The Monday Mulligan: Week 21

Gatherling Metagame Breakdown

Number of players: 28

Play-offs:
Storm Control by SypherSun
Storm Control by JMason
Storm Control by Bodeddie
URw Burning Skies by cRUMMYdUMMY
Grimdrifter by Phi_Delt125
WB Rebels by Spills
Storm Control by stiffdiddypinky
URw Burnt Blink by ZeroFusion

Metagame:
Aggro - 4
Control: - 9
Aggro-Control: - 10
Aggro-Combo: - 0
Mid-range: - 1
Unclassifiable - 4

Discussion:
Last week we had an incredibly diverse top eight. Not this week, with four Storm Control, two Burnt Blink and both a Rebels and a Grimdrifter deck. Except Rebels, all of these decks play blue, except Rebels and Grimdrifter, all of these decks pack red. Considering the entire meta, 83% of the decks played blue and 46% red. Any questions what the best colors in Morningtide Standard are?

The event was one of the weirdest I have run in quite some time. Every round took rediculously long, far longer than I am used to. Is it the huge amount of control and aggro-control decks this week, or does v3 and its "click-lag" contribute to longer events? I think it might have been a combination, but I did saw matches with 15 minutes on the clock (total) that start an hour ago; weird. According to MPDC's "new" structure, four rounds of Swiss are run with more than 24 players to increase fairness. Long rounds, making the finals and four round of Swiss resulted in me going to bed at 4:45 am. I was quite awake at college four hours later though.

One disadvantage of the long events is the number of drops. This weeks event was even worse. The fourth round was started with 14 of the registered 28 players, just 50%! Remember that you can go 2-1 or 2-2 and make top eight, so don't drop if you go 0-1 or even 0-2 (4 Swiss) in the first one/two rounds.

Comming out of the Swiss unbeaten was Phi_Delt125's Grimdrifter deck packing white for Riftwatcher and Blink. Grimdrifter or Slipstick type decks were running quite good at the beginning of the season, but this is the first time one has made play-offs in quite a few events. He took advantage of his plentyfull discard to beat two of the Storm Control decks in the Swiss. He lost in the top eigth to lucky player cRUMMYdUMMY, he was 1-3, with Burnt Blink (aggro-variant), in my eyes a difficult matchup for the deck because of the quick clock and the tempo orientation of the deck.

The other no-red packing deck was Rebels, which made its second top eight in two weeks. Going 2-2 in the Swiss, he got in due to drops, but got paired against SC for the second time and lost once again. There is just too much mass-removal in the deck for the x/1 Rebels.

Two of the SC decks went 3-1, while the other two went 2-2 in the Swiss. The play-offs that followed were a marathon of mirrors, with one in the quarter-, one in the semi- and one in the finals. The winning list only played the mirror in the finals, beating two Burnt Blink decks during top eigth and four. I think, as I talked about in the event thread, that I won the finals due to my sideboarding strategy. Nevertheless, they were three very close games, going back and forth multiple times.

The meta has seen a considerable drop-off in aggro decks; 35% last week versus 14% this week. Control replaced these aggor lists, going from 20 to 32%, while aggro-control remained roughly the same (40->36%).

The cyclic nature of the meta demands next weeks most succesfull decks to be Grimdrifter with lots of discard and Red Deck Wins, because both can beat Storm. You could also try to beat the meta and play White Weenie again (pack those Martyrs SB!), but if Storm stays for another week, you will be toast.

Good luck!

Next monday I'd like to do a little experiment. Everyone who wants to voice-chat between rounds can hook up to PureMTGO's Ventrilo server and join the old Princes of Pauper chat room. So i install Ventrilo, type in the server stats (vent.puremtgo.com, port#7126) and hook up! If you want to try it out, I'll be on Ventrilo if I'm online.

According to this post from Worth, Shadowmoor will be likely released Monday 2nd of June. This will also end the Morningtide season of MPDC, A.K.A. MPDC2. The MPDC2 championship will therefore be held the day of Shadowmoor release, the second Monday from now. The top 32 players after next Monday's MPDC2.11 will be invited to compete for a shiny golden banner and eternal fame. Shadowmoor will NOT be legal at the Championship. If for any reason Shadowmoor is not released on time, MPDC season 3 will start the first Monday it is on sale. Untill then the timespot may be highjacked for more casual events, like draft, AltPDC or even GMT block.