About this article

This is a weekly report on the online pauper meta. The data it uses are from last Wednesday to this Wednesday. It looks at the data that Tom Scud collects from a selection of dailies. He watches the replays on MTGO to figure out how each person did, not just the 3-1s and 4-0s that Wizards publishes. This allows us to see the whole iceberg and figure out how well each deck did in total. Now, this data is just for this week and just from the data Tom collects, so it does ignore the other 3-1/4-0 results which means it is not perfect. Additionally, the conclusions in this article are just based on this week, and as the meta is fluid, the top decks shift. This is intended to see what decks are performing well this week and is not necessarily a reflection of the deck’s overall strength.

This uses the data from the 5/21, 5/22 evening, 5/24 afternoon, and 5/24 evening results

No decks really exploded onto the scene this week and W Tokens continued its fall, but UB Angler has now risen to make up more than 5% of the field and had a quite decent week. The other major story is that the DtK season is wrapping up and Modern Masters 2015 is coming in as the hot new thing.

The prominence graphs are above and really there is not too much fluctuation from the prominence in all of the field and just the 3-1 and 4-0 results. The only deck that increased/decreased by more than 2% was Esper Fae. This shows a decently even metagame for the week and not the large jumps that can often occur.

The graph above demonstrated the 2 groups of decks this week. Esper Fae is above all with over 60% cash and win rates and just after that UR Fiend, UB Angler, Delver, and Burn are all very close to each other with very strong weeks. Affinity, MBC, and Stompy did not do as well, with the entire group having less than 30% cash rates and a losing record. Stompy had a much worse week than I expected, but other than that this graph is not super surprising.

As always thanks for reading, Najay1!

Winners

1. Esper Fae Combo – Esper Fae continues its hot streak at the top of the charts with a 62.5% cash rate and a 65.45% win rate. It was very polar in the results as it had 10 decks in the money and 4 decks winless with only 2 in between. With the arrival of Gut Shot, the deck now is much less safe going off while the opponent is tapped out and could suffer as a result, but for the current season Esper Fae is leaving on top. Look for another strong week from Esper Fae.

2. UR Fiend – A deck that has not been racking up the numbers recently, it made a strong showing this week as it put up a 43.75% cash rate and 57.41% win rate. Despite that, I do not expect the deck to be a major power in the meta in the immediate future. The question with the deck going forward is to what extent the deck will utilize Gut Shot, if at all. I am a bit surprised about the amount of UR Fiend with the dominance of MBC as it is not a strong match up at all and I would not look for the deck to be great during the end of the season.

3. UB Angler – The best Gurmag Angler deck is starting to really become a deck to watch out for. Last week the deck just missed 5% prominence and this week it barely got over the mark with a 5.06% prominence. With the larger sample size, the deck’s results can now be analyzed more accurately and this week it did quite well with a 43.75% cash rate and a 55.56% win rate. The Delver version of the deck is now by far the better contender and has put up very strong results. I really like this deck and its current version which have done better than the Turbo Angler decks of last season.

Losers

1. W Tokens – The past flavor of the week deck is now diminishing back to its normal size with a 3.8% prominence across the 4 dailies. Those decks did not have strong numbers either as it had a 8.33% cash rate and a 42.11% win rate, not the most stellar. The win rate does indicate the cash rate should probably be higher (as 1/3 of the pilots went 2-X), but it could also indicate that the top decks were prepared for W Tokens. As the hate starts to fade away, the deck may be able to make a comeback.

2. Stompy – Stompy is a deck that I thought would be great in the coming weeks, but it certainly did not have a great performance this week. With a 22.73% cash rate and a 45.07% win rate, the deck did not do as well as expected. One of the reasons for the failure is a 2-6 record versus Esper Fae (not including the data from the 5/24 evening daily) which was its second most common match up. This was mostly just a bad draw for Stompy and they probably will not meet too much in the future. Overall, I can see this deck doing decent to great before Gut Shot hits at which time the future is unknown.

3. Affinity – Affinity also had a below average week, again, as it took home a 27.27% cash rate and a 44.93% win rate. The deck had as many 0-X as it did 3-1s and it placed 0 4-0s. The deck has been mediocre pretty consistently in the season, but the addition of Gut Shot ma change its fate. On one hand, Gut Shot is just terrible against Affinity, as it can basically hit nothing except Flayer Husk (which isn’t even in every list). Yet, Delver isn’t a bad matchup (16-16 in this season) and can be tuned to be a great one and Delver may be put out of the meta to some extent (although it is currently underplayed so we will see). The results of this deck in the next season will be interesting to watch.

Deck Spotlight

MBC – MBC was again the most popular deck with 51 entries through 4 dailies. That leads to a prominence of 16.14% which is down from the more than 20% it packed last week. The deck was below average this week with a 29.41% cash rate and a 48.78% win rate. These are both a bit below average, but are not as bad as some of the numbers seen in the past. Interesting again was the difference between the cash and win rate. Overall, the deck was again did not merit the top spot in the meta, but this week was a bit better than some of its past results.

Brew of the Week

UR Tron Fae Combo – This is not the newest deck on the block and has been around for a decent while, and has never really put up more than a few copies in the results. The list is similar to RUG Tron, but it does not rely on big fatties to get the job done, but the Cloud of Fae win con like in Esper Fae. I do like this deck because it seems to have more resistance to MBC and also can win by Kaervek’s Torch or Sage’s Row Denizen. An interesting list and one that I think more should check out.

Data

Thanks to Tom the Scud. Check out his Facebook and his Big Fat Spreadsheet.

PCT Results

The PCT is a weekly tournament hosted on Gatherling.com by LongTimeGone. It occurs Tuesday at 8 pm est.