January 13-14 Pauper Weekend Recap

I use a few different metrics when looking at the Top 32 metagame. The first is just Raw Volume. The second is Win+, which takes the sum of all wins at X-2 or better in the Swiss and assigns a score; Win+ is helpful in measuring a deck’s Swiss round performance. K-Wins takes all of a deck’s wins and subtracts its losses, Top 8 inclusive; this helps to give a measure of overall performance. The final pair is call Meta Score and Meta Score Above Replacement, which takes the average of Win+ and K-Win to try and position an archetype against its field. This number helps to provide the most robust image of a deck’s performance.

The January 13 and January 14 Challenges provide us with some confounding data. Leading up to the weekend Magic Online was experiencing a significant outage and it is possible that it impacted participation in the Saturday Challenge (40 entrants, 39 participants). The result was a six round event where several 2-4 records made the Top 32. While it is not uncommon to see one or two such records make this threshold, seven such players achieved this feat on Saturday. As a result the data set is pulling from multiple records with a negative score in both Win+ and K-Win. Even if this does muddy the waters a bit it still provides the opportunity for insight. First let’s look at the archetypes as broken down by total entrants.

The top of the metagame, at least as far as people perceive it, remains similar. Kuldotha Red and Jeskai Glitters both apply significant pressure to opposing life totals with low to the ground threats, backing them up with Galvanic Blast. It is not just about the board presence with these decks but also their ability to chew up huge chunks of health of a minuscule mana investment. Black Gardens takes on the role CawGate assumed last week as playing foil to the assertive strategies. We are seeing a format that currently revolves around Galvanic Blast and its ability to not only close out games but also pick off a significant majority of threats that can be presented. If you travel down the popularity chart you will see plenty of decks that have a plethora of tasty targets for the Scars of Mirrodin standout.

And today I want to focus on one of them: Elves.

I am not going to sit here and tell you that I thought Elves would be a good choice going into last weekend, because the deck was barely on my radar. The abundance of good board wipes that have entered the format as of late have put a road block in front of the pointy eared horde. When it comes to creature based hypermana decks, Axebane Guardian is more resilient than Priest of Titania. Yet Elves put up two Top 8 finishes on Saturday, including a win. The big difference I see in these builds over the last time Elves was putting up solid numbers is the density of reload spells. Previous wisdom said that Elves could run two thirds of Distant Melody, Lead the Stampede, and Winding Way. The latest successful iterations throw that out the window and instead run 11 of 12 possible copies. This means some redundancy in actual bodies is lost but makes up for it in the potential to completely reload after a spate of removal or board wipes. With six total appearances over the weekend and three total Top 32 finishes, I wouldn’t say Elves is back on the map but it is certainly a deck worth watching moving forward.

When we look at the Top 32 data, the three decks that led the way from raw volume also did the same once they got past the cutoff. But when we look at the winner’s meta volume things look stark: Black Gardens tops the field at 14.99% with Kuldotha Red not far behind at 13.58%. Jeskai Glitters, hamstrung by several sub-500 finishes, only took down 1.86% of the winner’s metagame volume. I would not read too much into this low number as it is a byproduct of the small field on Saturday but it might indicate that sideboards are adjusting to the deck’s position in the meta. Elves, our featured deck of the day, came in with a healthy 11.43% of the winner’s meta. Looking at these decks through adjusted Meta Score Above replacement we get the following:

• Elves: 1.68
• Black Gardens: 1.58
• Dimir Terror: 0.96
• Kuldotha Red: 0.8
• Grixis Affinity: 0.43

Jeskai Glitters had a aMSAR score of -0.62, meaning it performed worse than an average Top 32 deck.

For next week I would be keen on trying to make Sulfurous Blast work. This sweeper has the advantage of being able to hit three toughness creatures while also pressuring life totals. The recent spate of Red Tron decks might be able to find a home for this card and given the way the field looks this more assertive big mana deck could prove to be a strong meta call.

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