Tim and I once again made use of our Wonder Twin-esque powers to unite forces and plow through 309 decklists, identifying and categorizing every one for your stat-loving pleasure. The results? Nothing short of shocking.

 

Here's how the metagame broke down on a deck-by-deck basis.

 

Curve Sentinels          129  42.30%

Teen Titans               35  11.48%

Gamma Doom             28  9.18%

Fantastic Fun            14  4.59%

Evil Medical School     14  4.59%

Brave and the Bold     12  3.93%

Xavier's Dream           11  3.61%

Common Enemy         11  3.61%

Gotham Knights          7  2.30%

TNB Blitz                   6  1.97%

NewSchool                4  1.31%

TNB Classic               3  0.98%

My Beloved               3  0.98%

Force                       3  0.98%

Medium Brotherhood    2  0.66%

Heroes United             2  0.66%

Witching Hour             2  0.66%

F4/New Gods              2  0.66%

Rigged Elections          2  0.66%

X-Stall                      2  0.66%

Child Abuse                2  0.66%

 

The other 3.96% of the field consists of single instances of GK/Doom, Concealed, X-Beats, Psimon Says, Cosmic Cops, Phantom Phone Booth, Brotherhood of Assassins, Doom/LOA, Mono League, GK/MK, and X-Statix.

 

Four decks are unaccounted for.

 

Man, if you thought the nearly 30-percent Curve Sentinels metagame of $10K Amsterdam was a saturation of purple, I bet your jaw is dropping now. An absolutely unprecedented 42.3 percent of the field is CS, and much variation and tech abounds between the 129 decks representing the archetype. Meanwhile, the significant number of Teen Titans decks verified the prediction some made that many EMS and FFun players would gravitate back to Titans at the last second.

 

The big surprises? Gamma Doom and Xavier's Dream (of all things) being so highly represented. While it's difficult at this point to judge how successful those decks will be, the overwhelming numbers can't be ignored. More Gamma Doom than FFun? More Xavier's Dream than both TNB Blitz and the original TNB put together? These are results that would have seemed scoff-worthy even yesterday, but the figures don't lie. Depending on how both of these decks do, they could have a huge impact on the $10K scene leading up to Gen Con Indianapolis.

 

The environment itself is interesting. While the massive number of CS decks would seem to indicate a prime environment for Betrayal, most builds are running either Juggernaut or Mojoverse to stymie the potentially killer tech. Many CS players are even running Apocalypse to take care of some of their trickier matchups, cutting off EMS at the knees.

 

All in all, with Gamma Doom and Curve Sentinels out in full force, the environment is decidedly slower than some may have anticipated. Only about 55 of the decks present aim to win in the late game, and the fact that the other 83 percent of the metagame is late-game oriented gives an edge to some early-game and controlling decks. Decks like Jason Hager's New School, with its insane level of control, could be a shoe-in for a disproportionate number of Day 2 qualifications. And that Mono-Gotham could also do surprisingly well.

 

The metagame is a telling one, but no conclusions can be drawn until we see what qualifies for tomorrow. Stick with us here at Metagame.com for all the details as they unfold!