How does your local meta look?
Standard forum
Posted on Dec. 29, 2013, 9:57 p.m. by strateupjee
I just want to get an idea because I feel like my local LGS is chock full of respectable decks. I play in the Florida Panhandle, and at my FNM's we rarely get more than 20 people, but regularly get 15-17, and I feel this is a small play group. That being said, we have everything from Mono-Black and Mono-Blue, to U/W and American Control. We have Selesnya aggro/mid-ranges, W/R Devotions, and your typical RDW. Along all of that we have the oddball people that come in and play something new, or the new kids who play 15 dollar mono-greens. Basically what I'm asking is, what does your meta look like? Is it heavily saturated in one particular deck? Or is it varied?
strateupjee says... #3
I like seeing really varied metas because it makes it a challenge. It means your deck has to be able to do well against, and be versatile enough to beat, a large amount of decks.
December 29, 2013 10:04 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #4
Depending on the number of people there (Which, depending on the surrounding holidays, is anywhere from 16 - 40), I can expect to see at least one of every deck that has been played in recent tournys. Mono black was popular back when it was just becoming a thing (I ran it for about 4 weeks, then quit when 6 people came with it one night), Mono blue was popular the last 3 weeks, and now there's a shift to red based aggro. There are only 3 people (including myself) that run any sort of control deck, and all 3 of the main decks (UW, Esper, and American) are represented (I usually come out on top with UW).
We get a good amount of kids there every week, and they tend to be the super johnnys / timmys. I saw a match last friday that was UW Detain vs. Gruul Hydra Ramp, and it was actually the best game that i've seen played in a long time, given the fact that both players were like 12.
So yeah, I never know what to expect when I go, therefore UW Millstone. It pretty much beats everything.
December 29, 2013 10:17 p.m.
SwiftDeath says... #5
Lots of Mono blue, a couple mono black, a few naya/jund midrange and several Esper controls. My meta is and has always been very competitive and if you go in with a decent homebrew you usually won't do well just because everyone else plays proven decks.
December 29, 2013 10:20 p.m.
blackmarker90 says... #6
My meta has A LOT of U/W and U/W/x control, a couple Maze's End Turbo Fog variants, MUD and MBD, one of my friends plays a Jund homebrew and my other buddy plays either MGD or White Weenies. I currently am playing BUG Superfriends (1st at FNM) and swept last FNM in its first appearance.
December 29, 2013 10:23 p.m.
ShadowLand says... #7
My meta is pretty varied, there are a couple who play esper control, a couple playing white enchantments and weenies, a couple more with mono-black, and then a ton of people who play home-brews, I think there are 2-4 who play mono-blue, but only one who pilots it worth a crap. And my brother plays Big Boros and I am currently running Orzhov doom
December 29, 2013 10:47 p.m.
strateupjee says... #9
Sorry for the wrong forum Epoc! So I like what I'm hearing, I love seeing varied metas. I don't know what I would do if I had to play against the same decks over and over and over again!
December 29, 2013 11:06 p.m.
Channel Fireball in SJ sees 60+ people at FNM, and is filled with a plethora of decks. U/W/X variants, Devotion of all colors, Weenie Aggro, etc. Very competitive, but the people knew each other well and were all definitely friendly. I enjoyed drafts more since we usually ramble about how good/bad/ugly our packs are when we're building them. I remember one time when a foil Satyr Rambler and a normal one wheeled and the guy across said, "oh cool! I get 15 cents more that he does!" which I genuinely laughed at.
Chockful of different personalities, which is what I expected. Some kids sprinkled here and there, but mostly adults who frequent on certain days to have fun.
Some FNM's see like 40+ drafters, one FNM only had 3 pods one night because of Grand Prix Oakland.
I personally haven't attended other LGS's FNM, and I think I'll stick to Channel Fireball.
December 29, 2013 11:07 p.m.
ColdHeartedSith says... #11
O.k to be clear this is the standard forum people. Anyway, I often see mono Blue and Black and Red Devotion and Esper with occasional brew variants of The Rock and a few people desperatly trying to play a newer less effective version of USA. Thats about it. I win 2nd or 3rd every week with R/W Devotion.
December 30, 2013 1:39 a.m.
All Mono-Blue and Mono-Black over here. Some R/W Aggro or R/B Aggro, and it looks like White Weenie is starting to get more popular.
December 30, 2013 8:09 a.m.
