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Metagame Masters Berlin Highlander Vol.3 (48 Players)

Started by berlinballz, 09-08-2015, 01:43:51 PM

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berlinballz

Yesterday we held the third highlander tournament of our MGM series. The tournout was great with 48 players, especially regarding the fact that we had 33 degrees and a lot of sun in Berlin. Deck variety and quality felt high and some scary shit was happening deckwise with some great players showing up and piloting new decks to the top8 that so far hadn't been on the radar and had not succeeded in larger tournaments. Carsten won the whole thing with his storm list that he plays better than most and which got another push from Fastbond which felt broken in half at times. Congrats to Carsten who finally won after he top8ed each of the MGMs so far. The atmosphere was great, no one died from the heat and I'm sure our awesome judges led by the newest council member will help provide an exact analysis of what happened. Thanks to everyone wo came, even travelling in from out of town, to the judges, the staff at Der Andere Spieleladen and mr. coverage, tabris, who captured some of the greatness on camera for the world to see. Have fun checking the stuff out and readying yourself to maybe taking part in MGM Vol. 4 in November.

Dr. Opossum

Metagame Masters 3

General information:
Place: Berlin
Store: Der andere Spieleladen
Date: Saturday, 8.8.2015

Tournament details:
Number of registered players: 48
Number of rounds: 6 with Top 8 afterwards
Tournament start: 11:15
Begin of first round: 11:30
Begin of first Top 8 round: 18:15


The decklists of the Top 8 Players can be found at MTGPulse at:

http://mtgpulse.com/event/21084#298973


A list of the participants including decktypes will follow soon.

Dr. Opossum


Rank   NameArchetypePoints   Rank after Swiss
1Kötter, CarstenTPS161
2Templin, PaulArtifact Combo136
3Doernbach, LucaGrixis Midrange142
4Muench, JanUWb Control134
5Quade, Christoph4c Goodstuff (w/o W)143
6Bruch, Tobias4c Oath Control (w/o R)   135
7Hofer, MaxGrixis Control137
8Kauf, JaminJeskai Control138
9Severin, ThoralfEggs12
10Rausch, Oliver4c Blood12
11Streithof, HenrikRDW12
12Zohren, CedricMono U Aggro12
13Roth, NilsSultai Midrange11
14Meinke, Peter4c Blood10
15Dethloff, Jan5c Aggro10
16Voigt, AntonGrixis Control10
17Dünisch, JanUWb Control10
18Ulbricht, MarianWhite Wheenie10
19Hellmann, GerritJeskai Control9
20Markworth, SörenIzzet Control9
21Fischer, TomEggs9
22Snootspill, Snootspill4c Blood9
23Wagner, Tino4c Blood9
24Schlichting, HendrikBant Midrange9
25Schumacher, StefanSultai Tempo8
26Mielke, Fabian4c Blood8
27Kurpicz, Florian5c Goodstuff8
28Lange, OliverSultai Oath Control8
29Heinrich, LucaJeskai Twin Combo7
30Ehrich, NiclasWhite Wheenie6
31Klein, AlexanderEggs6
32Tzscheuschner, Daniel   Bant Combo6
33Demel, KaiAbzan Pattern Combo6
34Reichert, SebastianGrixis Control6
35Heinsius, MatthiasUWb Control6
36Osbelt, MarcAbzan Elves6
37Hoyme, Justus KarlJeskai Midrange6
38Baris, DennisMaverick4
39Kähler, DustinJeskai Combo4
40Thiele, DennyJeskai Midrange4
41Rössler, Tobias5c Staxx3
42Lerche, SaschaGruul Midrange3
43Wieske, Oliver4c Aggro Loam (w/o B)3
44Boll, MarianAbzan Midrange3
45Garcia, DavidSultai Control2
46Born, Sebastian4c Tempo (w/o G)1
47Wittmann, Tobias4c Scapeshift (w/o W)0
48Knelangen, MatthiasWhite Wheenie0


Maqi

Very interesting top 8. Shows the diversity of the format when set in relation to other top 8's in recent times.

