-perform the Top 16 metrics.

This conclusion corroborates your own analysis.

This is a relatively solid conclusion, except I think that Merfolk decks are much worse against combo than you are giving them credit for.

Death and Taxes is probably very good against the field. The only question is: how popular will Punishing Jund be? Punishing Jund is probably the strongest fair deck at fighting Shardless BUG, and it also beats up on D+T and Fish. It's not a complete dog to the slower combo decks, and I think it's a little more popular right now on the east coast than the article demonstrates. I know it's a small sample size, but I live in the region, and 5 out of the 25 decks at our IQ last weekend were Punishing Jund. Generally I just feel that it's everywhere right now.

The last factor to take into consideration with the Vial decks is that they don't play Brainstorms, and they play lategame dead cards like AEther Vial. This means that in a 15-round tournament they are more likely to lose a round to variance than a deck playing blue cantrips and fetchlands.

[Megadeus]

I've rarely had an issue with time and often finish before friends playing combo in the last few SCG opens I've attended. The deck gets a bad reputation due to slow / inexperienced pilots I think.

It probably helps that I've played miracles pretty consistently since they were printed (~18 months), and counterbalance variants for years before that.

Plus you know how to play the deck quickly. I'm pretty sure I played zoo slower last night t than your average match lol

[wcm8]

My predictions:
-SnT combo, Delver tempo, BUG Control, Elves and DnT will perform well as expected.
-Mono Red Painter will make top 8 and/or win the whole thing (yes, it's that good and being under the radar means it's well-poised for this tournament).
-Identity Nemesis (or whatever its English name ends up being) will perform well, but it's highly doubtful that this new tech will take down the GP.
-Some random obscure overlooked card printed in one of the recents sets will also have a breakout performance.
-European tech that's actually old and well-known overseas will perform well over here and become the new norm (e.g. the minor Red splash in BUG Cascade for Whipflare and maybe Ancient Grudge).

[nedleeds]

Plus you know how to play the deck quickly. I'm pretty sure I played zoo slower last night t than your average match lol

You finally stop bringing Devastating Dreams and I decide on hoops league instead. Failure.

Most of the decks in that top 10 can't beat Moat. Those that don't care about Moat can't beat Trinisphere or Chalice 1. Those that might have a prayer if I drop a Trinisphere off the SnT can't beat the Armageddon.

Decision: Moat Stompy.

[Koby]

Decision: Moat Stompy.

Please keep a separate note book for GRV. An accounting of those mishaps would far exceed any tournament report.

[Valtrix]

Death and Taxes is probably very good against the field. The only question is: how popular will Punishing Jund be? Punishing Jund is probably the strongest fair deck at fighting Shardless BUG, and it also beats up on D+T and Fish. It's not a complete dog to the slower combo decks, and I think it's a little more popular right now on the east coast than the article demonstrates.

I agree that Death and Taxes should be very good against that field. I think that running multiple Absolute Law in the sideboard could potentially be pretty powerful to shore up some of the weakness to punishing fire decks, but also all of the heavily played tempo decks with red removal.

[thecrav]

Decision: Moat Stompy.

Double points if you also play Humility.

[nedleeds]

Please keep a separate note book for GRV. An accounting of those mishaps would far exceed any tournament report.

I could make little pins, like those SCG Qualifier things that losers put on their playmats and hand them out.

[nedleeds]

Double points if you also play Humility.

Angels aren't humble. I think the board is something like ..

4 x RIP
4 x LoS
2 x Catastrophe

then some mash of Revoker, Cursed Scrotum, Crucible, Apostle's Blessing, Abunas

[Dzra]

-Identity Nemesis (or whatever its English name ends up being) will perform well, but it's highly doubtful that this new tech will take down the GP.

I agree that it probably won't be taking down the tournament (unless it happens to revive Deathblade), but I do think it's worth noting that a lot of people are going to take a look at Identity Nemesis and think about sleeving their Fish deck up again. I'd expect a slightly higher saturation of Fish because of this. Luckily we have the BOM beforehand to actually gauge the effects Identity Nemesis might cause.

[Megadeus]

You finally stop bringing Devastating Dreams and I decide on hoops league instead. Failure.

Most of the decks in that top 10 can't beat Moat. Those that don't care about Moat can't beat Trinisphere or Chalice 1. Those that might have a prayer if I drop a Trinisphere off the SnT can't beat the Armageddon.

Decision: Moat Stompy.

Yeah I didn't feel like thinking. But I did find out the power of loxodon smiter plus double exalted. Spoiler alert, it's pretty solid.

And with moat stompy you get to just rape the budget decks in the first few rounds. Half because your noob opponent doesn't know how to fight you and half because decks can't actually beat exalted angel

[JPoJohnson]

If you're gonna play White Stax of sorts, you might as well play Ravages of War over Armageddon :wink:

[Barbed Blightning]

Hey all, I wrote up this piece on analyzing the mid-atlantic regional meta in hopes of predicting the types of decks you might expect to see at the top tables in DC. I suppose DC and Philly are close enough that you could also use it to help prepare for Legacy Champs.

http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/10/hope-eternal-road-dc-mid-atlantic-metagame-analysis/

Beautiful analysis. Also makes me happy to be making Reanimator.

