The ETS Open held on the 21st of October was one of the last few events to qualify for World Championships run by RNGEternal. Naturally, the 58-person field was competitive, with Argenport Midrange making its largest appearance in a tournament yet. The major archetypes that were brought are depicted below.

(Note: a large number of decks were excluded from the above table as they were too diverse too include in a table.)

Is there any doubt Argenport Midrange is the best deck in the game at the moment? With efficient beaters, uninteractive cards like Bartholo, life-gain weapons, and the the cow extraordinaire Tavrod to tie it all together, this deck presents a proactive, consistent game plan where almost every threat has to be responded to the moment they are played. Innovations like playing maindeck playsets of Sabotage to disrupt potential removal make the deck even harder to deal with.

The only large disagreement between Argenport Midrange builds seem to be the correct 2-drop to play. Traditional lists prefer the larger Argenport Instigator, whereas some lists go for a more “all-in” approach with Tranquil Scholar to hopefully high-roll a sweet combat effect like double damage or Aegis. Certain lists, like komodo’s linked above, opt for the evasive Tinker Overseer to fly over the other midrange chaff that clog the battlefield.

That being said, only 1 copy of this deck made the Top 8. What gives?

Looking at the statistics, the only real answer that can be given is that they knocked each other out of contention.

When you remove all mirror-matches out of the statistics, Argenport Midrange presents a positive winrate against the field, with series win percentage scratching at 60%. That’s an extremely high number with such a diverse metagame. This clearly suggests that variance got the better of this archetype in this tournament, leading to the under-representation in the Top 8.

Argenport’s Statistical Matchups

(Note: Given how Argenport Midrange decks were such a large percentage of the field, data for the other archetypes were of too small a sample size to be reliable. Hence, only the win percentages for Argenport Midrange will be examined. )

There are several points that can be made from the above data.

The Armory matchup has changed hands.

It seems the Tavrod Armory matchup has swung the other way from last week, with Armory now the slight favourites in the matchup. While this can be attributed to small sample size and variance, a look at the decklists suggests something more significant. This week, more Tavrod Armory players brought Sabotages in their sideboard package, allowing for better disruption against Argenport. Those Bartholo’s aren’t as scary without Bloodletters and Lethrai Falchions.

Feln Control is not a counter to Argenport

Conventional wisdom (as well as several recent articles written on other sites) suggests that Feln Control is decently placed to take down Argenport, with its infinite removal spells for every threat Argenport poses. With a much larger representation of Feln Control in the metagame this week with 6 copies, it would suggest that some players thought the same way. However, the numbers show how glaringly false that is – Feln had a terrible time against Argenport Midrange.

How can this be? I posit it is down to tempo. While theoretically Feln is chock-full of removal spells, they cannot be deployed quickly enough. Facing down a turn 3 Bartholo on the draw as Feln Control is difficult enough to handle – as Feln, there is no answer that can remove a Bartholo for 3 mana. Lightning Storms theoretically can handle Bartholo, but often Feln only has one turn to handle Bartholo – otherwise, it gets huge with Bloodletter. Because of Aegis, two turns are needed to remove Bartholo, and by then Argenport has already laid down its next threat – be it Tavrod or Impending Doom. Add in the fact that 50 out of a possible 56 Sabotages were in the maindecks or sideboards of the 14 Argenport Midranges in the tournament, and Feln has almost no chance of removing the first threat Argenport lays down before the second threat appears.

I think the matchup is unlikely to be better than the statistics reflect on ladder, since the recent Argenport lists all run maindeck Sabotages. The lesson to be learnt here is that Feln is not a counter to Argenport.

Praxis? Really?

It is worth noting that in the ETS Open, Argenport had a terrible time facing down Praxis decks. There were only 3 copies of Praxis in the tournament, so the sample size is fairly small. However, it is interesting to note that all 3 Praxis decks played 4 Power Stone, which clearly suggests a game plan of going bigger and quicker. Perhaps there is merit to this idea.

Last but not least, the fairytale story

I cannot in good faith write this tournament review without mentioning this deck that made it to the Top 8: Mono Time Midrange, or dubbed Chronos Rex.

I really do enjoy the technology that this deck implements, . Slow and Time Weaver (and to a lesser extent, Praxis Displacer) may not seem like great cards because they do not generate any actual card advantage, but they create a lot of tempo advantage – by delaying your opponent’s Harsh Rule or Tavrod. They also give complete information as to the non-power in the opponent’s hand, which can be huge. This is definitely technology to consider in other tempo-based strategies moving forward.

I’ve played at least 30 games of this list on ladder, and I personally don’t think its particularly good. It definitely is capable of nut draws that involve Sand Warrior, but is very unfavoured against any sort of Harsh Rule deck. I would not recommend this for ladder play if you are already in Master; however this list, being fairly budget, could definitely get you there.

That’s it for this week’s ETS Post-Mortem. If there’s anything in particular you would like to read, let me know in the comments below.

Till next time!