Where is the format?
That is to say, how does the format's metagame work? What kind of decks are good?
Here's my impression, but I'd be interested in your comments.
The "natural" decks are weenie aggro decks. My experience discussing the format is that people assume it's about bad aggro decks. A very base metagame might be white weenie beats aggro red (which might be the most natural deck of all) beats random aggro decks beat white weenie.
The next level of decks look at this natural metagame and try to break it. ProsTides competes on a completely different plane than the aggro decks. It wins faster than the aggro decks, and is totally immune to creature removal, the most obvious kind of disruption in the "natural" metagame. Coffer King (MBC as championed by Jason Chapman) recognizes the vulnerability of the aggro decks to mass removal. Several decks scoop to Pestilence, particularly when accompanied by Cemetery_Gate. Isochron Scepter Burn is designed to handle the aggro decks, and -- thanks to Red Elemental Blast -- has great game post board against ProsTides.
I believe that the "natural" aggro decks are forced by the next level decks to add significant combo elements. Affinity emerges as a solid aggro deck that can suddenly drop Atog and Disciple of the Vault or Demonic Tutor for Cranial Plating and swing for 10 or even 20. ElfClamp can fetch up a Quirion Ranger with Wirewood Herald and then use Timberwatch Elf to deal 20 damage. Builds of ElfClamp with Rancor and Wild Mongrel have an extra combo win, since ElfClamp can reasonably get 7-12 cards in hand. Both ElfClamp and Affinity win on turn 4 pretty regularly, before Pestilence or Isochron Scepter become important and occasionally before ProsTides goes off. Affinity wins more frequently on turn 4 than ElfClamp does, but ElfClamp is a much more consistent deck.
I've played a lot of "two-handed Magic" with PEZ, testing two decks against one another and trying to "not know" what's in the other hand. My testing suggests that Isochron Scepter Burn has a good matchup against the weenie aggro decks (including White Weenie with maindeck Crimson Acolyte), against the two other "next level" decks I mentioned, and against the combo/aggro decks.
Now, I hope nobody questions the honesty of my numbers, but I'm quite comfortable with people questioning the accuracy. I'm pretty sure I'm using an optimal (or mearly optimal) build of Isochron Scepter Burn, but I'm not sure that I have optimal builds of White Weenie or Coffer King. Assuming my builds are good, I think my play of White Weenie and Coffer King is good, but I recognize that my win percentages are significantly different than other people are saying. I think White Weenie is a 60-40 matchup in favor of Isochron Scepter Burn. Other people are suggesting it's more like 30-70 for White Weenie.
Even more significantly, I think Coffer King is an 80-20 matchup for Isochron Scepter Burn. Other people are suggesting it's 20-80 in favor of Coffer King. Obviously that's a huge difference. Both decks are good against aggro, but Isochron Scepter Burn is better, particularly against the best aggro decks (ElfClamp and Affinity.) If Isochron Scepter Burn also wins against Coffer King, then Coffer King becomes almost strictly worse. If Coffer King wins, the situation is similar to when a dominant deck is teched out for the mirror. You're a little worse against the field, but better against the best deck.
If, in fact, Isochron Scepter Burn beats White Weenie and Coffer King (and it beats ProsTides and Affinity and ElfClamp and random aggro decks, which most people would agree it does) then it sits comfortably at the top of the metagame. I was actually quite concerned about it. I built a white/green deck with 10 maindeck pro-red creatures, Charm School, Blastoderm, plenty of artifact removal, and Armadillo Cloak and managed to secure a 60% match win rate. It's pretty ridiculous to think you can set out to beat one deck and only secure a 60% win rate.
Fortunately, I've started preliminary testing of a fat green deck and I'm having lots of success against several decks, including a very high win rate against Isochron Scepter Burn. It's very have for the red deck to succeed when every opposing create has 4 or more toughness -- except Sakura Tribe Elder. In fact, most of the decks have strategies to disrupt small creatures, and (efficient!) creatures with 4 or 5 toughness are very hard to deal with. Because the deck is green, it also has access to a significant amount of artifact destruction, which is very important in this field.
Here's my impression, but I'd be interested in your comments.
The "natural" decks are weenie aggro decks. My experience discussing the format is that people assume it's about bad aggro decks. A very base metagame might be white weenie beats aggro red (which might be the most natural deck of all) beats random aggro decks beat white weenie.
The next level of decks look at this natural metagame and try to break it. ProsTides competes on a completely different plane than the aggro decks. It wins faster than the aggro decks, and is totally immune to creature removal, the most obvious kind of disruption in the "natural" metagame. Coffer King (MBC as championed by Jason Chapman) recognizes the vulnerability of the aggro decks to mass removal. Several decks scoop to Pestilence, particularly when accompanied by Cemetery_Gate. Isochron Scepter Burn is designed to handle the aggro decks, and -- thanks to Red Elemental Blast -- has great game post board against ProsTides.
