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Countertop is not finishing top 8 or even top 16 in any recent events and even if it does pick up in popularity with the banning of survival, that is just speculation and hypothetical right now. Sounds like TES is probably not the deck for you based on that record you posted.
Well i think i wrote twice that after survival was banned... So of course you havent seen any top16 with countertop, survival was just better, and people stop playing with countertop, wich is what i'm pointing out, survival banned means Countertop will be tier 1 again...
ANT is superior to TES, in terms of manabase, TES is way to vulnerable to wasteland and requires a extra mana to combo since it supports 4 colors, so it has a worse matchup against merfolks, wich ANT doesnt have...
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TES is not worse than ANT and since the banning of Mystical Tutor TES has been a far superior and more consistent deck. At GP Columbus when there was a ton of countertop in the meta, Bryant Cook playing TES dominated that match up consistently. Moreover, two ANT decks topped 8 at the last Star City Games Legacy Open in Richmond. At the Dutch Eternal Championships Eindhoven which saw 207 legacy players the top 2 decks were TES and ANT. At the last two GP’s Columbus saw a TES top 8 and Madrid saw two ANT top 4. This combo deck continues to get better and is growing with popularity and keeps on getting better with time. Now that survival is banned, I suspect even more players will start playing it.
Only one of those top8s is relevant to the discussion, the one from the GP Columbus, all others were with survival meta or Reanimate/Ad nauseam meta (legal MT)...
So bryan cook top8, if you read his report you'll find out that he only had 3 bad matchups, 2 of those were the first 2 rounds...He started with a bye so...i think you know what i mean...After round 3, he played against UW thopther wich is bad matchup and he lost...after that he had several good matchups and a couple even matchups... i would say that for only playing agaisnt 2 countertop decks was nice for a gp were you say there was a ton of countertop...
I Disagree with you, when tou point that TES popularity will grow and more people will play it...I believe that Countertop return to scene will clearly decrease the amount of storm decks, merfolks still beats TES and has good matchup vs countertop so it will increase popularity and again decrease the amount of storm decks...
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I categorically disagree with you that big zoo is a better metagame call at present time. Traditional Zoo is substantially faster, more consistent and actually has a fighting chance at beating combo. Up until the banning which just took effect today, Big Zoo really could not be survival and fast Zoo could actually out race them and beat them with speed and consistency.
That's the reason why you never saw fast zoo top8 in survival time...Big Zoo top8 in several tournments in europe and fast zoo didnt during survival era...
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Traditional fast Zoo has an equal if not better match up against Merfolk, has a better match against the vast majority of control and has a much better matchup against combo and was palpably batter against survival. Traditional fast Zoo will also be better then Big Zoo against the new Vengevine u/g/b madness that is replacing survival.
Fast Zoo has worse match ups vs control then Big Zoo, Landstill, 4C Countertop, just kill fast zoo, firespout + counters + explosives + jace + counterbalance + pernicious deed + edicts effects...are just too good for fast zoo, Big zoo normaly fights countertop due to have high CMC spells that are hard do counter trough balance and has bigger creatures that dont die to firespout, has for landstill planeswalkers are just insane against them, fast zoo can only rely on burn to win...
UGB madness is slower than Survival Madness so it will be a better match up to big zoo, since you'll have time to play high CMC spells, and have more sword effects than fast zoo...
I Believe the meta will become ZOO/MERFOLKS/COUNTERTOP, and i'm expecting it for the reasons i posted earlier i believe Big Zoo is a better call than Fast Zoo...And of course Big Zoo beats fast zoo...