How to Stay Ahead of the Meta in Magic: The Gathering Competitive Play

Understanding metagames

Unless things have gone seriously awry, there doesn’t tend to be a singular ‘best deck’ in any given Magic: The Gathering format. What’s more accurate is the best deck for a tournament. That’s because decks have inherent weaknesses that can be exploited if considered ‘a deck to beat’, with players changing the cards they play, or even the entire deck, based on what they think others will bring to a tournament. This is, in essence, what we mean by a metagame – the top decks in competitive play, and the tweaking process designed to beat them.

It usually works like this. Formats change as new cards are released or cards are banned, and players begin experimenting to find out what’s good, with the cream rising to the top. This change of cards causes a shift in the meta – with decks becoming stronger or weaker (or neither). From here, the best decks are established, often in tiers. Now, say Deck A wins a tournament, it’ll suddenly have the spotlight on it and players will adjust accordingly. Some will choose to play Deck A because it’s ‘the best’, while others will choose decks they believe have a favourable match up against Deck A, for example Deck B. Others will take it to another level and, expecting many Deck Bs as a result, will go for Deck C because it’s good against Deck B, even if it might be slightly unfavoured against Deck A. It’s a dance of anticipation, not unlike playing rock, paper, scissors, and in fact the best formats often work out exactly like that. Understanding this ebb and flow is crucial to success in competitive play; you don’t want to bring a knife to a gunfight.

Analysing the Cards

With a main deck of 60 cards and a sideboard of just 15, you don’t have infinite options against the metagame, and a card’s power level is heavily dependent on the context of what else is viable. A famous example of this is Phyrexian Obliterator and its two appearances in Standard. When it was first previewed in New Phyrexia, players lost their minds about how great it was, turning Phyrexian Negator’s downside into upside for just one more mana. However, when people saw Dismember also lurking in the set – an obvious answer that could be played for just one mana in any deck – they realised Obliterator had no chance. Likewise, it was reprinted earlier this year in Phyrexia: All Will Be One, but a lot has changed in the past 13 years and four mana for a creature that does nothing when it enters the battlefield just doesn’t cut it anymore. Context matters.

Something else to consider is mana efficiency. When you look at tournament winning deck lists, you’ll often find that the cards they play are the most mana efficient versions of the effects they need, often sacrificing versatility. Removal spells are a great example of this – you’re far more likely to see a card like Fatal Push (if it lines up against the most played creatures) than Utter End, because cost matters, and the player that gets to cast more spells is often the winner. This, however, is also exploitable. If you know that the entire tournament is bringing Fatal Push or an equivalent, then you can find a creature that dodges it. Look at Nathan Steuer’s winning Rakdos deck from Pro Tour March of the Machine – his removal included 4x Go for the Throat, 3x Cut Down. If you anticipated this, then a card like Phyrexian Fleshgorger looks much better, being immune to both. Similarly, the large number of Invoke Despairs at the tournament made playing Planeswalkers and enchantments near impossible.

Finally, there’s being able to spot how good a new card is in a format. At the time of writing, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth has just been released, and few people expected The One Ring to take over modern in quite the way it has. Even pros can make mistakes; PVDR has previously commented how they completely missed Emrakul, the Promised End decks and were punished hard at PT Eldritch Moon. Testing is vital.

Deckbuilding and strategy  

The deck and strategy you choose can have very different ways of interacting with the metagame, for better and for worse.

Aggro and combo decks are the most susceptible to the metagame in two ways. Firstly, these strategies are so proactive, that there isn’t much in the deck that can be changed in terms of the main deck or sideboard; the meta can just make them either good or bad choices. Aggro decks need to play whatever the most cost-effective threats are, while combo decks need specific cards. These decks can make changes – e.g. adding protection or more threats against control – but their gameplans are rigid. This rigidity also makes them susceptible to the opponent’s sideboarding, as they’ll know exactly what they need to beat you. It’s not unusual to see aggro and combo decks destroy an opponent in game one but struggle in the post-boarded games.

Midrange, on the other hand, is the king of the sideboard. Midrange decks are positioned to sideboard into more of an aggro or controlling deck, depending on the circumstances. More removal and bigger bodies will come in against aggro, while anti-control classics like Duress or Planeswalkers are great against control. This also makes midrange decks hard to sideboard against for your opponents – there are few weaknesses to exploit.

Then there’s control, where the deck building is all about having the right answers for what you expect from the meta, and a sideboard to refine these further. Control decks, however, MUST have the correct answers to survive the early game and eventually take over. Wrong answers, and they’ll have no chance. It’s the reason why control decks usually only rise once the metagame is more established.

Keeping up with the community

Fortunately for players, there is an active and vocal Magic: The Gathering community of both players and pros, sharing thoughts about each format. Pay attention, and the community will do the hard work for you, revealing both the metagame and how to tackle it.

From deck lists and strategy articles on sites including Magic.gg, podcasts, or streamers, there’s almost endless thoughts and analysis from the best minds in the game to do the heavy lifting for you. You can even see information directly from the community on sites/apps like Reddit and Discord, while 17lands.com is a great way to assess the limited meta based on cards most often drafted. There really is more content out there than you’re able to consume, covering every format and more besides.

Adapting to change

As we’ve talked about, metagames constantly shift. Players need to shift too, finding answers for the threats, or threats that dodge the opponent’s answers. Players have two choices – change deck, or change your list.

Changing the deck can work well – however, you must ensure you get the reps in with it and know the deck inside out. Otherwise, what you may make up for with metagame positioning you’ll lose in deck match-up knowledge and sub-optimal plays, and, if it’s one of the best decks, sooner rather than later you’ll run into a mirror match against someone that knows it better than you. Also, thinking about the monetary cost of cards, unless you’re able to borrow decks, constant switching isn’t sustainable for most.

Tweaking the decklist is far more achievable, considering your threats and answers, and sideboarding plans. In deckbuilding, this’ll mean hunting for the right cards, or even splashing another colour to provide access to what you need. In a match, it’s about saving key spells for what you know is coming and being flexible with sideboarding. There’s knowing how you should sideboard, but also anticipating how your opponent may sideboard against you based on what they’ve seen, and thinking about ways you could ‘next level’ them to keep them on the back foot. Reid Duke did this masterfully at Pro Tour Phyrexia: All Will Be One with Izzet Indomitable Creativity – a combo deck at heart, which had the ability to sideboard into a control deck without the combo. Opponents never knew what was coming – would it be counter spells and an end of turn Hullbreaker Horror, or the one-shot kill with the 30/30 haste and trampling Worldspine Wurm? Contact us for all your Magic: The Gathering needs