What makes you say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
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What makes you say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
I'd say it completely depends on your knowledge of the metagames, and how much a sideboard really helps in a matchup. If you know there will be a high percentage of combo decks and you plan on running 43-land no matter what, then you better at least try to pack a good portion of your sideboard to hate it. If you know there are 2 players or less out of 20 that run combo then you might as well just leave out sideboard all together against them and accept the loss. Similar situation for goblins.Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH
On the other hand, if you know that you will be facing a deck where hate is actually quite potent against them (I like to bring up Extirpate against Ichorid decks, even though I'm sure advanced ichorid players have a better shot at getting around it), then I would be perfectly happy with only running 4 sideboard cards against that matchup. The sideboard cards that have uses in almost every matchup (Krosan Grip for example), are definitely worth having, even if it doesn't bring your matchup against Enchantress to a 50-50. If you're scared of Elves or NO Progenitus, having Perish in the sideboard is going to help against random other matchups, like zoo.
So overall it depends on: How many of an archetype do you think will be there, How potent is a sideboard 4 or even more slots against them, and Does the sideboard you have against that deck help against other matchups?
I think it's a good idea to have some cards like K-grip or Extirpate that completely destroy certain decks, but can also be very good against a wide range of other decks.
Very cool article. More of this please.
This is a great Magic theory question, but I'm not sure the answers are so readily available. I think "know your meta" is a little difficult sometimes, particularly at larger events. I agree with whoever said there are degrees of "bad" when discussing bad matchups. I think one would have to determine the probability of needing a particular card and drawing it. I wouldn't fancy my chances of drawing an opening hand Leyline of the Void, for example, and wouldn't board that.Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH
Also, I think SB cards should always aid and not impede one's deck's innate formula/game plan (e.g. don't dilute aggro's speed). I know that seems like "duh", but I do believe that SBing (both choices pre-tournament and in actual matches) really is a tricky topic with so many variables and it remains one of the hardest and least understood/practiced parts of the game.
Anyway, back to the original question, I suppose if you were to use strategy A (SB for bad matchups) the key question that follows is how much do the SBed cards increase your win percentage? The same thing goes for B: how much do the cards meant to give you an advantage over 50/50 matchups really do give you that advantage? From those answers you should figure out your SB by using the cards that most greatly improve your win percentages.
How about neither or both? I think you should never just use a sb to shore up a bad matchup. Whether you do so or not has to be filtered through the first question of what you expect to show up?Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH
Suppose you are going to play in a 100 player tournament and you expect, justifiably for whatever reason, that at most 1 player out of the 100 will be playing your worst matchup, that requires like 6 sb slots. Is it worth it? Answer: no.
I always try to first figure out what I expect to face, and then fill out the SB accordingly.
Very nice article, it actually made me buy premium again... so good job to you Steve.
I'm looking forward to see how this analysis will change in the near future...
Agreed. In particular, I think the Japanese Supreme Blue list has a better Merfolk match-up than what Steve put in the article (I understand all CB-Goyf decks were lumped together for that analysis). Having 3 Firespouts MD and REBs post-side make this match-up hard for Merfolk IMO. In my tests/tournament experience, I haven't lost once to Merfolk with Enigma's list of Supreme Blue... I hope the future continues to be as bright.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
Cough... cough...Quote:
I’ve measured Top 16 penetration
Awesome :) My SCG overlords will be pleased.
I will definitely be doing another matchup grid for the next SCG $5k, so your subscription will definitely be worth it.
you might google the similar analysis Paul Jordan has done for PTs if you are looking for comparison.
This was the final straw- I've bought premium now and reading all of the articles I've missed out on from the last month.
