Meta Problems?

Standard forum

Posted on April 26, 2015, 8:23 a.m. by buildingadeck

Is anyone else discovering that the entirety of their LGS is pretty much playing RDW? I'd say it makes up at least 50% of the meta at mine, and it's extremely frustrating because it makes matches dull and redundant.

Also, I have no idea what else to add to my fog deck to counteract red in the side. I'm running two mainboard Coursers and 3 side Hornet Nests, but I cannot win the match up. Obviously a bad match for me, but when it's half my shop, I get a little upset...

Lastly, why has no one attempted to make UR Tron in standard yet with Generator Servant and Renowned Weaponsmith and the big artifacts and Ugin?

xcn says... #2

If Weaponsmith could cast Ugin it would sound a little better.

April 26, 2015 8:26 a.m.

buildingadeck says... #3

Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it? I figure Colossus of Akros, Soul of New Phyrexia, and Scuttling Doom Engine are good enough mainboard threats for most decks. Especially Akros. Getting a T4 Soul of New Phyrexia with haste from Servant is fun, too.

April 26, 2015 8:37 a.m.

lemmingllama says... #4

Try Anger of the Gods. RDW dies to Anger of the Gods.

Also running some Sylvan Caryatid will also help, same with Nyx-Fleece Ram.

April 26, 2015 9:18 a.m.

Turbofog generally isn't a good deck. Design makes those effects weak intentionally. And Mono Red is pretty much your absolute worst matchup possible. You're way too slow for any of your win conditions to be relevant and your deck design sadly makes the one saving grace card in your colors (Feed the Clan) useless because you can't get the Ferocious trigger to go off.

You have to understand the fatal flaw of your design vs the field: Mono Red floods the field with creatures that you have exactly 4 ways to interact with, and all of them cost over 4 mana.Compare that to BUG Control which pretty much runs the same win conditions. It actually has a reasonable mono red matchup because it can interact with and remove their dudes. Fog effects literally don't do anything. Your only actual hopes for having a sufferable Mono Red matchup are to have a completely transformational sideboard, hope to dodge it, or completely restart this deck from the ground up because Turbofog just isn't ever gonna be good against Mono Red (as it shouldn't be).

April 26, 2015 9:33 a.m.

EssTea says... #6

The problem ain't the meta, it's your deck. Play Abzan Midrange, Sultai reanimator, G/W devotion; anything green that gains life too. I mean, meta calling can't get any easier if 50% of the meta is one specific deck.

April 26, 2015 11:08 a.m.

buildingadeck says... #7

It's funny, because I've taken 4th twice at FNM with the deck, so it can't be terrible. Caryatids wouldn't be bad because they help me ramp and block early on.

April 26, 2015 11:59 a.m.

MTGbrewer says... #8

Run Virulent Plague or Drown in Sorrow in black, Anger of the Gods or Circle of Flame in red, Feed the Clan in green, and Nyx-Fleece Ram in white. Resolute Archangel wins the game if you can get there.

April 26, 2015 12:06 p.m.

EssTea says... #9

Well do you want to be 1st or you wanna go win 1 out of 2-3 games and have fun with a deck? Fog ain't competitive, if you really want to grind it out change decks, but if you really like the deck then just continue playing it but don't complain about getting beat by a tier 1 deck :P

MTG is an auto-balancing game, when an archetype becomes too prominent another archetype rises to counter it. If no one is trying to counter mono-red in your meta I don't see a reason why they would stop playing the deck! You've got two choices, either you get into the auto-balancing act, or be stubborn and continue playing whatever you wanna play.

Disclaimer : I am not against playing brewy decks, not at all!

''I don't play to win, I play to have fun, but I don't have fun if I don't win.''

April 26, 2015 2:01 p.m.

buildingadeck says... #10

EssTea: I'm not complaining so much that Fog can't beat RDW. I'm more upset that half of my game shop is playing the exact same deck, which is rather bland.

I do like to have fun making decks, but I also enjoy winning. I was mostly curious if anyone else had similar metas at their LGS.

April 26, 2015 2:29 p.m.

EssTea says... #11

My meta is quite awesome, nearly no one plays the same deck! That means there's only one RDW.

I understand your sentiment, playing against RDW is the most boring thing ever, it's either they win fast, or they scoop up as soon as you land something big. It's really a shame that it won the pro tour...

April 26, 2015 3:04 p.m.

doctorsmegma says... #12

I'll be honest, RDW is pretty annoying but this Dig Through Time Treasure Cruise Anticipate shit is getting annoying for me. No matter what you build, if you can incorporate these cards or a combo of these cards in you're deck, you're almost always able to get the card you're looking for at nearly any particular moment.

And with decks running enough fetch land, the cards put at the bottom of the library makes no difference because the deck gets shuffled every other turn.

Not to mention it makes the games LONG. I've never seen time called on matches as much as I have recently and by the time I'm ready for the 3rd round, I'm exhausted already. I'm not a big fan of the direction DTK has taken the style of play.

I've recently switched up my deck to be more control by adding blue. If you can't beat them, become them. I got tired of losing no matter what changes I made to my deck because no matter what happens, the decks using blue will find a way to beat you.