I believe that the "natural" aggro decks are forced by the next level decks to add significant combo elements. Affinity emerges as a solid aggro deck that can suddenly drop Atog and Disciple of the Vault or Demonic Tutor for Cranial Plating and swing for 10 or even 20. ElfClamp can fetch up a Quirion Ranger with Wirewood Herald and then use Timberwatch Elf to deal 20 damage. Builds of ElfClamp with Rancor and Wild Mongrel have an extra combo win, since ElfClamp can reasonably get 7-12 cards in hand. Both ElfClamp and Affinity win on turn 4 pretty regularly, before Pestilence or Isochron Scepter become important and occasionally before ProsTides goes off. Affinity wins more frequently on turn 4 than ElfClamp does, but ElfClamp is a much more consistent deck.
I've played a lot of "two-handed Magic" with PEZ, testing two decks against one another and trying to "not know" what's in the other hand. My testing suggests that Isochron Scepter Burn has a good matchup against the weenie aggro decks (including White Weenie with maindeck Crimson Acolyte), against the two other "next level" decks I mentioned, and against the combo/aggro decks.
Now, I hope nobody questions the honesty of my numbers, but I'm quite comfortable with people questioning the accuracy. I'm pretty sure I'm using an optimal (or mearly optimal) build of Isochron Scepter Burn, but I'm not sure that I have optimal builds of White Weenie or Coffer King. Assuming my builds are good, I think my play of White Weenie and Coffer King is good, but I recognize that my win percentages are significantly different than other people are saying. I think White Weenie is a 60-40 matchup in favor of Isochron Scepter Burn. Other people are suggesting it's more like 30-70 for White Weenie.
Even more significantly, I think Coffer King is an 80-20 matchup for Isochron Scepter Burn. Other people are suggesting it's 20-80 in favor of Coffer King. Obviously that's a huge difference. Both decks are good against aggro, but Isochron Scepter Burn is better, particularly against the best aggro decks (ElfClamp and Affinity.) If Isochron Scepter Burn also wins against Coffer King, then Coffer King becomes almost strictly worse. If Coffer King wins, the situation is similar to when a dominant deck is teched out for the mirror. You're a little worse against the field, but better against the best deck.
If, in fact, Isochron Scepter Burn beats White Weenie and Coffer King (and it beats ProsTides and Affinity and ElfClamp and random aggro decks, which most people would agree it does) then it sits comfortably at the top of the metagame. I was actually quite concerned about it. I built a white/green deck with 10 maindeck pro-red creatures, Charm School, Blastoderm, plenty of artifact removal, and Armadillo Cloak and managed to secure a 60% match win rate. It's pretty ridiculous to think you can set out to beat one deck and only secure a 60% win rate.
Fortunately, I've started preliminary testing of a fat green deck and I'm having lots of success against several decks, including a very high win rate against Isochron Scepter Burn. It's very have for the red deck to succeed when every opposing create has 4 or more toughness -- except Sakura Tribe Elder. In fact, most of the decks have strategies to disrupt small creatures, and (efficient!) creatures with 4 or 5 toughness are very hard to deal with. Because the deck is green, it also has access to a significant amount of artifact destruction, which is very important in this field.
posted by Chris Morling | 6:53 PM
8 Comments:
Hey Chris! Let's blog! I will download the Magic Workstation software and we can plan on tomorrow night.
-m-
PEZ is still wide open. My testing with Iso-Red is not near as promising as mentioned here, or elsewhere. Many of my builds (ElfClamp) and green Aggro have maindeck 3 Naturalizes and my WW has maindeck 3 Disenchants or Seals of Cleansing (and E.Tutor) and can keep in check those Scepters. In fact often I love seeing a Scepter come down as I know many of my decks will smack the Iso for a 2 for 1 advantage. Or A deck can just win (BU Animater) before Scepters makes a big difference. I know it obviously depends on the matchups but even my testing with a similar CofferKing deck does well. It just goes for the dome with a few Drain Lifes or Consume Spirits for the life gain and that keeps the deck alive to beat down with a regenerating Twisted Abomination, or just more Drains, Consume Spirits. The Abomination is often just something that will become a lightning rod for a Scepter that has a Lightning Bolt on it and you each pay 2 mana to ht it regenerate it. Black has more mana to pay and bigger chucks of life to be gained and lost per spell. And Red tieing up 2 mana for no advantage in a life swing is a win for CofferKing.
Thanks for the feedback, anonymous.
I also maindeck artifact destruction in ElfClamp and White Weenie. Sideboard Vulshock Sorcerer and Sparksmith seem to trump Naturalize (or Wear Away or Rending Vines). Against many decks in PEZ, they're 2-3 mana Visara the Dreadful.
