Me5794 Wins BPDC 1.01!

METAGAME

Is it any wonder why I like this format so much? All four of the T4 decks featured red, and in total five of the T8 decks drew power from Mountains. Green was the next most successful color, with Forests showing up in 50% of the playoff decklists. White showed up in three lists, black in two, and everybody's favorite (blue) made only one T8 appearance.

1st - HULK SPLICE by Me5794
2nd - WISDOM SPLICE by Dreager_Ex
T4 - PROSPERITY by idoru
T4 - BAKU SPLICE by Polyjak
T8 - BAKU SPLICE by 53N531
T8 - SPIRIT ROCK by eegag
T8 - BLACK PAW by ShardFenix
T8 - SHIMMERING SPIRITS by WoCoNation

Breakdown by Color

Looking solely at what color pairs players used last night at BPDC 1.01, we see the following percentages:

18% -
14% -
14% -
11% -
7% -
7% -
7% -
4% -
4% -
4% -
4% -
4% -
4% -

And, strictly by color:

- 32%
- 21%
- 19%
- 17%
- 11%

If you would like to see percentage breakdown by archetype, well... so would I. Unfortunately, that is more work than I am willing to put in. We'll have to wait until Gatherling gives us that information. =)

The Decks

It's clear that Spiritcraft Beats and Baku Splice were the two big winners, in terms of success rates, from last night. Despite a whopping five varieties of , the color pair just couldn't break into the T8, perhaps serving as evidence of that tidbit of wisdom I had passed on in an earlier article: Ire ain't so good in block. (Evu said the same thing many months ago.) I do believe has a competitive build, but it may not be just right in this aggro-heavy metagame. Mono-black builds were also prevalent, but only one squeezed into the T8 brackets. I still believe that mono-black is a strong archetype in this format, and it will take a crafty deck-builder (or tweaker) to hit upon the correct build. Is ShardFenix's T8 list the best starting place?

So, what was missing from the metagame last night? Zuberas! Greed decks! Control! Some color pairs just didn't have anything to say last night, notably , , and . There were no takes on mono-blue or mono-green. There is still plenty of room for exploration in this metagame, and that should be a bit more comfortable for us now that we see what our big concerns should be (namely, R/x aggro).

Predictions

Far be it from me to throw fuel on the fire, but I could see some kind of control deck popping up which abuses Spiritual Visit and Devouring Greed for a spooky and perhaps lethal lifedrain. A green splash may be useful for such cards as Traproot Kami and Vital Surge, as well as other quality splice spells. In fact, the deck could probably start with a base and splash into white if need be. There are a couple directions to take the deck. One could do worse than to start by having a look at Eegag's Spirit Rock deck.

Consuming Vortex is a strong card against ; tourney results show that had pretty good game against . The typically fragile color pair is a bit stronger in this block than many players realize, even without the aid of Momentary Blink or those other cards...

As with any new metagame, aggro takes the crown early but control will soon learn tricks to foil the aggressors.

THE SCOREBOARD

I will update the scoreboards later in the week once I give the last few players a chance to get their lists into Gatherling before forfeiting their bonus points for good.

Starting with the next article, I will also be able to provide 'Power Rankings,' which track a player's T8 potency.

Stay tuned, practice up, and see you next Monday evening for BPDC 1.02!