Modern Metagame Analysis and Tournament Prep

In literally countless occasions I’ve seen my own teammates and just friends or players in general quite literally losing sleep over that 15th slot in their sideboard the night before “the big one”, thinking stuff like “oh, I added this in my main because of X and Y, but I’m not too sure if that’s correct”. In Modern as a format, I feel like you generally get rewarded for correct risk/award analysis and good play patterns/sequences more so than what deck you bring to the table or how you constructed your sideboard. That’s not to say that deck choice doesn’t matter, but comparatively carries less weight than in other constructed formats like Standard. In this article, I’ll be analyzing the current Modern metagame and give my own personal tips on how to prepare more efficiently for big tournaments.

Modern Metagame Overview

From this, we can tell that the most popular strategies at the moment are bigger, more proactive strategies trying to go over the top of most interaction. Being mainly a Jund player, I shudder. Regardless, it seems like this is more so an active response to all the Urza piles in Modern recently considering how powerful the deck can be in its many iterations from Mycosynth Lattice locking you, ThopterSword, to going infinite with Jeskai Ascendancy or Paradoxical Outcome almost like a Vintage deck. We might see a resurgence of the hard combo Urza piles if the meta ramps up to be solely based on who can execute their plan faster. Over the past couple of months, Modern has been dominated by Urza, Death’s Shadow, and Tron decks ranging from traditional Mono-Green Tron to Eldrazi Tron. Symbolizing a sweet spot between interaction and proactive strategies.

At this caliber of the event (and to an extent, the multi-format), we should all know the deck choices are pretty meta gamed from all the pro players attending and expecting the others to bring to the table. With that in mind, I feel like that could be an indicator as to where the metagame is headed from now on. With only 4 copies of the Urza decks being registered, it shows how many decided to prepare for it, rather than play it with players like Dominic Harvey playing 3 copies of Veil of Summer in the main of his TitanShift build. Also quite notable the resurgence of Humans which is almost a direct response to the ambitious Death’s Shadow decks as it’s level of disruption with cards like Reflector Mage, Kitesail Freebooter and Meddling Mage paired with its explosiveness can really hammer on these more grindy strategies. In a greater note, a big presence of Devoted Devastation is almost exclusively to combat the Urza strategies due to the lack of early interaction generally in these Bant or Sultai Urza builds. That sentiment is also echoed by the sudden popularity of Infect in various tournaments worldwide. The printing of Oko, Theif of Crowns gets the biggest shoutout for it being the card to have mostly impacted the format (if not, all formats) the most since it’s inception, making the Bant Snowblade builds more capable, giving a very strong Plan B for most if not all decks Simic aligned, Bant/Sultai Urza get the most mileage out of it by turning those crappy rocks into 3/3’s to beat down and participate in combat. All in all, the meta seems defined by the Mox Opal decks, how they’re built and how to attack them. I look forward to seeing how the meta keeps adapting and continues its cycle of resiliency and change with time.

Tournament Preparation

“Stress, stress, stress” is most likely your initial gut thought when looking at the image above. It clearly states the steps needed in order to perform at your best and then your thoughts linger and anxiety builds up, which is only natural. The first step to combat these feelings is generally to accept yourself and do your best. I’m no mentality expert, but here I’ll talk about the steps I take before events hoping it helps all of you as much as possible.

• Having a concrete plan of where you will stay, who are you gonna carpool with and literally planning your day ahead of time will save you many headaches.
• Playtesting. Try to build a playgroup and use time efficiently. Aside from watching coverage for information on archetypes and playstyles, having a playgroup allows you to brainstorm and pitch ideas to each other on play lines and sequences. This will help you all in many ways and you’ll be thankful.
• Don’t be so hard on yourself. Even in playtesting, it’s TESTING. Feel free to show your opponent your hand and ask for opinions in the current board state without judging yourself for not knowing the answer or wanting opinions. This is also your time to experiment with different sequences and play lines/deck builds.
• Deck choice. Consider the format, the type of event, and choose a deck that you feel a mix of comfort and viability to the point where you know you’ll compete at a high level with. This is definitely a hard choice, but that’s my best advice and I’ll talk about this subject in future articles.
• Results aren’t everything. Way too many people expect to get Top 8 at their first IQ or GP. The pressure of performing is a lot and don’t get down on yourself for punting or being nervous in that kind of a tournament setting. This also applies to locals, they’re just locals and variance will affect you in many ways, so don’t take it to heart. You’re not a bad player because they Bolted you when you were at 3.

Conclusion and the Future

Hope you all enjoyed this article which is the first of many where I’ll talk about many subjects in the MTG verse. Topics I’ll be wanting to cover soon, most likely on a weekly basis are my personal playtesting routines and deck choice for events. Also, I’ll be looking into posting Tournament Reports and Sideboard Guides of my current projects. If you read all the way until the end, you have no idea how much it means to me. You’re awesome and thanks for reading! Feel free to subscribe to my blog to receive emails whenever I post new articles! Much love, cheers, and Happy New Year.