Some - chess, for example, start both players off on an even keel and the only real advantage to be gained that is not down to pure player skill is winning the toss to go first. The fist-fight of games.
Others, like, say, Monopoly (a game I personally hate) does just the same, only introduces several random elements such as dice rolls and Community Chest cards to effectively throw a spanner in the works at any point during the game. The Russian Roulette of games.
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| Cunt |
And then there's the trading card game. A style of game where you have literally millions of different configurations of cards to choose from, and you configure them to your tastes. The duel to the death of games. Choose your weapon wisely.
--
In a trading card game, there is no such thing as a 'best deck'. If such a thing existed then there would be little reason to play anything else, and the game would become remarkably stale very quickly, as every time you go to play the game you will always play the same deck, against the same deck.
As it stands, every deck has its foil. Let's say you go to a tournament, and 50% of the tournament are playing a particular type of deck. Let's call this "Rock". You go to the next tournament, and more people have picked up that Rock is really good, and so now 80% of the field are playing it.
Now you have a brainwave. Rock is very vulnerable to certain cards, so you throw them into a deck and give it a name - how about "Paper"? The next tournament comes along and 88% of the field are playing Rock, and now you are playing your super secret deck that walks all over Rock. You are at a natural advantage in this position.
The next tournament comes around, and 75% of the field are playing Paper, but someone has come along with a new concoction that beats your all-conquering Paper deck - and they called it "Scissors".
You get the idea. This is a basic implementation of a metagame - choosing your weapon based on what you expect everyone else to choose. Bringing a gun to a knife fight.
In reality, the metagame is not so simple. One day someone will show up with "Geyser" - a deck that turns Paper all mushy, rusts Scissors shut and will slowly weather Rock down, and then the cycle begins all over again, and the metagame diversifies, and the need for more elaborate metaphors increases which is why I'm going to stop them here...
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| The leaning tower of Geysir. Beats Death Wish apparently |
I'm writing this now due to what turned out to be a poor metagame call on my part for the latest tournament I attended. A few months back I attended the Zapped Giants Open, and having had a lack of inspiration for what to play, simply took the fastest deck I could get my hands on - and it turned out to perform amazingly, netting me my first Top 8 finish in a large tournament. In the Top 8 I was roundly beaten, largely by one card that effectively shut large parts of my deck off. [Extract of Necromantic Power]
A couple of months later I took the same deck to the UK Realm Championships, having made a few tweaks to the deck to combat the very situation I found myself in at that previous tournament. [added 2 Talisman of the Horde] This is an example of metagaming, also commonly referred to as 'Teching' - making concessions in your deck to help with a specific matchup as you expect it to be present at the tournament you are visiting.
Even then, at this point if I face my 'bogey deck' I am at an instant disadvantage, but cannot make too many concessions to it as this will make my deck worse against the other decks in the field which I am traditionally strong against. [My only real option was to replace one or two of Broderick, Onnekra, Rosalyne and Bloodsoul with otherwise worse cards like Scout Omerrta and Gartok Skullsplitter (who isn't completely terrible to be fair)]
Just yesterday I took the same deck to Manchester for a tournament, hoping that by now, everyone would be bored of the deck that beats me and I would be able to steamroller the field once again. Unfortunately the deck I hate was out in force, I faced three of them and lost to two of them and finished in a rather rotten 22nd place as a result.
At this point I am playing Paper in a field full of Scissors and Geyser (yeah, I know) and no amount of player skill is going to change the fact that I'm going to have a tough time - and that's exactly why the metagame is so important. Choosing your weapon wisely can give you an instant advantage before you even play a card.
--
Where things get complicated is when you get involved with smaller and larger metagames. If you play in a playgroup, you will have a regular set of people to play against - and they make up the fabric of your local metagame. At our local playgroup, everyone loves Death Knights, but very few of them play the card I struggle with. This is part of the reason I was so soundly beaten by it the first time I encountered it!
A small metagame works in a similar manner to a larger metagame, but the tweaks you make to do your deck do not necessarily do so - if you have a group of 8 and you build your deck to beat everyone else's deck in your local metagame, you may not find that your deck is strong against a different group of people. This is an easy trap to fall into when deckbuilding - it's easy to find an answer card for a specific situation but if your deck is full of answer cards for specific situations that you don't come up against due to playing against different people then you will struggle somewhat.
Knowing how to wield your weapon is tough. Choosing the right weapon is just as difficult.
--
A perfect example of the requirement to pay attention to the metagame has happened recently at the 2011 North American Continental Championships (NACC) - Tim Batow and some friends have come up with a fantastic concoction of a combo deck which they've simply dubbed "Bunny Deck". For this reason alone I am interested (my wife and I keep two rabbits and so anything bunny-related is automatically awesome).
