MUC was on vaka for a bit. It never goes away for long though. This past week it soured the day for Aggro once again.

Running the Numbers #17
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, 7.09
Format – Classic, Matches
To make this quick, sorry for the delay. Time is in short supply these days. This past Tuesday brought out a very large crowd of 21 players. Nice to see in a Classic event. I have been very happy that the attendance overall for the Tuesday event has been high the whole season in fact. This week again we see a large amount of Aggro with a sprinkling of AC and Control. However, this week when it can to the Top 4 there were 3 Control decks left and only one Aggro. This is something that happens a lot as many of the rogue deck we see at Classic tourneys are of the Aggro type. While the field may be heavily slanted there, players need to keep in mind that eventually they will have to play the control decks and this will more likely be in the later rounds or Top 8/4. in short..be prepared. In specific matches this week. we saw Angel Stompy lose to GR Beats. Not quite a trend as yet, but if it repeats we will have to look into builds to find why. Affinity came out in three decks, but only mustered 2 total wins. I wonder how the testing is going. We also had a couple of R/G Beats decks there. One made top 8 and lost there. This old powerhouse just doesn’t seem to be there right now. To take a quick tangent, I actually tend to think not enough time is being spent in R/G these days. Looking at the tools it has been given in recent sets and how its existing tools fit into the current metagame I feel players of this archetype are stuck traveling old roads when there are perhaps some different methods that can be tried. For the breakdown or this week in full, lets take a closer look:
TPDC 7.09: 21 Players
Control - 4: Rats & Removal, MBC (2), MUC,
Aggro – 14: RB Husk, Mono Black Zombies, Affinity (3), RDW, Blue Zoo, Stars & Cogs,
G/R Beats (2), Brute Fear, Angel Stompy, GB Dredgehold,
Midrange (aggro control) – 2: Orzhov Blink, R/G LD
Unknown -: RW
Combo – 3: Freed
Aggro Combo – 0:
Top 4 (top 8) Analysis:
When we scaled down to the Top 8 on Tuesday we were left with 5 Aggro decks and 3 Control. In total, this top 8 was quite strong in the represented control Archetypes. I wasn’t the least surprised to see 3 of the 4 move on to the top 4. RnR faced off versus GB Dredgehold in one quarter and moved along to the semis. I will touch on the Dregde deck below as a lot has been added from Weatherlight. MBC defeated R/G Beats in another quarterfinal match. I mentioned earlier in the season that MBC comes in so many different builds it is hard to hammer down what works best. This build featured 4 Aboms, 8 Corrupts, and 19 Removal Spells for reference (2 Crypt Rats). Stars & Cogs took out Affinity in another quarter and it continues to do very well in the Tuesday event. Its only weak points would appear to be the stronger Black and Blue control decks that can overcome its card advantage. Otherwise it has proven very strong this season. Finally, in the last quarterfinal MUC defeated RDW. I always expect this matchup to go the other way, but Red can’t seem to get it going. In the Semis MBC & RnR faced off. This is always a close matchup as it amounts to something of a mirror, but MBC has greater reach and RnR more disruption (depending on the MBC build, I am speaking in general). It is a tough fight for RnR, and usually 50/50. This time MBC came out ahead. The other Semi was MUC vs Stars & Cogs. It has been said that a big problem for Stars is MUC and it came up here again. This doesn’t mean the deck isn’t good. Every deck has a bad matchup or two. However, as the end of season approaches it will be key to watch the popularity of MUC and gague its expected appearance if you are a Stars & Cogs fan. In the Final MBC took on MUC in a control face-off. Without having seen the actual match it is hard for me to make comment on how it played out, but looking at the MBC list, it appears it lacks the sideboard tools to put up a sufficient fight head to head vs MUC. This can obviously be remedied and may just be a case of a misread meta. However, I do have concerns right now about Black’s ability to find the proper sideboard answers to MUC that don’t strain the board commitment vs other decks too much. It is always a process to fight every opponent, at some point you must decide which are most important to your overall deck’s success.
The Field Analysis:
The remainder decks left out of the elimination round were: 9 Aggro, 2 Aggro Control, 1 Control and 1 Combo. Just as last week many Aggro were left out, but with so many starting out this is inevitable. It is impressive though to see three out of 4 control decks making the cutoff. The only control non-qualifier was another MBC much more slanted to discard. With an Aggro meta right now a removal heavy main just seems like the better choice for Black control. Orzhov Blink actually made Top 8 on points but had to drop so it continues to show well in the Tues event. This build was the Mulldrifder variety that has had more overall success this season. Angel Stompy missed out but I’m gonna call it an off week. Finally, Affinity still fails to put up the wins for the most part as 2 of the 3 entrants go down early.
Season Tracking & Head to Heads:
Here are the season records for the top performing TPDC decks thus far and the most played decks for this season. Head to Heads will be out next week.
Records –
Stars & Cogs: 17-7
Angel Stompy: 11-4
MUC: 19-10
Orzhov Blink: 23-15
GW Cloak: 13-9
MBC: 17-12
Most Played –
MUC: 10
Orzhov Blink: 10
MBC: 9
RG Beats: 8
Affinity: 8
Stars & Cogs: 7
Innovations, Changes, New Decks:
There were a few different things this week that I’d like to put comment on here. I liked the RG LD deck that was run for its use of Durkwood Baloth as a win condition. I think this is certainly something that needs alot of refining, but the thought of suspend and LD I liked. I can’t comment on the Dredgehold deck because the pilot hasn’t posted it, but some new Weather light cards have perhaps added to this older strategy to give it new life. I do think the build that was played on Tuesday was rough in that some of the choices may have competed with the deck’s overall synergy (Barrow Ghoul) and the deck may need to add some removal or disruptive elements to the main to compete against the faster Aggro decks it will face. However, I like the use of Haunting Misery (with caution) myself because it provides G/B with reach that it has previously not had and think this presentation has at given us a start into what may be possible with some of the new Weatherlight toys that others haven’t used much yet. Finally, I took note of the use of Dragon Engine in the finalist MBC’s sideboard. Dross Golem or Pewter Golem have been popular in the past for colorless damage and GOTG defense, but this may be an even better answer as it is pumpable to reach any toughness and is available at a reasonable cost mana wise. A good choice that I am surprised I missed.
Final Thoughts:
Still a lot of Aggro here, but as you can see from the most played decks there are control decks to prep for as well. Be aware and prepared. I’ll try to get next issue out before the day of.
Hope you enjoyed reading.
Jaknife/Dave

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 8:18 am and is filed under Classic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.