How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ - Part 2

Hello, and welcome back to my series of How To Do Better At Your Next PTQ. We've covered testing your deck here, so now it's time to move on to analysing the metagame. The list which inspired this series can be found here.

The Three Types of Metagame

There are generally three different types of metagame that you'll face in a particular format in a particular year. These modes are about more than decks: they're about how the whole metagame interacts, and understanding it is crucial to victory.

The Deck vs. The Anti-Deck

This type of metagame is when there is one particular 'best' deck that makes up about a third of the field, and generally beats most of the minor decks. The second most popular deck is the anti-deck, which beats the best deck, and generally has passable matchups against the minor decks.

An example here would be Affinity. Affinity was THE deck, and anti-affinity was THE anti-deck. This is a greatly exaggerated example of how it usually is, but it's ideal for our purposes. If you couldn't beat Affinity, you basically couldn't show up.

How this matters: In this case, you need to make a choice: The Deck, which is strong but everyone will pack hate for, the Anti-Deck, which beats The Deck but can lose to minor decks, or a minor deck with a good matchup vs. The Deck and the Anti-Deck. I would generally recommend playing a minor deck if it's strong enough to get a 55-60% win chance against The Deck and the Anti-Deck, because people are less likely to sideboard against and test against it. The Deck, unless ridiculously powerful, is often not a good place to be at if the players have figured out how to beat it.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Metagame

Generally the most common, the rock-paper-scissors metagame features three major decks with favourable matches vs. one, and unfavourable vs. the other. The three major decks all perform well against the minor decks almot all of the time.

An example of this would be last year's metagame, where Faeries beat Five-Color Control, Five-Color Control beat Kithkin, and Kithkin beat Faeries. All three decks performed well against random decks (except Faeries vs. Mono-Red) and all of them were good vs. one deck and bad vs. another.

How this matters: Generally, one deck will be the most popular. The deck it beats will be second, and the deck that the second deck beats will be third. Thus, we need to examine the pros and cons of Deck 1, Deck 2 and Deck 3.

Deck 1: Playing Deck 1 is often a good choice, especially if you're good with it. Most players won't play Deck 3, and plenty of them play Deck 2. Of course the problem with Deck 1 is that minor decks can do well against it if they sideboard heavily.

Deck 2: Playing Deck 2 is generally a bad choice. Losing to Deck 1 is never a good thing. I personally would not recommend it. People will sideboard against Deck 2 as well. Deck 2 = bad idea.

Deck 3: Playing Deck 3 is a good idea. If you can survive the first few rounds of a PTQ, Deck 2 will be mostly eliminated by Deck 1, and you're designed to prey on Deck 1. Most decks will only devote 3-4 sideboard slots to Deck 3 as well. Personally, this is the one I would pick unless I was quite skilled with Deck 1.

Minor deck: I wouldn't recommend it. It's basically impossible to build a minor deck with decent matchups against Deck 1, 2 and 3. In this case, the best move is to go with Deck 1 or Deck 3.

One Deck Many Decks Metagame

The rarest of the three, a one deck many deck metagame is when one deck or subset of decks makes up about 20-25% of the metagame, and the rest of it is spread among minor decks.

A perfect example of this is Legacy. CounterTop decks make up the One Deck, and the other decks (notably Dreadstill and Thresh) are mostly fairly minor, with a couple of 10-15% players. This metagame is hard to predict. It depends on how much hate is brought against the One Deck.

How this matters: In this scenario, it all depends on how new the One Deck is. If the One Deck has recently surfaced, play it. If it's been winning for a few weeks, I suggest playing a minor deck with a good matchup against the One Deck and passable matchups against most minor decks. It's hard to know how this kind of metagame will turn out, but a solid plan against the One Deck is never a bad thing.

The Role of Minor Decks

Minor decks, the ones that make up a small but appreciable segment of the metagame, generally 5-10% are an excellent, valuable addition to the metagame. For one, it keeps the major decks honest. They need to be able to defend against a wide variety of angles of attack to remain in their catbird seats. For another, it provides variety. Sometimes you don't want to play a major deck, and then you can always move to the Merfolks or Blightings of the world and try to strike from an unexpected angle.

I could include some information about how to collect statistics for the metagame, but I'm fairly sure that if you're at the level of seriously analysing it, you already know how to do that. My only tip I will give you is to check out the latest tournaments: StarCityGames.com is good for this. Other than that, it's up to you to ascertain what pattern of metagame you're in.

The best part about this advice is that it will still be applicable 5 or 10 years from now. I'm sure I'll write many articles about the metagame that will go out of date in mere months, but this content is timeless. Enjoy it, and use it wisely.

Until next time, may you see the pattern you've seen before.