BU Animater seems like a tough matchup for IsoBurn. IsoBurn has to race, I think, and it goldfishes around turn 6-7. A lucky draw can deal with a single large creature, but more than 1 is a big problem.
CofferKing definitely can win against IsoBurn. My experience has been that it has to have a pretty lucky draw. It can't miss any land drops until it hits at least 6 mana, and then it has to have multiples of Consume Spirit and Drain Life. It also can't hit Guerilla Tactics with Hymn to Tourach. I played with Marcus (zaphod, above) last night and split 2-2. I'd love to see your lists of each deck.
I think that if IsoBurn is put into a position where it has to burn Twisted Abomination then it's probably lost already.
I was thinking about the sideboarding options with MBC. Taking out the Pestilence for Diabolic Edit seems key. I was using Pestilence in the un-sb game to stop the pain of a Mogg Fanatic. Let's see, that is 5 mana and 2 points to me to stop the 1 damage per turn. The Cemetary gate is good because it stops the small beats and it makes them use a burn spell with an attacking creature to get rid of it. If ISOBURN gets a Lightning Bolt imprinted, I see that as game over. I intend to play MBC with Chris some more to see how it turns out in the long run...
-marcand-
I never really had any success with BU Animator. Up until recently, I always had trouble making it function consistently, and then once I finally got it consistent, I started having trouble actually playing the damn thing.
It just never seems to be able to pull enough creatures out to stop aggro. And it goes down to counter and removal. It's not even fast enough, or consistent, to stop most PEZ combo decks.
Unless someone wants to share a functional build of it for PEZ (and I would LOVE to see it work), I would suggest that testing against IsoBurn should focus on stronger deck-types.
Random question: How does IsoBurn fare against Stompy?
IsoBurn vs. Stompy:
I haven't done any testing of IsoBurn vs. Stompy, but based on my other testing I can guess pretty confidently: It depends.
Yeah, that's a cop out, but there you go.
If the Stompy deck is built in a traditional way, with 1 mana weenies and pump spells, it should have trouble with the wall of removal that IsoBurn provides. It should do a little better if it has maindeck artifact removal.
If it's built to ramp up to Blastoderm and Bull Elephant, it should do much better. That's not so much Stompy as, say, Big Green Beats.
Invigorate is the bane of Burn decks. I would expect any green deck to run four of them against a burn-heavy field.
This is Swawagon, I have spoken in great depth about my UB Animater deck in the PEZ yahoo groups, had it referenced on Jason Chapmans Pojo column and even written about it and published it in SCRYE magazine, so I will not expand on it here.
Chris I emailed you my WW fairly recently that included 4 Master Decoys, 4 Mesa Chickens, 4 Phrexian Warbeasts, 4 Razor Gollem, and 4 Bonesplitter among other beats, utility; with 4 Soltari Priest and 1 Enlightened Tutor for the Uncommons. Not a bad deck, probably my most consistant, favorite deck righ now.
However, I have a Green/Red Big Beats deck that is really breaking the back of many PEZ decks right now. Nothing really new as far as cards (except Elder), just how it plays and is built. I run it through my proxied up PEZ gautlet and it can beat anything. It really has no really bad matchups game one, because even if they have an answer they probably cannot find it in time. It is fun to drop big guys fast too, 5 have haste! Many decks just cannot keep up no matter what their strategy is. Here it is. The Sakura Tribe Elders shine one game and feel like clunkers the next, and the Tinder Walls are kind of similar that way. But usually this just gets going and the game is over before you know it. The deck, or perhaps just the nature of the format, has more staying power than it appears it should. Designing the deck it is supposed to go for broke early and win fast - which it does, but the game is far from over 10 turns in. Any top deck could be heat or haste finishing out the last of the 20 damage and winning right then. It is surprisingly resilliant.
GREEN
4 Land Grant
4 Sakura Tribe Elder
4 Tinder Wall
4 Llanowar
4 Blastoderm
3 Phantom Centaur
2 Yavaimaya Ants
RED
4 Bolt
4 Incinerate
4 Kird Ape
3 Saquata Lancer
LAND
10 Forest
10 Mountain
SB
4 Naturalize
3 Pyroblast
4 Stone Rain
4 Guerilla Tactics
The Llanowars, Elders, Land Grants, and Tinder Walls power out the 9 4cc creatures that apply most of the
damage. The bolts and other smaller creatures finish up. The decks main beaters moslty have some form of Fading, or upkeep, or like the Elder and Tinder Wall they sacrifice themselves to be really effective (if necessary). but usually it does't matter as it wins so fast. The deck is really aggressive and races combo. Out of the SB Stone Rain and REBs go even further, and may actually just be overkill as just racing combo is a fairly viable strategy. Haste is great here and really messes with the math of an opponent.
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