Lessons from Week One of the Iowa Pretq’s

First, let’s go ahead and tally up the decks that made it to the top 8 of the two Iowa Pretq’s:

Top 8 of First Turn Games:

Grixis Suicide Squad – I

Infect – I

U/R Twin – I

Grixis Twin – I

R/G Tron – II

Affinity – II

Top 4:

Grixis Suicide Squad – I

R/G Tron – I

Infect – I

U/R Twin – I

Finals:

Grixis Suicide Squad – I

U/R Twin – I

Winner:

Grixis Suicide Squad – I

Top 8 of Iowa City Games:

Naya Zoo – I

Faeries – I

Elves – I

B/W Tokens – I

R/G Tron – I

Affinity – I

Infect – I

Grixis Control – I

Top 4:

Naya Zoo – I

Faeries – I

Elves – I

B/W Tokens – I

Finals:

Faeries – I

Elves – I

Winner:

Elves – I

Lesson One: Welcome to the Jungle

From my brief foray at the second tournament at Iowa City Games, and my win at the first Pretq at First Turn Games, I believe I can safely say I saw between 12-16 different archetypes at a bare minimum at each event. This modern meta is a jungle to prepare for, and just when you think you have it figured out, something shifts or attacks out of nowhere. As many pro’s have stated for a while, you need to have sideboard cards that fulfill broad roles, not specific one’s. If you read my previous post, you’ll note that my side boarding strategy lays out all the roles I need a particular deck to fulfill post-board given a diverse meta, and which cards potentially fill those roles. Then we look at a given percentage of decks, and choose our broad role-fillers from that selection.

Lesson Two: If you can’t beat a turn 3 Karn being cast, change your strategy

R/G Tron is all the rage currently, from taking down ALL the SCG modern events, to seeing much heavier play in Iowa. Karn getting reprinted again, and Ugin being printed for the first time has led to this archetype being more widely available, and plenty of people are embracing it wholeheartedly. There were 4 tron players at my Pretq, and at least 2 in the subsequent one. This actually led to two tribal decks making a run to the finals (Faeries and Elves). Elves is just a turn faster than Tron is on average, and Faeries has no issues dealing with tron players going at full strength (upkeep mistbind clique is still a savage beating, as is cryptic command and remand against them).

I expect to see R/G Tron players stick with their archetype all season, as do typically most affinity, twin, jund, and junk players. When you’ve spent the money putting together a tier 1 archetype, the typical result is you stick to your tier one archetype regardless of its position in the metagame. Note that Infect did rather well this past weekend, I think this was in no small way due to the resurgence of R/G Tron and that deck’s ability to win that match-up with relative ease.

Lesson Three: Stop expecting to know the meta

This modern format is diverse, and we’ve started having an amusing effect where mainstream decks see less play simply because sideboard strategies are prepared for them, leading to matchup like Faeries v. Elves, or Blue Tron being played in general. This may seem to contradict the previous lesson, but allow me to re-phrase this briefly. If you play a tier 1.5 or tier 2 deck, odds are high that you are rotating through a variety of these decks in an attempt to pick the correct rogue deck for a particular weekend’s metagame. This has led to some truly amusing archetypes making a run for the envelope.

In the end, you may be able to pick out what players in your meta typically play (I have a list I keep updated so I know in general what I’m up against, and I scout after each round for any players I believe could take down the tourney to make sure I know what they’re running), but you should be ready to play against the weirdest combo deck of your life every once in a while. I personally lost a thursday night tourney to a turn 2 Narset, Enlightened Master combo deck.

Lesson Four: Know your sequencing

The difference between your average modern player and the one that consistently top 8’s is knowing how your opponent will sequence his strategy. Some of these are incredibly easy to figure out (See Burn or R/G Tron). Each deck does the same redundant thing each game with minor variations, and once you have their sequencing down, you can play around/through it. Other decks are more difficult to figure out (Grixis Twin, Jund, Junk, and most mid-range lists), as they are structured to adapt to the field of any given Sunday, and player competency/playstyle counts for a lot when you’re up against them as to how they’ll play out a given hand.

Lesson Five: Lose your preconceived notions of what is good in this format

This isn’t legacy, where the same archetypes continue year after year with minor changes, nor is this standard where after two months the meta goes completely stale. This is the only format that has enough cards to consistently reinvent itself, but not so many specific power cards that innovation can’t compete with existing archetypes. There are no eternal truths in this eternal format, there are only current ideas that range in degree’s of accuracy.

Comment if you have anything in Modern you’d like me to cover specifically for next time, and thanks for reading. – Ginger Jon