This month's Challenge data is unfortunately smaller than September's. There were only 4 challenges, and Matt and I were at Eternal Weekend last Saturday so we missed collecting that data. Rather than doing a poor job inferring from the top 32 summary, we decided to omit that challenge from the calculations (I added the top 32 metagame for display only). If anyone recorded results, send Matt or me a message and we would love to add them in.

Top 32 Lists:
10/7
10/14
10/21
10/28

The performance of shops in this data stands in stark contrast to the success of that archetype at Eternal Weekend and last month in the vintage challenges. In particular, shops had a 58% winrate versus xerox at Eternal Weekend, but just 34% here. The fast pace of metagame changes on MTGO could very well be the cause of this; if anyone has time to look at the differences in decks that would be fascinating to see. Or perhaps we can just mumble something about small sample sizes!

Thanks to Matt for help with all of these reports.

Spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hFZLVGv8cAm_g8SSaX_Kge6L2KMGj3as2nG9luKpm1g/edit?usp=sharing

Can't wait to see how this gets spun into the "Restrict Workshops" narrative. Thanks again for putting all of this together.

@cutlex was running around 75% wr with shops over 7 or 8 leagues, the last league I played went a quick 0-3 vs three straight oath lists. the metagame is starting to adapt

@hierarchnoble And that is something I love hearing if that's the case. As people should be.

One other comment. As always, thank you @diophan and @ChubbyRain for compiling this data. This is always an amazing service that I would have zero patience to do.

@cutlex said in Vintage Challenges - October:

Can't wait to see how this gets spun into the "Restrict Workshops" narrative. Thanks again for putting all of this together.

The 10/21 Challenge results, which occurred just one day after the Vintage Championship at EW, had 18% PO in the top 32, and 3 in the top 8, including 100% of the finals. Yet, at EW, there were only 5-6% PO decks, and 0 in the Top 8.

Only a benighted observer would infer that this was as "response" to the metagame at Vintage Champs, and represents a healthy metagame shift. Rather, it shows that for small events like these, the composition - and strength of the players - matters immensely. The same is true, but to a lesser extent, of the Challenge this past Saturday. It will be a little while until we get to our regularly scheduled programming.

@diophan I think it's worth including the Top 32 breakdown for 10/21, sans performance metrics. It's better to have some information there, rather than none. And the top 32 represents the vast majority of the decks in the field.

@smmenen said in Vintage Challenges - October:

Only a benighted observer would infer that this was as "response" to the metagame at Vintage Champs, and represents a healthy metagame shift. Rather, it shows that for small events like these, the composition - and strength of the players - matters immensely. The same is true, but to a lesser extent, of the Challenge this past Saturday. It will be a little while until we get to our regularly scheduled programming.

Unlike champs where the strength of the players didn't matter? (sees rich shay and montolio in finals, shakes head). Interesting that they are people who do quite well in the mtgo meta...

One time when I was in England I met a beknighted observer...

@garbageaggro said in Vintage Challenges - October:

@smmenen said in Vintage Challenges - October:

Only a benighted observer would infer that this was as "response" to the metagame at Vintage Champs, and represents a healthy metagame shift. Rather, it shows that for small events like these, the composition - and strength of the players - matters immensely. The same is true, but to a lesser extent, of the Challenge this past Saturday. It will be a little while until we get to our regularly scheduled programming.

Unlike champs where the strength of the players didn't matter? (sees rich shay and montolio in finals, shakes head). Interesting that they are people who do quite well in the mtgo meta...

Yes, and neither of them played on 10/21. You misunderstood what I wrote, it seems.