Running The Numbers # 26

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 PDC, 8.02
Format - Classic, Matches

Before I get into the article, just a quick mention: We had a few first round Loss - Drops this week. I wanted to stress to players that a 1st round loss is far from the end of your day in a four round event. So, please stay in things.

This week the Saturday players worked out some aggression as over half the field was made up of Aggro decks and another four could be classified as Aggro-Control/Midrange. This is very similar to last season as the first two weeks were made up of 50% Aggro decks each week also. This trend lasted until about mid-season last year when Control and then later in the season Aggro-Control largely moved Aggro out the door. The main thing to watch here is how effective certain Control tools are against the Aggro weapons of the day. Right now we are seeing a spike in the play of Burn in these first couple of weeks. I think a few things may be causing this:

1. Introduction of Shard Volley into the Red arsenal. 

2. Mono Red Burn winning TPDC Season 7 Worlds. I think a few people saw this and are thus trying the strategy

3. A drop-off in the amount of lifegain elements in the current metagame. In the first 4 events of CPDC last season 36% of the decks had strong lifegain ability in their builds (most typically this included Aven Riftwatcher, Armadillo Cloak, or Black drain effects). In comparison, this season has seen only 26% of the same category (and in week 2 two of them were first round drops so you could bump the number to 19%).

Overall, I think the third point is most important. The Red Classic decks are very fast and have an element of inevitability when they reach the Mid-game against decks with out a lifegain component. In a Metagame without a lot of lifegain they can have an open door. However, as the lifegain in the Meta increases their success goes the opposite direction. So, this generally becomes a matter of time where we wait until players want to stop Red from doing well. We will see how the next few weeks play out. 

Along with the Red this week we had some Cloak too of both the Angel & GW variety. GW was very underplayed last season in CPDC so I am curious to see if it will re-emerge. One build did manage a Top 4 berth. An interesting Blue Aggro Control deck also Q'd for the Top 4 on the back of many counters and card advantage/utility creatures. I look at it as a mid-point between last season's Fish Aggro and MUC. It was effective on the day and I will mention it again in innovations below.

Looking at a complete breakdown for the event I will now move on to my high tech graph of the week:

Gatherling Entry

For information on the event itself you can find the Event Thread here:

Event Thread

Top 4 (top 8) Analysis:

At the host's discretion this week the event was shifted to a four round event. As I mentioned above there were some early drops and "technical difficulties" claimed two other players in the second round. By the beginning of the third round the field had slimmed to 8 players. Through the next two rounds they battled to leave us with a Top 4 of: (qualifying in this order) Mono U AC 4-0, GW Cloak 3-1, O-Blink 3-1, Mono Red Burn 3-1. The matchup went favorably in the Semi's for the Red deck and it avoided the life gainers to get past Mono Blue. In the other Semi, O-Blink overcame a typically poor matchup against GW Cloak. In the Final Mono Red met problems with Aven Riftwatchers and predictably it wasn't able to overcome them. Orzhov Blink returned to its late season 7 form to win in week 2.

Even though it came up short this week I want to put the Red deck under the Knife and take a look at what you might run up against in the coming weeks in CPDC.

Under The Knife: (i'm changing this section's name from The Spotlight b/c Sypher stole it. Blasted net-articler)

Mono Red Burn - 2nd Cpdc 8.02

4 Fireblast

4 Firebolt
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Incinerate
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
14 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Spark Elemental
2 Grapeshot
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Needle Drop
4 Rift Bolt
4 Shard Volley

There isn't a lot to dissect about the deck really as it is relatively single-minded. It is constructed with as many one and two mana burn spells (or zero mana in the case of Fireblast) as possible and carries only eight creatures that are really just burn spells themselves because they never stay on the board. It largely wants to ignore the opponent's plays and use all of its resources to kill as quickly as possible. Using creatures would only slow this strategy, as it would engage the opponent in combat. Lifegain is obviously the most effective strategy against a deck such as this because it will effectively cancel out a number of their spells as you regain life. In a build such as this there are not a lot of safeguards such as Oxidia Golem or Frostling to help handle problems like blockers or Cop Red. That direction is taken in decks such as Burn Range which has a more balanced 20 spell / 20 Creature / 20 Land Mix. The Sideboard is varied to battle Affinity, Creatures, Swarms, Blue, and Discard. I wonder about the 4 fireblast/4 Shard Volley mix on only 14 Mountains. I would additionally understand the desirability of running cycle lands, but in a deck that survives on raw speed I wonder how many games are given away to a turn lost to turn 1 Cave. Perhaps other adjustments to the land mix would better serve the deck's gameplan. Thus far we have been seeing more of this style of Burn than the traditional Burn Range which is important to not for Black players trying to use Tendrils of Corruption. Mono Red Burn has shown to be a threat in early going of Season 8 of CPDC. Time to put on the Metagaming shoes.

The Field Analysis:

Honestly, the rest of the field isn't much to look at because of all the early drops. A Burn Range build (different from Mono Red Burn) was able to garner 2 wins on the day, but I think it would have difficulty head to head with other Burn that is faster and able to easily kill its creatures sources of damage also so it may have to hide away for the time being. Also present was a Goblinstorm deck, but also I feel Mono Red Burn is a better option because it can win head to head and is more consistent. The storm had 1 win. A Mono Black Spirits Deck and a UR Control deck both were played to a win a piece. Finally, another Mono Red Burn & RnR deck grabbed a win a piece but both were dropped from the tourney in the second round.

Season Tracking & Head to Heads:

As we move into the season I will present stats as they are accumulated. In the early going I will toss out some interesting facts should they come up.

This week's fun fact is...Number of Red Decks (Burn Range, RDW, Mono Red Burn) in all Cpdc Top 4's Last season: 3...So far this season we have had 2 Finalists in the first 2 weeks.

Innovations, Changes, New Decks:

On the innovation front, the winning Blink list featured 3 Dawn Charm in the board. These seem an excellent call given the Red emergence. The fact that they also have some versatility is a bonus.  

Final Thoughts:

Week 2 bumped the attendance a bit and continued the Red deck trend. Much like last season we are also seeing a limited amount of Control in the early weeks. Will it take long for players to react? Week 3 is a day away...

Hope you enjoyed reading.

Jaknife/Dave