[ziggy_stardust]

I made a bit of a mention of this before, so I figured I'd ask, would people be interested in seeing an analysis like this done on the national level (perhaps also using a weighted method where weight is assigned by distance from DC)? Maybe a comparison of national data vs regional data? Or do you think the marginal value gained from a national analysis over my initial regional analysis wouldn't be worth the extra effort? If people are interested, I can look into it for next week (decided to go with something a little lighter for this week).

[Lt. Quattro]

I made a bit of a mention of this before, so I figured I'd ask, would people be interested in seeing an analysis like this done on the national level (perhaps also using a weighted method where weight is assigned by distance from DC)? Maybe a comparison of national data vs regional data? Or do you think the marginal value gained from a national analysis over my initial regional analysis wouldn't be worth the extra effort? If people are interested, I can look into it for next week (decided to go with something a little lighter for this week).

Yes please.

[Dzra]

I made a bit of a mention of this before, so I figured I'd ask, would people be interested in seeing an analysis like this done on the national level (perhaps also using a weighted method where weight is assigned by distance from DC)? Maybe a comparison of national data vs regional data? Or do you think the marginal value gained from a national analysis over my initial regional analysis wouldn't be worth the extra effort? If people are interested, I can look into it for next week (decided to go with something a little lighter for this week).

Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing that if it isn't a ridiculous amount of trouble.

[Higgs]

I've done a similar analysis for the global meta using the tcdecks data. The funny thing is, it is not telling anything that we already don't know..

The data set is tcdecks results between Sep 2012-Sep 2013:
http://s21.postimg.org/tsuiknhh3/meta.jpg

Accumulated means straight up addition of normalized points. Weighted means Sep 2013 results have a factor of 1 and Sep 2012 results have a factor of 0.1 (everything in between decreasing with the corresponding rate of decay).

[Kayradis]

Great analysis.
Im probably gonna work with those numbers since we start our playtesting for DC tonight (I need to get rid of all that beer in the fridge, so there's gonna be a lot of testing!!!)

Thanks for all the work you put into that and stay clear of my Cratherhoof in DC!

[ziggy_stardust]

Here are the results on a national level. I've also included a link to the spreadsheet with the raw data in case anyone felt like playing around with it and doing their own analysis.

http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/10/hope-eternal-road-dc-part-ii-national-metagame-analysis/

[Kayradis]

Once again. Good analysis.

We are finishing the prep for DC this weekend. Time to crush!

[ziggy_stardust]

Once again. Good analysis.

We are finishing the prep for DC this weekend. Time to crush!

almost out of beer? :wink:

[Kayradis]

Getting there! hahaha!
2 Flats to go!

[ziggy_stardust]

I figure most of the people in these forums are seasoned Legacy players, but if anyone feels like they need a cheat sheet to what some of the more popular (as defined by my earlier analysis) decks in the format do and how to identify them quickly, here it is:

http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/11/hope-eternal-last-minute-cheat-sheet-dc/

If you are a Legacy expert, this probably won't tell you too many things you didn't already know, but I figured I'd put it out there.

This is not an meant to be an exhaustive list, but because I took tomorrow off and my flight to DC isn't until mid-day, maybe I'll add a few more archetypes, later tonight.

[Lord Seth]

I figure most of the people in these forums are seasoned Legacy players, but if anyone feels like they need a cheat sheet to what some of the more popular (as defined by my earlier analysis) decks in the format do and how to identify them quickly, here it is:

http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/11/hope-eternal-last-minute-cheat-sheet-dc/

If you are a Legacy expert, this probably won't tell you too many things you didn't already know, but I figured I'd put it out there.

This is not an meant to be an exhaustive list, but because I took tomorrow off and my flight to DC isn't until mid-day, maybe I'll add a few more archetypes, later tonight.
You should edit your Death & Taxes bit. You suggest that Phyrexian Revoker can be used to name fetchlands, but it can't--it can't name land cards. You're getting it mixed up with Pithing Needle.

[ziggy_stardust]

You should edit your Death & Taxes bit. You suggest that Phyrexian Revoker can be used to name fetchlands, but it can't--it can't name land cards. You're getting it mixed up with Pithing Needle.

Oh wooow, good catch there. Embarrassing lol

[twndomn]

I've done a similar analysis for the global meta using the tcdecks data. The funny thing is, it is not telling anything that we already don't know..

The data set is tcdecks results between Sep 2012-Sep 2013:
http://s21.postimg.org/tsuiknhh3/meta.jpg


These data are deceiving. I expect the opposite regarding Blade control due to True-Name-Nemesis. That card is the latest fad, people can't wait to put equipment on it. In time, the data will reflect that.

[rockout]

Do you like the draw tables?

I lol'd so hard.