Maybe I'm still a bit inexperienced but it seems as if maybe a lot of these instant blue cards that are being cast at the end of my turns shouldn't have been made instants. And here is why:

Let's say I played a Crackling Doom or Foul-Tongue Invocation which is my ONLY defense in removing Silumgar, the Drifting Death right? I've already had it countered on me the first two times I've tried to force my opponent to sacrifice and I assume now that he doesn't have anymore counters... I'm right. HE doesn't have anymore counters. But he DOES have Anticipate or Dig Through Time in which he places on the stack, he draws 3-7 card and gets his counter-spell. Then he continues to crack a fetch land and shuffle the library so the cards he had to put at the bottom are no longer at the bottom.

Next thing you know, he took up more time during my turn than I did.

I've tried so many different styles, cards and extreme aggro to prevent this from happening time and time again. In my opinion, THIS is broken and to be quite honest, it's starting to make the game less enjoyable.

RDW is whatever. It's an aggro deck. Whatever you're using against it, you just need to properly sideboard and hope for a little bit of luck. It's powerful but it can be beaten.

April 29, 2015 9:48 a.m.

doctorsmegma says... #13

And if you're playing green why not try to sideboard Winds of Qal Sisma and if you're running white Gods Willing.

OR if you're running all three colors, Deflecting Palm. I had some success with this the other night while playing my Mardu deck.

OR if you're playing blue, side in Wall of Frost and combo it with Ranger's Guile

April 29, 2015 10 a.m.

doctorsmegma says... #14

Encase in Ice also...

April 29, 2015 10:01 a.m.

EssTea says... #15

Well... I guess we can say Dig Through Time really digs through time.... ba dum tsss.

doctorsmegma I think the mistake you're making is the way you're trying to beat Esper Dragons. Siding in things to kill the dragons is not the way to go, the weakness ain't the dragons it's speed. Trying to go over them is not the best also, planeswalkers get smashed by Ojutai...
You've got three choices the first is to go under it with Mono-Red aggro, if that's your thing. Personally I would never touch that deck, I think it's just immature and boring. The second choice (my favorite) is to play fast and resilient threats (fast is often overlooked). The best fast and resilient deck is abzan aggro hands down, followed by Heroic. The Deathmist Raptor + Den Protector engine is also a very good option. The last option you've said it : become them, not much to say about that.

You spoke about Crackling Doom so I guess you used to play Mardu, in which case I would totally understand why you were having a bad time. Mardu is dead... Abzan aggro, Heroic, Jeskai and mono-red are better at aggro than mardu, G/R dragons, Devotion and Reanimators are better at midrange than mardu, Abzan/U/B/Sultai control are better at control than mardu... Sorry to hurt anyone out there who is a mardu fanboy but the deck has simply declined since Fate Reforged and has seen nearly no competitive play since DTK.

Finally, you're right about Dig Through Time being slow as fu*k. Treasure Cruise and Anticipate aren't that bad, but DTT is really annoying..... and these words are coming from a control player!
Elspeth? hummmm (thinks about it)... Fetch (searches library, finds land, shuffles library, make the opponent cut), Dig Through Time (looks at top seven), hummmmm (takes a counter spell) hummmm what else should I take.... How many cards in hand? 2 eh?... Hummm zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

April 29, 2015 2:20 p.m.

doctorsmegma says... #16

You see, I've been trying so hard to make Mardu work and I've given up as of recent lmao. I know that it's dead but I AM one of those "Mardu Fanboys" you speak of. But I put that part of my past behind me.

If I had one complaint about any of the blue cards, it's that it shouldn't be an Instant.

Even you're example of Dig Through Time isn't even what bothers me. Idc if you're deciding on whether or not you want a counter, elspeth etcetcetc. What bothers me is that you can't cast ANYTHING without some sort of 5-minute long delve ability, followed by an extra Anticipate if they didnt get the counter.

Step 1: I cast anything. We'll say I'm trying to use Hero's Downfall on Typhoid Rats (lololololol)

Step 2: Dig Through Time (doesnt find what he's looking for, but look! 2 Anticipates). I patiently wait.

Step 3: Anticipate (he finds a counter but ALSO DRAWS AN ELSPETH!!! WHAT DOES HE DO?)

Step 4: Casts Dissolve.

Step 5: End of my turn, crack fetch land.

Step 6: Shuffle

Step 7: I wait

Step 8: I cut the deck

Step 9: End of my turn

Idk man. This isn't fun and decks like this are getting so popular you have to deal with decks JUST like this multiple times a night rather than just once.

Or it could just be the area I play in who fancies this deck. But to my understanding the Silumgar, the Drifting Death and Dragonlord Ojutai deck is gaining a lot of play.

Oh and lets not forget Jeskai tokens. FFS....

April 29, 2015 2:41 p.m.

EssTea says... #17

@ doctorsmegma

It so happens that one of my friends plays mardu and that we've been trying to make it work together. Here's what we came up with: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/29-04-15-ubb-mardu-dragons/

Tell me what you think!

April 29, 2015 3:40 p.m.

This discussion has been closed