Abstract
In a meta that will span four months, including one Champions League, two International Championships, and 19 Regional level events across the world, the following question is extremely relevant: how can one build the best list of the best play for each event? In this article, I will be taking a deep dive into my general plan of testing, metagaming and deckbuilding – that being spreadsheets, research, and theory, as well as looking at my logic going into various types of events. In the more specific analyses, I will be addressing four questions: 1) Why did I play the deck/techs, 2) what went well, 3) what went poorly, and 4) what can be learned from this event? At the end, I also talk about my logic in the Junior/Senior division for deck building and deck choice, as I feel information on the younger divisions has always been sparse, and I have done well in all three divisions, giving me some insight into how they are different.
Testing
I do not like online clients. I have found I play significantly worse on them, and a lot of the time, your opponent won’t be playing optimally either. My two main ways of testing are via webcam with friends, or when I only have time for a game or two, pulling up the Limitless Tabletop on my monitor, and playing a top list from a previous event versus my personal list. This allows me to test against someone playing the targeted deck optimally, I can play against matchups that need testing, and I can reroute potential misplays, something that is very important in learning matchups and playing them at their best.
Typically, in testing games, my group will choose the suboptimal turn order (first/second), redraw hands if the targeted opposing deck draws a bad hand, and have only them draw mulligans. Of course, we do play natural games as well, but by stacking the odds against us, it really lets us see the strengths and weaknesses of a deck as a whole, and those of its tech inclusions. Furthermore, for some slower decks, we will test with a timer, which allows proper time management for the actual event, and makes sure we can finish a series confidently.
Deck choice: event results
For event results, I take a handful of questions into account: is it online or IRL? How many people played? What was the tournament structure? What was the metagame percentage? What did well? Finally, what were its matchups? As I mentioned earlier, I play worse online, and I know for a fact other people do as well, so one always needs to take online results with a grain of salt, and to mitigate this, I usually only pay attention to events with 120+ people, although for the first event in a format, it may go as low as 80 participants, just to gather more info. The amount of people playing is also really important, as in smaller events such as in Asia (besides Japan) or Australia, the meta becomes significantly more predictable, allowing for a more focused list, whereas for a 1500 player US event, it is much harder to narrow down what the meta will look like. Finally, for the non-deck based statistics, there is the tournament format. This is mainly relevant for online and Asian events, as they are typically best-of-1, which means decks are built differently, because they can’t afford to brick a game, or often don’t have enough time for control decks to prosper as they may do elsewhere. This all affects the relevance of the decks and techs that succeed.
Once all the logistical points are taken into account, then I will look at the Top 8-16 decks for smaller events, and for larger, up to Top 32 or occasionally 64, noting all the more unique decks/lists, or techs in top meta decks. Online events are quite nice for looking at these fringe decks because they allow me to track the matchups, which may prove if their placement was a fluke or not, as I have many a time seen a deck do well without hitting a BDIF. Looking at the techs and matchups of the top placements shows what they can deal with and what they are weak to, allowing me to adjust a list accordingly.
From here, I go into my preliminary testing, usually by myself, or one or two other testing partners, to get a feel for the deck, and making sure it’s a solid choice. Then, once I have a semi-refined list, it goes to the rest of the testing group for further theory, testing and fine-tuning, or it will occasionally just get thrown out.
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That is very interesting. Thank you. I also think the Mew League Battle deck release skewed the Meta for Juniors and Seniors recently. It wasn’t BDIF but it was Tier 1 and accessible.