Hello again, fellow Eternal compatriots! With the metagame being stale the past couple of months, the average competitive player would have assumed this ETS would have been a sea of Armory-ish removal piles and hyper-aggressive Skycrag lists, with the most interesting decision being whether 2 or more Kaleb’s Choice would have be the optimal number in FJP Control lists. Thankfully, we were all wrong.

The 44-player Open demonstrated a fairly diverse field of decks. In order to make some sense of the information, I pooled the various archetypes into broad groups. The divisions are of course not perfect, but these were the best I could come up with.

Argenport Midrange showed up with the biggest numbers, and that is no surprise. It is a relatively affordable deck with an easy-to-grasp tempo-based playstyle, and its best draws are powerful enough to make games feel uninteractive. The larger surprise was the large number of Tokens lists that showed up. While Redditors with their pulse on the Constructed metagame have been raving about token-based strategies for several weeks, they have not showed up in such large numbers in the tournament scene as of yet.

Generally, token-based strategies exist in two broad categories. The first is a midrange Praxis-based Token plan, using Xenan Obelisk as the main buff effect to leverage the large board presence. Lists that I have ran into on ladder also tend to run a number of Rally effects, so take note of that possibility.

The second strategy has far more devious ambitions. It is Grenadin-based deck that uses Stonescar Scrapper as the core draw engine of the deck, eventually building up to a large Gearcruncher, capable of dealing large chunks of damage without having to enter combat. Some lists also pack Kaleb, Uncrowned Prince as a separate win condition.

Why did they show up in such larger numbers than usual? Removal piles, like FJP Control or Armory have been popular in recent ETS Opens. Token strategies tend to have decent matchups against such removal piles. A wide token boardstate serves to nullify the strong board-control effect Relic Weapons like Auric Runehammer have. Another side-benefit of playing cheap token-generators like Grenadin Drone and Assembly Acolyte is that Harsh Rule becomes less mana-efficient, since the 5 mana typical removes less than 5-power worth of threats.

Of course, a look at the top performing archetypes will be useful.

With all the talk of Tokens, they under-performed relative to their proportion in the field. What gives? A cursory look at the bracket shows that most Grenadin losses came to Aggressive Midrange-style decks. That would also explain why Aggressive Midrange lists over-performed in this tournament.

While a lot of the actual matchup percentages would vary vastly depending on the individual specifications of both decks, there is some merit to the idea that Aggressive Midrange decks pose a problem for token strategies, especially with such a small sample size. Aggressive Midrange decks typically play efficient beaters early, and are generally fairly consistent. Token strategies generally need time to set up their board, and are fairly dependent on specific cards like Xenan Obelisk or Stonescar Scrapper to hit their power spike mid-game. With such a small sample size of games in a tournament setting for any given Token player, lady luck could deal a terrible hand one time too many.

That being said, control decks performed fairly poorly as well. Given how Justice-based removal piles struggle against Tokens, that is hardly a surprise.

Deck of the Tournament

Of course, one cannot talk about this open without mentioning LightsOutAce’s winning Scrappy Hour list. He discusses his thoughts about his tournament win here, so please do check them out. On my part, I like how consistent the list looks with all its 4-ofs – the lack of random tempting one-ofs like Kaleb,Uncrowned Prince or Torrent of Spiders definitely help improve its consistency in “going off”. It is a fine day when we are all tempted to spend dust on Witching Hour – I expect to see this list appear in droves on ladder for several weeks to come.

Honourable Mentions

BenBuford’s Big Rakano list is worth checking out as well. It looks like a true Midrange list, capable of switching up plans based on the matchup and board context. For what its worth, this is the list I plan on jamming on ladder for the next week or so, and I may report back on my results in due course. For completion’s sake, flash2351’s FTP Reanimator looks like an amazing list to pilot.

Interesting Sideboard Tech

DrHero’s FTP Tokens list ran a whopping total of 4 Eilyn’s Interventions between maindeck and sideboard. On some reflection, the card is fairly solid in certain archetypes – it works as a Hailstorm counter, but also eliminates those pesky Unseen Commandos for 1 mana. Might be worth a second look.

That’s all the time we have for this Tournament Post-Mortem. If you have any feedback or question, feel free to leave them in the comments below. Til next time!