Running The Numbers #9

Running the Numbers #9

Writers Note: If I happen to talk about your deck and you want to clarify something about how it works or its classification, you can email me at davebarone@aol.com and explain. Also, if you want your deck to be discussed then you have to post it in the event thread (note: this doesn't guarantee I'm going to) I can't really talk about a deck if I don't know what's in it.

Tournament Overview:

Event - Classic TPDC, 7.04
Format - Classic, Matches

So, Mono Blue is spreading out beyond one player (which has certainly been the case in the past). It was represented on Tuesday by 2 pilots who had not won with it yet this season and I think if this continues it will give us a much more accurate look at the deck's overall power in relation to the field. Again, a lot of Aggro this week. At some point deck builders will capitalize on this trend an attack it, but until that I am sure we will continue to see MUC and Cloak decks at the tourney top because both eat up other Aggro strategies (that are being played currently). We did get a combo sighting which is good for the environment as a whole so I hope a few more players take up that trend. I do wonder if the success of certain decks is amplified by the fact that they are able focus their efforts on stopping a specific type of deck much more than others. If a greater scope of opposing strategies were presented, perhaps it would be much harder to defend against them. For the breakdown, we had the categories filled in the following manner:

Control - 4: MBC, Rats & Removal, MUC (2)

Aggro - 8: RB Husk, RDW, GW Cloak (2), Grand Entrance, WU Aggro, Boros Aggro, GB Dredgehold

Midrange (aggro control) - 3: Orzhov Blink 2, UB Ninjas

Combo - 1: Freed

Aggro Combo - 0:

Top 4 (top 8) Analysis:

We had a top 4 this week, made up of MUC, Orzov Blink, Freed, and GW Cloak. I was quite happy to see Blink made it to the tourney finals. It has been a tough year so far for this archetype, which never seems to grab one accepted build. It certainly has always had winning potential, but for the past few season it has put up only mediocre results in tourney play. The top 4 offering this week dabbled a bit in the rebel sub-theme with Blightspeaker (able to get Riftwatcher), which I found to be a good idea for facing MUC. Obviously, this is something that has been done in the standard versions for some time. The only card selection I found curious was the main-deck Echoing Decay. I thought perhaps Nameless Inversion would be a good fit here with the Speaker to go get it especially with 3 toughness being a key number for many Classic creatures (note: i should read cards more closely, Speaker only gets Rebel "permanents" which was pointed out to me. proly why it wasn't used, duh.). I do however see the allure of sweeping or hitting multiples via Decay so I would say this would vary depending on the amount of R/G you expect to face. This build also chose to go the route of discard with many of its 187 creatures. It does not appear that this harmed it too much against Aggro in this tournament, as it was 2-0 versus Aggro in the Swiss. Should Orzhov make a revival, the successful build is one key to make note of. Also notable in its differing build is the winner for this week. The first place GW Cloak deck is very different from Angel Stompy in its approach, but has been successful in the past as well. I wanted to take a closer look at this build because it differs in a few ways from the top 4 GW Cloak deck from last weeks TPDC. Like many decks in PDC there are a variety of options available and it is important to sample each objectively to see which will fit best against the current field.

TPDC 7.04, 1st place
8 Snow-Covered Forest
6 Snow-Covered Plains
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Secluded Steppe
2 Selesnya Sanctuary

2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 River Boa
3 Phantom Nomad
3 Phantom Tiger
4 Nantuko Vigilante
4 Guardian of the Guildpact

4 Oblivion Ring

2 Seeds of Strength
2 Vulshok Morningstar
4 Armadillo Cloak

Sideboard
2 Sprout Swarm
2 Disenchant
4 Faith's Fetters
4 Coalition Honor Guard
3 Penumbra Spider

TPDC 7.03 Top 4
4 Armadillo Cloak
4 Faith's Fetters
5 Forest
2 Leonin Scimitar
3 Llanowar Elves
3 Nantuko Vigilante
4 Phantom Tiger
5 Plains
4 River Boa
2 Secluded Steppe
3 Selesnya Sanctuary
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
2 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Tranquil Thicket
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Guardian of the Guildpact
2 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Thrill of the Hunt

Sideboard
3 Coalition Honor Guard
3 Moment's Peace
4 Naturalize
2 Penumbra Spider
3 Temporal Isolation

The main differences between the two are:
Seeds of Strength vs Thrill of the Hunt
Vulshock Morningstar vs Leonin Scimitar
Oblivion Ring vs Faiths Fetters (main)
Sideboard Sprout Swarm
Sideboard Momentary Peace

Both builds have has success in past seasons and it is much too early to say which is better right now, but they should be examined for their differences and perhaps considered or re-considered.

The other two top 4 slots were occupied by MUC & Freed. As mentioned above I am happy to see Freed there because having a combo deck present in the metagame keeps players on their toes. There isn’t a lot to say about the MUC deck, it was a standard build. The most notable aspect I suppose is that in two consecutive tournaments (CPDC 7.05 & TPDC 7.04) it was beaten in the elimination rounds by a Cloak based deck.

The Field Analysis:

The remainder decks left out of the elimination round were: 7 Aggro, 2 Aggro Control, and 3 Control. Beyond Cloak, other Aggro decks continue to underperform this season both against MUC and Cloak. These problems will need to be solved if on is to punch through. Even though Burn Range has had a lot of trouble this season, I think it can still be worked to find a place. I simply must be adjusted to handle the current top threats a bit better and perhaps a bit less single minded.

Season Tracking & Head to Heads:

I have been waiting to look at some of the season trends for the first few weeks and I think I finally have some data worth looking at. Its not going to be in the form of charts and graphs really, but I just have taken a grasp of a few deck statistics that I have seen so far and think are important to take note of and will toss them out below:

1.Season Head to Head: MUC (5) vs Cloak Aggro (4) (note this is a very small sample size thus far, but I thought some would be interested to see how it is going)

Innovations, Changes, New Decks:

There weren’t any “new” deck types to break through this week as the top 4 was made up of decks we have all seen before. If I were to point to something different that is worth noting, it would be the use of Blightspeaker in the Blink deck. Like I mentioned, Orzhov Rebels has been run in Standard for some time successfully and it strikes me as useful to use this small sub-theme for a life loss supplement/CA tool in a deck that may have previously run out of gas.

Final Thoughts:

Mono Blue & Cloak. It’s not hard to see what you have to beat. For the past few seasons (I'm going to bunch Angel Stompy & GW Cloak together here, but I realize they are very different decks) these two deck types have been at the forefront of Classic PDC Tournaments. I took a peek back at my metagame article for the second half of Season 5, and I was not surprised to see them there as they are now at the top with the most finals appearances for that time period. Well, they are battling it out again this season, and again, there will need to be a balancing third to keep things in check. At that time, Black based control and Red based Aggro strategies were the secondary threats. These two are viable now although Red Aggro needs a bit of tuning it seems yet. I think the Metagame is beginning to take shape for this season, but a shakeup may come soon as Weatherlight is coming very soon. I expect to see some impact from this set as well. And we see midseason changes in many ways.

Hope you enjoyed reading.

Jaknife/Dave