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Post by gabochido on Dec 21, 2011 13:52:46 GMT -5
I'd like to use this thread to post interesting sightings in the MTGO Metagame.
This week I've noticed a surgence of a Dimir (U/B) Post deck.
It uses Bloodrite Invoker (a creature with the ability: 8: target opponent loses 3 and you gain 3) as a new kill condition/life recovery tool. It swaps out the red removal with Agony Warp, Innocent Blood/Diabolic Edict and Doom Blade. And uses the newly available Accumulated Knowledge as card draw. It also has Calcite Snapper for extra defense. I really like how it looks and will be trying to build it soon.
Notably, white weenie and monoblack rats have really taken a hit in the metagame. Probably because the blue delver is very popular and is a bad matchup.
The metagame seems very much warped towards blue right now (and the card prices are reflecting that). Even infect and storm seem to be weaning out. However, in a recent daily there was a breath of fresh air with a Stompy deck that 4-0ed it. Its a list that has already seen play, but at least that's a sign that there are still other decks that can win.
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Post by grumpyoldgamer on Jan 8, 2012 19:18:48 GMT -5
So I played a few games this afternoon, trying to find a deck for the league. I faced a few blue-based Post decks, a Delver Blue deck, a Mono Blue Control deck, a Blue Delver Control deck, two U/B Control decks, a Teachings deck and a non-post Izzet Control deck.
See a pattern?
All of them ran un ungodly amount of countermagic. Not just a few counters, but 12+ spells per deck dedicated solely to countering. The Mono Blue Control and the U/B Control decks were the worst offenders, running Counterspell, Condescend, Dispel, Mana Leak and Rewind maindeck.
Honestly, this afternoon wasn't much fun.
And so I'm wondering what can be done about it. Dealing with countermagic is hard in Pauper because there are not many answers to it at Common rarity - except for opposing countermagic, which is not really a solution to the issue when you think about it. Right now, I'm thinking about sleeving up again the ol' Infect and Storm decks. These usually do not care much about countermagic, either because of their speed or thanks to the Storm mechanic.
What do you guys think?
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Post by dougbiss on Jan 8, 2012 20:34:25 GMT -5
I think you're right... it's very hard to deal with. Not just hard, but near impossible and Infect and Storm are the best answers. I was thinking the same thing, lately. I've been running blue or infect to the exclusion of almost everything else... with an occasional run with affinity where I main deck 4 Krark-Clan Shaman to deal with goblin tokens and infect creatures, with 4 Pyroblast in the sideboard. If you come up with a better solution to the meta, let me know. I'd love to hear it!
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Post by yugular on Jan 12, 2012 8:51:47 GMT -5
Oh man the metagame is painful... So many counters...
I was gonna do a DE today and write a tournament report, but after dozen of practice matches I decided to ditch that plan and try 2-man queue instead. My deck of choice would have been infect, but it seemed that the most important matchups were decided too heavily on opening hand and mulliganing. I could win most of the games where I could play Glistener Elf and had 2 forest in my opening hand. If not, then it was down to variance. Infect has it's way to battle against countermagic, but playing takes a lot of time and skill isn't as big factor as luck. Therefore I postponed my first DE further away.
Testing went pretty well, I played 12 tier1 matches and lost only 4 (two of them to gabo). So I decided to try at least on 2-man. It turned out to be against Izzet Control (no posts).
G1 I keep starting hand with 1 elf 2 wolf 2 forest and misc. t1 elf gets removed but I can play t3 wolf, it gets removed. t4 wolf gets countered, but I draw creatures almost every turn and eventually managed to connect once and it was enough.
G2 Mulligan to 4. Two lands no creatures. He managed to counter all creatures I drew and finished the game with two Rolling Earthquake.
G3 Mulligan to 6. 2 forest, rancor, vines, mamba, ranger's guile. t2 mamba gets bolted t3 elf goes through without being countered (he used his mana for some preordains etc.) t4 play rancor -> deal 3 poison t5 play vines -> countered -> deal 3 poison (total 6) t6 attack, opponent plays echoing truth -> ranger's guile -> deal 4 poison -> WIN!
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Post by gabochido on Jan 15, 2012 12:13:20 GMT -5
I couldn't find the post were we had discussed the depletion lands so I'll mention it here. I had mentioned that I thought storm decks would start using them effectively and that it would bring down the price of the invasion sac lands. Both of those have come true as most storm based decks have added a few instances of the depletion lands and I've seen at least one grixis storm go 4-0 with 4 of each depletion land in its colors. The invasion lands also continue to go down in price.
One thing I didn't expect that is also affecting the price is how unpopular both storm and infect decks have become.
