Show Notes
Is the Pre-Modern metagame actually the same online and in paper? Cyrus “Crucible of Words” Bales joins us to dig into the latest Pre-Modern data and, more importantly, the huge differences between Magic Online Challenges and real-world paper tournaments. Cyrus collects and analyzes tournament results across multiple sources, tracking metagame share, Top 8 conversion, event wins, and “over rep” to determine which decks are actually outperforming their representation. Pasted text And the results are fascinating. Online, Stiflenought and Enchantress are among the strongest performers, while decks like Landstill and H FEB can look much worse than their reputations suggest. Psychotog is also undergoing a major resurgence thanks to new technology like Sickening Dreams and evolving mana bases. Pasted text But once we look at paper events, the picture changes dramatically. Landstill goes from severely underperforming online to heavily overperforming in paper. Enchantress goes in the opposite direction. Replenish is another huge paper performer. And there are some fascinating explanations for why the two environments produce such different results—including the difference between the Magic Online chess clock and a paper tournament's round timer. Pasted text We also get into: Stiflenought vs. Enchantress Why Goblins may be better than its numbers suggest Psychotog's resurgence Sickening Dreams The surprising performance of Black-White Control Landstill's massive paper/online discrepancy Moneyball Black's disappointing paper numbers Why Enchantress may be held back by Reserved List costs Replenish's enormous paper overperformance Why random rogue decks can spike a paper tournament Stasis, Merfolk, Blue-Green Madness and Zombie Infestation Blue-White Control and Tsabo's Web Why paper Pre-Modern players don't necessarily update their decks every week The incredible diversity of the format And perhaps most importantly: Pre-Modern doesn't necessarily need you to play the statistically best deck. The format has room for Stiflenought players, Goblins players, Psychotog pilots, Stasis freaks, rogue brewers—and people who just want to bring their favorite deck to a tournament and have a great time. Pasted text With roughly 50+ decks appearing in the larger data set, Pre-Modern may be one of the most diverse ways to play old-school Magic. Pasted text If you're preparing for a Pre-Modern event, this is the data you want to see before registering a deck. 00:00 — Pre-Modern Paper vs. Online 01:53 — How Cyrus Collects the Data 02:57 — Stiflenought, Enchantress & Goblins 06:23 — Psychotog's Huge Resurgence 09:50 — Why Landstill Is Struggling Online 12:34 — The Surprisingly Good Black-White Control 15:10 — What Paper Pre-Modern Actually Looks Like 23:26 — The HUGE Landstill vs. Enchantress Difference 30:06 — The Master Pre-Modern Meta 33:14 — Why Control Is So Hard to Categorize 37:35 — 50+ Decks and Why Pre-Modern Is So Diverse Chapters
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