All results:
First, it may be a good idea to just look at the general results, across all my testing in the TPR. This includes all the horrific decks.
Aggro:
135-89 (60%) in games.
71-38 (65%) in matches.
Control:
64-37 (63%) in games.
29-13 (69%) in matches
Ramp:
32-51 (39%) in games
15-23 (39%) in matches
Combo:
9-4 (69%) in games
4-2 (67%) in matches
Other: (aka terrible/unknown)
19-4 (83%) in games
15-1 (94%) in matches
Overall:
259-185 (58%) in games
134-77 (64%) in matches
Filter out the junk.
For this report, I am going to concentrate chiefly on decks that I have qualified as "tournament worthy", based on a few rough guidelines.
A) Presence of high-value rares. (People won't buy Gideons, Jaces, Primeval Titans just to play in the TPR)
B) Presence of foil cards. (These are 2-100x more expensive than normal cards, see (A))
C) Alignment with known good archetypes. (Even if these players aren't awesome, I'm still competing with a T1 deck - and it's also pretty hard to say they are making mistakes when I can see my hand, and not theirs.)
Hopefully this filtering will cut down on some of the problems with the TPR mentioned above.
From here on, only "Tournament Caliber" decks will be discussed.
Overall TC results across all testing.
Aggro:
93-76 (55%) in games.
46-32 (59%) in matches.
Control:
58-32 (64%) in games.
27-11 (71%) in matches.
Ramp:
25-46 (35%) in games.
12-21 (36%) in matches.
Combo:
4-3 (57%) in games.
2-2 (50%) in matches.
Overall:
180-157 (53%) in games.
87-66 (57%) in matches.
Key observations from this:
51% of all matches were aggro.
--Probably a skew for the TPC. Aggro is "funner", and definitely cheaper than other options.
2.5% of matches were combo (mostly mirror matches)
--Good, most people will be unprepared for this matchup, and not be as skilled in playing it.
--Ramp and control are an order of magnitude more common.
71% match win% against control
--This may be a result of the Spell Pierces I had early, the Negates I have now, or just the patience I have with this matchup now.
--I would not have said that this matchup is favorable, but it is clearly my highest win% in both categories. The losses mostly feel winnable, and so any losing here is just bad. (Aggro games where you get steamrolled, or face 2x bloodghast t3, don't feel like they can be won, so they don't sting as bad)
59% match win% against aggro.
--This is the most prevalent matchup, and I am not dominating it nearly as well as I could, especially considering the number of cards I have for this matchup.
--Sideboard cards are definately warranted here.
--It is possible that certain matchups are giving specific trouble, and those could be targetted from the side.
We took about a 5% match win% hit across the board to move from "all results" to "all results bgrasher considers tournament worthy"
--We'll probably take a similar hit just moving into a real tournament.
--Unless the people with terrible decks also queue up for tourneys with them!
Match win% by deck:
| -1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| aggro | 65% | 48% | 64% | 62% |
| control | 67% | 73% | 69% | 75% |
| ramp | 50% | 40% | 38% | 14% |
| combo | 0% | N/A | 67% | N/A |
For the aggro match-up, deck -1 had no Staggershock, probably 4 Pyroclasm, and 8 1-mana burn spells. Deck 0 had 2 Pyroclasm, 8 burn. Deck 1 had 8 burn, 2 Pyroclasm, and deck 2 had 8 burn and 4 Staggershock. All decks had 4 Pyroclasm between main and side.
For the control match-up, it's been pretty consistently high. I've had 1 sphinx in all the match-ups, and staggershock is a heck of a lot better than Pyroclasm in this match-up. (Same with Treasure Hunt vs See Beyond). Deck 0 and 1 had 4 Kiln Fiends. I'm sure they won me some games on their own, but it seems like this match-up is fairly well in-hand, whether I bring Negate, or Kiln Fiend. Kiln Fiend T2 just kills some of them. And some of them kept in creature removal post-sideboard, and the KF's did little.
For the ramp match-up, I think the chief reason for the fall off is that the ramp decks I played earlier in my career were worse than the ramp decks I played later. The ones I beat early were things like RG Ramp without Primeval Titan (Bouncing Wurmcoils is good), or a few MGE players who conceded after G1. I've had a lot of ramp games go 1-2 against me, if I can take game 1. So in general, I think that the low volume of these decks, and the relatively loose qualification of some decks as ramp, when I've a 0-n record against MGE/Valakut+Titan in full matches across all decks has caused the perceived fall off here, when it hasn't really changed much.
The combo match-up is few and far between. I'm winning the mirrors, thanks to main-deck ITR, and superior burn spells or land main-deck. (now) Spell Pierce varied between awesome and terrible here.
Conclusions
Clearly, 4 sideboard cards (either Arc Trail or Pyroclasm) are warranted due to the high volume of aggro decks. Which of these is best is a matter of some debate. I'm taking out 4 Mana Leaks (can't wait around to counter against aggro), which does hurt sometimes when they play a Planeswalker, but burn and bounce can keep them in control. (Am I making a case for Arc Trail? Probably...)
I'm doing things right against control. Having about 4 cards to bring in to deal with control seems like plenty. Whether they should be hard-counters that can target Planeswalkers, Titans, and PA-hate, or sidestep win conditions like Kiln Fiend, or Sphinx, or Random crazy stuff like Volition Reigns, may make little difference.