I nevertheless find it mindboggling how the TPS list could win the whole thing. But I like it! :) I proxied the list and went through about 30 goldfishes and found the deck horribly bad! That surely is in part because of me not understanding the deck completely and inexperience. And I guess in actual games it might be better than it looks at first glance because you usually have a little more time in HL than in other formats and don't have to fight dedicated hate cards (because of no sb). Certain archetypes just cannot interact well with what you are doing. From the looks of it though, I wouldn't think the Storm deck has game against Luca's Grixis Midrange for example. I'd be interested in the actual brackets of the t8.

Overall I think RDW and Izzet are underrepresented in this MGM's meta with both only sporting one copy. Both archetypes play a doorkeeper role usually - hating out multicolor durdle decks and slow non-interactive decks.

Both Grixis lists in the top 8 seem to have no game against RDW at all, for example (with virtually no lifegain, many non-basics and a slow clock on their own).

Otherwise, the top 8 seems to be well positioned against green midrange strategies, which there were quite a bit.

So, all in all the results make sense. It must be added though, that the usual suspects performed well, which can basically be read as: The deck doesn't matter much, the good players just won over the less good ones.

I'm excited for the coverage! Keep your good work going, Berlin!

W0lf

Yeah I guess after you see the actual videos you will rethink your statement, all of it.
Cheers

W0lf

And I may add:

You say that izzet and rdw where not present at the event but don't give Reasons why this could be the case so let me help you with that.

If you take a look at the meta you will notice the amount of mono and 2colored decks is low, you will see multiple eggs and oath decks also multiple 4c blood, jeskai and other goodstuff lists. I played against a serious built deck every Round, everyone I faced played extremely well. So to me it's quite clear everone who attended wanted to win and came with his best deck. Izzet and RDW are not the Decks you choose to play if you intent to win a bigger Tournament,you test against them a few times but that's pretty much it. RDW won't always curve out and Izzet won't always get b2b/bloodmoon to save itself from superior Decks.

You know I attended a few hl gps in the past, but this mgm was  the thoughest event for me so far. I hadn't seen a single bad deck, there where eggs mirrors right of me and grixis swallowing 4c blood to the left of me.
This was just too insane and a new level of competitive HL.

Vazdru

regarding RDW W0lf is right ... a mono-red deck doesn't seem a good choice actually if you are wanna reach Top 8 in a large tournament
since Konstantin won a Cup back in 2012 (http://mtgpulse.com/event/11692#162875) RDW havn't had many noteworthy tournament results
the red beast seems dead

the meta on MGM 3 looks good - i like! especially that some new deck-creations are listed in the top 8 and archetypes which haven't got much love recently faced each other in the finals ... I'm eager to see Tabris coverage!

I still wonder why Izzet is underrepresented in MGM and recent Cup...in particular because it is statistically one of the best archetypes (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1111.0), left its footprints in MGM2 finals (http://mtgpulse.com/event/19676#278292) and looks like a good weapon against most of Top 8 decks and Berlin Meta in general

for next TNM i tinkered to play the winner-deck of Berlin but that list is just to complex to me, I guess you have to invest much love in such a deck to pilot it in Top 8 so i will try something different and skip this 0:4 in TNM
Far below the earth
Where the demons hunt the souls of those that sleep
In the city of the Vazdru and the Drin
Where the black flame burns inside the palace fountain.

W0lf

It's not that complicated to goldfish.
2 ritual effects and a tutor should be enough to deal lethal damage most of the time. You just play cantrips until you hit these 3 cards, play your rituals/mana acceleration cards, tutor/play will, recast rituals/cantrips, tutor tendrils,game.
Maybe you need to play a discard spell or silence effect before going off but certainly not in all matchups. Ofc the deck has other lines of play with oath or fastbond but this should be the most common.

Cheers

Tabris


LasH

Quote from: Tabris on 24-08-2015, 02:23:40 PM
Finally my Video coverage of the 3rd MGM MetaGameMasters 3 Highlander Turnier: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr33YHDPHkd64X3hQUFByBDh8pt80E51N

Thx for the coverage.

