The 166-deck metagame that comprises Europe’s largest $10K tournament is in some aspects incredibly varied and in other aspects highly static. While the spread of decks is utterly dominated by Curve Sentinels (which makes up about 29.51% of the metagame), it also sports a wide variety of other decks as well. Though this is the most CS-saturated $10K environment ever, it also has a huge number of strongly represented alternative archetypes.
Here’s how the field breaks down.
Total Number of Decks: 166
Curve Sentinels: 49
Ruling the metagame as far as popularity goes, Curve Sentinels continues to dominate the global environment as the number-one pick for most players, despite the recent interest in MK/Underworld and Fantastic Fun. The deck that tech built continues to be experimented with, as players are still making up their minds about Hounds of Ahab but also experimenting with Luke Cage, Power Man as an alternate 6-drop instead of Master Mold.
Hounds of Ahab literally adds a second win condition to the deck, making it more resilient in the face of poor luck or offensive disruption. Power Man allows the deck to be more consistently aggressive, eschewing the oft-defensive Master Mold for a guaranteed heavy hitter that doesn’t open the deck up to Betrayal on turn 6. And the Juggernaut tech? Well, he’s starting to see some play. Here’s one of my favorite exchanges of the day—the names have been changed to protect those involved.
Player 1, running Curve Sentinels: “I’ll recruit Juggernaut.”
Player 2, running Fantastic Fun: “I’ll do some stuff, cause a bunch of burn, and shift Personal Force Field to my back-row Ant Man.”
Player 1: “Juggernaut attacks Ant Man. Legal?”
Player 2: “It’s legal. I just want you to know though, Ant Man is reinforced.”
Player 1: “Ok. I just want you to know though, he’s not.”
That, my friends, is Juggernaut gold.
Common Enemy: 15
CE scored the upset, overthrowing Teen Titans as this event’s number-two deck on a raw-numbers level. The grinding consistency and ease of use that the deck offers combined well with the card availability in some of the countries that competitors were traveling from to launch CE back into the spotlight. In addition, the deck’s ability to royally abuse a pair of Betrayals is being exploited by several players, and it definitely makes a strong argument for the deck’s resurgence. Between Flame Trap, Unmasked, Betrayal, Global Domination, and others, plot-twist toolboxes just keep getting more and more impressive. As good as Alfred may be, the ability to reuse once-offs with Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius and Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria still make Doom variants the number-one toolbox-exploitation candidates. While Common Enemy may not be the way to go in the end, Doom is definitely worthy of the comeback that’s been brewing for the past several months.
Titans: 11
Far lower in popularity than it has been in the past, Titans was substantially under-represented. There are several factors that may have been responsible for this change. The skill and money rares required to pick up the deck, the lack of innovation as of late compared to other archetypes, and the interest of high-skill players in alternates like Fantastic Fun, MK/Underworld, and concealed decks are likely responsible for the deck’s dip in popularity. The other reason Titans didn’t see as much play? Everyone is still teching against it hard. Total Anarchy is popping up everywhere and is a definite standard in Curve Sentinels, and even Flame Trap and Firestar are seeing increased levels of play.
As good as TT is, most metagames are just viciously prejudiced against it, and Amsterdam has been no exception.
MK/Underworld: 8
With the promising prospect of turn-5 and -6 “Blade Bombs” going off, and with access to Mephisto, Soulstealer, this deck has sparked a ton of interest in those looking to stay on the cutting edge. The deck can overwhelm virtually anything it comes up against, has a tutor, teams up incredibly easily, and offers a double-pronged approach that’s difficult to read in the mid-game. Turn 5 can either bring Blade and a rush, or Mephisto to settle in for the long haul into the late game. The best part is that a Mephisto on turn 5 doesn’t really telegraph intent—you can still drop Blade with boost on turn 6 and take the game then and there. The result is a relatively linear archetype that thrives on the ability to keep an opponent guessing. The deck has flexibility without predictability.
Capable of Sticking it to Teen Titans on their signature turns while still being able to Stick it out against Curve Sentinels, MK/Underworld has a ton of potential for the near future.
B and B: 8
Brave and the Bold decks continue to remain a part of most professional-level metagames. With the tantalizing allure of stun-back-free board wipes that Teen Titans decks can only dream of, Brave and the Bold has great matchups with virtually everything on a theoretical level (at the cost of increased risk). In practice, they sometimes fall short, but the strong concepts driving the deck come to fruition more often than not if the player is skilled enough.
F4 Toys/Burn: 7
Driven by its recent success at $10K London, the concept of F4 Burn has begun to explode in popularity. Fantastic Fun is ridiculously hard to play and likely shouldn’t be played by anyone other than Dean Sohnle, because it’s that hard to use. That hasn’t stopped many players today, however, and a lot of people are interested in putting in the time that this hot (no pun intended) deck requires to play.
TNB Blitz: 6
With the insanely impressive showing of TNB Blitz at $10K Los Angeles, the only thing surprising about this deck’s popularity is that it isn’t even more popular. With good matchups against virtually anything, this is the ultimate in Curve Sentinel killers. The key fact? It’s the raw speed that drives the deck that lets it smash Sentinels, not the deck’s access to tech cards. It’s always nice when your deck has naturally good matchups with big archetypes instead of artificial ones that take up deck space. This is one of the most intensely focused and pure decks available in the metagame, and that translates to a lot more than just outright simplicity in play decisions. Speed, versatility within its theme, and consistency despite its reputation are the results of this deck’s utter lack of tech.