The deck has made quite a splash with one pilot in the NACC top 8 and two more in 9th and 11th overall, only losing out on tiebreakers. To sum the deck up, the deck contains 40 quests, most of which cycle through the deck looking for particular things, and most of which cost 1. The deck also contains ten mounts - so most of those one-cost quests can be completed for free. The engine is provided by Unending Breath, which lets you play with the top card of your deck revealed, and quests can be completed off the top of the deck; the kill comes from Krazal the Eggregator, who every time he is revealed from the deck, creates a 1/1 Bunny Ally Token. Once enough have been amassed on the field, Turane Soulpact (the deck's hero) flips, hurls them all at the opposing hero, and they die in a literal hail of bunny. This usually happens on Turn 4.
This deck is very likely to be popular at the upcoming European Continental Championships (EUCC) - so the questions you have to ask yourself are:
- How much of the field will be playing Bunny Deck?
- Can my deck beat Bunny Deck?
- If my deck can't beat Bunny Deck, how much do I want to change for the sole purpose of enabling me to beat Bunny Deck, at the expense of potentially making my deck worse against other, 'normal' decks?
- Should I play something else entirely due to the presence of Bunny Deck?
Welcome to the metagame.
--
Also, I hate Monopoly.
Thanks to Tyma and co from the ZG Podcast for the Rock/Paper/Scissors analogy - first time I'd heard it described like that and it makes perfect sense.
A couple of months later I took the same deck to the UK Realm Championships, having made a few tweaks to the deck to combat the very situation I found myself in at that previous tournament. [added 2 Talisman of the Horde] This is an example of metagaming, also commonly referred to as 'Teching' - making concessions in your deck to help with a specific matchup as you expect it to be present at the tournament you are visiting.
Even then, at this point if I face my 'bogey deck' I am at an instant disadvantage, but cannot make too many concessions to it as this will make my deck worse against the other decks in the field which I am traditionally strong against. [My only real option was to replace one or two of Broderick, Onnekra, Rosalyne and Bloodsoul with otherwise worse cards like Scout Omerrta and Gartok Skullsplitter (who isn't completely terrible to be fair)]
Just yesterday I took the same deck to Manchester for a tournament, hoping that by now, everyone would be bored of the deck that beats me and I would be able to steamroller the field once again. Unfortunately the deck I hate was out in force, I faced three of them and lost to two of them and finished in a rather rotten 22nd place as a result.
At this point I am playing Paper in a field full of Scissors and Geyser (yeah, I know) and no amount of player skill is going to change the fact that I'm going to have a tough time - and that's exactly why the metagame is so important. Choosing your weapon wisely can give you an instant advantage before you even play a card.
--
Where things get complicated is when you get involved with smaller and larger metagames. If you play in a playgroup, you will have a regular set of people to play against - and they make up the fabric of your local metagame. At our local playgroup, everyone loves Death Knights, but very few of them play the card I struggle with. This is part of the reason I was so soundly beaten by it the first time I encountered it!
A small metagame works in a similar manner to a larger metagame, but the tweaks you make to do your deck do not necessarily do so - if you have a group of 8 and you build your deck to beat everyone else's deck in your local metagame, you may not find that your deck is strong against a different group of people. This is an easy trap to fall into when deckbuilding - it's easy to find an answer card for a specific situation but if your deck is full of answer cards for specific situations that you don't come up against due to playing against different people then you will struggle somewhat.
Knowing how to wield your weapon is tough. Choosing the right weapon is just as difficult.
--
A perfect example of the requirement to pay attention to the metagame has happened recently at the 2011 North American Continental Championships (NACC) - Tim Batow and some friends have come up with a fantastic concoction of a combo deck which they've simply dubbed "Bunny Deck". For this reason alone I am interested (my wife and I keep two rabbits and so anything bunny-related is automatically awesome).
 |
| Insert obvious Walrus joke here |
This deck is very likely to be popular at the upcoming European Continental Championships (EUCC) - so the questions you have to ask yourself are:
- How much of the field will be playing Bunny Deck?
- Can my deck beat Bunny Deck?
- If my deck can't beat Bunny Deck, how much do I want to change for the sole purpose of enabling me to beat Bunny Deck, at the expense of potentially making my deck worse against other, 'normal' decks?
- Should I play something else entirely due to the presence of Bunny Deck?
Welcome to the metagame.
--
Also, I hate Monopoly.
Thanks to Tyma and co from the ZG Podcast for the Rock/Paper/Scissors analogy - first time I'd heard it described like that and it makes perfect sense.
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