I'm clearly needing improvement vs Ramp decks. The most important of which are RG Valakut, MGE, and RUG/BUG. Jaces, Lands, Titans, Traps, and other green utility creatures (Revenge, Slime, Terrastrodon) are proving difficult for my deck to deal with.
Combo decks are going to come down to playstyle, and I'm getting much better there. Superior main-deck burn, and whatever counters are brought in for control/ramp will suffice here.
In a future post, I'll look more in-depth into the sub-match-ups. There is almost certainly some portion of the aggro and control field that are giving me more trouble than normal.
Appendix: Caveats:
Hard data > Remembering "how it went".
I have been keeping track of my wins and losses, for several reasons.
A) People remember the things that they tend to remember due to their personality (either the wins, the losses, the close games, the bad beats, etc), which is different for each person. I have results like this, where I thought I was terrible against control, because I lost some long, nail-biter games, but I was in fact something like 8-3 against control decks, which is quite good.
B) People are very bad at accurate statistical representations of past events, especially combined with (1)
C) I like keeping notes. Yes, I'm obsessive.
D) I want a accurate representation of how I, and my deck, perform, so I can judge the impact of changes, see where I need help, and so on.
E) Having an idea of the metagame is important.
Caveats to everything here:
A) These are games in the Tournament Practice Room(TPR). The real pros are not going to spend their time here, they'll know their decks, and just go to the main tournament areas in order to get virtual $ for their time.
B) People may not be playing to their fullest when in a "casual" setting. People may abandon a match if they don't like playing against your deck, because there are more matches starting all the time. I have many aggro matchups where the person just bails out during sideboarding, against my relatively controlling deck.
C) People may have horrible decks, decks with no chance, decks that they are just playing with.
D) There are known differences between this practice room and real tournament settings. WotC studies card counts between them, and makes decisions on what sort of cards to release in future sets based on this data.
We need to remember this, and not be too surprised if real tournament results (which I will also catalog) take a hit in comparison to these numbers. If I beat "aggro" decks 80% of the time in the TPR, and 60% of the time in a real tournament, that'd be about what I expect.
Some other problems.
When a guy skipped out on my during sideboarding, I originally credited myself with a 2-0 in games (presuming I won game one). However, with all this data, I have only credited myself with a 1-0 in games for these scenarios. I may very well win 2-0 in a real tournament, but I didn't have to actually get that win, and I have definately lost to aggro decks that have stuck it out and brought in nightmare cards like Leatherback Baloth, or Leyline of Sanctity post-board. I don't want to overly pad my score here, because I care more about accuracy, than the ego-bump I might get for having a bunch of 2-0's against some kiddie who bailed against a "gay" control deck.
Match win% and game win% will rarely be equal. The further game win% gets away from 50%, the more it pumps match win% up. So if I have a 90% game win%, it translates into something like a 97.2% match win%(10%L -> 10%L = 1%, + 10%L -> 90% W -> 10% L = .9% + 90%W -> 10% L -> 10% L = .9% = 2.8% chance that the 90% guy loses a best two out of three)
Deck Type Vocabulary:
"Aggro" decks are looking to attack from early turns. They play aggressive creatures, like Vampire Lacerator, Goblin Guide, and Memnite. They tend to be slanted towards the low end of the curve, and rarely have anything for more than 4-5 mana. Examples of this type of deck are WW-quest, RDW, Boros, Vampires, Elves, and so on.
"Control" decks tend to be classified by their desire to respond to what the other deck is doing. They play removal, few (if any) big creatures, sweepers, discard, and the like. They have cheap "answers", but they often have a handful of expensive, powerful cards that will swing the game in their direction. These decks often have Blue, for countermagic, Jace, and the like, but it is not strictly required. UW (control), UB (control), UR(Destructive force), and RW non-aggro are typical control decks.
RUG, and BUG can be control, or ramp. (4x explore, 4x lotus cobra, 4x oracle is ramp, 4x mana leak, 4x Jace is control) My classification is shakiest on these hyper-hybrid decks is done on a case-by-case basis, and probably mood-effected.
"Ramp" decks are designed to accelerate their mana quite quickly, to play powerful threats like Primeval Titan, Emrakul, or Inferno Titan before your aggro opponent can kill you, or before your control opponent can set up an appropriate response. They devote a large portion of their deck to mana acceleration via creatures or lands, and drop 6-9 mana spells on turn 3-5. Examples of ramp decks are Mono-Green Eldrazi, RG Valakut, and UG "TurboLand".
"Combo" decks are set up to put together a combination of cards that wins the game whatever your opponent might be doing. They rarely have creatures, and tend to have quite a bit of card draw, in order to find the hyper-specialized cards they are looking for. They often have disruption for their opponent, through either discard or countermagic, to give them additional time to set up their combo. Examples of combo decks are Pyromancer Ascension, Fauna Shaman heavy decks, and Necrotic Ooze decks.
"Other" decks are either decks that could not easily be classified because the opponent didn't do anything over the course of the game, or decks playing profoundly bad cards. Many of the casual decks are found here, and these are typically filtered out before serious analysis is provided.
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