Want to learn more about the metrics I use in tracking the metagame? You can find an explainer here.
The calendar has turned from May to June which means we are that many days closer to Final Fantasy.
Wow that feels weird to write.
Anyway, there were three Pauper Challenges last weekend and if we are looking exclusively at the numbers the trends established over the last seven weeks of the season have held largely true. While I would not describe the progression of Pauper through Tarkir Dragonstorm as perfectly linear, there is a steady line of best fit.
For example, 15 different archetypes made it to the Top 8 over the weekend with no single archetype taking down more than three slots (an average of one per Challenge). The two decks that hit the triple crown were Blue Terror and RDW – two of the more popular decks this season (but of note, not on the weekend). The recent tournaments also are showcasing Grixis Affinity’s slow descent from the top tier to merely a solid competitor (for the time being) and the steady rise of High Tide. One thing that I neglected to mention in my last post was the reappearance of Dimir Terror with its copies of Crawl from the Cellar, likely as a way to one up the Blue Terror players.
This chart provides us with a better image of what actually did well over the weekend. Adjusted Meta Score Above Replacement (aMSAR) is a metric that looks at both Swiss round performance and overall wins, while adjusting for number of appearances. In this model an “average” Top 32 deck will have a score of 0.00 for a given weekend – a positive number means an archetype outperforms the average while a negative score indicates a strategy did not meet expectations.
Blue Terror (aMSAR: 1.44) and High Tide (1.12) were the best archetypes on the weekend, setting themselves apart from the field. Given their Top 8 performances and Wins it makes sense that these two would get a boost in aMSAR as a Challenge Win is worth three wins in the formula for overall wins. Digging deeper, however, we see that Blue Terror was in a class by itself as the difference between it and High Tide was just a hair larger than the difference between High Tide and the next best deck – Elves (0.82).
Blue Terror has been a steady presence in Pauper since the release of Tolarian Terror but it really took off with the downshift of Cryptic Serpent. The intervening years have provided additional tools, the most valuable of which may just be Deem Inferior – a card that can set the opponent back on development and can undo at least a turn’s worth of investment (if not more). Blue Terror also is able to run a suite if cheap countermagic which affords pilots the opportunity to stymie opposing strategies. Cards like Spell Pierce may lack impact late but if you’re presenting five and six power creatures on turns three then there is not exactly a lot of time left in the game.
Blue Terror has also been one of the top decks all season long. The way I track the metagame affords me the opportunity to examine different archetypes both week over week and in aggregate. I divvy the seasons into four week chunks, which helps to identify trends, but I also will look at the sum total of results. Eight weeks in this is what the Challenge Metagame looks like for decks with above 2% of the metagame share (minimum 15 appearances):
The columns I would like you to focus on are True Volume and aMSAR. The former essentially weights a deck’s performance and adjusts it’s presence depending on how well an archetype performs. Blue Terror might only account for 10.55% of the overall metagame but it slightly improves upon that number here at 10.84%. The True Volume/Winner’s Metagame gives a solid impression of what you can expect to see at the top tables. And the story is fairly consistent: Blue Terror is leading the way followed by old stalwarts Grixis Affinity and RDW with Elves hot on their heels.
The next tier of the metagame is a scrum with High Tide, Jund Wildfire, Faeries, Bogles, and Flicker Tron all vying for Tier 2 supremacy. What stands out to me is how important Blue is in the current format. Three of the top seven decks are mono blue and Flicker Tron does lean heavily on blue spells to enact the endgame. Blue being good is nothing new and as such I would expect to see more Pyroblast decks moving forward. However one cannot simply carry a Red Elemental Blast into battle lest they be defeated by Elves or Jund Wildfire. The next crop of red decks need to have access to board control elements that can both go wide with Breath Weapon and tall to try and take out Writhing Chrysalis. This may mean dipping into another color for better removal as temporary answers like Stingscourger and Dead // Gone won’t cut the mustard. Even Journey to Nowhere might be lacking in a world with Nyxborn Hydra, but Feed the Swarm does look halfway decent in that specific situation.
If I had my brewers hat on I would be looking at a Mardu Cleansing Wildfire list – one less focused on Experimental Synthesizer/Glint Hawk shenanigans. I would want to build a deck with cheap answers that could match my opponent’s offense with a speedy defense. These decks have not exactly excelled this season but that’s part of the fun in trying to make it work – finding the right mix of cards to attack the metagame. What deck do you think you’d bring to Pauper these days?
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