My playgroup consists of between eight and ten people. This is mostly because I am unable to attend FNM for religious reasons, which can be annoying seeing how old ten people can get. Anyway, everyone has about two or three decks that they use, one guy has a pretty standard dimir mill, one is gruul aggro which doubles as midrange, another has gruul midrange, dimir devotion and orzohv bestow/weenies play a big part, then I play golgari aggro with Elvish Mystic s ramping into Polukranos, World Eater . my playgroup is pretty "unprofessional" and I win about 80-90% of the time. I play at tournaments as much as I can, when they aren't on fri/saturday and there are between 15-30 regular players, but I don't see them enough to get a good idea of the meta. I vaguely remember someone having esper control running AEtherling , mono B devotion with Desecration Demon , R/W either devotion or aggro running Assemble the Legion and the guy that won had either bant, simic or selesnya. This was all at the theros games day. Oh, I forgot to mention, I live in Cape Town, South Africa.
December 30, 2013 9:34 a.m.
My LGS meta is either Limited or EDH play. Standard exists, but not enough people want to invest in it to have enough for regular fnm's for it, same with modern and only a couple have legacy decks. But we have mono-B/U devotion, Esper Control, R/G midrange and Green Devotion splash red for domri, a g/w aggro deck, and a BUG build, because of the size and varied decks, we really cover the spectrum of the current meta game.
December 30, 2013 9:39 a.m.
The meta at my LGS is a little bit different on Friday than the rest of the week. There's a smaller, but way more competitive group of about 8-10 people that play tournaments on Wednesdays and Sundays. Usually the decks on offer will be some assortment of MUD, MBD, B/W Devotion, U/G Devotion, Junk Midrange, RDW, Boros Weenie, G/R Monsters, U/W Control, & B/G Rock (me).
On Fridays, everybody comes out, which means droves of budget Mono-white, Boros, Selesnya, and Mono-red Aggro decks in addition to a few weird brews like Dimir Mill, Naya Control, B/R/W Minotaurs, and Azorius/Selesnya/Boros Heroic. Also, since a lot of the more serious players draft on Fridays, the field is almost entirely Aggro & Jank.
January 1, 2014 12:16 p.m.
Dalektable says... #16
Mine looks pretty varied, but is leaning towards control. There are a couple esper decks, i've seen Azorius, Orzhov and american control also. With that one guy plays MBD and one guy plays MUD. There are a few R/G and G devotion decks running around. Then there is me and one other guy and we both play different variants of white weenies. Then there are probably about 4 guys who bring in some pretty good homebrews
January 1, 2014 2:32 p.m.
Pretty much all rich kids playing netdecks here. I've seen all-foil U/W Control, Grixis Control, Mono-black Pack Rat devotion. Even in just a 4-round tournament, I'm not surprised to play against an identical deck played by two different people.
Occasionally, there will be the newbie who just had to use Slivers, or incoherent G/R or G/W decks. I love those people, not only for their naive originality, but also because they're the only ones I can win against with my budget home-brew deck (which is looking more netdecky each week, 'cause the meta kinda forces it.. :-/ )
January 1, 2014 10:20 p.m.
So I saw a pretty good spread of decks at the LGS earlier. I recognized about half, the rest were brand-new to the meta. In a 14-man tournament, I saw Mono-blue Devotion, America Control, Naya Midrange/Lifegain, Mono-green Devotion, G/R Monsters, White Weenie, Selesnya Aggro, Mono-red Aggro, 3 Mono-black Devotion lists, the same Orzhov Devotion deck that one guy has been playing more or less since rotation, there was one deck I didn't see in action, and I played B/G Midrange. The standings were as follows:
America Control
Mono-Red Aggro
B/G Midrange
Mono-blue Devotion
It's not as though the meta is only janky decks and weird homebrews. The Devotion decks, RDW, White Weenie, G/R, and Selesnya Aggro decks are all essentially netdecks. Still, every week a couple people manage to place with decks that aren't really considered top-tier. If the meta here is any indication, there's a lot more room for innovation in the format than people are willing to admit.
mmdw34 says... #2
American control, mono black, u/w control and r/g monsters. 1 person plays rakdos aggro, 1 plays white wheenies, i play red deck wins, my buddy plays naya so out of like 4 out of the 40+ people maybe 8 will play original brews
December 29, 2013 9:59 p.m.