Unfortunately we see the most boring and one sided final game ever (at least in highlander format).

Basicly running a game one-sided from min 3:30 to the end is a clear signal to me that i dont wanna watch such games neither i wanna play against such a deck.

Vazdru

Far below the earth
Where the demons hunt the souls of those that sleep
In the city of the Vazdru and the Drin
Where the black flame burns inside the palace fountain.

Kenshin

I think the reason RDW is not putting up any numbers is because
a) it is hardly played at all
b) it is especially not played by the top players

The deck has a very bad reputation as a deck that is for kids because it is easy, that it is not consistent and underpowered. In my very short experience with the deck (four or five small tournaments) none of that is true. The big problem it has is that it has a horrible matchup in Izzet. But since no one seems to play Izzet anymore the next big problem is 4c blood but against them it seems to be 50/50. If you hit the hate before they get too much on the board you win most of the time. If they have a clunky draw your chances are good too. It comes down to single cards like Kitchen Finks, Sylvan Caryatid and the like on the one side and Blood Moon, Price of Progress and others on the RDW side.

The mulligan rules benefit such an agressive deck very very strongly. You can agressively mulligan into good hands or Blood Moon.

It is not the best deck out there but a good way to attack a metagame that is having a bit too much fun.

tonytahiti

Just to make sure: did you just say that rdw has a horrible matchup vs izzet?
Winner - Pro HL Cup, Prague 2002
Winner - Highlander Regional Masters, Phuket 2006
Winner - Sunrise Trophy Run, Hawaii 2006
Winner - North Dakota HL Championships 2007
Winner - Tahiti "One And Only"-Cup #3, 2009
Winner - Gio di Gio Seria, Florenz, 2016
Winner - Jail or be Jailed, Berlin, 2017

MMD

RDW - My experience is that Izzet is one of RDW´s easier matchups. Izzet has cantrips, reactive spells, relatively fragile (or clunky) creatures and has no use for most of its silver bullets. All in all good news for RDW. RDW is still Tier1 IMO and still punishes bad mana bases and draws, both are still very common situations in Highlander, but also a meta which is shifted into a control-beating-control meta. The main problem RDW might have is the creature power creep. RDW can usually not win with silver bullets and burn alone. If the board is blocked RDW has a very hard time.

Izzet – I still think that Izzet is Tier1 as the meta is multicolored and the silver bullets (paired with counterspells) win unwinnable games. Main problem is its weak win options but this problem reduces with every new edition ( TNN,  Rabblemaster...) I expect this will be a DTB for a long time.

Combo – It seems that...after a 48 player local tournament...many HL-players are frightened that TPS, Eggs & Co. broke the format and are unbeatable now. My opinion is that even with Academy, Fastbond and Will unbanned these decks are still too inconsistent, fragile and card dependent to be unbeatable in comparison to homogeneous creature builds. Sure, these decks can produce unbeatable nut draws but also draws which do nothing or loose against a single counter/hate. It is beyond dispute that Academy, Fastbond and Yawgmoth´s Will are one of the most broken cards in Magic history but the 100/1 variance helps to keep those cards in check. But it´s true that not enough players try to break the format with combo decks and there is a good chance that it can be broken by those cards in the right shell. The question for me is if we want Solitaire decks in our format, at least I have no problem with that.
Feel free to browse through my MKM account:

http://www.magickartenmarkt.de/index.php?mainPage=showSellerChart&idInfoUser=13199

I also have a huge amount of chinese and japanese foil HL staples not listed yet,  which I would like to downgrade to english foil. Just let me know!

Kenshin

Yes, I did. Maybe that was some statistical abberation and I got very unlucky but basically the following is what usually happens:

They have cheap removal because burn spells kill literally all of your creatures, a bunch of them even two for one. They filter through their deck fast and employ the same hate strategy you are using, thus being immune to several of your otherwise best cards. Their creatures all provide advantage while trading with yours one for one. Even if you get them low, they can stay on a low life total and protect it with counters.