Evil Medical School: 6
EMS finally makes a big showing! It has been kicked around in most premier-level metagames since its debut in $10K Columbus, somewhere in the proverbial back of the class between Heroes United and Intergang Rush, but now the house that Jason Hagen built seems to finally be getting some solid foundations. With good matchups against virtually everything but F4 Beats and Titans, the deck has access to toolbox utilities and still has a large amount of the surprise factor. Even though it has been around for weeks and weeks, odds are good that the average premier-level competitor still doesn’t know how to play against it.
Mutant Nation: 6
A mixture of random Brotherhood/X-Men decks blended with Longshot-based builds like the one run by Michael Jacobs make for very different presences in the metagame. While they’re all technically groupable under the same name, they likely shouldn’t be. This deck may very well be a sleeper hit in the Golden Age environment in the next few weeks.
Medium Brotherhood: 6
Medium Brotherhood continues to trundle along, either because it’s a solid deck or because so many Brotherhood variants just get this name slapped on them—which is what I’m starting to think at this point. The trademark deck of the indecisive, Medium Brotherhood is dependent on the skill backing it, which is often lacking. As such though, the deck frequently functions as a wild card, and when someone who really knows their stuff is behind the wheel, it can be impressive. That makes it a difficult deck to predict in any environment, let alone one as varied as this. The decreased presence of Titans definitely helps it out. It’s not exactly a tier-one deck, and I doubt that it will Top 8, but it’s interesting.
X-Stall: 5
Team TOGIT’s amazing creation continues to a) be incredibly promising, and b) not be innovated upon in the slightest. Some players are still running the dated TOGIT build, and while the deck deserves a great deal of respect for being the greatest and most successful surprise in pro-level Vs. ever, it needs the powerful tech that has been slightly tested with. Imperiex and a single pair of Avalon Space Stations barely count, and a lot of players aren’t even running either of those. Never before has the difficulty of building a deck held back such a wickedly impressive build from developing. If X-Stall starts seeing the widespread testing and innovation that it could so easily receive, expect it to do incredibly well. But at the same time, if it continues to stagnate maddeningly, it will burn out quickly over the coming weeks. The versions being run here weren’t particularly impressive—one might still Top 8, as dated versions of the deck still performed quite well in $10K Orlando, but I’m not sure I’d bet on it, especially with multiple copies of Evil Medical School running rampant.
Heroes United: 4
Heroes United is a pretty random deck. Essentially, it looks to build on the stat advantages available to the Fantastic Four by giving everyone flying bath tubs and stat bonuses based on their newly-winged status. That said, after cursory glances at the deck, I’m not sure if anyone was even running that build of the deck. There’s nothing wrong with playing a deck for fun based on the characters in it, but when that’s the reality of the situation, it has to be acknowledged.
Cosmic Cops: 3
Cosmic Cops was tearing it up as of round 6. After ducking out of the pro level metagame for four to six weeks on a near-wholesale basis, it looked as if people weren’t ready for the Fat Bat. Maybe it’s the big molested Batman statue from downstairs claiming revenge, or maybe it’s the fact that Cops players are prioritizing the use of multiple Utility Belts in the early and mid-game, but Cosmic Cops hasn’t looked as good in weeks as it does today. With plot-twist toolboxes getting bigger, this is definitely one of the top picks for today’s event.
F4 Beats: 3
There are always a few people who run F4 Beats. Doesn’t matter what country I’m in, they’re always there. It’s like there’s a club of three guys with a van who just travel to every premier event with their F4 Beats decks. It’s not bad. Raw stats and a tutor, plus great combat modifiers can’t be bad. But at the same time, the deck isn’t great, and it hasn’t Top 8’d in anything significant for a year. It does make life hard for Evil Medical School, so expect F4 Beats to see a resurgence and the complementary innovation it desperately needs if EMS becomes more of a factor in the near future.
Several decks were seen only in pairs or were played by just one player. They are as follows . . .
Two: My Beloved, League, Brotherhood/League, Gotham Knights, Revenge Squad, Big Brotherhood, MK Tricks
Out of all of these, MK Tricks and Brotherhood/League will be the ones to watch for (though with some of the new cards being revealed from the Batman/League of Assassins starter sets, mono-League may gain a major foothold in the environment). It’s difficult to make prospects on the playability of MK Tricks, as frankly, most topnotch deckbuilders have been beating their brains out over Modern Age decks over the past few months. It seems to be terribly versatile and synergistic in base-level theory.
One: TNB, Concealed, Rigged Elections, X-Beats, New Gods, Wild Vomit, Arkham, Revenge Squad/New Gods, MK/X-Statix, Revenge Squad/Superman, Shimmer Cops, MK/Doom, Spider-Curve, MK Brotherhood, Big Men
Pure TNB is definitely on its way out, as partly indicated by the recent trend of referring to Blitz as just TNB. There’s really no reason to be running any TNB variant without burn effects at this point. Rigged Elections definitely seems under-played, and the new twists on Jeremy Gray’s Big Men are equally very cool and boggling, as one would expect from the deck. Those are two decks to watch for, albeit not in this event.
While most metagames are easily broken down into generalized tempos and speeds, this one is quite difficult. It’s fair to say that this is a slower metagame than blazing ones like $10K LA. That really opens up the field, but the mid-game is far more difficult to judge. While mid-games are obviously not nearly as threatened by Titans as they normally would be, the same point is threatened by MK/Underworld decks, as well as by Brave and the Bold and Medium Brotherhood. This is a deceptive field, and while the early game is relatively safe, a lot of late-game decks are going to be taken by surprise when they realize just how unsafe the mid-game is here.
All in all, a Top 8 is difficult to predict. Two Curve Sentinels, one Cosmic Cops, one Blitz, one Doom variant of some sort, and one Titans are safe bets, but that still leaves two slots not even speculated at. Evil Medical School? MK/Underworld? Fantastic Fun? The field is wide open, and when the final standings break, we’ll have the action here live at Metagame.com.