The metagame (or 'meta') is the game about the game, or the game that describes the game (much like metadata is the data about the data). It operates outside of the game itself, and relies on both personal observation and relevant article/podcast consumption to perfect. Today's article looks at the meta of Magic.
In Magic, the meta means learning "what types of decks are people playing?" And this, at its core, means "what types of decks are currently winning in official events like tournaments?" The meta is a subset of all possible options; if there are 100 deck options, but only 5 deck types are consistently successful, the meta is those 5 deck types. Anyone can still consider the other 95 deck options, and may have some success doing so, but the likely winner will be a person playing with one of those 5 deck types. Of course, this is a simplification: in Magic, deck construction rules mean there are almost limitless deck options- but at any given moment, only a handful will likely win.
It's important for Magic to have a healthy meta (which means a lot of viable deck options). With so many possibilities, if only one or two deck types are winning, it reduces strategic choice (and with it, variety and interest). Games are about meaningful decisions- if one path is clearly better, it reduces the point of the game. (Magic's creator, Richard Garfield, does a good job explaining this in his book Characteristics of Games.) When the meta is at its weakest, there are only two deck types: the successful one and the 'anti' deck- the deck constructed deliberately to target the successful one. If you ever hear a player say "standard is a mess right now," they generally mean the meta is unhealthy, and most [successful] players are using only one or two deck types.
In a rotating format like standard, the meta changes every time:
Ikoria is the latest Magic set, released a few weeks ago (digitally). Note the below statistics from the "post-Ikoria metagame." This means since Ikoria was released, the following deck types saw significant play (see this post if you don't understand deck names):
"Off-meta" means anything not covered already, so you'd expect that to be the highest. Overall, I think this is a pretty good spread- the Rakdos Sacrifice decks are seeing the most play, but there are a lot of other options seeing tournament play. Here's another site that lists popularity of decks in similar fashion; there are countless others.
In Magic, the meta means learning "what types of decks are people playing?" And this, at its core, means "what types of decks are currently winning in official events like tournaments?" The meta is a subset of all possible options; if there are 100 deck options, but only 5 deck types are consistently successful, the meta is those 5 deck types. Anyone can still consider the other 95 deck options, and may have some success doing so, but the likely winner will be a person playing with one of those 5 deck types. Of course, this is a simplification: in Magic, deck construction rules mean there are almost limitless deck options- but at any given moment, only a handful will likely win.
It's important for Magic to have a healthy meta (which means a lot of viable deck options). With so many possibilities, if only one or two deck types are winning, it reduces strategic choice (and with it, variety and interest). Games are about meaningful decisions- if one path is clearly better, it reduces the point of the game. (Magic's creator, Richard Garfield, does a good job explaining this in his book Characteristics of Games.) When the meta is at its weakest, there are only two deck types: the successful one and the 'anti' deck- the deck constructed deliberately to target the successful one. If you ever hear a player say "standard is a mess right now," they generally mean the meta is unhealthy, and most [successful] players are using only one or two deck types.
In a rotating format like standard, the meta changes every time:
- a set is released,
- there's a rotation (with older sets rotating out of the format), or
- a card is banned or restricted
Ikoria is the latest Magic set, released a few weeks ago (digitally). Note the below statistics from the "post-Ikoria metagame." This means since Ikoria was released, the following deck types saw significant play (see this post if you don't understand deck names):
 |
| image from here |
When the meta is unhealthy, it's not fun. Currently, I'm annoyed by the number of decks featuring companions (a new card ability debuting with Ikoria). I hope they ban some (all?) of them, because they're quite hard to beat, and I don't enjoy playing them myself, so I'm stuck limiting myself and (likely) losing quite a bit. I love exploring Magic's lesser-used decks at any given moment, but they're lesser-used for a reason. Whenever I'm 'forced' to play a certain deck if I want to have any hope of winning, the fun is gone.
If you want to understand the meta, play a lot of games- you'll see patterns in the deck types people are playing, and learn quickly if a handful are above the others.
If you want to understand the meta, play a lot of games- you'll see patterns in the deck types people are playing, and learn quickly if a handful are above the others.
No comments:
Post a Comment