To jump on the answer bandwagon, I would say B always. To begin with, your deck choice should be appropriate for your local metagame- don't take Zoo to Friday Night Nauseam, or you deserve what you get. It doesn't make sense to me to start behind against more than half the field at any given local tournament and then try to compensate for an effective 0-1 deficit going into most of your matches. For a national event, the field is much wider, but as these articles have shown us, there is a definite metagame taking shape (go Legacy!).Quote:
Originally Posted by MattH
In either case, I think it's vitally important to make your 40-60% range matchups as strong as possible and just ignore the shitty ones. Let's say you have a roughly equal distribution of high (~60+%) matchups, medium (~40-60%) matchups and low (~<40%) matchups for any given deck. If you waste your sideboard trying to bring the low % matchups up, you needlessly risk losing your on-the-fence matches (say, Canadian Thresh vs CT-goyf) and still make no guarantees that you'll be winning your otherwise bad matchups (since G1 you're still probably going to lose and then your opponent gets 2 games where a bad hand, slight misplay or just the fact that your matchup still isn't great postboard can still screw you).
On the other hand, if you shore up your mediocre matches and just largely forget the bad ones, you now have a solid chance of winning against close to 2/3% of the field. Since with Swiss rounds the good known decks are more likely to rise to the top (i.e. the ones you probably sided for), you have a much better chance of making the finals even if you get unlucky and hit a bad matchup early on.
I think this is a large part of why Tempo Thresh is so successful. The decklist is largely unfocused misrange jank, but doesn't punt to anyone and has winnable matchups against nearly everyone. The sideboard shores up a lot of those, so postboard you're turning could-win into probably-will-win against a lot of the decks you're likely to see. Shoring up your bad matches tries to do too much against too wide a range of opponents and ends up screwing you over either way. Zoo is another quintessential example. All of the good players (such as the Hatfields) design their boards to make damn sure they're not losing to TThresh or GoyfSligh so that when they do come up against ANT, they can still recover and do well.
And now to the original reason why I wanted to reply-
I disagree with the author that metagame positioning is as big a factor as the article claims (even though I just spent several paragraphs defending it...). In fact, Cedric's path to the 8 suggests to me the exact opposite of what the following paragraph says: yes, Belcher is going to curbstomp RG Beats and slower obsolete combo decks, but he also faced some seriously tough matches and beat them. I see 3 matchups which are decidedly against him, (rounds 4, 7 & 8), two of which he won and one which was an ID. Even the unfavorable Stax match went to G3. Belcher's fairly straightforward, but it can easily lost G2 and 3 to a control deck with a full counterspell suite. It's not that tough to mull into force or daze or something that will stop the combo.
Yes, matchups are a big factor, but I think the conclusion the article makes is a fallacy. Player skill, I think, decides outcomes for decision-heavy decks (pure combo and control) almost entirely, let alone makes a dent. The grid is misleading because big events like the SCG5k are going to have a lot of opportunistic dilettantes who netdecked their (insert DTB here) list and skewed the list. If player skill wasn't a factor, really good players like the Hatfields, Chris Woltereck, David Gearheart, etc. would not consistently make the finals in most of the tournaments they enter. In fact, if player skill was so irrelevant, we would probably have entirely different names almost every time in large events since anyone can just rip a Tier 1 deck off the internet (which we dont; the same players do consistently make the T8/16, which suggests they're riding tight play rather than just a good metagame call).
Case in point, Woltereck's 43-land deck took 2nd in SCG Charlotte and (7th?) in SCG Philly. Their metagames were diametrically opposite- Charlotte put 3 Zoo decks in the T8, which is more than there were combo decks at the entire tournament. In Philly, combo was one of the most highly represented decks in the field. 43-land stomps most aggro and basically folds to combo. I don't know exactly what his path to the 8 was and he's definitely not the only example, but my point is that player skill and not matchup percentages is most often the deciding factor in how a player does. It would be wrong to take a single bad performance by a good player and use it as proof to demonstrate how much the metagame means because of how consistently good players actually do rise to the top.
Maybe I should be writing articles of my own if I want a soapbox?
This article is also free!
Ripped off, I was *fist in air* !