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Post by yugular on Feb 2, 2012 4:04:03 GMT -5
Delver is everywhere at the moment. And it is an interesting deck to play against. T1 Delver with T2,T3,T4 counter backup is tough to deal with...
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Post by gabochido on Feb 15, 2012 16:11:03 GMT -5
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Post by RockBass on Feb 16, 2012 13:11:45 GMT -5
I think it gets easy to become frustrated with the metagame sometimes, especially when you're playing a lot of Pauper on MTGO. The format does evolve (just look at where Delver was a month ago), it just does it very slowly. Probably the slowest online, if I had to guess. Block may beat it, but that's just the nature of the beast.
Having said that, I wouldn't trade the metagame we have for anything else. Weird decks can have their moments, solid decks stay solid for a good period of time, and home brews can be constantly tweaked, due to the relatively low price of entry.
And, look at White Weenie, for example. Sure, there is a deck that has that moniker, but are the same 75 cards always in there? Not even close.
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Post by gabochido on Feb 24, 2012 15:19:52 GMT -5
Either Mr EastDragon is incredibly lucky or his deck is seriously returning Stompy to a Tier 1 status. He just 4-0ed two consecutive dailies. That's 8 games without a loss. I'm pretty sure that goes beyond luck and variance. In general I've been seeing this archetype do quite well in the dailies in the last few weeks.
This is the deck:
17 Forest
3 Garruk's Companion 4 Nettle Sentinel 4 Quirion Ranger 1 Rogue Elephant 2 Shinen of Life's Roar 4 Silhana Ledgewalker 4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk 3 Young Wolf
2 Briar Shield 4 Gather Courage 4 Groundswell 4 Rancor 4 Vines of Vastwood
Sideboard 2 Fog 4 Hidden Spider 4 Hornet Sting 2 Naturalize 3 Sandstorm
Note the presence of Young Wolf and also Garruk's companion, which I hadn't seen lately.
It seems that the main deck is fast enough to beat up cloudpost without any help and the sideboard has something for all the other tier 1 decks. Alas! I missed my chance to buy the quirion ranger and its now over 2tix each. Here's hoping they do some Mirage Block nix pax events soon.
In other news, a white weenie deck incorporating 3 Loyal Cathars main just 4-0ed.
These cards from the new set might not be format warping like the delver is and its probably debatable whether they actually improve the decks they are in, but its undeniable that Wizards is making classic pauper tournament playable commons. Its actually surprising to me that, when there is already a pool of many thousands of cards available, Wizards is still able to print cards that affect the format without breaking other parts of the game.
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Post by grumpyoldgamer on Feb 25, 2012 10:12:41 GMT -5
Young Wolf and Garruk's Companion are definitely strong cards. But to me, it's really the Shinen that does it. Used correctly, this thing is basically an Overrun.
Not sure about the Quirion Ranger though. It's utility, but at best it only provides Vigilance to one of your creature. For utility, I'd rather use something like Nurturer Initiate. Or just go agressive with Jungle Lion, Scryb Sprites or Skyshroud Ridgeback.
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Post by High_Gene on Mar 1, 2012 8:59:54 GMT -5
Quirion Ranger is not only for untapping your creatures, it is basically a mana elf that doesn't need to tap since you're running a low amount of land and it's likely you miss a land drop.
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Post by grumpyoldgamer on Mar 1, 2012 18:10:43 GMT -5
Quirion Ranger is not only for untapping your creatures, it is basically a mana elf that doesn't need to tap since you're running a low amount of land and it's likely you miss a land drop. I agree in theory. But in practice, the deck curve at 2cmc. What do you need a mana dork for?
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Post by High_Gene on Mar 2, 2012 0:19:56 GMT -5
As I said, it's likely that you start with a one land hand and miss your second land drop. That's the point when Quirion Ranger kicks in.
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Post by castigar on May 24, 2012 14:58:52 GMT -5
Figured I'd share since I spent the time to go through and list/count here's the decks that have gone 4-0 from May 1 - may 24th at 3pm est 20012 in pauper dailies on mtg:o.
Affinity variants (Fling)- 10x Mono R Goblin Stompy- 9x Mono U variants (delver/fae)- 39x Mono G variants (stompy)- 26x Post variants (mono g, mono u, grixis, U/R)- 26x Storm variants ( invasion lands, temporal, warrens)- 27x Tortured Existence (B/R, B/G)- 5x Mono W variants (stompy, weenie)- 15x B/U- 3x Mono B variants- 4x Naya- 1 B/W- 1x
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jacelightning
New Member
"An elegant weapon for a more civilized age."
Posts: 17
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Post by jacelightning on May 24, 2012 18:20:10 GMT -5
That's some really interesting data. I would like to see it laid out sequentially. I think the trend data could be really valuable.
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